Jørgen Michaelsen and N55 exchanging
Jørgen Michaelsen
Well, now we're already in the month of September, in fact already near the end of it. Some time has passed since the MANDATE exhibition. However, that doesn't mean that the work on the problems and considerations connected with this project have been abandoned. The thing is that on the one hand, there's an amount of material which is worked up in the exhibition project as such-but more aspects also emerge gradually; they are, so to speak, automatically generated by an exhibition like this-but also the reactions which do occur after all become important. As regards the former point, I can say that the implied interest in the production-as-represented of history in the meantime has been further developed in my exhibition GYNOCRAFT; Jul. Bomholt. In this case, one might say I have taken up again the reorganization of certain more or less idiosyncratizing interests that I have been engaged in for a number of years, although lately in a rather passive way. However, let's leave it at that so far. As regards MANDATE, at least four points were on the agenda: 1) (as I already touched on above:) the general production of history, or historicity, and a specific development into the bargain: that of the Danish Social Democracy beginning in 1924 where the party formed its first government, by which the labour movement entered the order of parliamentarism; 2) the general 'doing-away-with' this historical material, or maybe rather some sort of formalized Durcharbeitung of it as a specific form of determination-and with this, the questioning of the specific 'worthiness-of-being-done-away-with' ('being-made-worthy-of-being-done-away-with'?) as a current or valid motivation for me 'as such'; 3) closely connected with the preceding: the general testing of the in effigie execution form; and 4) the general relation between on the one hand, the concrete-necessary consumption of time in reconstruction of historical objects, and on the other hand, the possibility of supersession through a dynamic which stays objective and relevant. And furthermore, another point might be added: 5) the general referring to the DRY-WET-COMFORT triad and its metaphoric-heuristic implications; in this place, however, I shall pass over the triad as far as possible since an essential part of the point of its specific appearance, in connection with the rest of the equipment in the MANDATE exhibition (the triad was represented in the form of a relatively modest photograph-in passepartout, framed and glazed, and with a brass plate-showing the hygrometer which defines the surrounding space as regards the humidity of the air from these three very categories), consisted in the signalling of a suggested partial problematic; a partial problematic, by the way, that remained suggested in the following GYNOCRAFT; Jul. Bomholt exhibition, although formally more materialized by virtue of the concrete hygrometer's being hang on the wall, and moreover expanded in contents via a diagram in the pamphlet of the exhibition under the heading Three (four) states of ideological matter and their historical phase transitions. Basic heuristic triad (extended). So in this place I'll primarily go on with MANDATE. I was very happy to have the opportunity of realizing the project within the framework of N55, since you represent a certain character of cogency-ideologically, stilistically, etc.-also widely relevant for my own reflections. And, of course, I hope that my contribution and our collaboration on it, and after it, has been able to produce some fruitful impact on the cooperative as well. I guess I'm not really capable of letting my introduction conclude in a tangible question-but I'm sure you could comment on some of these issues?
