A Conversation with Adel Mashayekhi on Banality: The Courage to Live in a World Without the Other

Ali Varamini—Mohsen Azmoudeh/ The death of Morteza Pashaei, the popular pop singer, and the events that unfolded at his funeral procession represent one of the intellectual turning points of the 2010s in Iran. It was after this event and Yousef Abazari's speech criticizing this situation that the discussion of banality and the banal became a greater focus of attention among intellectual elites in Iran than ever before. If we recall Abazari's point of departure in that speech and compare it with the historical origin of the term banality (banalité), we see that when we speak of this concept, it is not at all clear what concept we are talking about and what its limits and dimensions are. The historical origin of banality comes from the upper class of the nineteenth-century aristocracy, while Abazari, in the twenty-first century, labels a phenomenon that pays no attention to the political and the lower class as banal. The ambiguity of the concept of banality has also sometimes caused it to take on a moral application and, even beyond that, to turn into hysterical reactions. We have repeatedly seen instances where, in a foggy atmosphere—an atmosphere where distinguishing the genuine from the spurious appears very difficult—everyone labels the other as banal. While banality was increasingly on the lips of intellectuals, critics, artists, and others, we simultaneously witnessed the expansion of the banal (in the sense that Abazari tried to clarify). In the past year, especially in the realm of art, the situation became so chaotic and the boundaries of banality expanded to such an extent that even the one who was considered a symbol of banality (in the sense of emptying the public sphere of the political and the emancipatory) tried to dissociate himself from those he had given free rein to.

In this situation, it seems the first and most important step is to speak of banality in a formulation that is referable and free from ambiguity. If such a formulation can be achieved, one can then stand at a specific point and first defend or critique the formulation itself, and then, with its aid, proceed to critique phenomena and situations. In this context, we approached "Adel Mashayekhi," translator, lecturer, and philosophy researcher, to examine the concept of banality with him. In this conversation, Mashayekhi offers a very clear formulation of banality. He delves into Heidegger and explains the "big Other," and then, drawing on Foucault, explains how technologies of power hook the subject onto this big Other and subjugate it. In fact, Mashayekhi formulates banality in relation to subjugation and liberation from subjugation. Regarding art, he specifically believes that "real art is art that provides the possibility of becoming a subject. In such a way that it creates a new capacity within us." To better understand this formulation, you can read the detailed transcript of our extensive conversation with Mashayekhi below, but before that, we must thank "Massoud Karimi," director of "Nahid" Publications, and his other colleagues, who graciously and kindly facilitated the conditions for this conversation.

• As you know, the discussion at hand concerns banality and the banal. I was reading an article about how the discourse on banality essentially originated from the aristocratic class, and that the term banality emerged in post-Renaissance discourse after art became aristocratic and monopolized by a particular class. Whatever emerged outside this class, and whatever emerged apart from the commissions of the aristocratic class—whether we call it art or any other phenomenon—was labeled banal. Anything that conformed to their mainstream was called authentic art, high art, and anything other than that was called banality. A specific example is Édouard Manet, whose painting was once (at the beginning of the twentieth century) recognized as the epitome of banality, and even in an exhibition titled "The Rejects," which complemented an exhibition of the aristocratic class and displayed works they deemed symbols of banality, Manet's painting was presented as the benchmark of banality. Later, this discourse changed, and today Manet's works are bought and sold for millions of dollars as art or artistic painting, becoming the standard for high art. My point is, to what extent do you think the discussion of banality and its "anti"—authenticity, the authentic, or the high—is influenced by discourse? Does our understanding of banality constantly change? Can we stand somewhere and define the banal?

Regarding banality, one can discuss it historically and explain, for instance, from what period and under what conditions the phenomenon of banality or the notion of banality took shape, or even trace the word "banality" itself ("banalité") and the banal, exploring, for example, what "ban" meant in the feudal period and whether the meaning of "banality" is connected to this root, or, if not, from what point onward the word "banalité" came to be used in the sense of "banality." Another way is to start more concretely and see how we can use this word in the current situation, or what the state of its current usages is.

What has happened to banality, like many other words, is that in the worst case it has become an "insult," and in the best case, it has turned into a word for a kind of moral judgment, and in truth, here banality no longer has any specific definition or limits. We call anything we dislike "banal." Anyone can say that anything they dislike suffers from "banality." To avoid falling into this trap and to see whether banality can be used in a way other than this, we must see whether banality can be transformed into a critical concept or not. One way to transform banality into a critical concept is to tie it to the concept of "subjection." Of course, what I am saying is merely a suggestion and should by no means be taken as an absolute decree. Now let us see how "banality" can be tied to "subjection."

The banal is usually defined in dictionaries in opposition to the new and as the ordinary and conventional. But not everything ordinary and conventional is banal. In fact, without the conventional, there would be no new either, and everything would sink into pure chaos. The conventional and ordinary become banal when they become rigid, such that the emergence of the new becomes difficult or even impossible. So when the stratification of the conventional, the impersonal rules governing our speech and behavior, becomes so rigid that it makes any emergence of the novel, any change and transformation, impossible, we are faced with banality. Banality manifests itself in different fields and in different ways. In the field of human practices, banality manifests itself in the form of evading responsible choice and decision-making and placing the burden of decision on the shoulders of the “other.” You surely remember Heidegger’s famous sentences in Being and Time. We always feel, think, evaluate, and engage in action in all fields just as “others” think, feel, evaluate, and act. “Everyone is the other, and no one is himself.” This anonymous “other” can also be embodied in any mold: in the form of father, mother, leader, party, tradition, public opinion, and so on. It is under these conditions that speaking is reduced to idle chatter, repeating platitudes, and stating the obvious, and acting becomes imitation and mechanical repetition.

But the question that must be raised beyond Heidegger is the conditions for the occurrence of such a situation; the conditions that bring about banality in this sense. This is where technologies of power and “subjection,” or living in the bonds of power relations, come into play.

