We are presented in this chapter, with two models of what the author identifies as a redoubling of conscience, as seen in Nietzsche and Freud. This redoubling appears to be characterized as a withdrawal of some kind, perhaps not unlike the invocation of reflexivity in the prior section, leading us to the question - what causes this withdrawal so to speak, characterized as it were by sadness, and stoicism all the way to a 'self-enslavement', in entertaining her harshest characterization of subjection.
We do find, thoughtful sentences such as - "If this turning on oneself can be called a kind of violence, it cannot simply be opposed in the name of nonviolence, for when and where it is opposed, it is opposed from a position that presupposes this very violence." A cleverly reflexive sentence if there ever was one, and one may read in lines such as these, the impulse to efface the position one speaks from while implicating the subject of consideration with an uncertain attribution - violence in this case, being constitutive of its founding myth. Yet, we also discern an understanding which appreciates that confronting such a subject with an antinomic 'non-violence' merely acts to reinforce the foundationality of the initial violence in question - bad circuitry as it were. And, here I would point any historical scholar to reflect on how competing schools of thought often seem animated by precisely such a relation.
In lines such as - "My inquiry concerns a persistent problem that emerges when we try to think the possibility of a will that takes itself as its own object and, through the formation of that kind of re- flexivity, binds itself to itself, acquires its own identity through reflexivity.", I cannot help but discern an account of how a subject learns to care for themselves, yet crucially, with their conscience intact, and here I must remark that in seeking to present an account of a subject which may acknowledge this, and yet not be compelled by the turning itself, which characterizes its movement - we would have to consider the possibility of a subject which can offer an account of oneself, which is not reducible to the ossilation in question. A kind of narrative if you prefer, if for nothing else so that we may better understand one and other.
As a tendency in the text, I would like to pause briefly to consider the use of what a crude criticism can only but call tight binaries in the presentation of some arguments, which though substantive - often serve little else but to implicate a complicity between the opposition itself, a third term as it were which is never sublated, for it is never named, left for the subject to traverse and maybe produce a testimony. The duality of the ethical and the moral for instance, mobilized in assessing whether Nietzsche can be redeemed.
Indeed, and since this chapter does concern, 'bad conscience' explicitly, and does take up Nietzsche - I would guide your attention to such characterizations; - "I want instead to suggest that Nietzsche offers us a political insight into the formation of the psyche and the problem of subjection, understood paradoxically not merely as the subordination of a subject to a norm, but as the constitution of a subject through precisely such a subordination." Here, I think both the caricature and the corpus of Nietzsche's work would stand in rare harmony with each other, presenting examples, aphorisms, biting against the reduction of a subject to any such normative subordination, indeed, to borrow the author's own words - this seems to constitute his artistic ethic as it were. Or, as she identifies, to provide a value by which morality may be assessed.
In any such discussion, what really is at stake is the question of the agency of the subject, a question whose jurisdiction or ownership is competed for by different orders of subjection as it were, not unlike tv programs in our modern world, but also not unlike jobs, contracts and religions. In choosing one's fetters as it has been characterised, subjection would remain a choice - yet, as a model of the regulation of the subject, particularly in or rather under conditions of bad conscience, it becomes something different. "This recasting of the "will" is not, properly speaking, the will of a subject, nor is it an effect fully cultivated by and through social norms; it is, I would suggest, the site at which the social implicates the psychic in its very formation—or, to be more precise, as its very formation and formativity." I think we may discern the leaning on a sense of sociality whose constitutive link appears to be precisely such a complicity, implicating the subject as it were in his or her precariousness.
And here, I find it productive to invoke perhaps the subject of Nietzsche's first book length study - on ancient Greek tragedy which recounts precisely the structure of the relationship between the protagonist and the chorus in Greek tragedy; the latter offering premonitions of doom and commenting on the former's actions in a dialectic of trial and triumph, to use not too caricaturised an example, such as the labours of Hercules.