N55
First of all, it is important to understand that being preoccupied with changing the world is different from being an ideologist doing an ideological project. And, for that matter, that it is possible for people to work together on different tasks, and live together without thus being categorizable as a cooperative. All in all, it is important to understand that language is applied in certain ways in order to categorize persons in ways that respect neither them nor their work. Thus, these ways of using language are incorporated into our way of talking to such an extent that we don´t notice our own abolishing each other. Let us therefore have a look at what is decisive to the work of N55. Without anybody becoming the victim of his/her habitual conceptions. Most of our thinking and our discussions are conducted on a level where we repeat and repeat our habitual conceptions to each other. We assume that there are no other conditions to decide whether something is right or wrong, except that one does not contradict oneself nor is outright inconsistent with facts. Beyond this there only exists more or less thoroughly grounded subjective opinions. However, there is a level so basic that normally it doesn´t appear in our conscious mind, a level where everything does not revolve around subjective opinions. At this level things are simply right or wrong. Logical relations are the most basic as well as the most overlooked phenomenon we know. Logical relations are preconditions for talking together. Logical relations mean that nothing of which we can talk rationally can exist, can be identified, or referred to, except through its relations to other things. Logic is necessary relations between different factors, and factors are that which exists by the force of such relations.The decisive thing about logical relations is that they can´t be reasoned. Nevertheless, they do constitute conditions necessary for any description, because they can´t be denied without rejecting the factors that are part of these relations. Persons are, for example, totally different from their bodies. Persons can go for a walk, or they can make decisions. Bodies can´t do that. Nevertheless, we can´t refer to persons without referring to their bodies. If we say: Here we have a person, but unfortunately, he or she hasn´t got a body, it doesn´t make sense. Persons are totally different from the concrete situations in which they find themselves. Nevertheless, we can´t refer to persons without referring to the situations they are in. If we say: Here we have a person, but this person has never been in a concrete situation, it doesn´t make sense. Language is totally different from reality. Nevertheless, we have to perceive language as something that can be used to talk about reality. If we say: Here we have a language, but this language can´t be used to talk about reality, it doesn´t make sense. Logical relations have decisive significance. The absence of logical relations means that nothing can be of decisive significance: As long as one does not contradict oneself nor is inconsistent with facts, any point of view may be as good as the next-one can say and mean anything. Logical relations are conditions for talking together rationally. That part of the world of which we can talk rationally can thus be defined as the part of which we can talk using logical relations. But we don´t have any reason to assume that the world as such is identical with that of which we can talk rationally. Logic is something more basic than language. Logical relations are that which makes language a language and which assigns meaning to words. Therefore, one can´t separate learning a language from learning to observe logical relations. But as we grow up and learn how to master language, logical relations are not present in us on a conscious level. If we are conscious of logical relations, it is possible for us to decide whether something is right or wrong, and not to allow ourselves to be ruled by for example habitual conceptions and subjective opinions. Furthermore: a decisive logical relation is the relation between persons and the rights of persons. Persons should be treated as persons, and therefore as having rights. If we deny this postulate it goes wrong: Here is a person, but this person shouldn´t be treated as a person, or: Here is a person, who should be treated as a person, but not as having rights. Therefore, we can only talk about persons in a way that makes sense if we know that persons have rights. Or, to put it in another way: We can only talk about persons in a meaningful way if we know that persons should be treated as persons, and therefore as having rights. This is the fundamental ethical norm which is decisive if we want to talk about politics in a way that makes sense. Furthermore: The fundamental purpose of politics is to protect the rights of persons. If we deny this assertion, we get: The fundamental purpose of politics is not to protect the rights of persons. This suggests that a basic task of politicians should be, e.g, to renounce the rights of themselves and of others. This has no meaning. Or that there is a more important purpose to politics which doesn´t have anything to do with persons, and therefore also nothing to do with the rights of persons. That is plain nonsense. Therefore, we now know that the basic purpose of politics is to protect the rights of persons. In other words, we can´t talk about politics in a way that makes sense without assuming that the fundamental purpose of politics is to protect the rights of persons. Concentrations of power don´t always respect the rights of persons. If we deny this fact, we get: Concentrations of power always respect the rights of persons. This doesn´t correspond with our experiences. Concentrations of power characterize our society. Concentrations of power force persons to concentrate on the participation in competition and power games in order to gain a social position. Concurrently with the concentrations of power dominating our conscious mind and being decisive to our situations, the significance of our fellow humans diminishes, and our own significance becomes the significance we have for concentrations of power, the growth of concentrations of power and the clashes between concentrations of power. It is obvious that if we want to protect the rights of persons, we have to organize in as small concentrations of power as possible. Since the fundamental purpose of politics is to protect the rights of persons, it is of decisive importance to politics that we seek to organize in as small concentrations of power as possible. It is clear that we can´t leave it to others to protect the rights of persons. The notion that it is possible to elect a small number of people to protect the rights of a vast number of people is absurd, because here we are, by definition, talking about concentration of power, and thus about a concentration of power. And we know that concentrations of power do not always respect the rights of persons. It is clear that if is conscious of persons and the rights of persons, one must be concerned with politics. It is clear that if one is a person and thus engaged in politics, and conscious of the rights of persons, it becomes of decisive importance to organize in as small concentrations of power as possible. It becomes of decisive importance to find ways to live and behave, which correspond to our knowledge of persons, the rights of persons, etc. It is clear that this is our most important task, as our whole existence is threatened.
