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Identity time! Being yourself without really trying
Gijs van Oenen
In 1984, the French sociologist Jacques Donzelot, a disciple of Michel
Foucault, published L’invention du social. In that book he described the
rise of a new social domain, ‘the social’. Someone should do the same now
for the domain of ‘the cultural’. Because culture, it seems, is on the
rise, both in and outside of the academy. Not only does it have its own
academic field, ‘cultural studies’, it is also colonizing other domains.
Such as social and political theory. Together, the social and the cultural
– or let us say the description of experiences of injustice and of identity
– have taken up most of the territory that used to be occupied by ‘political
economy’. Is therefore capital no longer the cause of all evil? Maybe it
still is, but to say so we need to express not only ‘the economic’, but
also the social and the cultural in terms of ‘capital’. This requires looking
at capital not primarily from the perspective of production, but rather
(like Baudrillard) that of circulation. What then becomes important, as
Pierre Bourdieu showed, is not fixed position but relative position, ‘the
distinction’. The significance of groups no longer resides in their supposed
representation of some social essence (capitalists, laborers, housewives),
but in the question how they distinguish themselves among others. The question
of identity gains ascendancy.
Circulation and identity. Those are the main questions of social
and political theory today. For decades already, theories of distributive
justice have in fact been in the grip of circulation. In their view, wealth
is pumped round in society, though not always efficiently, and/or not reaching
all parts of the social body equally. Through a variety of rechanneling
and bypass-operations they try to modify the circulation pattern; but the
circulation principle itself, the market, is not in question. Indeed, circulation
more and more becomes something of a goal in itself. The market is ever
more self-evidently presented as the only real circulation principle. A
twofold effect ensues: efforts to influence circulation do not seem very
successful, as a matter of fact; and the desirability of making such efforts
in the first place is increasingly under fire, as a matter of principle.
In the seventies, the idea of circulation still functioned in
a utopian context. Successful circulation would maybe not efface distinction
and difference, but would certainly render it irrelevant. Everyone could
get his or her share in the ‘market of wellbeing and happiness’, as a perceptive
philosopher once characterized this rosy experience of cultural contentedness.
But under the sway of the selfsame market, the narcissistic idea of simple
happiness was soon transformed into the strategic notion of how to distinguish
oneself from others. Difference is more imporant than ever; or rather,
the idea of difference is. Of course there is no difference between Coca
Cola and Pepsi. It is all about ‘brand name’. Who or what you are counts
for little; the impression others get of you all the more. In other words,
we live in a reputational society. Reputation is the most valuable asset
– form of capital – nowadays.
Still, we have to admit that we sort of like this situation.
It agrees with us. We do not feel as if circulation, reputation and brand
names have turned us into cultural dopes, as Horkheimer and Adorno gloomily
foresaw. This is the point rubbed in by ‘cultural studies’, and a good
point it is. For us, the ‘swinging khaki’s’ in the GAP commercial function
appear not as deadening but rather as ‘enchanting’ commodities, as Jane
Bennett has put it: ‘those khaki’s really do swing!’. (To read, surf pro.harvard.edu,
and search ‘bennett’.) We academics are certainly not above all this: refereed
publications, endowed chairs and international conferences, it’s all rock
& roll. No identity without reputation, and no reputation without fun.
Along these lines, we might be able to make some useful postmodern
modifications to more classically oriented social-philosophical thought.
For the latter, I am thinking especially of Axel Honneth’s attempt to reformulate
Jürgen Habermas’ representation of the moral point of view. Honneth
replaces Habermas’s language pragmatics by social conditions for a positive
relation to self. According to Honneth, social misrecognition, for instance
through exploitation or denial of rights, is inextricably bound up with
the experience of violation of personal identity. This is an important
insight, both as a general concept of justice, and as a suggestion for
how to find empirical indicators for social injustice.
But perhaps it defines identity too much through negative experiences,
and too little through positive ones. Especially where cultural justice
is concerned – a very important topic for contemporary political theory;
think for instance of the question how to give normative shape to postnational,
multicultural democracies. In such societies with only minorities, so to
speak, ever more people will be inclined to link their experiences of identity
to some cultural (home) ground, or at least back-ground. If we focus exclusively
on negative experiences, multiculturalism can easily deteriorate into a
‘who has the longest toes’ type of contest. In other words, into a culture
of political correctness.
Promising approaches to social or political philosophy like Honneth’s
should therefore include a cultural dimension that also recognizes positive
identity experiences. By this, I do not simply mean affirmation of identity.
The opposite of identity violation is not affirmation, but rather growth,
extension, broadening, enrichment. A dynamic experience of identity is
not the same as an experience of damaged identity. It does not imply a
‘soiling’ of the pure sources of one’s identity. Those sources were of
course always already soiled, just as communities are always already ‘imagined’.
And, more importantly, a dynamic way of dealing with identity can itself
be called a source, a ‘source of fun’ even. Why choose to overlook such
sources of identity – especially in an era in which ‘being yourself’ is
more than ever before associated with having fun? Let’s admit it: those
identities really do swing.
This opens up new possibilities for citizenship practices in
reputational, postnational societies. In such societies, urgent and culturally
charged identity claims can be taken seriously, also in a moral and legal
sense, without necessarily resulting in either a ‘rights culture’ or a
‘culture war’. The main condition for this transformation is that citizens
also understand the ‘swing’ aspect in their identity claims: not static,
affirmative, narcissistic, defensive, and begrudging, but dynamic, transformative,
intersubjective, surprising, and fun.
Originally published (in Dutch) in the philosophy journal Krisis,
december 1999.
For more info contact Gijs van Oenen, Department of Philosophy,
Oostmaaslaan 950 (5 minutes from Woudestein campus), tel. 010.4088999 or
020.6860948. Email:vanoenen@fwb.eur.nl.
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