I agree with almost the whole of Alina Stefanescu’s articulate and angry “apology.” Read it.
Alina’s essay reminds me of something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Consider Alina’s quote from Michnik:
Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens, there can be no free and independent nations… a state that ignores the will and rights of its citizens can offer no guarantee that it will respect the will and rights of other peoples, nations, and states.
Do we have “free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens”? I think: no.
The traditional Marxish theory of consumer culture is that the dark arts of marketing and advertising germinate within us “false” desires. A false desire is one whose satisfaction serves not one’s own “interests,” but the interests of those in the business of servicing (for a pretty penny!) the psychic “needs” that they themselves have planted. So we are supposed to be wary of Nike, Starbucks, etc. lest we surrender our autonomy to the cigar-chomping moneybags. No Logo!
This idea has never done much for me. I’m impressed with my own tendency to want only a surpassingly slim fraction of the things marketed to me, and my want seems best explained by its relation to longstanding projects and plans. The thing about the market is that it is SO fragmented, there are so many choices, and there are so many counterbalancing sales-pitches competing over my very small budget that it is most likely that my choices in the end reflect fairly “authentic” preferences. (Let’s say those are preferences that emerge more or less organically from my practical identity.) I’ve never seen the yogurt or cereal I eat advertised. I chose New Balance running shoes over Nike because I tried both and New Balance fit my feet better. I chose to start running again because I don’t want to be fat. (And I don’t want to be fat because, well, yes, the HHS’s wildly successful VERB: It’s what you do! campaign.)
However, I am beginning to find the Marxist critique quite pertinent to America’s duopolistic political system. Both libertarians and Greens insistently point out that the differences between the policies of the Ds and the Rs are mostly cosmetic, with a few substantive exceptions. The logic of the median voter theorem pushes politicians toward the middle with rhetorical concessions to the flanks.
What we end up with is a choice between policy-bundles as different from the other as Colgate from Crest. But in politics we have only Colgate and Crest. Some people will have a genuine preference for better whitening action, while others will genuinely prefer enhanced cavity protection. But mostly there is a riot of indifference.
Since the policy bundles we’re offered represent only a tiny slice of the possible range, they will only very improbably reflect most “authentic” combinations of political preferences. Most people would be unsatisfied with the choices, and ill-motivated to vote. So the parties must implant false desire. The parties and their stooges in the media mount massive marketing and advertising assaults to make you think that a certain kind of attractive person votes for their side, a certain kind of awful person votes for the other side, and that you, no doubt, are an attractive person.
It is said that red and blue is a state of mind. A “psychographic” in the marketer’s lingo. But I posit that these states of mind are ideological constructions, in the good old-fashioned Marxist sense. There is nothing deep in your identity that leads you organically to accept abortion, denounce the death penalty, oppose school vouchers, want to save the spotted titmouse, etc. (Or the counterparts to these views.) Yes, there is a story you tell yourself and others about how all this hangs together. Your sense of identity is bound up in it. But, ultimately, it’s a story that only passingly serves your own true interests. For the most part your muddle of preferences, your political identity, your political desire, is a tool for the satisfaction of the interests of one set of power-seeking narcissists over the interests of a mostly indistinguisable set of others.
I’ve got to say that it’s just sort of embarrassing to see the AdBusting, culture jamming, No-Logoites wandering my neighborhood armed with clipboards marching door-to-door plumping for John Forbes Kerry, as if Civilization Depends Upon It. The whole industry of pop leftism–Michael Moore, Al Franken, Thomas Frank, Move On, etc.–, turns out to be a device, among other things, for getting earnest kids superficially worried about autonomy and alienation to hit the sidewalk and maximize taps on the Diebold flatscreen for the greater glory of a self-infatuated millionaire blowhard whose policies suspiciously resemble the bumbling, Jesus-spouting halfwit they’ve learned to hate with a delicious half-mad zeal. They labor happily, bent to the will of the political class, animated by a comically absurd set of beliefs and desires that could not truly be their own.
I speak of the left, but do not think I lack pity for the poor souls fully convinced that a Democratic White House will lead to compulsory abortion, mandatory sodomy, and total capitulation to the Arab terror.