Jørgen Michaelsen
Indeed, there's a lot to what you've just said. I grant you that 'our existence' is threatened-politically, linguistically, economically, sexually, materially, spiritually, and in lots of other ways; but moreover, it is threatening as well-and perhaps even mainly threatened by its own threatening, or by one or several wrong or distorting ideas about this. (Actually, such an insight in doubleness is also quite threatening as a fact-or it may be, anyway; but here the optics probably changes from 'paranoid' to 'schizophrenic'.) However, first and foremost, I would like to concentrate our conversation a bit on the question concerning concentrations of power; for here we must ask ourselves: what does it take-or rather: how much-to produce what one may characterize as a concentration of power? How concentrated does power need to be before it may truly be described as a concentration? Which degree of imperviousness, which condition of critical power mass is a necessary prerequisite? And: what kinds of shape can power take? Virtually all kinds? In order to contribute an answer to this question, after all, in spite of my earlier provisos, I would like to introduce the DRY-WET-COMFORT triad as a framework for reflection. However, it would be a somewhat megalomaniacal claim that the installation/text GYNOCRAFT; Jul. Bomholt would be capable of presenting Power as some sort of privileged distillate-still less that such a display would generally be an essential purpose of the project (nor did MANDATE actually have that purpose); nevertheless, in connection with the work, an attempt is made at reflecting heuristically upon power as some sort of historical substance, a kind of fundamental matter which is capable of appearing in heterogeneous state forms that are, however, constantly being reciprocally transformed-actually quite analogous to matter in nature. With a perspective that is basically fixed by the three categories DRY, WET, and COMFORT-originating from the chosen hygrometer-it is possible to define power in conformity with a triadic, potentially tetradic, circulation system in which the 'matter of power' can either take solid shape: DRY; or fluid shape: WET; or airy shape: COMFORT. A fourth state form of a plasmic quality may be added: HYPERCOMFORT which is in all probability a radicalized COMFORT variant: a state perspective whose most important task is to introduce metautopian discourse. The specific critical points between the separate state forms, or phases, depend on temperature as well as pressure: the objective conjuncture of the atmosphere in question. The historical material must in its movement from DRY to WET undergo a melting process (liquidation) that heats up the components implied and makes them vibrate at steadily increasing speed. Before that they were in a half-totalitarian or fully totalitarian state in which they were kept together by strong forces that didn't allow them any internal movement-one could say they were integrated below the state ideological freezing point/melting point. A given historical matter has its own freezing point (in cases of 'impure' matter this point can be rather difficult to determine) which, however, always relates to the total atmospheric pressure from the general global development, as mentioned before. The fact that the historico-political development during the 1930s to a large extent allowed of the totalitarian makes it possible to imagine that this was due to an extremely favourable DRY conjuncture, which, however, shifted its direction towards other phases during the period following WW2. (In this case a rough draft must suffice.) Thus the phase transitions between DRY and WET respectively consist of processes of freezing and melting. If DRY is the totalitarian, then WET is the late modern welfare society-capitalism with mixed economy, depending on atmospheric pressure, etc. In this case the social components move faster. The sociocultural insides, objective as well as subjective, are now in a state where it is possible to determine their total volume (fullness), whereas no specific form is connected to the matter in this historical state. Thus the matter has somewhat 'come to itself', it has gained a certain degree of self-determination-the status of power has developed. Power has been somewhat disseminated. The distance between the components has increased. A bigger space for individual manoeuvre has been created. The total mass has become fluid and it can easily subject itself morphologically to the container into which it is now being poured-socially, culturally, etc. However, the WET phase isn't necessarily an ultimate one. In addition to certain constant tendencies towards DRY, the fluid plenitude contains latent potentials towards a third phase: COMFORT. This state is reached through boiling that transforms liquid into gas. When the matter is sufficiently influenced by heating, the movement of the components is increasing. At