After linking “banality” with “subjection,” we must see what results the critical application of the concept derived from this link can have. For example, one of the common discussions, which you also mentioned, is the very issue of banal art or the banal taste of the masses: can banality in this domain be taken beyond the mere contempt for the masses and turned into a critical concept? Perhaps this can be done with the concept of “subjection.” It can be said that what creates banality and, in various fields, for instance in artistic fields, or even in the field of everyday life or in the field of political orientations, causes the formation of banal tendencies is living in subjection, being attached to subjection.

To understand what subjection is, it is not a bad idea to point to its opposite. The opposite of subjection is “subjectivity.” What is meant by “subjectivity” (here)? “Subjectivity” is a way of life, a way of relating to oneself and others, in the sense of an ethical disposition, “ethical” not in the sense of moral but ethical. The opposite of subjection is “becoming-subject”: deciding, deciding freely, deciding freely and taking responsibility for the decision; just as an artist takes responsibility for the work they have created. A kind of “autonomy” that is open to new situations without wandering into chaos: a way of life that differs from sinking into pure chaos or succumbing to “rigidity.” Or in other words: becoming an agent in the Spinozist-Nietzschean sense of the word.

To understand the different ways of living in subjection, one must first gain an understanding of the different ways of exercising power, an understanding of the coordinates of technologies of power. But the issue is that technologies of power do not work, cannot work, without a subjective base and support; that is, if an exercise of power is to take place and this exercise of power is to be successful, there must be a support in the self’s relation to itself of the subjects of power.

One might get the impression that I am using the term "subject" ambiguously. My first definition was that subjectivity is linked to decision-making and responsibility, and now I am speaking of a subject that is subjugated. This ambiguity goes back to the word "subject" itself. On the one hand, the word subject refers to the subjugated, subject in the sense of a subordinate, an agent who acts with the illusion of agency but in reality, without knowing it, is subject to a kind of "compulsion to repeat" that is mechanical; and on the other hand, a subject who is, in a cartographic manner, aware of the composition of forces that constitute their collective-individual life and, like an infinite series (in the mathematical sense), is not rigidified and is open to change, and instead of clinging to the elements of a force field and evading responsible decision-making, is sensitive to that which challenges the actual conditions of their life (the "sign"), and instead of repressing signs, strives to change the synthesis of the constitutive elements of their life—which, of course, in no way signifies individualism and isolation; for the individual is always a point at the intersection of multiple lines of relations, and being sensitive to the signs that call one's actual life into question, and striving to integrate these signs into a new synthesis, is not possible except through a kind of relationship and cooperation with others and participation in collective life; but this being-in-the-collective and participation in collective action does not conflict with individual freedom of action. It suffices to consider a team sport like football to realize that freedom of action and the responsibility that accompanies it do not mean existentialist isolation and do not conflict with collective action.

Now, let us look at the matter from another angle with an example; an instance of subjugation. Regarding Hoveyda's trial, we have read and heard various accounts; films, books, etc. I do not want to discuss the legal-political standing, the competence or incompetence, or the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the court at all. As for the death sentence that was issued, I absolutely do not want to evaluate that verdict. That is not what I mean; whether that execution was right or wrong, or whether Hoveyda deserved execution or not, is not my discussion at all. There is a point in this trial that is useful for our purposes. In all the different accounts, there is a consensus regarding the logic of Hoveyda's defense. The central core of Hoveyda's defense throughout this trial is the claim that "I was an employee; an order was issued, and I had to carry it out." The Other decided and gave the order, and I was merely the executor; therefore, I am not responsible. I had no responsibility whatsoever. This is one of the instances of becoming subjugated. Someone who acts and continues living under conditions where they ultimately cannot take responsibility for their actions. One might say that Hoveyda, in that situation, had no choice but to say those things to save his life. That is true, but before saying in this court that orders were issued and I was an agent with an excuse, or that I had a duty to carry out the orders, Hoveyda had acted in the same manner throughout his political life, or his thirteen-year tenure as prime minister. If this man had wanted not to be subjugated, the least he could have done was to step aside and remain silent. But he did not do this! I do not want to say that someone who did not do this deserved execution; that is not my point at all. A power machine existed, and this power machine, like any other power machine, could not have endured if people like Hoveyda had not submitted to subjugation, and Hoveyda was responsible in this respect. I repeat: I do not mean that Hoveyda did or did not deserve execution. That is not my discussion at all. It is just an example. In fact, one of the characteristics of this subjugation I am talking about is this: casting responsibility onto the system or the ruling regime or the determined positions within the actual technology of power. The most important characteristic of this form of life is its estrangement from "thinking."

This happens in most arenas of social life; that is, on the one hand, technologies of power shape people, and on the other hand, technologies of power cannot continue their existence unless a subjective factor exists. That is, on the one hand, modes of action upon action, modes of structuring actions, and on the other hand, the desire to act in the very way these modes necessitate, without the pause and reflection that are requisite for thinking.

To grasp this concretely, we can think of the anxiety that accompanies the lives of members of the “middle class” and the various tricks employed to quell it: from shopping for consumption, leisure, and pleasure, to buying and selling gold, currency, and land to preserve or increase the value of assets…, expanding “connections” and strengthening “public relations,” and striving to “pull” oneself “up” by any means; without a moment’s reflection on this endless anxiety.

• If we were to summarize your remarks so far, it would be that you see banality as the result of subjugation. Is that correct? That is, a kind of surrendering and yielding to the technology of power.

I want to elaborate on these very points as the discussion continues and until the end. How is the taste we call banal created? It is not just taste; it also includes banal beliefs, banal thoughts, and banal actions. All of these trace back to a form of life or a subjectivity, or, to be more precise, a particular subject position. In fact, if we want to refine the relationship between apparatuses of subjugation and technologies of power with subjectivity, we can say that technologies of power create subject positions. What is a subject position? Where this concept comes from is not important. What matters is the content of this concept and its components. What is meant by subject position? A subject position is a “position” in the sense that it defines the position of the “I” in relation to the “Other”; a pattern of relating to others that operates automatically, without the need for thought or reflection.

