dmitry olshansky - a note on post-marxist ideology and intertextuality from althusser to kristeva

8/12/2019 Dmitry Olshansky - A Note on Post-marxist Ideology and Intertextuality From Althusser to Kristeva

1/8

Dmitry Olshansky

A NOTE ON POST-MARXIST IDEOLOGYAND INTERTEXTUALITY FROM ALTHUSSER

TO KRISTEVA

American Marxism in many ways draws on the method deve-

loped within the French structuralism and Russian formalism. Philip

Goldstein in his book Post-Marxist Theory: an Introduction (New

York: SUNY Press, 2005) focused only on French Marxism ignoringpost-Marxists doctrines developed in other parts of the world. The-

refore, a more adequate title for his book would have been

Post-Althusserian Theory, because he focused mainly on a very

local reading of Marx by Louis Althusser and his French and Ameri-

can disciples E. Balibar, P. Macherey, S. Resnik and R. Wolff.

Tony Bennet in his Formalism and Marxism (London: Me-

thuen and Co., 1979) following French rewriting of formalist me-

thod noted R. Jakobsons and M. Bakhtins influence on both Mi-chael Foucaults method of archeology, on Barthess semiology and

on Lacans structural analysis.

John Frow in his book Marxism and Literary History (Cam-

bridge, 1986) repeats Bakhtins thesis of active position of the reader,

who discovers a context of reading rather than any obvious meaning,

supposedly intended by the author. Intertextuality is a system of tex-

tual references, codes and correlations, created through the very pro-

cess of reading. Therefore it belongs neither to the reader nor to theauthor. Hence, Julia Kristeva compares intertextuality with uncons-

cious, which also does not belong to the subject nor is it rooted in his

previous traumas. It should rather be discovered, and invented in a

process of speech. In Lacans words, the unconscious is the speech of

the Other. The same polysemy is essential for dream-work, which

also realizes the signifying process ability to pass from one sign

system to another, to exchange and permutate them.1 Intertextuality

discovers a field of references, makes a context of reading, opens up a

333

FILOZOFIJAIDRUTVO

1/2008

1 Kristeva J.La rvolution du langage potique. Paris: Seuil, 1974. P. 60;


2/8

place for reading, i.e. any order, in which the texts are arranged,

which Lacan calls phantasm.

According to Kristeva, Marx makes an epistemological break

when suggesting immanent method of formalization or production of

models2; Marxian method was developed by the Formalists, whose

criticism follows the object under criticism. In other words, to interpret

a text we should follow its own logic and its own way of self-interpre-

tation. In Marx, there are no critiques of history outside of history, be-

cause social being determines social consciousness3; any critique is

bases and follows the logic of the history. Both Marx and Freud reject

(1) any predominant truth that is outside of history, (2) common kno-

wledge that could explain all the singular details and (3) ego-centered

discourse. They look instead for the peculiarities, singular events and

details, which could reconstruct for us the logic of history. To interpret

a dream or a mistake, according to Freud, does not mean to include it

into previous knowledge or reduce it to the common meaning and col-

lective symbols, but follow its own strange logic. The text of a dream

should not be explained by another text as history should not be explai-

ned in a new manner, but it should rather be reconstructed.

Although, Kristeva argues that Freud provides that immanent

method far better than Marx, we can find the same conclusions in

Louis Althussers rejection of humanism and in Michel Foucaults

writings, who described Marxism (together with psychoanalysis) as

an open-ended discourse, which not only refers to a number of analo-

gies, but also constitutes the field of difference. They open up the

space for something different, which, nonetheless, belongs to that

discourse, which was established by them.4 Therefore to think in the

language of contemporary philosophy and to deal with its conceptual

field means to belong to Marx discourse. Foucault himself, who was

neither a direct Marxist nor a psychoanalyst, belongs to their discour-

ses; although he almost did not quote Marx and Freud in his key

works on Madness (1961), Archeology of Knowledge (1969), and

History of Sexuality (19761984) and does not have special works of

334

DMITRYOLSHANSKY

2 The Kristeva Reader. Ed. by Toril Moi. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. P. 76;3 Marx K.Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Ecomony

(1859) / Marx K. and Engels F.Selected Works in One Volume. London: Lawrence &Wishart, 1968. P. 181;

4 Foucault M.Quest-ce quun auteur? / Bulletin de la Socit franaise dephilosophie, juillet-septembre 1969, pp. 73 104. [P. 94].


