The Absent Book:
On Luciano
Canfora’s review of Domenico Losurdo’s La
Sinistra Assente
I must start by declaring that the main feeling I
experimented when reading Luciano Canfora’s review of
Domenico Losurdo’s La Sinistra Assente
was disappointment: frankly too meagre a text, compared with what one might
expect from such an important author commenting on such another important
author. Truth be said, writing in newspapers, and all the more having to do
that with a certain periodicity, almost compulsively, ought to be assumed an
important factor here. I haven’t many doubts in my mind that this may easily be
considered… well, almost an irrelevant writing, something that a momentarily
overburdened Canfora has simply scribed in a rush, in order to satisfy
commitments vis-à-vis the press. He hasn’t quite exactly made justice to
Losurdo, that’s for sure; but so what? We all have lapses, we all may do or say
silly things one moment or another, especially when pressed by circumstances.
That shouldn’t be too considered; as a matter of fact, that should very likely
be disregarded… except maybe inasmuch it brings something of relevant qua
symptomatic.
Following what Canfora (himself guided by Leopardi)
acutely notices in La Natura del Potere,
Hegel’s famous dictum about the press being “the Bible of modern man” is
something to be understood with a considerable grano salis. Portuguese common saying that to write in newspapers
is to write in the water (“escrever em jornais é escrever na água”) is probably
not so nonsensical or absurd, after all: as a matter of fact, one must
recognize that is likely mostly right. Maybe, regarding newspapers, sometimes it
makes indeed sense to think in terms of a “cunning of reason” that imposes a
momentary loss in comprehension in the name of the possibilities opened
referring to accrued extension of knowledge (religious Reformation vis-à-vis
Renaissance, to use one customary historical analogy, or maybe also political
revolutions vis-à-vis religious Reformation); but then again, a “cunning of
unreason” may also in certain circumstances operate and, instead of a merely
momentary, pedagogic pause, we may witness a quite consistent, global decline.
Hence newspapers-readers, once a lower strata in intellectual terms (if
compared with the typical book-reader), being now an upper strata, when
compared with the majority of mere television-watchers. Both perspectives and
both possibilities are, I think, actually worth careful consideration.
This discussion would, all too obviously, lead us very
far and astray from our subject. But at least that may also point out a number
of aspects no doubt crucially characterizing our times: the precedence of
immediacy vis-à-vis patience, for instance; or the dominance of things
fragmentary over any intuit of global perception and in depth understanding of
reality (“grand narratives”, as they say); or, to put it like Losurdo himself
does, the primacy of sheer emotion over thought; and also of the means how such
cultural changes are susceptible of being indeed monitored and used by ruling
circles, the “dominant class” now imposing its ways not so much by supplying
the basic format of dominant ideas, but mostly by relentlessly imposing
dominant emotions: this fact no doubt occurring within a generic
“estheticization of politics”, that much we may take for granted; but also
within an even more global and deeper cultural process, apparently making
“post-Gutenberian” societies massively reflow into rather pre-Gutenbergian
ways, and coming down to performatively confirm Humean notion that “reason is
and ought only to be a slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other
office than to serve and obey them”.
There must be, however, some limitation to the
validity of that idea: otherwise, what would be the very point of even spelling
it out, right? The present situation is, therefore, rather abundant in ironies.
As a matter of fact, one of them directly stems out of the fact that
Losurdo’s book is indeed mostly a book… well, to say the truth, a book rather
absent from Canfora’s review, that practically does not refer directly to it,
except in which regards the vexatia
quaestio of nowadays China, or to be more precise the “right” position of
“Western Left” regarding nowadays China. This irony, however, operates already
on a secondary semantic layer, that is, on top of the likely primordial fact
that Losurdo, in recent years, had an important friendly polemical exchange of
ideas precisely regarding the issue of left-versus-right with another author,
the in-the-meantime disappeared Costanzo Preve, whose absence is probably one
more relevant “missing link” for the reconstitution of the set of circumstances
that made this book not only possible, but really also necessary.