Living in DC, the “pick a team” ethos is almost overwhelming. People want to know whose side you’re on. Well, I say, be on the side of the free, self-respecting, and autonomous. The side of the angels. The hope of freedom. Alina said that the only worthwile wars of liberation are those you fight on your own. Yes. So reject the manufactured political identity. Resist the terms of the debate. Refuse to be used.
You do need to brush your teeth, but you don’t need to vote.
I chose to start running again because I don’t want to be fat.
Hmm. This sounds vaguely like “false-consciousness” to me, Will. I say: you chose to start running again because you’re doing it for the nookie !
If nookie isn’t an authentic, organically arising desire, then I don’t know what is.
Dude — what the hell are you doing at 4:10 in the frickin’ morning. Hmm? :0
Nice post! I am just very recently (this week I suppose) going a bit crazy over the fact that the academics and actor-types that I run with think it’s SO important that Bush gets ousted. I think it’s fine to want Kerry to win (or Bush) but I just don’t get the whole I’m-gonna-move-out-of-the-country-if-Bush-wins attitude that some people seem to have.
It drives me nuts.
Will, most people think that there are two ways to make an “authentic” choice, free of false-consciousness:
- By choosing what is in your authentic interest
- By knowingly choosing to do something that will promote others’ authentic interests
Now, if you’re fairly well off, living a fairly comfortable life, then it’s probably true that your life is largely unaffected by which party is in power. But a lot of people’s lives are affected. For millions of people, which party has power could mean the difference between having health care or not, or between making just enough money to get by or making a little bit more, or between having the right to get married or not. For over a hundred thousand people, it has meant going overseas to fight a war in Iraq, for thousands of those it has meant serious injury, and for hundreds of them, death. It could make a difference in the rights, liberties, and prosperity of millions of people in the Middle East. I could go on.
Some people sincerely care about issues like these and vote based on what they value and what they believe the parties will do, even though these issues only have a minor, tangential effect on their self-interest. Others are tricked by rhetoric & advertising. And there’s a continuum between the two.
Politics may be more sensitive to false-consciousness-inducing salesmanship than commerce because the effects of politics are less clear and tangible. You can feel whether your shoes are comfortable, but it’s hard to tell whether Iraq really is becoming a democracy, or what Saddam would have done if we hadn’t taken him out, or what impact the changes in Iraq will have on the safety of the US.
The toothpaste analogy worked particularly well for me, given that the last time I voted, in 2000, in Virginia, they gave everyone a little “I Voted!” sticker–exactly like they used to give me at my dentist’s as a little kid when I didn’t have any cavities. Fucking hell.
Dan, I really don’t agree that the party in power makes as much difference as you seem to think. There are differences upon which one might base an authentic choice (ala whitening action vs. cavity protection), but most of it really is just rhetoric, positioning, marketing, etc. Now, I feel particularly strongly about the issues surrounding equal legal rights for gays, and I think party affiliation makes a real difference there. But I just don’t believe that the democrats, say, have any intention or ability to make people better off financially, or improve health care. I know what they say, but it’s pretty naive to just believe it. Anyway, if I made a list of D dream policy and R dream policy, the things I consider bad on one list would more or less cancel everything good on the other. There are things the Rs do that I prefer over the Ds, and vice versa, but taken as a whole, it’s a Hobson’s choice. I think that the fact that people are unable to see how awful the choice really is, and that they truly buy the story fed to them by the party to which they’ve developed some kind of contingent commitment, is the evidence for false consciousness. (Really, it’s just fun to accuse people of false consciousness; I think I really would have enjoyed the intellectual game of Marxism.) About Iraq, I certainly don’t see any material difference in Kerry, who approved of the war, voted for the Patriot Act, and can differentiate himself from Bush only by mouthing bromides about international cooperation. That said, you’ll vote for Kerry, and you’ll sleep perfectly well. So, whatever.
The false consciousness is PRECISELY the problem Will. It is why democracy, or the illusion of choice, is failing to create an engaged political citizenry. Would parliamentary democracy be more effective? Probably not– but at least it would be less cynical and stylistically stupefying. “What Party are you in?” should be “What game are you playing? And what bets are you hedging?”.
