On a radical sense of desire, transgression, love (?

)
Marx, Zizek and Foucault Sara Kingsley

Let us imagine ourselves in the standard situation of male-chauvinist jealousy: all of a sudden, I learn that my partner has had sex with another man OK, no problem, I am rational, tolerant, I accept it but then, irresistibly, images start to overwhelm me, concrete images of what they were doing (why did she have to lick him right there? Why did she have to spread her legs so wide?), and I am lost, sweating and quivering, my peace is gone for ever.1

Self-mutilation, violence against the self, is a circular affliction of Capitalism in the service of the estrangement of the worker to labor. It plagues minds across strata sickens - weakens the body into exhaustion, until the aggregate workforce is reduced to an individualized robotic trance, the 9 to 5 work day, repeat. This selfviolence serves as a mechanism of the capitalist-state calculation (control) against the worker to dull the senses from imagining a different manner of being, an inoculation against movements away from commoditization of the species-being, which is really just a lack of awareness that one is always a species in being. Importantly, here, though, is the consideration of the utility of fantasy in practice as a mechanism towards the realization of desire, the transference in being. Development of the imaginary power of the fantasy stands as a first step outside the dull towards an action(s) to move beyond desire into the real. In this instance then, the practice of fantasy is, also, the transgression the forbidden that which capitalism loathes for its transcendental powers. Therefore, the modern worker must push the transgress act beyond the realm of forbidden, into the light, resituating such acts into a new normative state of being, primarily away from the shackles that bind. To do such is also to create a new form of value(s), a form of

Zizek, S. (2008). The Plague of Fantasies. New York, Verso; xxiii.

freedom beyond the subjective in servitude to self-violence, i.e. monetary objectification, otherwise known as capitalism. To overcome capitalisms fetters, the worker must first create maps, atlases, of sorts (fantasies) to avoid the awaiting, hidden, ready to explode into closure, mines and face the estrangement of labor through acts of desire, real On this note, Capitalisms antibody to creativity, primarily dull proclivity, works to sustain the current system, the status quo, one of which is characterized by a stabilization, a repetitive violence against the self, to which opportunities for an Aufhebung extinguish. So then, in such a state of bore, the worker reduces him/herself to a fantastic limbo, whereby she perpetuates her own commoditization through the concentrated purchase of a false sense of lust, otherwise, objectified fetishes, as opposed to a fantasy en real, in the form of desire, actualized. This objectified entrapment (fetish) is at once everywhere and nowhere in the capitaliststate, in that while each denizen possesses fetish by virtue of servitude, the state simultaneously stigmatizes2 such a commoditized objectification of desire, to prevent its realization. One merely needs to look at the myriad of laws against forbidden (sexualized and otherwise) activities to purview the imaginative state of slavery to which the present day worker lives. Also, in this sense, law serves as form of state-sponsored surveillance, a guarantee against the creative forces of man. Whats more so the criminalization of such acts says nothing of the crime in real, capitalism, not fetish. Political economy starts with the fact of private property; it does not explain it to us. It expresses in general, abstract formulas the material process through which private property actually passes, and these formulas it then takes for laws. It does not comprehend these laws i.e., it does not demonstrate how they arise from the very nature of private property.3

2 Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1963 3 Marx, K. (1844). "Estranged Labour." Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, from http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm.

Thus, in this sense, it cannot be said that such fetish commodities explain us, either. For example, the fact one watches porn explains nothing about the watcher. Yet, capitalism continually tries to construe the reverse logic, porn indicates the sick sense of the viewer rather than the real nature of the problem, in that such a twisted logic uncovers the warped, volatile nature of capitalism. For indeed, capitalism is the mechanism allowing for such transgression as the notion of pornography as outside the norm, an entity that must be captured (watched, surveilled against espionage) through legal structures and otherwise. Even more so, capitalism takes such notions beyond its legal structures into the personal. From a young age, the individual, especially women (only in the sense that the state feeds the false notion of especially women), are taught that pornography is strange, outside the realm of normal, something to condemn. Thus, for example, one often finds in personal [sexual] relationships, a tension in fantasy, in that both partners subscribe to such transgress notions and fetish practices, yet neither is able to admit such to the other in fear of condemnation for such criminalized activity. But why, how could you imagine the body of another when I am right here, dear? Just as capitalism tells us that everything worth believing, real, is in front of us - so we forget our blindness it feeds the false notion of a current state of nature, indeed, then, we fail to imagine, thus see, the real. Marriage does not blind, unless one lets it. Importantly, what does this tell about the current state of the worker? This fetishized state speaks to Marxs conceptualization of the estrangement of labor as both a characteristic and a form of being necessary to the sustenance of capitalism. More so, in regards to the role of fantasy, Political economy throws no light on the cause of the division between labor and capital, and between capital and land. When, for example, it defines the relationship of wages to profit, it takes the interest of the capitalists to be the ultimate cause, i.e., it takes for granted what it is supposed to explain.* Thus, monetary value is not the only mechanism of separation, not the only power of strange. Marx posits:

Now, therefore, we have to grasp the intrinsic connection between private property, greed, the separation of labor, capital and landed property; the connection of exchange and competition, of value and the devaluation of man, of monopoly and competition, etc. the connection between this whole estrangement and the money system.* I argue, then, that this connection is inherently dynamic and complex (not peculiar, either), but also multifaceted, not universal in its universality. Here, the mechanisms include a tactical calculation, a form of state surveillance (control) and a function of permissible, criminalized (legitimate force)4 propaganda against the worker. Yet, the concept of the commodity fetish in such discourse is not new, unique, rather, its a piece of road kill, really. Do not let us go back to a fictitious primordial condition as the political economist does, when he tries to explain. Such a primordial condition explains nothing; it merely pushes the question away into a grey nebulous distance. The economist assumes in the form of a fact, of an event, what he is supposed to deduce namely, the necessary relationship between two things between, for example, division of labor and exchange. Thus the theologian explains the origin of evil by the fall of Man that is, he assumes as a fact, in historical form, what has to be explained. * Thus, what really concerns us, here, is the process forward while avoiding the trappings of that which we seek to expel, to surpass the estrangement of our labors, here, in writing on estrangement. First, perhaps then, we need to examine a few instances of the estrangement of labor. First and foremost, Marxs writing on the estrangement of labor is an estrangement of labor in of itself. This is not to claim Marx does not realize such, perhaps the reverse perhaps this is also what moves Marxs writing towards the real, en realization, yet in another very real sense, we shall never know in knowing. For in writing, Marx alienates his labor from that which he produces, obviously so. Once published, any original intent is lost, forfeited to the universe now anyone is able to read into such labors that, which they desire, fantasize, to see. This is a point of loss, the funny, in how stating something makes it true, in that the something is
4

Weber, M. (1958). Politics as a Vocation. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills. New York, Oxford University Press: 77-128.

lost to the world, once said it is now everything and nothing all at once infinite, rather than finite, in interpretation. Shall we argue to make this point real, as well? Moreover, an examination of the civil servant (commodity) versus the artisan (value creation?) reveals this point as well. The largest employer of American workers is the Federal government, the system itself. This is an enjoyable irony in the estrangement of labor, as well as a classic example of the issue to which Marx speaks. The civil servant, obviously, is not able to see the reflection of his labor in the resulting product of his efforts (the maintenance of capitalism), instead such efforts lay disguised in the demagogy of public service, or working on behalf of the greater good. But, can one really discuss a greater good in this sense, when first, no such good exists and to which, if anything, contributes to a greater evil (but lets avoid dichotomy, no?). What is the function, here? More so, does this truly represent the separation from the Gattungswesen? A horse pulling a cart knows that it pulls but not the cart to which its labor moves such cart or to where in certainty it moves. So, in this example, then, the obscurity of the situation is partially shown, the estrangement of labor is not one type of estrangement, certain. The horse neither knows the consequence of its pulling, what it is pulling, and the creation in its pulling, or destination, real. The present day worker is no different than the horse, but he could be. The question is, then, how? Some, especially in the liberal-left-multicultural-academic camp, feel tempted to delve into the divine powers of culture, or an alternative value creation, as is often the chosen term. Our difference defines us, frees us. Wrong, such thinking is precisely what traps us; it is also a commodity fetish. For an exemplary illustration, look to the curriculum of Womens Studies, now run-rampant across universities nationwide, or any sort of conventional notion of feminism. Look, women arent different in their difference to which society dictates, but to which other differences dictate, lets talk about our peculiar, special, culture then.5 I have a vagina but its not really a vagina its culture. Or, to look at this differently, this
5

