A few key assertions are made in the beginning. 1) The primacy accorded to the master-slave dialectics is mitigated, partly because its liberationist narrative does not seem operative for the author, and also because the section on the freedom of self-conscious, dealing with stoicism, skepticism, and the unhappy conscience, which follows it seems to resolve into a self-enslavement. 2) The task of contemporary politics is no longer the liberation of the subject but the elucidation of practices concerning their regulation and production.
A reading of her section of preference is provided where a self-enslavement of the body is what is emphasized. A beratement of the bodily condition of life, however, may - following the narrative in question, have more to do with circumstantial bonds which a subject - or rather a bondsman may have to a lord, or to update the lexicon - to a practice, which ultimately seems to be how subjects of the newer, Foucauldian kind, whose production and regulation may now be observed in some new and easily discernible way - are finally identified.
There is an effort made to compare the treatment of the subject, as seen in this section of the Phenomenology - with that great rival tradition arising in the same period, perhaps with Nietzsche as its fount, namely - Genealogy. Butler, does identify a point of their congruence as far as subjection is concerned, concerning especially the conditions in which a subject seeks their own bondage, and these bonds - rather than acting as prohibitions, seem rather enabling and constitutive for the subject. Or, as Zizek later puts it, when we remove the obstacle to a desire - what we get is not that pure desire itself, but the loss of the very potential which seemed to arise to overcome that obstacle.
In her effort to locate in Hegel, prior to a sublation of his thinking into Spirit - which I read merely as a thematic moment arising from prior propositions, a thinking of the conscience which may be read as homologous or similar to what Nietzsche or Freud posit, Judith Butler leads our attention to the body in its viscerality. Admittedly this isn't the focus of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and I suppose we may be better of trying to discern the body as a site, and nexus of forces, thought and their understanding in a text such as The Philosophy of Nature, yet - this would leave the bad conscience, or ressentiment which the genealogical method, and disciplinary study does seem fascinated by, if only to maintain a distance from.
What I find troubling, however, and what may in fact impede the author's own inquiry is her attempt to think the relation between lord and bondsman as one between two bodies. If there is a subject which is discernible here, indeed what makes this dialectic work, what allows the slave to comprehend and come to grasp their essential freedom is only appraisable when the subject in question is the relation between this two. The materialist question to ask here may be where would such a two be embodied, and here we would find a willing retinue of examples, perhaps most markedly in the economic sphere, in contractual relations, in antagonisms, military, colonial, but also in relations in fiction - and here I do believe the British have excelled in providing us a figure such as P. G Woodehouse's delightful creation that is Jeeves, whose prim and counterintuitive remark in appraising the master's predilections have served generations with a healthy humor, produced in often disheartening situations.
Admittedly, such a relation - that of a butler, as Jeeves is does entail a relation between two bodies, Bertie Wooster and himself. Indeed, what seems to be the real relation of interest to the author here is the relation of subordination, in which she identifies the form in which the former character enacts the wishes of the master, in his charge. And here, we would have to admit, that while Jeeves 'advice' and aside on offer do make for pleasant commentary, the question of order, or precedence don't arise. Yet, this seems to be precisely the kind of relation which the author does seem to be thinking of. Unlike for instance, where a Duke may learn of a King's dependence on his person for the supply of military provision and choose to rebel at a moment of demand, a very plausible alternative plot.
The investigation, or rather thinking which is undertaken is peculiar, inasmuch as it seeks to identify in the deed of the bondsman, the inscription of his position as a bondsman. "It is not that the activity must be witnessed, but that the signs produced must be read as an effect of the effectivity that designates the bondsman" - here, I think it is clear why we do not enter into a dialectic proper, one which would involve sublation for the deed of the bondsman, that which ties him or her to the lord or sovereign does not seem to be of interest to the author. The author rather chooses to see in the deed of the bondsman, his deed as bondsman - indeed, this is subjection, and the problem we face here is a real one.
The dilemma is something like this. In what way can a bondsman, attest to their own independence, if not sovereignty from the master when the charge of their position is as an appointee, and often their deed an enactment of an order? Is it possible, that in the order itself, or rather in the carrying forth of the deed - a bondsman presents what is their service to a master - in whose constitution, and here I suppose it is only fair that we read the master as possibly an estate, the bondsman find their reflection? This is a possibility which Judith Butler does not seem to consider, in perhaps the insistence to read the dialectic or lord and bondsman as one between two bodies, which if you notice it may yet be.