• Does this concept of “position” also have a relation to psychology?

In one sense, it is not psychological at all. I want to employ categories that, when usually heard, are assumed to be part of a psychological discussion; for example, the hysteric subject position, the obsessional subject position, the sadistic subject position, or the paranoiac subject position. In the framework of our discussion, these concepts are in fact not psychological at all. The most important difference between this discussion and psychological discourses is that in the various branches and offshoots of psychological discourse, firstly, these pathological categories are identified and defined based on symptoms, and on the other hand, the socio-political roots of these phenomena are ignored, and if the relationships that have shaped the individual and their psychological traits are to be considered, everything is reduced to family relationships.

But within the conceptual framework under discussion, the subject position is not defined based on symptoms. As I said, these subject positions are defined based on a pattern of relating to the other, and a single symptom may manifest itself in different subject positions.

Now the question is how patterns of relation with the other take shape. Precisely through technologies of power. Technologies of power should not be confused with institutions. A technology of power can be actualized in different institutions. A technology of power can be actualized in the institution of the family, the school, medicine, the penal institution, and other institutions. On the other hand, a single institution can, throughout history, be the actualization of different technologies of power. For example, in the history of the last 150 years in Iran, we can distinguish three types of family: the family that was the actualization of the technology of sovereign power; in the family, the father was sovereign, the mother either had a subordinate role alongside the father and collaborated in this exercise of sovereignty, or was completely subordinate and downtrodden. But in any case, this institution was an institution of sovereign power. On the other hand, for instance, in the subsequent period, we see that the family becomes the actualization of a disciplinary institution. In this disciplinary family, the father is no longer sovereign; he plays the role of supervisor and guardian. The function of power is no longer to demand obedience. We constantly hear from members of previous generations about how much prestige and status the father had and 'we wouldn't even stretch our legs out in front of our father; but today...!' It is true, children do this today, but that does not mean no technology of power exists anymore. The father is no longer sovereign but, in cooperation with the mother, the teacher, and the 'Parents and Teachers Association,' plays the role of supervisor, guardian, and observer. His main goal is the upbringing of children, taming children, and delivering docile and obedient bodies to society. Or the security technology: where the father and mother work like health specialists and their entire concern is the infiltration of all kinds of contaminations into the home. Now, viruses and microbes in the conventional sense, or so-called cultural viruses and microbes through virtual networks or through other relations. They want to prevent the entry of viruses and are constantly worried about the infiltration of these viruses into their children. In this way, this example clarifies that one institution can be the actualization of different technologies of power, and different institutions can be the actualization of a single technology of power. Of course, when we speak of these technologies in different periods, it does not mean that one technology replaces another. Different technologies always exist simultaneously; the issue is only the expansion and extension of technologies and the strategic dominance of one technology over others.

• So if we define the banal in relation to technologies of power and the subject's subjection to these technologies of power, can we no longer speak of a placeless and timeless banality?

It is by disregarding the historical dimensions of the matter that, at best, we arrive at 'moral judgment,' and at worst, it becomes 'insult,' and anyone can haphazardly tell anyone else that you suffer from banality or that such-and-such a thing is banal.

• For example, now in a capitalist structure, a luxurious life is considered a virtue, and all technologies of power drive the subject toward having a luxurious life. And banality, in the framework you proposed, means acquiescing to a mode of living that technologies of power propagate. If we had an alternative structure and the technologies of power in that alternative structure constantly sought to impose simple living, would living luxuriously in that simple-living structure, whose technologies of power drive us toward simple living, be banality?

If you had paid attention to what I was saying, this problem wouldn't have arisen. This question results from importing and imposing an opposition from somewhere else onto my argument. The basis of this discussion was not the opposition between luxury and simple living. The basis of the discussion was subjectification and subjugation. The main issue is not simple living or luxury; it is obvious that a life of luxury conflicts with subjectification and is concomitant with subjugation. The main issue is "becoming a subject." That is, even simple living, if it becomes an end in itself and does not serve subjectification, turns into a form of subjugation. This is the basis of Nietzsche's discussion in the third chapter of the book On the Genealogy of Morality, where he contrasts "priestly asceticism" with "artistic asceticism": for the priest, asceticism is an end in itself, but from the perspective of the artistic life, asceticism is a means in the service of a higher goal, which is free and responsible creation. It is obvious that no one can be a subject without their basic needs being met, without having reasonable food and clothing, without having shelter, and without having access to health and education services. This becoming a subject does not at all mean austerity and phenomena of this sort; in a reasonable and conventional manner, the conditions for meeting needs and transcending biological life and its necessities must be prepared.

One of the important results of this discussion is that what is introduced as mental disorders in fact has a social root. Considering mental disorders as individual or familial is one of the problems of the psychological tendency. The psychological tendency separates mental problems from their social root. In fact, wherever we encounter a disorder, we are dealing with a disorder in social relations. A mental disorder is in fact a message. Mental problems do not have a psychological solution; mental disorders, if they are truly disorders, can only be resolved through changing social relations, or more precisely, through changing economic-political relations. Given the points I made about the institution of the family and technologies of power, even familial relations are economic-political relations.

Mental disorder and its various symptoms are a kind of message about a crisis in the social environment. One way of coping is to suppress these crises, demands, and protests, which are symptoms of social problems, symptoms of disorder in social relations; in that case, these disorders will manifest themselves in another form.