Now, in what concerns evaluations of present times, I
frankly think that countries belonging to what is usually called “the West”,
with their/our still formally democratic regimes, indeed mostly behave the ways
how conscious denigrators have traditionally depicted democracies: the
monstrous, slave-of-the-passions, greedy, violence-prone, gullible and
easily-prey-of-manipulation, brute mob: the list of clichés is presumably
endless, but it’s probably good to read the useful reminder by John Robinson
Jeffers, even if it properly applies not quite to humankind in general, but
only to what one might call “North-American humankind”, or maybe “Western
humankind” (here, please: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jeffers1.html). In a way, I guess this may be
considered a “curse” spelt by those conscious denigrators; or, from a slightly
different angle, a self-depreciative and also self-fulfilled prophecy by
subsequent generations. The author of Democracy
in Europe: A History of an Ideology (one my all-times favorite books, dare
I say, and actually an indispensable moral and political compass for the
understanding of present days) probably does not disagree substantially from
that idea. Still, we all have to endure the permanent and omnipresent
propaganda, and censorship (hence often tending to become also
self-censorship), which insists in depicting “our” (“Western”) history as a
history of an exceptional, yet unstoppable triumph of democracy, a fact which
would mostly result in our societies’ capacity, and really convenience, to
dis-consider whatever might be occurring else in the world: anything of what
“we” are not the protagonists is, therefore, not even remotely valid or worth
attention.
Of course, all this very much leads our societies to a
state of generalized mental confusion; and that is precisely where an element
shows up, amidst what Canfora argues in the review, that seems particularly
valid: namely, the notion that China ought to be recognized as significantly
different from Europe in some essential points, which makes PRC's global
experiment as something deeply “inedito” in human history. That may well be an
extremely valid point. First and foremost, if we are to respect others, we must
respect them in their otherness. That fully applies to Western studies on
China, and I am aware that there is such a huge tradition of writings precisely
on this topic that I will skip the subject immediately after having mentioned
it. And yet, as Canfora probably knows much better than anyone else, the
recognition of alterità is only the
first half, so to speak, of the researcher’s métier. The other part consists
of, by a recurrent appeal to analogy, redirecting that discovered otherness, or
novelty, into a reprocessed, enriched fundamental identity, or universality…
which still incessantly restarts its “work” of producing/discovering otherness,
permanent novelty, etc. And so, by dealing with the subject of China, the
researcher must, as with any other subject, pick-up his/her analytical tool-kit
and, hoping for the best, consider the evidences based in his own intellectual
resources, assuming always the possibility of discovering novelty/otherness
behind illusory familiarity, or in other cases precisely the opposite:
fundamental equivalences hidden by exotic wrappings.
Great Divergences
Once that is assumed, two or three supplementary
notions need to be mentioned. One of them is of course the idea of a “Great
Divergence” that, for a number of different causes (some of them
random-originated) produced since the 18th century a growing
economic gap between Western societies and the Rest-of-the-world, particularly
China. This is an extremely serious issue, concerning which theories may
besides be spelt in a mostly self-celebratory fashion (“we, the westerners”,
the exceptional races, the unique culture, blablabla), but in other cases, and
rather on the contrary, emphasizing precisely the random element, the
precariousness of each-and-all economic development processes, and indeed also
civilizing processes. Be as it may, the fact is that nowadays the massive
economic irruption of China has mostly meant the reversion of such Great Divergence,
that is a crucial fact to retain, as Losurdo pertinently refers more than once
in his book. However, and besides being extremely important in itself, with
hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens now accessing the benefits of
civilization (an aspect that only overly spoiled brats, Western academia’s enfants gâtés may even dream deny
importance), this fact constitutes in itself a huge step into the discovery of
a Southeast Passage for the World-Spirit, largely amplifying the capabilities
for the protagonism of non-Westerns in the stage of Universal History. In other
terms, it’s not just China: it’s all the so-called Third-World that, after
being colonized for centuries by the “exceptional West”, was also at a certain
point afterwards explicitly dumped, let down in neocolonial circles (with for
instance Africa being assumed as mere trash-land, “the lost continent”, an
opinion often proclaimed as official wisdom referring to economic development
in the 1990s), and is now taking advantage of the momentum, indeed being
massively sucked forward by the vacuum-cone produced by China’s economic
extra-big push. As a small example among hundreds of possible others, let me
mention the recent reconstruction and full rehabilitation of Angola’s railways,
built in colonial times and after abandoned, massively sabotaged by UNITA,
often went into complete ruin (much for Schadenfreude of neocolonial spirits, always running high here in
Portugal, very often with “left-wing” gown), and now at last fully recovered
and used in normal conditions, actually starting to experience new extension of
lines (whereas by contrast important tracks of rail network are abandoned here
in “old Portugal”, courtesy of EMU, IMF and the local lackeys), largely thanks
to Angola-China cooperation, with direct intervention of lots of Chinese
workers, and really many Chinese companies involved, both public and private,
but always supervised by public powers of both countries (yeah, yeah, I’m
familiar with the hearsay, true or false: also with lots of corruption
associated, of course, of course…).