There is however a more universal dimension, perhaps something akin to a generalization if not a sublation proper, which the author observes in this chapter. That is the fear experienced by a bondsman in their act of labor, a fear which is a consequence of the possibility of its expropriation.
We are presented with a rather interesting account of the relation between work, which seeks to give form to an object, preserving it for a desire which nonetheless may be fleeting, and consumption - or the negation of the objection in question. A subject however is not a blind oscillating duality between these two poles, creationa and consumption for example, but as I insist - but perhaps the very site between them. Here, for the interest of a subject to be sustained, there would have to be the possibility of the accumulation of property, as opposed to mere consumption. A craftsman may, for instance, find self-expression in the product of their work here.
To quote some rather striking lines - "The consumption of the object is the negation of that effect of permanence; the consumption of the object is its déformation. The accumulation of property, however, requires that formed objects be possessed rather than consumed; only as property do objects retain their form and "stave off fleetingness." Only as property do objects fulfill the theological promise with which they are invested."
There are truly exploitative subject formations here, such as in conditions of sub-infeudation, which I think the following quote characterizes quite nicely. "Not only does he labor for another, who takes the yield of his labor, but he gives up his signature for the signature of the other, no longer marking ownership of his own labor in any way." We are clearly not speaking of an independent craftsman here, another quote marking this - "In the experience of giving up what he has made, the bondsman understands two issues: first, that what he is is embodied or signified in what he makes, and second, that what he makes is made under the compulsion to give it up. Hence, if the object defines him, reflects back what he is, is the signatory text by which he acquires a sense of who he is, and if those objects are relentlessly sacrificed, then he is a relentlessly self-sacrificing being."
The bodily duality of lord and bondsman however is quickly glossed over into one of a duality within a single psyche, however without the explication of the bonds which do, or formerly tied one to the other - we have no means to think the liberatory potential which their relation held in check, which may once rise as a product; and here anyone looking for an example would be well served to open any section on class relations and dependencies by Marx, whose literality helps iron out any subtleties which a metaphysician such as Hegel may be mindful of. The subject, to place it clearly - when freed from subordination, could meet with his or her peers in a new dawn when they see each other not in each other's former tethers, but as those who held together the estates which their lords (and ladies) presided over. This aspect of mutual recognition, was once what animated the idea of the proletariat as the subject of history - yet a thematic embodiment of such a sentiment may readily be apparent in Hegel's section on lord and bondsman, and dare I say, in narrative.
To clarify however, Butler focuses here on bonds which a subject may choose to be stubbornly attached to, let us say to linguistic, or communitarian affiliations; those which offer the subject in question a claim to a station in the social hierarchy, in this sense, we do see the relation that may emerge between two similar families, for instance, living in the same neighborhood as they compare how each member compares with a counterpart in terms of their economic, social and other similar standings. Gauging as it were, which associations to mimic or assimilate, were it be a practice, and which to censure - were it to be a mark of debt, servitude or obligation. The picture we have here is that of an adherent as asset manager. The unhappiness which seems to characterize the consciousness in question, and the subject of Judith Butler's focus may indeed be one internal to the psyche, such as a subject experiencing the loss of desire itself, with the supplanting of earlier checks on it, perhaps in the form of a master - however, I am tempted to read it, and I believe the author would not find such an effort disagreeable, as a possibility which very easily may be socially embodied, such as apprehensions of suspicion and competition between neighbors.
Here, I do believe we may read the terms in question as indicative of the precise proposition, regarding the sociality, or to use a less fashionable phrase, the intersubjectivity in question. Norms for instance are held to be what ensures the ethical reflexivity of the subject, a subject which, we are told - in subjection, turns on power. This is indeed an unhappy consciousness in question, for it seems to reach for norms, as a safeguarding ethical imperative, only when the threat of the expropriation of its work, or - the loss of property as it were, is in question. We also learn a little about the kind of community in question, which fabricates its norms as a bulwark against fear. I think it is clear that what the subject seems to be after, or invoking rather, are not exactly norms per se - but something more akin to laws.