the historical boiling point (constantly depending on the global atmospheric pressure) the separate elements break loose from the organizing forces which have already been weakened to some extent. Great mutual distance enables the elements to move around freely, each on its own in all directions. In this historical phase the sociocultural body has neither a specific shape nor a specific volume. If things develop backwards into WET, this development expresses a process of condensation which reduces the historical speed of the separate elements again. If things develop from COMFORT into DRY, or from DRY into COMFORT, the process is one of sublimation. Besides, the basic triad can be expanded in various way: thus DRY indicates an extracorporal macro-principle, while WET signifies a 1:1-corporal meso-principle, and COMFORT indicates an infracorporal micro-principle (in this connection, HYPERCOMFORT must signify a 'nano' that transcends the corporal as it is known to us today). Furthermore, it is possible to subsume DRY under the symbolic, death, the paranoid, and the sociological, while WET may be subsumed under the real, nutrition, the (manic-)depressive, and the biological, whereas COMFORT may be subsumed under the imaginary, sexuality, the schizophrenic, and the psychological in general. As two fundamental blocs, the anal orientation of DRY confronts the prevailingly oral orientations of WET and COMFORT. DRY = 'grey', WET = 'black', COMFORT = 'white'. From this it appears that the aim is a dialectically integrated state which makes possible a continuous exchange in the reflection between objective and subjective levels. I develop this heuristic setup constantly, and that is one of the reasons why it's not possible for me to go too much into details. However, I do hope that I have succeeded in showing in a very general way that concentrations of power are something which can be thoroughly reflected on as expressions of historical developments between different phases-all depending on atmospheric pressure, etc.N55
The decisive thing is that concentrations of power characterize our society. If we deny this postulate, we deny facts. If we deny facts, we no longer know what we are talking about. We can pretend that we don´t know of concentrations of power, that we don´t know what concentrations of power mean. Then we don´t know what we are saying. One can´t abolish facts by pretending that they don´t exist. Likewise, one can´t abolish logical relations by pretending that they don´t exist. We can´t replace reality with more or less insane ideas. If we try to abolish facts and logical relations, e.g. by pretending they don´t exist because we don´t know better, or by making ironical fun, we lose the possibility of talking rationally together. We can no longer decide what is important and what is of less importance. It becomes impossible to distinguish between right and wrong, and we end up in a situation where we can say and do anything. By not taking language seriously, and hereby not respecting facts and logical relations, we maintain a situation where decisions are made on a basis of habitual conceptions, and social conventions, and subjective opinions. This is no good basis for anything at all. What is clear is that neither habitual conceptions, nor social conventions, nor subjective opinions necessarily respect facts or logical relations. E.g, a subjective opinion may be that persons do not have rights. That concentrations of power do not characterize our society. Or that the moon is made of cheese. The point is that if we are conscious of facts and logical relations, we get the possibility to decide what is right and what is wrong. We realize that persons have rights, that politics is about protecting the rights of persons, that this is the most important task of all, and that we therefore must seek to organize in as small concentrations of power as possible. Thus it is obvious that artists must be conscious of persons, the rights of persons, as well as the influence of concentrations of power, and thus must be engaged in politics. It is obvious that nothing can be more important than concerning oneself with this very thing. Furthermore, it is obvious that also artists must first and foremost be concerned with the making conscious of what we know and with attempts to live and behave in correspondance with what we know, and with trying to organize in as small concentrations of power as possible. Thus, here we have a case where the fundamental ethical norm, and thus ethics, becomes decisive for aesthetics. A case where politics becomes decisive to the performance of art: that aesthetics must first and foremost be an examination of and the science about possibilities of existing with as small concentrations of power as possible, and of organizing ourselves in a way which makes possible respecting each others rights. In a way which makes room for persons and that which has significance to them.