Great post, Will. I especially love the “Deibold taps” paragraph.
I’m not particularly interested in the false consciousness argument, but I was laugh-out-loud glad that Gene made the astute sticker connection between dentistry and voting.
Here’s my proposal for election day–let’s all get our teeth cleaned, give a pint of blood, and vote for whomever we believe will wreak the least havoc on our lives. Then we’ll have THREE stickers and sense of hygenic, charitable, and civic satisfaction. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Rob seems to have a consistent curiousity about what contributes to Will’s sex life. Blogging, running…
Are you trying to crack his particular formula or do you have a general tendency to (jokingly?) attribute all motivations to those of the sexual nature?
Joanna — it’s quite the latter.
Joanna–also, nothing interests me more in life than sex, working-out, and political philosophy.
Will,
I believe that Dems are more likely to do things like increasing the EITC and minimum wage, making the tax system more progressive, and creating policies that decrease the number of people without healthcare. I think that both history and the current proposals of the parties support my position (on the whole).
I also firmly believe that Kerry (or Gore) would not have declared war on Iraq had he been President. Certainly, the position that Kerry took on the war as a Senator is open to criticism, but I find it hard to believe that he would have chosen to fight that war if he were setting the agenda instead of just voting yes or no on it.
I don’t think that a Kerry presidency will whiten my teeth or help me sleep, but I think that it will have a significant benefit for the American populace (and many people outside America), especially compared with another Bush term.
Rob-
That’s what I figured. But in case you are curious, I’ll certainly vouch for the effectiveness of Will’s strategy.
Will isn’t suffering from “false consciousness” as much as a “false sortie.” I believe Derrida came up with the latter term to describe someone who thought they could deconstruct their way out of the overdetermined parameters of perception – which can’t be done. Sorry to quote a French guy, I know that’s anathema to many.
Libertarians have an orthodoxy too. For example, why not support a party (either D or R) that can make progress on certain issues than support a party that has never, and probably will never, win a major election? Because the Libertarian orthodoxy values independence and ideological purity and states that the two parties are nearly identical. The opinions you stated in your post could be classified as knee-jerk libertarian just as much as a MoveOn member’s could be called knee-jerk liberal. Your preferences are neither “organic” nor from the “angels.” Sorry.
I chose to start running again because I don’t want to be fat.
Hmm. This sounds vaguely like “false-consciousness” to me, Will. I say: you chose to start running again because you’re doing it for the nookie !
If nookie isn’t an authentic, organically arising desire, then I don’t know what is.
Dude — what the hell are you doing at 4:10 in the frickin’ morning. Hmm? :0
Nice post! I am just very recently (this week I suppose) going a bit crazy over the fact that the academics and actor-types that I run with think it’s SO important that Bush gets ousted. I think it’s fine to want Kerry to win (or Bush) but I just don’t get the whole I’m-gonna-move-out-of-the-country-if-Bush-wins attitude that some people seem to have.
It drives me nuts.
Will, most people think that there are two ways to make an “authentic” choice, free of false-consciousness:
- By choosing what is in your authentic interest
- By knowingly choosing to do something that will promote others’ authentic interests
Now, if you’re fairly well off, living a fairly comfortable life, then it’s probably true that your life is largely unaffected by which party is in power. But a lot of people’s lives are affected. For millions of people, which party has power could mean the difference between having health care or not, or between making just enough money to get by or making a little bit more, or between having the right to get married or not. For over a hundred thousand people, it has meant going overseas to fight a war in Iraq, for thousands of those it has meant serious injury, and for hundreds of them, death. It could make a difference in the rights, liberties, and prosperity of millions of people in the Middle East. I could go on.
Some people sincerely care about issues like these and vote based on what they value and what they believe the parties will do, even though these issues only have a minor, tangential effect on their self-interest. Others are tricked by rhetoric & advertising. And there’s a continuum between the two.
Politics may be more sensitive to false-consciousness-inducing salesmanship than commerce because the effects of politics are less clear and tangible. You can feel whether your shoes are comfortable, but it’s hard to tell whether Iraq really is becoming a democracy, or what Saddam would have done if we hadn’t taken him out, or what impact the changes in Iraq will have on the safety of the US.
