“Beyond” the “Metaphysics” of “the West”: an Exercise of Critical Deconstruction
for Arts of the Working Class, issue 8 (fall 2019)
The vast multiplicity of the post-colonial criticism raises the issue of the necessity to find a way of the new framing for structuring the process of thinking about the fundamental subjects of socio-political discourse, such as justice. I would argue that without new structures of thinking and vocabulary we are hardly equipped in the quest of a search for viable alternatives to the neoliberal capitalist acceleration. The effective way to approach this tricky issue is the method of deconstruction, adopted from the philosophical (or rather essayistic?) practice of Jacques Derrida, an ‘incorruptible’ French thinker whose work still irritates analytical philosophers. I would propose to disassemble the notions within the title of this issue - “beyond”, “metaphysics” and “the west” - and strip them of preconceived imperialist and colonial notions, which go against a certain kind of supremacy in the definition of power, normality and domination.
Beyond —> Transpolitical Osmosis
Let’s start with the notion of ‘beyond’. It presupposes the presence of something “inner”, familiar, charted and enclosed and “outer” - other, unknown and probably posing danger. The separation between the known and the unknown creates the allegiances, identities and the sensation of belonging that is crucial for construction of the cultural and political imaginary in a traditional way. “Beyondness” gives a way for marking up the territory in geopolitical framing, but even more importantly - charting the borders in the mind. Not thinking beyond specific ‘red lines’ is a fixation on familiarity within the world of the possible in the imagined. Creative writing, arts and even psychedelic drugs can be described as the known passages towards transcending into “the beyond” from the familiarity of the known.
The illusion of a normative border, even as oppressive as it can be, serves the function of providing the safety in the psyche that is as important as physical safety - allowing planning, extrapolative thinking or extending the trends of the present and anticipation of the specific scenarios of the future as most probable, for example. Going “beyond” means a dangerous trip that cost one loss of the stability, home and belonging.
Cultures of the ancient world were interested in breaking through the inner-outer dichotomy, that is in the root of the suspiciousness towards the stranger. For example the protocol of theoxenia in the Ancient Mediterranean, which obliged everyone to treat strangers as if they were gods in disguise, as ‘xenos’ (etymologically ‘friend/enemy/guest’), effectively undermined the fixation of the political imaginary membranes of the poleis and kingdoms. In comparison to theoxenia, the practices of contemporary hospitality (in tourism for instance) or diplomacy (in politics) clearly highlight the distance between “the host” and “the guest” from somewhere beyond.
I propose to counter the notion of beyond with inclusive transpolitics of osmosis. Osmosis is defined biologically as the process by which “the molecules of a solvent tend to pass through the semipermeable membrane from the less concentrated solution to a more concentrated one” or culturally as “a process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas and knowledge”. Osmosis is the process which in both cases requires the concept of a border as something immaterial and penetrable, invisible and unnoticeable. Therefore communications of the molecules and bits of knowledge are transpolitical - they are not defined by the dichotomist “us and they, friend and enemy” logic but presupposes impossibility of sustaining life without the constant flow of exchange that is not governed by the changing constructs of the socio-political imaginary, installed by the power agents in order to emphasise and accumulate control in the system.
“Metaphysics” —> Anti-cavial
Now metaphysics. Since Plato’s allegory of the cave, and further into Aristotles’ introduction of the domains of philosophy and science, the fundamental boxing of the human experience includes the opposition of physics and metaphysics. Imperial adventures in Athens, Macedonia, Rome and Christendom, were simplified as a justification of conquest in the name of“enlightening” the barbarians and “lesser peoples”, were the ones to universalized science and humanism towards post-Aristotelian standard.
Metaphysics got “dumped into” anything that epistemology cannot deal with via uncompromising logic and empirical experiment, as well as cannot ‘touch’ or prove materially. The inherent inferiority of the humanities had planted unglamorous seeds, while further European-led (often with blood and fire) Enlightenment and establishment of the “cilos” in academies, effectively diverting the knowledge pathways in proximate inquiries with different methods further from one another. The allegory had become over time a dogma. Any holistic or polymathic pathways towards knowledge have been gradually referred to as charlatanisms, magical and unscientific in nature. A stark example is the current state of brain research (countering “left-right” lobes enclosed functionalities and zooming in on the all-penetrating and uniting neural networks) and a movement against organ-based medicine (the way most of the medical infrastructure, research fields and hospital buildings are built).
In order to be able to take the conversations about the holism of alternative approaches to structuring human experiences into forms of knowledge, we ought to leave the dogma of Plato’s cave. An anti-cavial approach to ideas and structuring knowledge leads to opening up critical capacities looking beyond the familiar ways of building up epistemological blocks of the self-referential pyramid of knowledge, which if they continue to build in this form will eliminate the other ways of looking at knowledge just from the perspective of transactional costs, inertia and swamping co-dependencies in mutually reaffirming references. Leaving the cave means opening up the mind towards possibility of radical alternatives in functionalization of the phenomenological experiences of the world around us.