Jørgen Michaelsen
Indeed. For my part, the ambition behind my organization is likewise to try to limit myself as a concentration of power as much as possible; if only to be capable of exercising self-respect-and thus leaving room for the importance of other people (politically, aesthetically, etc.). But please allow me to introduce a subject that may perhaps immediately seem somewhat paradoxical. Thus: the fact that one, by atomizing oneself in 'the ocean of others', may become subjected to certain needs for functionally anti-social positioning; i.e.: the fact that if one really wants to get to the core of oneself-as-concentration-of-power with the explicit aim of abolishing one's own suppression of other persons and their importance, one may very likely find oneself face to face with the imperative of some sort of self-pulverization-a basically-permanently transforming intervention in hitherto indisputable substratum of an internal character, isolation as a necessary-conscious form of strategy, etc.; however, the relevant working process in this position of isolation begins to develop on a functional value level which-provided that this state doesn't actually produce the immediate ability to inscribe the diffuse regime of given forms of threat in an absolutely monolithic 'medium'-secretes a strategic-symbolic capital of potential forms and elements to a 'reunion' with the 'ligated' sociality: to the production of interhumanity on a higher level. However, in a situation where the strategic individual is living under such a thesis, a considerable amount of means of liberation related to self-understanding is first and foremost consumed by necessary investment in a structure which is perhaps first of all generally ambiguous in relation to the individual itself, but which enables the ideological metabolism to blast itself free from itself as a secreted inertness-in-differentiation in the continuous movement. As arisen in the concrete life process, this work develops through sudden changes, distortions, petrifications-as what might precisely be referred to as lived interideological atomization-within the given oscillation field stretched between tragedy and farce. But from such a sphere of redundant variability the relatively isolated circulation moves on to new organization. Processing of the dormant constructive forces of the state presupposes reflection on roles-and the same goes for a satisfactory adjustment (or, if possible, a total elimination) of threats against higher interhumanity. Forms of objectification are created as communism-anticipating subjectivity in its functional anti-sociality related to self-understanding passes through the prevailing: power, needs, etc.-towards the 'catastrophe' of community. Thus the critical interest in itself of the advanced ideological metabolism ultimately includes an interest in social happiness, in delight-with-the-others as well. And all things considered one must insist that every moment in this complex movement corresponds to underlying materiality (which is, however, evidently not mechanically reproduced). As things are, under the prevailing conditions, we are in a situation where self-understanding and autonomy are developed in a way that mostly leads to merging-socially, psychologically, aesthetically, etc.-with the state of misery which is produced and maintained through the control apparatuses of the late welfare state that are spreading everywhere: from the register of the elephantine to the most subtle. Thus the reflective-instrumental internalization of such moments will serve as a mediated motive power or lever for the long-term supersession of the very suppression that radiates from this dictatorship. The form of sociality that is produced by this may be regarded as a kind of absolute dialectic for extensive supersession of the mystifications of power. As regards the transformation of power in the direction of democratic control via quite immediate material practice within the given-1:1 'political' production or consumption-one may rightly consider that it looks like a cul-de-sac. At least the question must be: How does a kind of doubling of consciousness arise and develop, which can be taken to the necessary advanced stage for the production of sociocultural as well as psychosocial tendencies and contributions whose immediate expropriation must remain open to doubt?N55
The difficult thing is using language right. All sorts of theories, and loose assertions about this and that, may be well-intended, but nevertheless they add to the common repression of objective knowledge, which means that which can´t be denied. Wrong assertions and inconsistent theories are often affirmative and can always be justified on the basis of some subjective opinion: that everything is relative, and that any assertion therefore may be as good as any other, any theory as acceptable as any other: it is only a question of the chosen point of view, or of the mood one is in. The terrible thing is that rattling on in an inconsistent way, that supports habitual conceptions, subjective opinions, and concentrations of power, will be met with more sympathy than assertions which are right, and objective knowledge. We love having our habitual conceptions confirmed. But it is painful to realize that we are all idiots who act contrarily to the way we should, in spite of what we know. To realize that all of our existence rests upon decisive mistakes. Therefore, it is almost impossible to ascribe to logical relations and simple facts a character of reality. If we finally realize that something right is right, we believe that this relates to others only and not ourselves. We believe that we are rational beings who act rationally. This assumption is completely unshakable. We go on as