Indeed, the very border which divides the subject proper, from the sociality which they may find themselves within - a feature in any narrative of the modern kind, seems to be precisely what is at stake here, and one of the functions of the 'regulation of the subject' is to install these coordinates, or should I say rather construct them.
This situation, though vulgar may often be an easily transitive logic which helps us frame various scenarios - films from India, both Bollywood and Tollywood for instance, often display such a relation between a hero and their family, friends, or neighbours for instance. And here, amidst such a sociality we are pressed to return to the question of morality, which even in the production of resentiment, forms the resistance and perhaps transfers to some supposed artistic, political, amorous or scientific drive in the subject - to invoke Badiou's four conditions of philosophy. And here, I think we should consider carefully - the author's claim that the subject is a product of morality, wether artistic or otherwise.
A more serious theoretical question for us today, approaching such a text after the reactivation of Hegialian philosophy via the Ljublana School, is whether we may discern a relation, differential homologous, or functionally similar - to the Lacanian notion of the split subject, and the notion of reflexivity which the author emphaises as a capacity in subject formation. And what do they mean or implicate for our understanding of subjection, in keeping with the focus of the study.
Key for the author's own view on this is her argument which emmerges that the conscience which she refers to, wether good or bad - is constructed upon the turning of the subject back upon itself; reflexivity as characterised as it were. There seems to be a way in which the very term split subject bespeaks of an aspect which is not self-transparent to itself, at least not as a whole.
One possible, and intresting model for this reflexivity the author believes is constitutive of the subject and conscience is the idea of bad conscience, acting as a drive or spur to an artistic process itself, of which the soul is a product. Yet, this originary affliction as it were is animated - in the position of a writer, such as Nietzsche - by a will to reveal a certain state of conscience for us. A two sided antagonism indeed.
The conceptual difficulty, indeed the thematic question which arises in considering this proposition is one which I will insist, is still regarding the question of the autonomy of the subject in question, or if you prefer - agency. In presenting the antagonism of a conscience animated by a plot, Nietzsche cannot but reveal a facet of his own vexed state of being. I do not view this in a disparaging light, even if I were to concur with the author that the mind as such is in a state of bad conscience.
Let me make a preliminary objection by pointing out that I do not see the requirement at this stage for an insistence on reflexivity being a constitutive category which is used to think the subject. A question posed seems to sum up the difficulty here, which is also reflected in the example above - "Considered grammatically, it will seem that there must first be a subject who turns back on itself, yet I will argue that there is no subject except as a consequence of this very reflexivity. How can the subject be presumed at both ends of this process, especially when it is the very formation of the subject for which this process seeks to give an account?" I think readers of philosophy, especially the continental tradition would take note that there is a model which thinks subjection, and accounts for the subject's orientation without having to place the subject on both ends of the experiential poles as it were, reproducing a theistic relation, such as between man and god, or reflecting the structure of a bondsman, or member to a constituting authority, represented as Althusser does with 'Subject' and subject. I refer here to Badiou, whose depiction of the subject is as a witness to an event. Indeed, the reflexivity which the author insists on, perhaps in an event to express the capacity of self-sconsciusness may be simplified to a question of a certain point of view or perspective, to begin with, regarding the event in question. Such a model, admittedly does not take into account the subject's ossilation, engagement or withdrawal from the event in question, as this happens after the fact or a posteori. The reason this is offerred as an alternative model however, and one which may even be more epistemically sound, is because it avoids the absurd paradox of having to account for a duality of the subject as that which experiences and that which reflects on one's experience, by pinning that which is experienced, ie. an event as what is singular, possibly giving rise to multiple subject positions. *1
If you notice, this would also allow us to trace narrative more easily as it allows us to pin turns in the plot, another aspect which the author seeks to grapple with, yet insists on the category of power as being the fulcrum on which these turns are made. Here, as elsewhere I do seek to point out the limitations of power as a descriptive or even explanatory concept, yet do concede that it is a useful algebraic term to fill in for whatever force or apprehension the subject may be confronted by, that may be acting on him or her.