3/8

them, Philip Goldstein considers Foucault and I share his opinion

to be one of the key post-Marxist thinkers in France.

Thanks to Foucault who discovered Marx as an inventor of

a new discourse Marxism has been separated from both the applied

socioeconomic studies and from scientific discourse and consequen-

tly could not be reduced to the dialectical and historical materialism

only. It became not only a new theory, but a new way of theorizing,

[it] constitutes the object, including the human object, which it

purports to uncover5. Like psychoanalysis, which has no scientific

grounds, but could produce as many conceptions as there are analy-

sands. Like psychoanalysis, Marx avoids academic discourse, which

(1) always has an institutional determination, (2) looks for the com-

mon truth that belongs to the other, and therefore (3) is based on

master-slave relations; Laclau and Mouffe dismiss both the concep-

tual truth and scientific neutrality defended by rationalist philosophy

and the discourse of power/knowledge disciplining the subject. 6

Together with Freud, Marx argues that the subject is ex-cente-

red with regard to the meaning, which has been placed at the uncons-

cious or to the class-consciousness and remains unknown for the

self.7 According to Marx, class being determines the consciousness,

one exists in history, because one has been counted by the class, be-

cause one has been included to the symbolic order of production,

distribution, and consumption; the unconscious thinks of us (in

Freud), or the class interests stipulate the being of the self (in Marx).

Althusser further emphasizes that passive position of man, which is

neither the center of social structures nor a criterion of analysis.

Even though they were interested in structures that are beyond hu-

man beings and that determine the self, Marx and Freud, according

to L. Althusser and J. Lacan were not humanists.

Foucault also pays attention to a split of the subject and ar-

gues that history in Marx is neither accidental nor obvious move-

ment, but it follows unconscious logic and acts like desire8, which

335

FILOZOFIJAIDRUTVO

1/2008

5 Goldstein P. Post-Marxist Theory. An Introduction. N.Y.: SUNY Press,

2005. P. 38;6 Idib. P. 54;7 Jameson F.The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic

Act. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981;8 On desire in history in French Marxism see also: [1] Rancire J.Les Noms

de lhistoires : Essai de potique du savoir. Paris: Seuil, 1992; [2] Rancire J., Co-


4/8

according to Lacan has no object and is alienated from the Other.

Nevertheless, it acts upon, and rules personal lives. No one knows

the end of history, but it could be recognized by its results the

change of the socioeconomic formations; history should bot be un-

derstood and described, but constructed in social practice. Like the

desire that has no object, but has the effects that could be recognized

in a discourse only: desire is not repressed or subversive; it is a nor-

mal construct of modern discourses9, history in a similar way is

known to be an effect of socioeconomic movement rather than its

cause; it has no aim, but it has results.

Kojvian reading of Marx has stimulated research of several

themes in the humanities: first, the subject has been understood as a

subject of desire, not a subject of consciousness, like in Descartes.

Therefore, self-consciousness is impossible, because consciousness

is determined by the class desire and historical necessity.