we use to. We allow concentrations of power to characterize our society, and hereby we abolish ourselves and others, while believing we are rational beings. We´re all idiots who must understand that all of our culture rests upon decisive mistakes. We must be seriuos with language as well as with what we know, and not keep on trying to replace reality with various delusions. The difficult thing is using language right. Assertions are something which is made by persons in concrete situations. Concrete situations are the precondition of any use of language. We can make correct assertions about persons and concrete situations. We can talk rationally about persons and concrete situations. But neither persons nor concrete situations can be reduced to what we can talk rationally about when we talk about persons and concrete situations. In this way we can´t know precisely what a person or a concrete situation is, but we can know something about how to talk about persons and concrete situations in such a way that we don't contradict ourselves. We can only talk about persons in a way that makes sense if we know that persons have rights, and therefore should be treated as having rights. This is objective knowledge, and the fundamental ethical norm. At the same time, it is the basic purpose of politics: to protect the rights of persons. This knowledge enables us to make correct assertions about politics, and ensures that we don´t contradict ourselves, instead of asserting subjective opinions which do not necessarily respect logical relations and facts. If we realize that the basic purpose of politics is to protect the rights of persons, we can concentrate on the essential, instead of continuing to spend our energy on mutual competition and fighting each other. We can concentrate on finding ways to live and behave with as small concentrations of power as possible, in a way that which allows respecting each other´s rights. It is simply disastrous not taking this knowledge seriously.Jørgen Michaelsen
We know as a fact that power has an interest in maintaining and stimulating anybody as simple producers in the overaccumulation of the same materiality. And we know that the right use of language-i.e., a use of language which is essentially aimed at the sensuous-concrete situation with the purpose of maintaining the social implications of facts-is increasingly exposed to the effects of the attempts made by power to represent itself as given through the very same sensuous-concrete facts. This indicates the agony of the critical reading if the critical reading isn't capable of permanently mobilizing new linguistic capitals where the previous ones have been destroyed. If we don't understand this, we'll reduce our present as well as our future possibilities of acting. In this way, power's constant expropriation of the means of representation of facts inevitably causes that a use of language which is immediately right in a given concrete situation is transformed into an element of self-suppression: that which was previously a logically adequate expression of a given concrete situation is now not only a baseless assertion in relation to critical reading as well as practice-but also a direct source of suppression. Thus we see that this logic of internalization must permanently be terminated through the right practice if we don't want our present as well as our future possibilities of acting to be abolished. We know that power has an interest in maintaining us as isolated living-dead social particles, or aggregates of particles, in the given state of consumosis whose immediate appearance as abundance is apparently supposed to serve our present as well as our future possibilities of acting. But this order of monolithic growth is permanently based on that very transformation of the right use of language of concrete situations into habitual conceptions that maintain the system.. Thus we here see how the liberation of the concrete life process presupposes our ability to analyze power and oppose its infiltrates in the right way. We have seen how habitual conceptions of ends and means can produce self-repressive distortion in the individual person as well as in the communist community if these are not capable of understanding the way that power functions in concrete situations or in general. Power wants to maintain the reality character of the given conditions by social investment in rights that immediately support the growth in interhuman forms of exchange, e.g., freedom of expression. Confronted with this development the social individuals must, each on their own, experience power as hit by downward credibility-as an inhuman apparatus trying to stabilize itself through proclamations on pseudo-solidarity, etc. etc. Power exercises this self-consolidation by continuous appropriation of the realization produced and expressed as concrete in the critical individual or the critical community: that which is today a fact to the critical individual or the critical community is tomorrow bricks and mortar for the foundation of power. Thus we see how the critical individual or the critical community, down to the slightest detail, must mobilize the prerequisites for a permanent position on superseding the performative contradiction produced in the historical process. If we are not able to develop the right understanding of this-and, subsequently, the right understanding of this understanding, as well as an understanding of the implications of the dialectical practice in its total consequence which is triggered off by this-then we are undermining our present as well as our future possibilities of acting. We have seen that habitual conceptions of objective knowledge create confidence in phase of individual or collective reconstruction, i.e., in