“The West” —> Oecumene
The geopolitical idea of “The West” roots in the separation of the Eastern and Western parts of the Roman Empire by the emperor Constantin which was later in history legitimised and instilled as “natural” in the imaginary by the succeeding Romans Christendom orchestra of the European kingdoms. If we rewind the history back towards 1 millennia BCE, even the mythological origins of the word “Europa” has little to do with how it is understood currently. Europa was a Phoenician ( Lebanon) princess, that was seduced and stolen by sky-god of Cretans Zeus, to be held in captivity on the island and give him children, that metaphorically represent the tribes of the Mediterranean basin.
In this time, as we can judge from the objects of literary and material heritage, the idea of the “geopolitics” wasn’t as dogmatic as it had become centuries later with the arrival of the concept of nation and united sovereignty -Leviathan. The world was seen instead as lined-up in borders of solid rock as the Oecumene - united by customs and protocols of interaction (like the aforementioned theoxenia example) trans-geographical space, where boundaries are fluid to the extent of the establishment of the contact between peoples inhabiting the shores. If we translate Oecumene borders in contemporary geopolitical language, it spanned the whole Mediterranean, Anatolia (modern Turkey), Middle East, Near East, Egypt, Horn of Africa, Persian Gulf, the Caucasus, modern Kazakhstan (probable location of the Amazons’ state) and Afghanistan, and arguably included regions as far as contemporary Ireland, the UK (there is evidence of cultural exchange and trade of objects in Archaic period, around 8 BCE) - and probably further.
This geography spanned far beyond the established Christendom allegiances that are perceived as transhistorical and somewhat eternal and was, quite possible, the truly cosmopolitan space united by the protocols of exchange and engagement many of which we have lost. The “island mentality” of contemporary Europe is a historical consequence of “caving in” the imaginary - what also led to intolerance towards otherness and imperial ambitions of standardisation of thinking, as I referred to in the section on metaphysics.
So what can be summed up as this new state of thinking, and be defined as the start of a new vocabulary? Here it is. An anti-cavial transpolitical osmosis in Oecumene
documenta: learning from Balashikha
Avenir Institute, Oleg Borodin, Anton Zabrodin, Katya Isaeva, Sergey Kischenko, Ikuru Kuvajima, Grisha Munrikov and Ira Tsyhanskaya, Maria Kapajeva, Natalia Timofeeva, Asya Zhetvina and others
Critical theory can be compared with ouroboros - a snake that is devouring its own tail. One of the most anticipated events in contemporary art world, documenta, has been taking place in sleepy Kassel since 1955. In 2017 we experience “art eclipse”: Venice Biennale, documenta and Skulptur Projekte Münster all are in conjunction.
“Learning from Athens” is the topic of “ecliptic” documenta14, for the first time taking place in two cities simultaneously. The capital of Greece and motherland of democracy became the point of departure for the curator Adam Szymczyk. Still-the-centre-of-the-(art)-world-Europe faced historical “eclipse” of crises: economic as a consequence of global financial collapse of 2008; political, in the result of Brexit; geopolitical, caused by turmoil in Ukraine, Middle and Central East[ migrational, with the largest registered wave of migrants and refugees from Africa and Eurasia in the recent history; and as well religious, ideological, etc. Moralistic context of the documenta14 curatorial concept offers to reflect on the subject of collective and universal values, formulated thousands of years ago by free citizens (although slave-owning ones) of the Ancient Greek poleis. How unique this period of “super-crises” and how acceptable is the euro-centric outlook on the the course of the “ship” in the midst of storms of contemporaneity? Is it possible “to learn” somewhere else now, for instance in Balashikha?
The group of artists, researchers and curators have decided after visiting documenta14 or learning about it from numerous reviewing and critical sources to have a look at the “eclipse” without protective glasses, just as Donald Trump from the balcony of the White House.
text by Denis Maksimov
Location: Moscow, Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building; September 10, 17.00 onwards
Almanac of Contemporary Culture
Russian Centre of Science and Culture, Brussels
Modern media technologies push protagonists to become ‘smupid’ (term coined out of merging 'smart’ and 'stupid’ by Douglas Coupland) - 'I am really smart, there is just no wifi access here’. The abundance of media content and visual information in form of carpet bombardment from numerous screens contributes to losing the ability to focus and go in depth in understanding of essential issues. This leads to inevitable lack of comprehension of totality of ideological frame, which we inhabit. How to preserve the ability to self-reflect and deconstruct the attempts of manipulation in the midst of acceleration and attention deficit?