But let us avoid go into details or follow rumors.
Besides of the authors usually associated with the discussion of the so-called
“Great Divergence” (Pomeranz, Huntington, Duchesne, etc.), I think crucial to
mention also Giovanni Arrighi, among other things because he drives the
discussion of China’s recent case into a theoretical framework which, unlike
the one of those authors, is largely Marx-inspired. But even far beyond such
aspect, I do think Adam Smith in Beijing
absolutely indispensable, Arrighi’s “prezioso studio” no doubt including some of
the deepest things written on China in our days. Naturally, that doesn’t
conclude the discussion of the issue. Losurdo puts in parallel the reduction of
the Great Divergence in international terms with a novel, internal Great
Divergence in western societies, in other terms the huge growth of the
inequalities occurring in those during the last two decades or so, once the
disappearance of the “Eastern Block” left capitalism, and political liberalism,
sufficiently unleashed to have things fully their way. These discussions,
however, run partly aside China’s case; both for good and for less good
reasons. As to capitalism, although many aspects of Chinese economy now obey
its logic, the fact is that the instances of “last resort” in Chinese society
continue to be fundamentally non-capitalist, I fully agree with both Arrighi
and Losurdo in that point (and, by the way, also with Diego Angelo Bertozzi),
and sincerely deem things so obvious that the burden of proof must be put in
our opponents… who have until now brought nothing of really relevant for this
discussion, whether in terms of sheer facts and/or indeed regarding
interpretative schemes. Truth be said, Costanzo
Preve raised extremely interesting issues regarding this discussion (see here,
please: http://www.comunismoecomunita.org/?p=2782), but none of them in my opinion
really able to dispute the socialist nature of Chinese society. Maybe this is
not a Marxian socialism, fair enough. Maybe it’s instead a half-Confucian,
half-Lassallian socialism, but so what? It is still a socialism, and that
should definitely be the most important thing. (Incidentally, calling “state
capitalism” to a regime where the propriety of means of production is public,
like Charles Bettelheim and others did, for instance, referring to Khrushchev’s
and Brezhnev’s USSR, seems to me not only a deep political mistake, but above
everything else an utmost absurdity. Bettelheim and other soixante-huitarde thinkers, officially of a Maoist or semi-Maoist
persuasion, are to be first considered for what they really are, i.e.
“anarcoide”, before any relevant and productive discussion in officially
Marxist terms may even be initiated).
Other issues are, for instance, China’s so much
talked-about growth of inequalities, and also PRC’s single-party regime. As to
the first, probably it’s enough to mention the important aspect that Chinese
inequalities, unlike Western ones, fundamentally respect the so-called Rawlsian
rule of “maximin”, that is to say, in case the historical path had been
otherwise, even the least well-off in China would be rather worse than they are
now. The changes occurred benefitted virtually everybody in Chinese society,
crucially unlike with us, Westerners. Moreover, China fully qualifies to be
considered a state where principles of “rule-of-law” predominate, and also
where social mobility (and particularly opportunities for upwards mobility) is
an important part of the social fabric. And so, as to those aspect PRC, which
is besides a staunch supporter of the rule-of-law also in international
instances, where by contrast the USA and its satellites are a permanent
producer of a Hobbesian (artificial, man-made) “state of nature”, has nothing
to learn from Western wisdom, and especially not from the official
“Western-Left” wisdom, that incessantly tries to obtain compensation from its own
pathetic failures “at home” by non-stop lecturing and severely admonishing the
natives of the Rest, with particular emphasis for those who impudently dare
diverging from its recognizably enlightened prescriptions. Finally, as to this
subject I should add that recent China’s social experiment has fundamentally rescued
not only the notions of socialism and equality, both within countries and in
cross-countries perspective (see for instance Mark Weisbrot: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/03/world-nothing-fear-us-power-china-economy-democracy), but really even the best
aspects of our own Western societies, otherwise now almost completely felt into
oblivion, such as Keynesianism, that may with justice be declared to have been
“saved from the waters” by China’s massive economic triumph (see also Keynes Blog, please: http://keynesblog.com/2014/03/18/cosa-ha-salvato-la-cina-dalla-recessione-la-spesa-pubblica-e-le-aziende-di-stato/).