Indeed, in a quote we can see that the author does herself identify these gaps when she says that - "I want to suggest that this logical circularity in which the subject appears at once to be presupposed and not yet formed, (let us say in a hypothesis) on the one hand, or formed and hence not presupposed, (an event) on the other, is ameliorated when one understands that in both Freud and Nietzsche this relationship of reflexivity is always and only figured, and that this figure makes no ontological claim." It is to be admitted that Badiou does make an ontological claim, yet let us persist with the notion of a figural presentation of reflexivity. Would this enable any stylistic advantages in what is allows us to discern? We are not presented with an account of the features of what the author speaks of as figuration sadly.
There is ofcourse a way in which self-reflexivity, or the turning of a will upon itself is directly infleunced by power, and that is in the event of punishment, intimately associated with the law. Bad conscience as identified in Nietzsche, seems to be presented, or figures if you prefer - as a product of punishment, and it is to be admitted that the place of suffering does hold a certain thematic priority in Nietzsche's work, in terms of its potentially irritating influence that forces a mutation in the subject as it were. The question of the subject, and their orientation - which is how I, perhaps simplistically characterise subjection remains the focus, when for instance we witness the Nietzschean consideration of the precedence of punishment before conscience, or of conscience before punishment. A fork as it were, neither of whose paths seem to exclude a conception of power.
Turning back upon itself however appears to be a formative constraint in the will, inasmuch as for example, in Freud - we are informed of the strength of a conscience being measured by the very aggression which it forbids. This however, the development of the capacity of restraint - is clearer than the positting of the severity of conscience being a product of the strength of the will which composes it. An attribution to Nietzsche which a reader would benefitt from an example to. And though his work is not cited directly, we are presented with perhaps a version of how the author believes this could be working out - "Is it possible to understand the force of punishment outside of the ways in which it exploits a narcissistic demand, or, to put it in a Nietzschean vein, is it possible to understand the force of punishment outside of the ways in which it exploits the will's attachment to itself?" This does appear to be a question where the subject seems to be bending upon itself as it were, for what it fails to account for is the punishment being issued not as a product of one's own psyche, but as arising from the Other, which ultimately is an other symbolic order to which I address my own desire - perhaps the rudiments of the model of a split subject, which as I understand it - for there to be a subject beyond the statement, a subject of ennunciation in speech for example, there must be some other to which I address myself.
In her account of Nietzsche's description of the bad conscience, we are reminded of his conception of conscience as arissing in a man who is bred to keep promises, perhaps also the origin of our sense of debt and obligation. This is also a struggle as it were, against forgetfullness - a struggle which is waged by man in memory. This constructs the self in a certain way, and is really not a protraction of a past memory, for the idea of debt is intimately related to that of a promise - a deed to be met, a commitment set asside etc. and is hence a dimension in the future. Such a terrain, or the intereim however is tenous and I think Judith Butler does try to convey this succintly - "the promising being establishes a continuity between a statement and an act, although the temporal disjunction between the two is acknowledged as an opportunity for the intervention of various competing circumstances and accidents." The understanding of debt as it were, and the creditor-debtor relation is of course tied to the custom of trials, convictions and punishments. Yet, the author identifies in the creditor who has not had a debt repaid, an excess as it were, of pleasure in enforcing a punishment which cannot be accounted for in the debt itself; echoes of sadism.
Indeed, this attribution of sadism does not seem unfounded as we read lines such as "the response takes on a meaning that exceeds the explicit purpose of achieving compensation. For the punishment is pleasurable, and the infliction of injury is construed as a seduction to life." The ordeal or rather the deliverance of a punishment is taken or rather sublated into the genus of such acts, courtship. On the side of the debtor, the instrument of punishment is designed, according to a stray Nietzschean observation, for the inducement of 'bad conscience' in the debtor, to force as it were the assumption of the posture of a guilty party.