This does lead to a rather dense passage, which in all good feeling and philosophical indulgence does seem to require unpacking. "The more absolute the ethical imperative becomes, the more stubborn or eigensinnig the enforcement of its law, the more the absoluteness of the motivating fear is at once articulated and refused. Absolute fear is thus displaced by the absolute law which, paradoxically, reconstituted the fear as a fear of the law." - 'The more absolute the ethical imperative...' which imperative is in question here? What seemed to have been animating the subject was the fear of expropriation of their property, in which case we may probably cite the prohibition against theft as the imperative, yet would this correlate to a corresponding degree of rigor in the enforcement of its prohibition? I think here proper, we do have to acknowledge a duality in the subject, a duality which does correspond with that unique Marxian mutation in the history of logic; I do speak here of darstellung or structural causality. The normative prescriptions of a society, are associational - containing real fears and hopes for certain, and containing the potential to draft new organizations into being, but associational all the same. The laws of a society are regulative, and this does really seem to be a direction that Butler does indicate an interest in earlier in the text. The next step in her argument however is unclear. For the strictness in the enforcement of a law, would not necessarily lead to a heightening in the 'motivating fear', unless of course we mean some lurid fascination found simply in the transgression of the law. Yet, the situation is remedied as it were with the closing line which acknowledges the displacement of the absoluteness of the fear, with that of the law, with the fear being reconstituted here as a fear of the law - hence stabilizing the pact of society.
This is not the dialectic of lord and bondsman, which rather is a truer kind of 'subordination' in question, one of real dependence, contingent relations whose workings guarantee the survival and perpetuation of the positions in question. Positions which themselves cannot bear to rest content with the station assigned to them - there is a transgression here, but I would not say that the object of its breach is the law per se. In fact, I don't think Hegel once invokes the law in this section. Yet, I am open to another reading here were one be willing to provide me with it.
The author, Judith Butler, remains as insightful as ever in her effort to re-individualise the subject, citing the attitude which could resist, by which I mean persist in the face of this - for that is what would ultimately be the purpose of a subject whose existence is governed by another authority, and whose work is expropriated by it. The attitude itself being stoicism.
We are introduced to stoicism being an attitude which seeks to withdraw from the world, shrinking from the fear of expropriation as it were, and of course as it is usually known, as the withdrawal of the passions, hence minimising also what the self is subjectively. What the self then revels in, we are told, is in the observation of contradictions and the pleasure in pointing them out, even when they pertain to the self - a kind of sadism as it were. Yet, here I believe that while this may certainly be some kind of subjective disposition, I fear that accounts such as "Witnessing implies a mimetic reduplication of the self, and its "dispassion" is belied by the passion of mimeticism." - can only be described as a disfiguration of any proper dialectical thinking, which in principle hinges on difference, of the object from the self, from perception to the object, and then finally from perception to itself, for the subject - who via this consideration is transformed to take a new disposition towards the article of his or her consideration, a theme or concept which illuminates the contours of a unique problematic or line of thought. Far from any re-duplication of the self.
Far more engaging, for a reader such as myself for instance, is the relation between a recognizable split subject, which organizes itself into an unchanging pure thought, a kind of alethia sought by the stoics, and a changeable and obviously transient self - with the former passing judgment over the later. Curiouser still, is the relation of such an organization to the corporeal self, which will always be the bearer or whatever organization of the subject, and ultimately adheres in a medium of pure sensation, a stormy sea for the tracing of crystalline conceptual clarity indeed, particularly when we to make such a topographical division in precedence.
In reading her lines on devotion, however, I cannot but hear a protective impulse regarding the subject in their efforts at instrumentalising the body to find the unchangeable in thought, an effort which the author believes will fail given the conditions of corporeality that our vessel is limited by. Here, no possible objection can be made, or pathway offered without a name being offered for the object of devotion. Perhaps not unlike invocations of Christ as a savior.
A philosopher here is narrated a bitter tale, of how the submission of the body in service of an ideal, leads to the loss of that ideal the submission was for and the production of a narcissism in a body which would outlive the dreams it once carried. A believable, though still sad tale, yet perhaps we should not be so willing to accept such a predicament as destiny. The devolution of the object of devotion, amidst the struggle to discipline a body in its service, into a worship of self-feeling itself, allowing the unchangeable spirit to die - is however a fear and perhaps even a reality that we may discern around us. A razor sharp insight which we find in this section is "Forced, then, to accept this ineluctability of the body as a presupposition, a new form of the subject emerges, which is distinctly Kantian. If there is a world of appearance for which the body is essential, then surely there is a world of noumena in which the body has no place; the world divides up into beings that are for-itself and in-itself." It is hard not to see how the grammar morphs in disfiguration yet still yields the turning which the author tries to capture in the subject's movement and formation earlier. And while this operation may lead to pleasure, even of a productive kind - it seems predicated on a founding avoidance - or dare I say, trauma.