Second, since Kojve introduced a splitting subject, which is

beyond the imaginary unity: it is alienated from the humanity by the

class relations (in Marx) or decentered in its relations with the Other

(in psychoanalysis). Lacans position coincides with Marxian

thought when he concludes that le dsir de lhomme est le dsir delautre10, i.e. desire has a mimetic nature and has to be a collective

product; one borrows the Others / class desire and follows it as if it

were his own. Kojve was the first to investigate the master-slave

dialectic from the point of view of the alienated desire. He concep-

tualized the class struggle as search for the recognition from the

Other. In his research on desire Lacan follows Kojves reading and

considers Marx to be a predecessor of mirror stage,11 when Marx ar-

gues that any commodity circulation presupposed a measure of the

336

DMITRYOLSHANSKY molli J.-L.Arrt sur histoire. Paris: Centre Georges-Pompidou, 1997; [3] Touraine

M.Un dsir dhistorie. Paris: Stock, 1977;9 Goldstein P. Post-Marxist Theory. An Introduction. N.Y.: SUNY Press,

2005. P. 48;10 Lacan J.Le seminaire, Livre I: Les crits technique de Freud. Paris: Seuil,

1975. P. 252; See also [1] chapterLe dsir de lAutrein: Lacan J.Le seminaire, LivreV: Les formations de linconscient. Paris: Seuil, 1998. P. 387 404; [2] Lacan J.Leseminaire, Livre VI: Le dsir et son interprtation. Paris: lAssociation freudienne in-ternationale, 2003;

11 Lacan J. Le Sminaire. Livre V: Les formations de linconscient. Paris:Seuil, 1998.P. 81;


5/8


6/8

phantasm of the subject, which makes possible social activity of the

subject and realizes the dialectic relation to the absent object.

Marxists efforts to release the identity from the frameworks

of social determinism seems to be very close to the psychoanalytic

practice that allows both a split of any imaginary identity and rewri-

ting of the history of the subject in a new manner, including the sub-

ject into the new system of differences and desires, and making the

world possible [rend un monde possible]15; psychoanalysis, as apractice centered on subjects position in the real,16 wants to in

Marxs words not only interpret the world, but also to change it.

The question of the real appears again in Jacques Derridas in-

terpretation of Marx, which focused on the relations to the spectral

other, whose presence reasserts itself as the revolutions spirit or in

other ways.17 Or, in Freuds mind, the other, which always exists

[Kommt ganz regelmig] in human life as an example, object or anopponent.18 Derrida deconstructs not only the opposition between

flesh and the spirit, because the flesh never fully manifests the spirit,

but also following Lacan between ones own desire and the de-

sire of the Other,19 between the objective and spectral reality, and

between life and death, when arguing that they are two parts of one

and the same. Humans should always direct the question about theirlife to the Other and link their own being to that of the Other. But at

the same time there is no common being with the Other20, because

the Other who witnesses life is himself out of life or, according to

Freud, the Other is like a dead father, whose law comes to power

only after the murder; the Other comes as a law. Derrida contradicts

knowledge and the being: who possesses the knowledge does not

exist in the world. The Other comes as a transcendent instance, that

338

DMITRYOLSHANSKY

15 Lacan J.Le Seminaire, Livre II: Moi dans la thorie de Freud et dans latechniques de psychanalitique (1954/55). Paris: Seuil, 1978. P. 241;

16 Lacan J.Le Seminaire, Livre XIII: Lobjet de la psychanalyse (1965/66). Pa-ris: Seuil, 1988. P. 237;


2005. P. 63;18 Freud S.Masspsychologie und Ich-Analyse. / GW. XIII, S. 71 161 [S. 73];19 Le dsir de lhomme est le dsir de lAutre: Lacan J.crits II. Paris: Seuil,

1999. P. 106;20 Derrida J.Spectres de Marx. LEtat de la dette, le travail du devil et la nou-

velle Internationale. Paris: Galile, 1993. P. 14;