It is possible that in a society, for example, there is no possibility for association and social movement, no possibility for human beings to collectively influence the conditions of their social existence and transform these conditions. In fact, a healthy society is one in which economic-political relations are constantly correctable, meaning they have flexibility and can be reformed through trial and error. The prerequisite for this is the existence of spontaneous associations and movements. When we speak of spontaneous associations and movements, we do not at all mean that these are violent. These associations can peacefully provide the ground for social change. Within this conceptual framework, there is no pre-established, once-and-for-all, eternal-immutable ideal model. A healthy society is not a heaven on earth, but a society in which people can collectively reform their way of life and, in fact, expand their social existence. The necessary condition for moving toward such a society is freedom of association and organization: only in this way is the possibility of apprenticeship and cultivation of political virtues made possible; it is in this way that the possibility of trial and error or the correction of disorders in social relations comes into being. Otherwise, what happens? Symptoms manifest themselves in other forms, protests show themselves in various ways, and ultimately, perhaps a kind of "social madness" will dissolve all possibilities of collective life within itself.

After these preliminary discussions, the main problem can be posed with greater clarity and precision: what subject-positions has the specific type of Iranian capitalism (the specific mode of realization of the "logic of capital" in Iran) and other technologies of power that organize our social life in connection with capital created, and how do these subject-positions reproduce power relations? The phenomenon of banality must be analyzed within the framework of this more encompassing problem.

• How do technologies of power come into being, take shape, and disappear?

That is a perfectly valid and apt question: technologies of power are not fixed entities, nor do they descend from the sky all at once or sprout from the ground. Technologies of power take shape to contain what does not fit within "society"; that is, in response to currents that do not fit within the actual order of things; in reaction to movements that breach rigid boundaries. The work of technologies of power is territorialization. For example, in industrial capitalism, the bodies of workers are organized within territories of production. Taylorism or Fordism was a form of organizing bodies within the territory of production, that is, a kind of territorialization that developed mainly after the Great Depression of the late 1930s. The issue is that while technologies of power place bodies within a territory, paradoxically, they simultaneously expel bodies from the territory: a kind of simultaneous territorialization and deterritorialization takes place. To explain this aspect of capitalism, one can point to the general law of capital accumulation and the creation of the industrial reserve army and unemployment, a form of deterritorialization. In periods of crisis, some are expelled from the territory of production. It is through these very flights from territory that the possibility (only the "possibility") of change arises, and consequently, an action on the part of technologies of power becomes necessary to organize these fugitive flows back into a territory. That is, processes of territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization occur simultaneously. When a technology of power is unable to reterritorialize—meaning the economic and political costs of the maneuvers it employs to return fugitive bodies to the territories of production, that is, the economic and political costs of exercising power, rise—the application of a new technology or technologies becomes necessary. In other words, a change in a technology of power becomes necessary when its various costs, including the economic and political costs of its application, rise, and the function of new technologies of power becomes essential. For example, in nineteenth-century Iran, in the decades before the Constitutional Revolution, one of the most important transformations that occurred was the beginning of Iran's integration into the global market. The result of this transformation was the release of forces and flows that the sovereign technology or the traditional despotic machine could not contain. The state could no longer function with the old technology. Consequently, the application of disciplinary technology and the preparation of the ground for the establishment of the capitalist machine became necessary. The era of Reza Shah can be analyzed from this perspective. Of course, during the Constitutional era, emancipatory ideals were also raised. One cannot accept the view that the Constitutional Revolution was merely a bourgeois revolution. In the Constitutional Revolution, different ideals took shape and another form of organizing collective life was proposed, but it failed, and the other side of the failure of the constitutional ideals (a new form of organizing collective life) is the formation of new technologies of power and the rise of Reza Khan. The emergence of the Pahlavi regime must be understood from this perspective.

• Can we say that the massive funeral ceremony held for the late Pashaei was a quasi-movement? Considering that this ceremony was not organized by official institutions of power. You said a healthy society is one that has spontaneous movements; can the event that occurred at Pashaei's funeral be considered a form of these spontaneous movements?

No.

• Why?

The spontaneous movement and organization I spoke of is precisely aimed at changing social relations. What happened in the aforementioned case was not a "movement" at all. What change did it create in social relations? One cannot call everything that does not originate from the state a liberating movement. An organization may have no direct connection to the state, yet be equally subjugated and show no trace of subjectivation. Therefore, what distinguishes spontaneous organizations and movements from subjugated modes is that they are aimed at changing social relations, that is, aimed at rectifying social disorders. The Pashaei affair was merely one of the pathological manifestations of economic-political disorders. When protests and demands aimed at changing the existing situation are not taken seriously in a society and are suppressed, they manifest themselves in other forms. Calm and silence are not proof of recovery. That is, the force that generates these symptoms manifests itself in other ways. When the disorders existing in social relations that cause protest symptoms fail to generate a will for change and are not allowed to bring about change in a healthy manner, a relative calm prevails through suppression, silence and despair about the possibility of change emerge, and ultimately the repressed manifests itself in a pathological, depoliticized form.

• So can the banal be understood through depoliticization?

If one considers open collective life and the subjectivity that takes shape within it (subject-movement, not subject-position) as the authentic form of the realization of politics, that is, a collective in which the possibility of active participation in determining the common destiny exists for all actors, then the banality resulting from subjugation and the impossibility of participating in determining the public destiny can be considered a form of depoliticization.

• Elsewhere, in referring to the Pashaei issue, you spoke of an atomized society and analyzed it with the concept of "becoming-rabble."