Birke, L. (2001). In Pursuit of Difference: Scientific studies of women and men. Gender and Science Reader. M. Lederman and I. Bartsch, Routledge.

female characteristic is an anatomical feature of the species-being, which possesses a function or utility, but also a trap (pun intended), fantasy fetish in the notion of how this defines difference in not difference, difference (ambiguity). As Michael Foucault correctly stated: What characterizes modern sexuality from Sade to Freud is not its having found the language of its logic or of its nature, but, rather, through the violence done by such languages, its having been denatured cast into an empty zone in which it achieves whatever meager form bestowed upon it by the establishment of its limits, and in which it points to nothing beyond itself, no prolongation, except the frenzy that disrupts it.6 An additional example of this violence of language (or misguided interpretation), also a liberal favorite, the artisan who creates an alternative value in seeing her reflection in the glass she blows (as a form of contrast to estranged labor); but if then, she brings such value to the market to sell (reverting back to commoditization, here), thereafter paying taxes to the state (surveillance), she too, then, maintains the illusion (ambiguity) of the capitalist state. Such a reflection stabilizes in its obscurity the self-violence characteristic of this epoch; it is a continuation not a change in value or being. What to break this cycle, then? A quick look at Michael Foucaults notion of transgression is useful here.7 In this instance, Foucault siphons out a fissure created in sexuality as an instance, example, of transgression in that, it permits a profanation without object, a profanation that is empty and turned inward upon itself, whose instruments are brought to bear on nothing but each other.* Importantly, though, such fissure is not the root of alienation nor its end, but a marking of sorts, a point of departure, boundary, upon which capitalism taboos the worker not to venture. Lets go back to personal [sexual] relationships for a second. A study by Buss and Shackelford estimates that approximately 30%-60% of all married individuals in the United

6 Foucault, M. (1998). A Preface to Transgression. Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology. J. D. Faubion. New York, The New Press. Volume Two: 69. 7 Transgression: 69-88.

States commit an act of infidelity at some point during their marriage.8 Such figures indicate that not only is transgression commonplace, but that such acts denote nothing in the way of the origination of intent for such infidelities, but merely indicate the boundary (marriage) to which two people are bound, likewise willing to break (react against) in a echoing fissure of transgress sex. Yet, the important point to bear in mind is that screwing your coworker, so to speak, does not bridge the real divide, the real issue at hand, primarily: the self-mutilating nature of relation in a capitalist state, or self-servitude in commodification of the species-being away from being species, real. But what does it mean to kill God if he does not exist, to kill God who has never existed? Perhaps it means to kill God both because he does not exist and to guarantee that he will not exist certainly a cause for laughter: to kill God to liberate life from this existence that limits it, but also to bring it back to those limits that are annulled by this limitless existence as a sacrifice; to kill God to return him to this nothingness he is and to manifest his existence at the center of a light that blazes like a presence for the ecstasy; to kill God in order to lose language in a deafening night and an immense alleluia lost in the interminable silence and this is communication. The death of God restores us not to a limited and positivistic world but to a world exposed by the experience of its limits, mad and unmade by that excess which transgresses it.9 If then, a temporary rupture in the bore, an expedition outside marriage, fails to transport us beyond into the real, what is the purpose, utility of transgress acts? Is utility necessary? Not necessarily, but it is still important to look at the function, the development of imagination, in such moments of violation. Clearly, or at least I think, one watches porn or fantasizes about another outside marriage as an act of imagining the possible beyond what is immediately before us, this is a transcendent act, towards a radical state of being. Its what could separate us from the horse, perhaps, we might still need to ask the horse, first, though. Foucault mentions,
8

Buss, D. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (1997). Susceptibility to infidelity in the first year of marriage. Journal of Research in

Personality, 31, 193-221.