Guilt as it were, through bad conscience, the internalization of the instict when not discharged, perhaps though punishment produces the soul, which the author recognizes to be an artistic accomplishment, one capable of holding an ideal. And while I may find this agreeable, we do see such a position being used to mount a rather convuluted metaphysic in - "Bad conscience would be the fabrication of inferiority that attends the breaking of a promise, the discontinuity of the will, but the "I" who would keep the promise is precisely the cultivated effect of this continuous fabrication of inferiority." I think this does require some untagling. To begin with the fabrication of inferiority, may possibly be perhaps an overstatement of the recognition of an ideal - a faculty the author recognizes a soul to be capable of. And while the discontinuity of the will may be a way to read the breaking of a promise, its redemption as it were would require a certain degree of perversion to be construed as 'the continuous fabrication of inferiority'. It would of course help us here to have examples of what kind of promises or bonds are being dealt with.
Indeed, the author does seem to be making a vague play at drawing a response from a reader in sentences such as " Nietzsche describes "bad conscience in its beginnings" as the "instinct for freedom forcibly made latent" (87/325). But where is the trace of this freedom in the self-shackling that Nietzsche describes? It is to be found in the pleasure taken in afflicting pain, a pleasure taken in afflicting pain on oneself in the service of, in the name of, morality." One does not require to be a great philosopher here to see that the instinct of freedom could very easily be sublimated into a discipline of askesis, rather than one of punishment to enact one's submission to a morality. Indeed I would be inclined to name the former an ethic, and I think this is where the debate between morality and ethics does originate. The question a reader must ask, is why 'bad conscience' seem to animate the object of the author's interest in her engagement with Nietzsche? Indeed the author does seem to share some of my inclinations when she states that - "Punishment is not merely productive of the self, but this very productivity of punishment is the site for the freedom and pleasure of the will, its fabricating activity." Indeed, at this point I cannot but be pressed to level a charge which takes the author to harbour a certain 'bad conscience' in her effort at isolating this factor of guilt formation as it were, in Nietzsche - a philosopher who probably is most known for attacking such positions in his critique of Christianity.
In the representation on Nietzsche, I think it is clear that on my part I see an overstatement of his dependence as it were, on bad conscience, which I think is a rather crude way of blanketting the kind of conceptual antagonism he presents. Indeed, I think a careful reader would find in Nietzsche, meditations on silence, observations which take up a poetic imagery that play with the lightness of a small bird, upon fleeting moments in consideration which an entrenched animosity would miss, and here I must admit my failure in providing an adequete quote - which I am sure a reading of his work would readily supply.
In the final section, the question of narcissm as a form of subjection which uses the censure of social regulation to create a libidinally charged abnegation as a disciplinary apparatus is taken up. Again, you would find my earlier examples and reading operative, yet we are made to consider the Nietzschean resonances of this in his depiction of the conscience. There appears to be a sophisticated model of subjection provided which seeks to posit something akin to a self-subjection which precedes any internalization. This self-subjection, whose construction seems to posit a kind of primacy if not dominance to it, is however said to be joined to the problem of social regulation.
There does seem to be a repetetive trope here regarding the issue of libidinal investment and regulation which seem instrumental in the author's understanding - of the ossilation of the subject amidst the normative behaviors it may seek an association to. "The desire to desire is a willingness to desire precisely what would foreclose desire, if only for the possibility of continuing to desire." More constructive I find is the binding ascription identified in the ego ideal, in whose dissatisfaction the author identifies the liberation of a certain homosexual libido. Here we may readily identify how the repressive hypothesis may operate in instigating feelings of guilt which seek to sublimate in the subject the fear of losing approval from one's parents into a fear of loosing the love of fellow men. We also see observations that we may readily identify in how prohibition works to sustain the desire by intensifying its effects through renunciation, here the idea of the illicit, the exotic and taboo have been used to describe various object relations often under the rubric of a fetishism of one kind or the other.
*Note to self: Is this an adequte representation for an introduction to our understanding of the subject today? What may I add regarding the split subject as conceived by the Ljublana school?
Endnotes:
1. It is to be recalled that Being And Event, which I believe would be the study that fully accounts for the alternative model presented was published first in French in 1988, and was not transalated into English untill 2005. I do not know whether professor Judith Butler is fluent in French.
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