The subject of that discussion was something else and was not specific to the Pashaei phenomenon. There, with reference to Saedi's story The Dump, the discussion was about how the marginalized and the excluded, and those who wander dazed and confused in the mass society concocted by modern technologies of power, may internalize bourgeois moral principles so meticulously and subtly that they outdo their masters. That is what I meant by "becoming-rabble." In the current situation, we are faced with technologies of power that both atomize and drown isolated atoms in a shapeless mass; and in this way, they even destroy the grounds for the formation of a dynamic and authentic collective. This atomization causes everyone to be confined within the four walls of their personal and private interests, and ultimately the anxieties arising from this form of life manifest themselves in various ways and in the form of various symptoms. "Becoming-rabble," in the way the main character of Saedi's novel climbs the ladder of "progress," is one of the possibilities open to these atomized bodies. Another possibility is being absorbed into fascist "movements." Of course, they are not movements in the authentic sense of the word; they form independently of the state but are pathological. For example, the National Socialist movement in Germany after World War I emerged spontaneously in a sense, and there was no state planning for it; that is, organizations form that are completely spontaneous but are not "healthy," meaning they are not aimed at real change, but quite the opposite, they are tricks to prevent change. Fascism has always been one of the tricks the bourgeoisie has resorted to in order to prevent real change from occurring. On this matter, one must certainly read the chapter Von Mises dedicates to "Fascism" in his book, Neoliberalism.

• You said that these subject-positions are constructed by technologies of power. The question is whether one can stand somewhere and say, I am at least aware that this place where I stand has been constructed by a technology of power? Can this awareness help me not to be situated in this particular position?

This question can be formulated in another way, as follows: Is liberation from banality possible? What are its conditions? The primary condition relates to another form of collective life, relationships with a different logic that make other ways of thinking, feeling, and acting possible. Of course, these new relationships do not come into being all at once, ready-made. They may take shape in the course of striving to change existing relationships. That is, we must not imagine that the current situation should be abolished and then, all of a sudden, relationships with a different logic will replace the existing ones. If these relationships do not gradually take shape in the course of the effort to change existing relationships, they will never come into being at any other time. This means that the goal and the means, the destination and the path, are not separate. You cannot pursue a goal using a means that contradicts that goal, or take a path to reach a destination that is inherently in conflict with that destination. And in a sense, perhaps the destination is the path itself. If the goal is the formation of another kind of collective life, a kind of relationship in which there is no trace of exploitation and subjugation and bodies are not deprived of their capacities, then in the effort being made right now to realize those goals, there must be at least a trace of those relationships. This is where we must return to the almost forgotten idea of 'comradeship.'

The state free of banality is living in a “world without the Other” without any effort to erect this symbolic Other. The truth is that the world is always a “world without the Other,” and the big Other has always merely subsisted on the efforts made to erect it. The big Other has always been dead, and its life has always subsisted on the mourning of the faithful. Just like money, whose credit subsists on our trust. Living in a “world without the Other” in no way means isolation and living in a solitary, personal realm apart from the collective. In the phrase “world without the Other,” what is meant by “the Other” is, in fact, the “big Other,” the symbolic order. The courage to live in a world where the big Other has collapsed, without trying to replace the big Other with post- or pre-Oedipal others. I should explain these terms. With the awareness of the collapse of the big Other, with the disappearance of trust in the big Other and the resulting feeling of insecurity and bewilderment, different paths are taken. Most of these paths are pathological attempts to fill the empty place of the big Other. One of these paths is what Nietzsche called “Pharisaism”: an obsessive adherence to Jewish law or any other law; a fetishistic denial of the death of the big Other. But this is not the only pathological solution. There are more dangerous paths as well. Consider ISIS and other takfiri groups, or Jewish and Christian fundamentalists. The ISIS approach, or “ISIS-ism,” cannot be reduced to an obsessive adherence to law. Explaining “ISIS-ism” by invoking nihilism (something Hatamikia tries to do in the film “Damascus Time”) is also a generalization and ultimately leads to giving the wrong address. “ISIS-ism” is the result of occupying the empty place of the “superego.” This is the characteristic of the sadistic solution to the problem of the collapse of the big Other. The sadistic subject sits in the position of the obscene supplement of the law and, by issuing impossible commands, derives enjoyment from the weakness of others in carrying out these commands. It is on this basis that ISIS-ism is distinguished from obsessive adherence to law: in obsessive adherence, the subject places itself in the position of a subject of the law and sacrifices its enjoyment, and for this reason its greatest preoccupation is this very lost enjoyment, and it constantly feels guilty about it and becomes ever more subject to the law; the vicious cycle of obedience and guilt. Of course, the mystical solution is no less subjugating than this legalism; only the type of subjugation differs. Here, the subject places itself in the position of the partial object of the Other’s desire and constantly wants to know what the Other wants in order to act accordingly, and in more intense states considers itself the object of the Other’s enjoyment and reaches the conclusion that it is dissolved and annihilated in the Other’s enjoyment and, like Hallaj, cries out “Ana al-Haqq.” If “Ana al-Haqq” is the main element in schizophrenic delirium, the main element of sadistic delirium is the Pharaonic “I am your lord, most high.” Let us remember that we are talking about various forms of subjugation. Various forms of living in bondage to the “Other”: sometimes this Other is the big Other and its obscene supplement, and sometimes it is the substitutes for the big Other. (Right here, on the margins of the discussion and in parentheses, I will mention in passing that the only healthy alternative is the “knowledge” of Spinoza’s God, the “third kind of knowledge,” or at least the “second kind.”)