The toothpaste analogy worked particularly well for me, given that the last time I voted, in 2000, in Virginia, they gave everyone a little “I Voted!” sticker–exactly like they used to give me at my dentist’s as a little kid when I didn’t have any cavities. Fucking hell.
Dan, I really don’t agree that the party in power makes as much difference as you seem to think. There are differences upon which one might base an authentic choice (ala whitening action vs. cavity protection), but most of it really is just rhetoric, positioning, marketing, etc. Now, I feel particularly strongly about the issues surrounding equal legal rights for gays, and I think party affiliation makes a real difference there. But I just don’t believe that the democrats, say, have any intention or ability to make people better off financially, or improve health care. I know what they say, but it’s pretty naive to just believe it. Anyway, if I made a list of D dream policy and R dream policy, the things I consider bad on one list would more or less cancel everything good on the other. There are things the Rs do that I prefer over the Ds, and vice versa, but taken as a whole, it’s a Hobson’s choice. I think that the fact that people are unable to see how awful the choice really is, and that they truly buy the story fed to them by the party to which they’ve developed some kind of contingent commitment, is the evidence for false consciousness. (Really, it’s just fun to accuse people of false consciousness; I think I really would have enjoyed the intellectual game of Marxism.) About Iraq, I certainly don’t see any material difference in Kerry, who approved of the war, voted for the Patriot Act, and can differentiate himself from Bush only by mouthing bromides about international cooperation. That said, you’ll vote for Kerry, and you’ll sleep perfectly well. So, whatever.
The false consciousness is PRECISELY the problem Will. It is why democracy, or the illusion of choice, is failing to create an engaged political citizenry. Would parliamentary democracy be more effective? Probably not– but at least it would be less cynical and stylistically stupefying. “What Party are you in?” should be “What game are you playing? And what bets are you hedging?”.
Great post, Will. I especially love the “Deibold taps” paragraph.
I’m not particularly interested in the false consciousness argument, but I was laugh-out-loud glad that Gene made the astute sticker connection between dentistry and voting.
Here’s my proposal for election day–let’s all get our teeth cleaned, give a pint of blood, and vote for whomever we believe will wreak the least havoc on our lives. Then we’ll have THREE stickers and sense of hygenic, charitable, and civic satisfaction. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Rob seems to have a consistent curiousity about what contributes to Will’s sex life. Blogging, running…
Are you trying to crack his particular formula or do you have a general tendency to (jokingly?) attribute all motivations to those of the sexual nature?
Joanna — it’s quite the latter.
Joanna–also, nothing interests me more in life than sex, working-out, and political philosophy.
Will,
I believe that Dems are more likely to do things like increasing the EITC and minimum wage, making the tax system more progressive, and creating policies that decrease the number of people without healthcare. I think that both history and the current proposals of the parties support my position (on the whole).
I also firmly believe that Kerry (or Gore) would not have declared war on Iraq had he been President. Certainly, the position that Kerry took on the war as a Senator is open to criticism, but I find it hard to believe that he would have chosen to fight that war if he were setting the agenda instead of just voting yes or no on it.
I don’t think that a Kerry presidency will whiten my teeth or help me sleep, but I think that it will have a significant benefit for the American populace (and many people outside America), especially compared with another Bush term.
Rob-
That’s what I figured. But in case you are curious, I’ll certainly vouch for the effectiveness of Will’s strategy.
Will isn’t suffering from “false consciousness” as much as a “false sortie.” I believe Derrida came up with the latter term to describe someone who thought they could deconstruct their way out of the overdetermined parameters of perception – which can’t be done. Sorry to quote a French guy, I know that’s anathema to many.
Libertarians have an orthodoxy too. For example, why not support a party (either D or R) that can make progress on certain issues than support a party that has never, and probably will never, win a major election? Because the Libertarian orthodoxy values independence and ideological purity and states that the two parties are nearly identical. The opinions you stated in your post could be classified as knee-jerk libertarian just as much as a MoveOn member’s could be called knee-jerk liberal. Your preferences are neither “organic” nor from the “angels.” Sorry.
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