Theology is mobilized to add varnish to this old scratch; if the unchangeable subject is to be embodied - such as in the figure of Christ, then it is only to be sacrificed and returned to the unchangeable world of matter. We see, clearly that this play between two registers - the metaphysical and the physical is what the subject utilises to avoid the possibility of what may only be a self-demeaning recognition, of not having been able to live up to one's ideal.
Here, we should perhaps take a moment to note, however, the very writerly nature of the work in question. Where a charge, as real and felt today, a quarter-century after it was first published is conveyed with the force which cannot but invoke in me a sense of gratitude, that such a work was written, and by a woman at that - which observes carefully these struggles that animate so much surface animosity and deep seeded conviction in our affairs as we conduct them. Perhaps an untimely asside on my part.
Thematically, and perhaps of interest to those of you who may have read some of Sartre's existentialism, renunciation remains a theme which is persisted with, yet with the added caveat that it is a renunciation that indulges in doing nothing. And indeed, one may hear in these lines a certain criticism, well-meaning yet an accomplice, stating that there is a welling in wretchedness which is entailed in such configurations of a self.
Slowly, we do see - with some difficulty, something like a narrative, or to use the author's own terms, norms which in their adoption say something about the journey of the subject, a journey which you will soon see begins to resemble a pilgrimage. A minister is sought, as a means of priestly interpretation, abeyances prescribed, fasting etc. We would do well to notice that such practices were and are indeed adopted by many people, even of the irreligious kind as a means of allowing the body some respite from the circuitry of digestion and expenditure of energy, that modern capitalism can easily warp us in.
There is however a relation posited with the minister, instituted as it were as a place of interpretative, let us call it - hermeneutic privilege, in whose presence if not office, the subject is to offer their deeds, even if they were as trivial as symptoms, even the rather base excremental ones, and here I can't but suspect that the tinge of spite in whose light the subject seems robed emanates from a sadism, but not one which the subject reserves for themselves, but possibly, if it is not heretical to suggest so - that of the author's.
Indeed, how can we fail to recognize, in the piety of the penitent subject to the minister - the very model as it were of subjection, a model if you prefer which does indeed provide a better example than the old policeman's cry on the road apparently. The minister, or the institution of the minister, in their capacity as a trustee of the faith posited in them by the subject, can do what in our fallen commercial world only money can - that is turn one value into another, suffering into a beatitude, mortification into pleasure - the reward for renunciation, in its due time - all in good faith as it were. A dialectician nonetheless, but I might add - one who may be conflating conceptual antagonism with conceptual reversal, which are not the same for an antagonism might force a new situation into being, a concept if you please, and this is not reducible to a switching, or even oscillation between two values or modes.
And, were you to pardon my clerical prediliction - I would like to make clear my thoughts on the characterization of Hegel here in the quote "For Hegel, this eschatological transformation of the pain of this world into the pleasure of the next establishes the transition from self-consciousness to reason." I think a reader would find that reason is really not an eschatological dimension in thought for Hegel, at least not in any standard interpretation of the text. The transformation of self-consciousness to reason happens when reason finds a purpose or principle which warranted, if not forced the assumption of the new form or disposition in question by self-consciousness. It is, indeed self-consciousness that assumes this in Hegel, and not an eschatological moment. Yet, here I am inclined to read the invocation of eschatology as a mark of hope, and to consider another reading of the transition in question, were there to be any who may offer me one.
In her following section on post-hegelian subjections, those models offered by Nietzsche are considered, texts cited being Daybreak and The Geneology of Morals, who may have inspired certain Foucauldian developments, if not sociological mutations such as in Discipline and Punish. For Hegel however, we are reminded, the force of the assertion of an ethical imperative, for a body lies in the fear of death, which here while certainly bodily should also be read as the configurations of symbolic death or as Zizek would later characterise it, symbolic destitution. And here, I would say that such a person would not find themselves in bad company, for is this not perhaps a modern reiteration, or a psychoanalytically inflected evaluation of Sartre's condemnation of freedom, before an abyss of the world as it were?
A direction in the inquiry which I believe is of genuine interest, and may perhaps be developed on if it has not already is an account of the body in conditions of subjection, such as when the capacities of the bondsman's body are governed by the lord. The body here does emmerge as a site of contested ownership.