7/8

is present as if it is absent; like Lacans gaze of the Other, history ac-

cording to Marx possesses the subject, but remains invisible to him

and he could not predict and program it. History appears like a ghost,

which is out of life, but always obvious and claims its logic. It ap-

pears like law which legitimates the time.21 Like analytic process,

historical being produces new forms of consciousness and new sub-

jects and new reality and looks like a narrative.22

That is why Jacques Rancire and Pierre Macherey (in their

Object of Literature. Cambridge UP, 1995) compare politics and

aesthetics they could not simply represent the reality, but had to

change it: literature produces new outlooks and contexts, parodies

and deforms ideology, exposing its limits and gaps, but does not re-

cognize or condemn it.23 In Rancire, disintegration of common

reality is the way to create a new symbolic order, new system of co-

ordinates, and in Derridian manner, to make history more spectral,

both in politics and aesthetics. The art is not establishing generali-

zed world through absolute peculiarity of form, but is a rearrange-

ment of the objects and images, which compose already generalized

world or it is a situation that could change our views and our approa-

ches to that collective environment.24

Although Marx idea of the struggle between working classand bourgeoisie, the theory of socioeconomic formations and teleo-

logical conception of history that in Kojvean words should be

over with the end of the totalitarian communism, today seems fo-

reign in a vocabulary of both contemporary social studies25 and phi-

losophical research and they could be interesting for radical revolu-

tionaries and historians of philosophy only. But Marxs idea that the

being defines a way of thinking and intention to make philosophical

discourse an actual social force (philosophers have only interpreted

339

FILOZOFIJAIDRUTVO

1/2008

21 Derrida J., Guillame M.Marx en jeu. Paris: Descartes & Cie, 1997. P. 12;22 After Foucault, Jacques Rancire calls history a fiction: Rancire J.La ficti-

on de mmoire. propos du Tombeau dAlexandre de Chris Market. / Trafic, Prin-temps No. 29, 1999. P. 36 47;


2005. P. 82 83;24 Rancire J.,Malaise dans lesthtique. Paris: Galile, 2004. P. 18;25

[1] Gorz A. Farewell to the Working Class: An Essay on Post-Industrial So-cialism. Boston: South And Press, 1982; [2] Wood E.M. The Retreat from Class: A

New True Socialism. London: Verso, 1986;


8/8

the world in various ways the point is to change it26) is still at the

issue; contemporary philosophy is still inspired by Marx turn from

abstract philosophizing to social practice, following his thesis that

the truth is proved in practice.27 Post-Marxist philosophy does not

classify different knowledge about truth, but it became a practice of

making a body of the truth; from general knowledge it turns to a sin-

gular truth of the subject and his being in the world. That is why,

materialism of Marxian discourse which has really become an

alibi word for Marxism28 is still topical for post-modern intellec-

tual space.

In conclusion I would like to pose a question about one of my

observations. Today Marxist discourse moved from social studies

and political vocabulary to literary critisism, aesthetics and psychoa-

nalysis; we could more easily find Post-Marxists theories in art jour-

nals than in newspapers and politiciansspeeches. It shifts its interest

from socioeconomic formations to reading formations (T. Ben-

nett), from critiques of capitalist politics to research of cultural-ca-

pitalist state (T. Miller). Should we interpret that movement as a fai-

lure of Marxism as a real political force or conclude that it its

inadequate to describe of social relations in contemporary society?

Or should we turn to Marxist discourse questioning the reality?What means to be real? Or should we consider Marxism to be a way

of exposing the imaginary world of politics and manipulative me-

chanisms of postindustrial society, claiming that reality consists of

symbolic representations only? Or should we be looking for trans-

formation in the Marxist discourse itself, which discovers new sym-

bolic resources in structuring the reality and makes the world pos-

sible beyond historical materialism, socioeconomic formations and

class struggle theory, which were merely previous versions ofMarxism?

340

DMITRYOLSHANSKY

26 Marx K.Theses on Feuerbach. / Marx K. Earlier Writings. Harmindsworth:Penguin, 1981. P. 422.

27 Ibid.28

Spivak G.C.The New Historicism: Political Commitment and the Postmo-dern Critic/ The New Historicism. Ed. by H. Aram Veeser. New York: Routledge,1989. P. 277 92 [P. 285].

dmitry olshansky - a note on post-marxist ideology and intertextuality from althusser to kristeva

Documents