Let us return to your question. Answering this question requires a brief preamble. To lay the groundwork for an answer, we must view "society" from a "geological" perspective. Every society can be considered a geological surface composed of three strata: the uppermost stratum is the "molar" stratum. This is the stratum of social institutions and the roles and rules governing their relations. These rules may be customary, religious, legal, or moral. In this stratum, we deal with reciprocal roles and their legal or moral definitions. Man-woman; child-adult, child-parents, worker-employer. The worker and the employer as "persons" possessing the right to property and the right to exchange, who enter into exchange with other persons to secure their interests and attain what they deem desirable or what they prefer. So the uppermost stratum is the stratum of institutions, social roles, and rights and duties. The lowest stratum can be called the quantum stratum. Because this stratum consists of formless fragments, and the laws governing its elements are entirely different from those of the upper strata. In this realm, there is no time, causality, or predictability. The uncertainty principle reigns over this stratum. This is the stratum of pure sensations. There are no familiar determinations; no organization exists. This is the stratum of chance encounters. Nothing is stable. An encounter, a fleeting sensation, and nothing more. No trace remains. There are no persons here. Wandering fragments exposed to chance encounters and temporary connections. This is the very stratum Leibniz spoke of in his description of "temporary minds." A "sensation" arises like a spark and vanishes. In this stratum, nothing persists longer than a spark. You might ask whether any sociologist has spoken of this stratum. In this regard, besides the works of Gabriel Tarde, one can refer to Simmel's essay on the metropolis. The second or middle stratum can be understood in relation to this deepest stratum. The second or middle stratum is a "surface of inscription," a virtual surface of inscription; a kind of memory; imagine a virtual hard disk. One of the most important issues for any society is the passage from the deepest stratum to the next; that is, the creation of memory. One of the themes of the second chapter of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals is precisely this issue of the processes of memory creation. It is here that the function of technologies of power can be explained: strategic processes that, by synthesizing the indeterminate fragments of the first stratum, create a kind of memory (this process is entirely different from the construction of a "discourse" through the raising of a signifier without a signified, or "discourse analysis as narrated by Laclau and Mouffe," which is an effective tool for not seeing real things!). Building memory through the montage of formless pieces. Every technology of power does this in its own way. For example, in modern technologies, there is no branding and marking of bodies in the primitive manner. Fragments or pieces are connected through exercise, practice, and mechanical repetition, and this disciplinary exercise and repetition creates a "virtual copy" of a physical relationship, for instance, between the limbs of a human and the various parts of a machine. This virtual relationship is an unconscious affective bond; a kind of Freudian cathexis; a kind of libidinal investment between the hand and a button or a lever, for example, or between the fingers of a hand and the keys of a keyboard. This virtual relationship, this unconscious affective bond between the body's limbs and tools and instruments, may become active even in the absence of physical tools: you surely remember Charlie Chaplin's body movements in "Modern Times"; in this film, Charlie Chaplin, precisely through his body movements in the absence of the physical machine, shows that a virtual bond, a kind of potential/virtual libidinal relationship exists, which may, under the influence of a kind of "compulsion to repeat," become actualized even in the absence of the physical machine. But this is not the whole story. The technology of power, for example disciplinary technology, not only creates affective bundles in the form of ("hand-wrench-screw" and turning) through exercise and repetition and tends to organize all bodily activities within the framework of these bundles (the feeding machine test sequence in "Modern Times"), but also organizes these bundles into larger frameworks: into a schema called "worker," for instance; or in the disciplinary family, into the schema of "woman" or "child." These schemas function as norms to which every body must adapt itself.

«کارگر» یا «زن» یا ... ، خود به‌مثابه قطعاتی از یک ماشین بزرگ‌تر عمل می‌کنند که در آن «کار مرده» مدام «کار زنده» را می‌مکد.

The final stage of the process unfolds between the second and third layers; the passage from the second stage to the third: this body that has conformed itself to a normative schema and whose lifeblood is being drained must recognize itself as a “worker”—that is, a legal person endowed with the right to property, equal to others, and free to sell the commodity it possesses, namely its labor power; as a subject in the paradise of property, freedom, equality, and Bentham; and, intoxicated by dwelling in this realm, it must regard any impulse from the lowest layer and any possibility of new connections, synthesis, and liberatory memory as an unforgivable sin and a diabolical temptation, and, in unison with its exploiters, consider its greatest enemies to be migrant workers or others of its own class; and deem any whisper of change a foreign conspiracy, or its greatest wish be merely a change of masters; the replacement of the current masters with “better” ones.

With this preamble, it can be said that liberation from banality requires the formation of a new memory. A memory made possible not by the technology of power, but by a liberatory strategy. Certainly, in contemporary society, some libidinal connections are formed apart from the technologies of power and the capitalist level of recording, but the capitalist machine quickly either turns them into commodities and circulates them in the process of producing surplus value, or contains them through security or disciplinary coding, or by over-coding them in a legal mold. The issue is precisely that these connections be synthesized on an independent recording surface, within a different memory. This is the very process that Foucault refers to with the phrase “strategic coding of points of resistance.” The translation of all demands into a strategic goal whose most important theme is another form of human relation, such that “everyone” sees their demands in this goal. A goal that Marx pointed to as the “free association of producers,” “an association of free individuals working in common,” and that Deleuze spoke of with the concept of “camaraderie.”

• The discussion of banality is accompanied by the issue of elitism. That is, those who speak of the banality of tastes are themselves accused of having an elitist approach and looking down on society. What is your assessment of this claim?

In fact, at the beginning of the discussion, when I said we should set aside moral judgment, my precise intention was to avoid falling into the trap of elitism. If you noticed, here the opposite of banality was presented in a collective form. A life free from banality cannot be the life of a single person or an “elite” separate from and above society. In the conceptual alternative to banality, there is no trace of elitism. The issue is by no means that those who suffer from banality are uneducated or uncultured. On the other hand, when we say that the mechanisms of power produce a subject-position, we do not mean to ignore the responsibility of individuals, because the possibility of exiting the subject-position and living in another form of relation exists. But on the other hand, our critique is not a moral critique. The primary target of this critique is the social situation and the relations and technologies of power. I do not think there is any trace of elitism in this conception.

Since the discussion of banality usually takes place in the context of art, if possible, please also touch upon the issue of art. Can one speak of authentic, sublime art and banal art?

First of all, I must emphasize that I do not at all agree with the postmodern argument that there is no difference between high and vulgar works of art. Rather, I believe that real art is art that provides the possibility of becoming a subject. In the sense that it creates a new capacity in us, as opposed to art that is subjugating. From this perspective, various examples can be offered from cinema, music, painting, visual arts, literature, and other arts. If our criterion is becoming-a-subject and being-subjugated, we can identify instances of authentic and vulgar art. However, one must bear in mind that the common understanding of criticism must also change. Criticism is not the representation of the work of art. Criticism is the continuation of the creation of the work of art, not its judgment or representation. Criticism can change the nature of a work of art and increase its capacity for subjectification. The opposite is also possible. That is, a bad critique can reduce a work of art, in the face of which there is a capacity for becoming a subject, to a work that is entirely subjugating. Therefore, the aforementioned criterion changes the demarcations and shifts the boundaries, opening different paths and possibilities for critical action.