The observations regarding the libido, such as the libidinal interest in prohibition, and perhaps more tastefully, the extent of prohibition, elevated to a repressive law being only to the extent to which it may be generative of libidinal activity, or in which prohibition itself entails or becomes a libidinal activity - this I believe is an inadequete representation, even if succinctly depicted. What is left out here is the place of desire, which to appeal to the psyche's own sense of satisfaction seeks to pass through the nexus of the Other, understood not merely as another person, or people but as another logic of relating to objects of desire. In common parlance, a simple commodity which I would rather trade than own is a perfect example of this. Even if these objects themselves do not satisfy me, or let us say that they do and I prohibit myself from indulging in their contentments - it is of interest to myself, as a subject to engage in the activities of their trade which are possible only in the conditions that the articles in question are not prematurely shelved, owned, consumed or disposed of in some other means.
These Lacanian formulations, if left asside for a moment would yet reveal the conscience which Butler, following Freud seeks to highlight as the mechanism which takes pleasure in such renunciations. Yet here we can easily indulge in sychophancy without a theory of exteriority, which a conscience certainly requires, and our engagement with it. These, when provided dutifully by Lacan, within the psychoanalytic tradition - I believe should be adopted by the adherents of the above arguments in question.
Without loosing myself in these metaphysical formulations let me offer a final example of the predicament the author identifies - " According to Freud, then, the self-imposed imperatives of conscience are pursued and applied precisely because they are now the site of the very satisfaction that they seek to prohibit. In other words, prohibition becomes the displaced site of satisfaction for the "instinct" or desire that is prohibited, an occasion for reliving the instinct under the rubric of the condemning law." And while this is read as a source of comedy, I do think it is imperative that the formulation of the law, its object associations, indeed its reasons are what we foreground - rather than pointing out the pleasure of operating beneath its protective veil as it were.
Such hierocratic perversions as it were, are juxtaposed with the ascetic ideal presented by Nietzsche, as a will to nothingness. Distinct sematically in terms of the object of desire - a similar desiring structure is identified in their associations.
What is striking to me, as a reader of the history of ideas are the observations made regarding the ways these structural inhibitions and their libinally productive mechanism are perceived in the work of prominent theorists such as Marcuse and Foucault, for instance - "Whereas for Marcuse, the drives, or eros and thanatos, precede the regulatory imperatives by which they are rendered culturally livable, for Foucault, the repressive hypothesis, which appears to include within its structure the model of sublimation, fails to work precisely because repression generates the very pleasures and desires it seeks to regulate." Miniature portraits of the thinking of these scholars for the curious.
Now, amidst these rather pointed associations made regarding the regulation of the body, whether physiological, normative or juridical - and furthermore, a kind of libidinal investment generated from the very prohibition itself which the author notices in Foucault, I think it would be instructive were we to consider certain other normative practices of the body which rather seek to develop its felicity in movements, and capacities of strength, speed etc. Of course I refer here to atheletics, but also to yoga and gymnastics. Disciplines which while calling for significant training, regulation, prohibition, yes indeed discipline in every sense of the word - are guided by, let us call it, an exhibitionist impulse, a desire to showcase or share the capacities as constructed, and a very real, bodily enjoyment of the same. But, perhaps this is not the place to discuss any such disciplinary jouissance, if I'm not jumping the gun.
The interminable nature of these productive, even if regulatory practices of desire, as it were should be acknowledged in terms of what they may become for desire. Particularly when the formations of a subject cannot be expressed with the clauses, and conditions which allow it to reach maturity. Caught in this impossible repetition, what is sought is a means of utilising the disciplinary apparatus to terminate the circuit which stimulates its production. - "the desire to desire is a willingness to desire precisely that which would foreclose desire, if only for the possibility of continuing to desire."
Indeed, I am inclined to read in this drive to identify 'stubborn attachment' which apparently attaches to that which suppresses or negates it, a mechanism designed to gauge commitments and construct regulatory and explotative mechanisms which may profit from the inhibitions placed to their consumation. This, I would say seems an argument which Marx does seem to provide a rather more coherent structure for, though decidedly less metaphysical.
The author does place however, a certain protection against the exploitative mechanisms which subjection can be deployed for, and I would like to conclude the study of this chapter with its final lines - "If desire has as its final aim the continuation of itself—and here one might link Hegel, Freud, and Foucault all back to Spinoza's conatus — then the capacity of desire to be withdrawn and to reattach will constitute something like the vulnerability of every strategy of subjection."
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