9 Transgression: 72

Perhaps one day it [transgress] will seems as decisive for our culture, as much a part of its soil, as the experience of contradiction was at an earlier time for dialectical thought. But in spite of so many scattered signs, the language in which transgression will find its space and the illumination of its being lies almost entirely in the future.* The point of departure here, for me, is the notion of the future it is always the future in state capitalism, until one decides otherwise, in being beyond such a notion to transcend past the transgress, beyond desire, into the real. Implicit in the notion of future, by virtue of its tense, is an implied form of desire, a fantasy not actualized, for the future appears not presently before us, but rather, off in the untenable distance. Today, currently (present tense), we all live in transgress, so to speak. Transgression is an action that involves the limit, that narrow zone of a line where it displays the flash of its passage, but perhaps also its entire trajectory, even its origin; it is likely that transgression has its entire space in the line it crosses. The play of limits and transgression seems to be regulated by a simple obstinacy: transgression incessantly crosses and recrosses a line that closes up behind it in a wave of extremely short duration, and thus it is made to return once more right to the horizon of the uncrossable. But this play is considerably more complex: these elements are situated in an uncertain context, in certainties that are immediately upset so that thought is ineffectual as soon as it attempts to seize them.10 Take, for example, the simple analogy of the factory worker desiring greater sums wealth (commodity in fetish). Each day, after the 9 to 5 repeat, he ventures to the local gas station or 7-11 to buy a lotto scratch ticket, this ticket, in the moment before the scratch, stands as his fetishized fantasy, this ticket could be the key, his ticket out of here. For a moment, he lives in transgress, the dream of the things (monetary commodities) to come upon cashing in his luck. Yet, upon the strike of the coin against the metallic ticket, the worker returns once more to the boundaries to which he is bound: no win there, or anywhere. Whats more so, once again, the worker fed his machine, master, for he redeposited additional surplus value into the system that subjects him daily to himself without himself, and thus, he once more
10 Transgression: 73

cuts himself, in violence. Even more so, should such worker win, cash out on the lotto, he does precisely that, he further sells himself to the cyclical violence that entraps him, just like screwing outside marriage solves not the real issue - buying the yacht rids not the disease. So, as previously questioned, what then, to progress off and beyond, over and yonder into the distance? To truly transcend the alienation of our labor, ourselves from ourselves, is to realize that we are already ourselves, this is always true all at once and nowhere in not truth - being - living in transgress. Thus, today, in the now, we must push the transgress not only into the normative light of day, but also into the beyond of the real, not in a future sense, but a presence of sense, so to speak. To truly unbind the shackles, the civil servant, all workers, must first realize their own contribution to their circular self-mutilation, violence, through the contrast of transgress and by the means of excess of desire, go permanently beyond boundary, outside the 9 to 5 by tactical, planned, continual, concentrated rage against the taboo by being the taboo, the creative, the transcendent power not in language, not in fantasy in action. As Slavoj Zizek puts it: Twenty years ago it was political to try to make a revolution and change society, while now politics comes down to two bodies in a basement making love who can recreate the whole world..... Today, more than ever the way the only way to have an intense and fulfilling personal (sexual) relationship is not for the couple to look into each others eyes forgetting about the world around them, but, while holding hands, to look together outside, at a third point (the Cause for which both are fighting, in which both are engaged).11 To the same end, as two lovers making love in a basement, recreating the whole world, by looking out, rather than in, the estrangement of labor divorces the strange from the whole once the worker looks outwards toward the mirror to not see himself, but the species-being, whole. Today, the only way of breaking out of the constraints of alienated commodification is to invent a new collectivity.* This collectivity, solidarity,

11 Zizek, S. (2002). From Homo Sucker to Homo Sacer. Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on September 11 and related dates. New York, Verso: 85.

starts with fantasy, the practice of transgress, while only moving forward in the light of action, the real, in making love together, in the beyond, being, while looking outward. In such a space, the profane, the infidelity, is no longer the taboo, the one-time error, lapse in reason, but the reason. Liberation lies in losing ones Self, in immediately uniting with the primordial Void What makes life worth living is the very excess of life: the awareness that there is something for which one is ready to risk ones life Only when we are ready to take this risk are we really alive.12 In this sense, the utility of love, desire, is not hanging on but letting go, in the imaginative void created by such passion, fantasy, the will - energy - to fight, propel future tense into the now, real.

12

Homo Sacer: 89