The work of art is a kind of recording surface, meaning it functions as a kind of memory. To understand this point, one can refer to music. What happens in the creation of a musical piece? In everyday life, sounds are usually the sounds of things; using the terminology of traditional philosophy, one could say sound is always the "accident" of a substance, that is, the sound of something. Through the collision of two material objects, through a physical interaction, a sound rises and subsides. But in music, sounds are separated from things, gain independence, and are placed together in a new synthesis, in a kind of musicality (a musical order); substanceless accidents that are synthesized in an unprecedented order. Now, if we consider momentary intensities independently of their physical origins within a virtual musicality, a kind of synthesis on a virtual surface, we approach the process of creating a work of art. The artist (not just the musician, but any artist) actualizes this virtual and intensive musicality on a material surface (on canvas; on a score, or on the cinema screen), thus providing a possibility for us to be exposed to this synthesis, and in this way affects our "memory."

This is a possibility that almost everyone uses in today's world, especially in visual media. The Manoto network is professionally manipulating our historical memory. The strategy is also clear: discrediting the '79 Revolution; and at the same time, constructing a memory whose core is nostalgia for the Pahlavi era, and whose constitutive syntheses are supplied by vulgar programs such as "Befarmaeed Shaam" (Dinner is Served), "Sher Yadet Nareh" (Don't Forget the Poem), "Academy Googoosh," and their ilk, whose ultimate function is to create subject positions defined by the "happiness" and "pleasure" derived from breathing the air of the free market: an obsessive attachment to "fun and entertainment," seizing the day and taking pleasure in consumption and guaranteed satisfaction, pinning hopes on a savior who will single-handedly provide these conditions, and a paranoid fear and hatred of anyone or anything that might endanger this pleasure or the hope of its realization.

• So we inevitably arrive at the relation between "art" and "politics."

It is clear that in a conversation one cannot lay out this issue as fully as it deserves. Art and politics and their relation, and “pure art” and the “aestheticization of politics” and the “politicization of art” and “pure politics” and so on : a spectrum of Marxist philosophers from Benjamin to Deleuze and Rancière have grappled with these problems and concepts throughout their intellectual lives, and I, not just in a conversation, but even until the end of my life, cannot even provide a list of these problems and concepts. But by way of indication, just indication, let me draw on Deleuze and, using the concept of “camaraderie,” sketch a brief outline. In Negri’s conversation with Deleuze, published in the book Negotiations, Negri asks Deleuze: the Marxist utopia in the book Grundrisse is configured precisely as the horizontal organization of free individuals on a technical foundation that guarantees its conditions—can such a communism still be thought? Is the conception of this form of collective life in the current “communicative society” any less utopian than it was “yesterday”? Before Negri’s question, Deleuze points to a certain point, and his answer to this question is also based on that point: he points to a shame we feel (or should feel) at being human when we encounter vulgarity and the banality of thought, when we encounter television programs, the “speech of a minister,” the opinions of “happy livers” or “merry livers.” For Deleuze, this shame, the shame of being human in the face of banality, is one of the greatest motives for philosophy and, at the same time, a motive that makes philosophy political. Deleuze emphasizes that he considers himself a Marxist: in his view, a political philosophy that is not focused on the analysis of capitalism and its transformations is nonsense. For Deleuze, there is only one thing in capitalism that is general and universal: the market. We do not have a universal state; only the market is universal, and states are among the actors in this universal market. Capitalism, relying on the “theology of the market,” simultaneously creates wealth and misery. Deleuze ultimately stresses that there is no democratic state that is not, to the depths of its institutions, an accomplice of this factory of misery production, and the shame stems from the fact that we cannot think of any form of collective life that would be an alternative to this situation. The basis of Deleuze’s pessimistic answer to Negri is precisely this: perhaps from within the society of control (a society in which security technologies have gained strategic ascendancy over disciplinary and sovereign technologies and, intertwined with the exigencies of capital accumulation, organize social life across the world) there exists the possibility for forms of resistance to emerge that could pave the way for the realization of the horizontal organization of free individuals, but this possibility has nothing to do with “speech and communication” (la parole et la communication). Because speech and communication are caught up in corruption and, to the marrow of their bones, not accidentally but essentially, contaminated by money. Deleuze and Guattari, in the book What is Philosophy?, say that the political idea of “friendship” as the democratic consensus of equal individuals has also been corrupted because its tools, speech and communication, have become tools in the market (these critical remarks by Deleuze encompass a wide range of different thinkers, from Habermas to Derrida).

With these points in mind, I will try to sketch a general outline of the concept of “camaraderie,” which is entirely different from “friendship.” As a first step, and to convey a general outline, one can say that camaraderie becomes possible when all pathological efforts to keep the big Other and its substitutes alive have ceased and there is no concern whatsoever, in any form, for the Other’s jouissance. This is where “Bartleby” comes into play.

Deleuze, in the book Critique et Clinique or Essays Critical and Clinical, has two essays, one on Herman Melville’s story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” and another essay on Walt Whitman in which the concept of “camaraderie” is raised.