a phase where power has already destroyed a large part of present as well as future possibilities of acting. In this case the concrete situation may be experienced as if subjected to an inertness whose appropriation through adequate description as a fact appears as the prerequisite for future creation of potential supersession. In relation to the synthesizing potential of power, this condition has caused a lot of idiocy on conceptions of the historical form and content of real communism. We now know that maintaining the concrete in logical relations may produce a meaningful or meaningless supersession of power and its forms, depending on the way in which we choose to go on developing the critical work. If we do not choose the right form of critical supersession of the synthesizing potential of power, we are not only abolishing our present as well as our future possibilities of action but also launching a self-abolition through the internalization of institutionality which can only produce the inhumanity that power wants. Under the present historical conditions the supreme concentration of power is aiming at the general abolition of concrete human relations in the conception of another world order; a world order in which humanity and rationality become identical. However, we know that this is the construction of power. And we know that power will develop through manifold metamorphoses across manifold strata with the purpose of expropriating and appropriating the means of production of facts no matter where these are situated in time and space. This politics of power is not intended to respect and protect personal rights-although power will perhaps maintain such things itself. This politics of power is not intended to bring an end to exploitation of any work at facts and their productive autonomy (concerning minorities, cultural peculiarity, suppression of women, the basic understanding of everyday life, etc.)-although power will perhaps maintain such things itself. None of this is, nor can it be the purpose of this politics. And now we are able to see that only by knowing how to read the synthesizing potential of power, as regards the facts and the production of facts, we can avoid abolishing our present as well as our future possibilities of acting. Such a reading will produce a practice that concentrates on the very question: How does a kind of doubling of consciousness arise and develop, which can be taken to the necessary advanced stage for the production of sociocultural as well as psychosocial tendencies and contributions whose immediate expropriation must remain open to doubt?N55
By distorting language and pretending that we don´t know what is right, and that simple facts don´t exist, and that logical relations are only something which has been made up, one may go on dissolving and trivializing forever. Furthermore, one may by the use of various refined distinctions and even more incredible implications which rest upon unreasoned postulates and loose theories, fancy that black is white. One may fancy that right assertions can be reduced to some sort of subjective criticism. One may fancy that objective knowledge doesn´t exist. One may contradict oneself, one may say and mean anything. It just makes no sense at all. It is still nonsense. In this way, one may go on producing meaningless postulates. One may be totally occupied with quoting each other´s fallacies, and confirming good colleagues in their belief that what they are doing is the right thing. In this way one may create a position for oneself. One may make a living out of it. One may have the most sound reasons for this, e.g., that one has to support one´s own children. One may compeat in putting forward the latest theories. One may even, via various fallacies, achieve the belief that one, by making wrong and meaningless assertions, is taking part in a kind of rebellion that criticizes concentrations of power. The terrible thing is, however, that in this way one confirms exactly the mistakes and habitual conceptions that help preserving these concentrations of power, and give the game all to themselves. Once again: we try to draw the attention to the following: persons have rights and should be treated as persons. If we deny this fact, it goes wrong: here we have a person, but this person should not be treated as a person. Or: here we have a person, who should be treated as a person, but not as having rights. Thus, we can only talk about persons in a way that makes sense if we know that persons have rights. Or, put in another way: we can only talk about persons in a way that makes sense if we know that persons should be treated as persons, and therefore as having rights. This is objective knowledge which cannot be denied without us contradicting ourselves. Concentrations of power do not always respect the rights of persons. If one denies this fact, one gets: Concentrations of power always respect the rights of persons. This does not correspond with our experiences. Concentrations of power characterize our society. Concentrations of power force persons to concentrate on participating in competition and power games, to create a social position for themselves. Concurrently with the concentrations of power dominating our conscious mind and being decisive to our situations, the significance of our fellow humans diminishes. And our own signification becomes the signification we have for concentrations of power, the growth of concentrations of power, and the conflicts of concentrations of power. It is clear that persons should be consciously aware of the rights of persons, and therefore must seek to organize the smallest concentrations of power possible. It is clear that our most important task altogether is to protect the rights of persons.