Electoral gymnastics?
As to the quarrel of multi-party versus single-party
regimes (and leaving momentarily aside the numberless devices that make
formally multi-party regimes today in most of the West resemble much more de
facto single-party than proper multi-party realities), obviously I find the
first option globally preferable, but given an important proviso of “ceteris
paribus” reasoning. To take a radical contrast, single-party Saddam Hussein’s
Iraq was undoubtedly an oasis of civilization, if compared with the barbarian
desert of sectarian/ethnic conflicts that the Empire of Chaos brought to that
region... indeed, together with multi-party political institutions, complemented
with the assassination of roughly one million people, that’s undeniable. In
this case, therefore, let me opt for the single-party scenario. On the other
hand, I have no doubts in declaring that nowadays’ multi-party regime of Bashar
al-Assad’s Syria is substantially preferable to previous single-party Syrian
regime, also of Bashar al-Assad’s… except, of course, for the fact that
nowadays regime has to endure an atrocious undeclared war by the Empire ant its
regional allies, which makes everything different… and so, we must step back
into strict “ceteris paribus” proviso.
China did not yet venture into multi-party
experimentation, for the time being. But I think that, apart from the generic
clauses I first expressed, one should mostly wait and see. Who knows what else
of “inedito” may in the future show up, coming from that landscape? Hopefully, that
will safeguard the mostly socialist character of the social fabric. But what is
really the horizon of my hopes, when compared with the almost endless
complexity of things? By contrast with that, and in which concerns post-Soviet
Russia, a case that Canfora apparently reduces to a mere restauration of “electoral
gymnastics”, I am also rather inclined to recommend more caution. If we
consider, for instance, Igor Strelkov’s writings on the present situation
(here, please: http://www.globalresearch.ca/russias-hope-for-rebirth-social-justice-and-national-mobilization/5409244) we are immediately captured by the the upper-hand
gained by pre-Soviet Russian imaginary in the discourse of a person who still
is no doubt one of the main protagonists of present days Russia’s heroic
struggle for its existence, against the aggressive western hordes of NATO and
its allies. Strelkov’s talk is, indeed, astoundingly similar, as to some
aspects, with German 1914-18 “war ideology”, probably much more than what the
Russian military leader even dreams. His own notions of a multiplicity of
different national cultures, each of them trying to develop its potentialities
by struggling for a place in the sun, immediately resound Herder, Darwin… and
indeed many other Western European social philosophers. But one of the traits
of our situation is precisely those ideas emerging within a mental context
where Russian alleged uniqueness is the element emboldened. Does this all
“interpelate” us qua Westerners, but also qua “leftists”, and maybe even
Marxists? Well, I think it definitely preferable that way. But most of these
subjects concern us directly regarding our condition of citizens of NATOland,
and in my opinion we should consider it primarily in those terms.
Must a post-Soviet Russia appeal to this kind of discourse in order to
become able to fight its “existential” struggle and stay alive, avoiding
Western dismemberment (and transformation into a bunch of satrapies susceptible
of subsequent western fagocitation)? There was a time, let us remember, when
Soviet leaders chose to put Marxism momentarily aside, or at least render it palatable
to Russian patriotism, or even induce its merging with Russian national
imaginary, in order to propitiate a struggle for a much aggrandized notion of the
Russian Motherland, which unquestionably produced also its finest hour. Was
this (as they always keep saying) just one more betrayal of Marxism by the
infamous Totalitarian Ogre? Arguably so… but isn’t our case, now, with
mainstream “Western Left” at the best scenario “neutral” and “equidistant” in
this conflict, whether nor deep inside undeniably pro-Maidan, frankly a much
more serious case of betrayal and, on a much more deep level, indeed susceptible
of producing irreversible damage in the relations of Marxism (or at least
“Western Marxism”) with really all the peoples of the Rest?
That constitutes, I think, a group of questions worth much more detailed
consideration, and which I will only mention here, adding however that one of
the many merits of this book by Losurdo is precisely its contribution for
raising this kind of problems, most of the times absent from a mainstream
“Western Left” discourse that, although continuing officially Marxist, and even
officially proud of that alleged theoretical-ideological affiliation, has
apparently gone demented by Western hubris, and is therefore now completely
(albeit maybe not irrevocably) out of touch with the World-Spirit.
Saudações cordiais.
Lisboa, 11 de Novembro de 2014 (39th anniversary of the proclamation of
People’s Republic of Angola)
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