Bartleby and his famous sentence represent a form of aggression by the deepest layer of the unconscious against molar reality. In response to every order given to him or every request made of him, Bartleby says, “I would prefer not to.” What matters is that he does not say, “I would prefer not to do it,” but rather, “I would prefer not to…” The most important feature of this sentence is that, while grammatically flawless, it contains an incomprehensible and uncontrollable anomaly. He does not say I would prefer not to do it; he does not say, “I would prefer not to.” He says: “I would prefer not to…” Bartleby’s evasion goes beyond the positive-negative opposition. The sentence “I would prefer not to do it” illustrates this point very well. Bartleby’s main characteristic is that he “does not prefer,” he “prefers” nothing; he is on absolute strike. Suppose you make a request of someone and they reply, “I would prefer not to do it.” You cannot tell whether they have accepted your request or not, whether they will carry it out or not. You are left in limbo. This is the state in which Bartleby’s boss finds himself trapped. Because he prefers nothing, Bartleby has no particularity or characteristic; he is a persona without any protrusion, trait, or feature by which he could be hung on the gaff and hook of the law—a smooth, flat persona who slips through the cogs and clamps of the power machine and is uncontrollable; a power machine whose relations and functioning, characteristic of it, appear in a “fetishistic” manner within the “law-transgression” nexus. A “man without qualities” who, from the perspective of the law, is a good-for-nothing or a “man without qualities” (thus the perspective of translators who prefer to render the title of Musil’s novel as “The Man Without Qualities” becomes clear). The law requires that a person either prefer to obey, or prefer to disobey, and thereby actualize a power relation that, in the form of law—allow me to emphasize again—appears “in a fetishistic manner.” This is why the law and its agents prefer to be rid of Bartleby. We see this state of “preferring nothing” in Melville’s story Billy Budd, Sailor as well. Billy Budd is like Bartleby, although he does not utter Bartleby’s formula; yet he too prefers nothing. He does not even open his mouth to defend himself against the charge of murder. A full-fledged hypochondriac subject. Captain Ahab in the novel Moby-Dick is not of this type, although he too is a body possessed by “primary nature” or the deepest layer of the unconscious, but he shows a particular reaction to the impulses of this layer that distinguishes him from Bartleby and Billy Budd. Bartleby and Billy Budd prefer nothing, want nothing, but Ahab wants “nothing.” He acts contrary to the law of the whale hunters and, instead of the utilitarian pursuit of this or that whale, any whale, madly sets off in pursuit of one whale. One example of this persona can be seen in Mani Haghighi’s “Workers Are Working” (Mani Haghighi’s best film and perhaps his only good one). In this film, a few people on a road quite accidentally come across a strange, peculiar boulder. At first, this boulder standing vertically by the roadside does not attract much of their attention, and they use it the same way all of us, in the absence of a public toilet, use a boulder by the roadside to hide and relieve the danger of a bursting bladder. But suddenly… the boulder turns into an unusual object, and the desire to dislodge it takes possession of this group. A perfectly futile task. But this group, especially the character played by Atila Pesyani, becomes so engrossed in this activity as if nothing else in the world mattered as much. This task has no use whatsoever; it is not at all reasonable, and the passion we see for carrying it out is incomprehensible. A kind of infatuation with an object that is good for nothing and a task that serves no purpose. The essence of the Ahab persona can be seen in Atila Pesyani’s gaze when, at the end of the film, at the insistence of his friends, he stops “working” and gets into the car. Seeing this gaze, we are certain that this character will return to the boulder again (provided we ignore the sound of his friends tumbling down and getting out). This gaze can be called the “Ahab gaze”: a reflection of the nature of the “monomaniac” character, or, according to the common translation, “monomania.”

Deleuze, in contrast to “primary nature,” speaks of “secondary nature”; which is another expression for the Oedipal layer of the unconscious. The layer pertaining to the law and its obscene supplement (the law-transgression correlate); the superego’s command to transgress and, consequently, the guilt that binds us more tightly to the law. At this level, transgression and obedience to the law are two sides of the same coin, because to be subject to the law you must either prefer obedience, or prefer transgression. In either case, you must prefer. Because by preferring, your position and the law’s are clear; even if you “prefer not to.” The law’s problem with Bartleby is that he “does not prefer.” He does not prefer yes; nor does he prefer no. Rather, he does not prefer … . Bartleby and Billy Budd are the intrusion of the deepest layer of the unconscious into the Oedipal layer and the consciousness attached to it, an intrusion that leads to the rupture of relations whose legal or moral representation by the law takes the form of a “fetish” (in the Marxian sense of the word). In this way, the possibility of forming another kind of relation emerges. It is certain that continuing life at this level is impossible; a collective composed of hypochondriac subjects is not possible. Here there are two options: 1) a paternal coup to restore the desperate regime or to overthrow it and establish a new regime 2) comradeship: a form of collective life in which “alienated labor” is replaced by a kind of collective creative activity. In Marx’s terms, the free association of producers, or a collective of producers who freely relate to one another. This society of comrades should not be considered a fanciful, unrealizable ideal. This ideal is in fact a strategic goal, a dimension of the history of Marxism with its various tendencies and schisms—the history of thinking through trial and error about the methods, tactics, and techniques of its realization and perpetuation. The formation of such a society requires the development of an open memory. “Comradeship” is made possible by an open, constantly-being-constructed memory; a flexible virtual recording surface that neither drowns in “chaos” nor succumbs to “rigidity” is the necessary condition for “comradeship.”

This ideal society is not a heaven on earth where “demand” is immediately accompanied by “satisfaction” and everyone is busy with amusement and pleasure-seeking. This conception results from projecting the ideals of capitalist society (amusement, pleasure-seeking, and limitless consumption) onto the society to-come (à venir). The “joy” arising from praxis (the collective effort to construct the world, which simultaneously increases both the individual’s capacities and the collective’s capacities, and in which “the evolution of the collective is the condition for the evolution of the individual, and the evolution of the individual is the condition for the evolution of the collective”) differs from the pleasures of consumption that we now experience, which have no function other than reducing our capacities and turning us into physiological bodies that know nothing but earning money, eating, sleeping, and … complaining.

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PDF file of this conversation

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A Conversation with Adel Mashayekhi on Banality;

The Courage to Live in a World Without the Other

Published in: Etemad Yearbook (2018)

Source: Zamane-ye Barkhord channel

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