Add to progress discusssion:

Gianni Vattimo, The Transparent Society, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992

In Vattimo's The Transparent Society, there's an implied question mark at the end, throwing serious doubt on previous philosophical certainties. For instance, he points to the ideological character of unilinear history and Benjamin's 'theses' that history is a representation of the past constructed for the benefit of the dominant class - in other words, that History is presented as unilinear and unilateral, but is made by and involves directly, only the select few. To Vattimo, to dispute this suggests something of the complexity and multiplicity of societies, as opposed to the enlightenment idea of progress leading towards a more transparent society. This corresponding crisis or impossibility of the idea of history and progress ('Only if there is History can one speak of progress'. (Vattimo, 1992:2)) is one characterisation of postmodern thinking of course, and throws many theoretical and philosophical ideas into relief - Hegel and Marx not least, in their belief in emancipation, and a better society as well as the centrality of the human subject. There are no surprises here - this is standard critical philosophy of its time - however, Vattimo doesn't reject the idea of emancipation altogether but maintains that emancipatory potential lies in the 'relative chaos' of a 'society of communication'. There are sharp contrasts here in terms of the effects of communication technologies - on the one hand, contributing to the dissolution of certainty and centrality, to the extreme opposite view of an increased homogenisation of society. 

The latter position is exemplified by Adorno and Horkheimer's The Dialectic of Enlightenment (first published in 1944) drawing upon their experience of the mass media in the United States (resulting in a 'fascism' of the single voice of radio and television, in undemocratic one-to-many communication). One might add that the belief in the increased pluralisation of society is a necessary precondition for the latter - at least this is the thinking of the anti-globalisation movement that appears to express the spirit of Adorno, and makes Vattimo's position appear a little dated. It is also important to note that what appears such a pessimistic view of the intensification of ideology (such as Adorno's) is in keeping with the Hegelian and Marxist utopian tradition in the belief of a more enlightened and better society. Except in this case, development has gone badly wrong, and thus society is expressed in a perverse form (through the influence of market forces and ideological motives). Maybe this is a little unfair on Vattimo though, as what he wishes to express, drawing more on Nietzsche and Heidegger, is that the ideal of emancipation needs remodelling to accommodate 'oscillation, plurality and, ultimately... the erosion of the very "principle of reality"' under techno-science (techno-science as the 'world of the "real", according to metaphysics' ) (1992: 7). As opposed to any (metaphysical) notion of a fixed and stable reality, he adds that Heidegger 'showed that to think of being as foundation, and reality as a rational system of causes and effects, is simply to extend the model of "scientific" objectivity to the totality of being. All things are reduced to the level of pure essences that can be measured, manipulated, replaced and therefore easily dominated and organised - and in the end man, his interiority and historicity are all reduced to the same level.' (1992: 8) Thus there is no great loss here except the myth of reality itself as an empty promise. For Vattimo, 'Emancipation, here, consists in disorientation, which is at the same time also the liberation of differences, of local elements, of what could generally be called dialect. [and as a result:] If, in a world of dialectics, I speak my own dialect, I shall be conscious that it is not the only "language", but it is precisely one amongst many.'  To put it more poetically, quoting Nietzsche from The Gay Science, thus: 'continuing to dream knowing one is dreaming' (1997: 8-9) and that 'there are no facts, only interpretations... the true world has in the end become a fable' (1992: 25) (Note: Nietzsche, perhaps unfairly, has been crucial to the development of postmodernism and national socialism). In this way, contingency is apparent in all these communication/language systems as the dialectical oscillation between deluded (positivist) certainty and unashamed (relativist) open-endedness.

The dialectical logic (admittedly based on the idea of the centralised subject) describes the problem of technological progress, in that with it comes the possibility of increased emancipation and transparency, which is also why it simultaneously becomes an impossibility. Vattimo explains: 'As the self-transparency of society becomes possible from a purely technical point of view, this self-transparency is shown to be an ideal of domination and not emancipation...' further exaggerated by the impossibility of the idea of self-transparency in the first place as it assumes the centralised human subject (1992: 23). Therefore any critical methodology is required to recognise the ideological character of self-transparency in the same way that history cannot be assumed to be simply authentic experience. This has since become the orthodoxy of critical theory in building a critique of the subjective processes into 'scientific' analysis as contingent 'objectivity' - I like the idea of affinity methodology, in recognising the contingent nature of theory but employing it strategically all the same - it is not truth-seeking but more a critical allegory. (Note: Even subject positions can only be faced with the same level of contingency - as affinities rather than essentialist descriptions of race, class, gender, sexuality and so on). In this way, evoking the Nietzsche quote once more, cultural commentators, scientists, and scientific method can continue to dream of its viability and usefulness.

What is wrong with the assumption of dialectical reversal anyway? In Marx, of course, it is premised on the assumption that the oppressed have nothing to lose but their chains, and the symbolic violence of historical processes and the social relations of domination. Both Hegel and Marx in turn, situate (techno)science within the dialectical and historical trajectory towards an emancipatory 'telos'. The problems with this position have been outlined - centrality of human subjectivity, linear progress, etc. Furthermore, the distinction between developed and under-developed countries is now allegedly recast in terms of information and communication. However, in global terms, computers and the networks that connect them, are still employed in the rationalisation of mechanical and materialist industry. Emancipation of the human subject has never been more urgent than in the global sweatshops of multinational corporations. Generalised communication does not advent the dissolution of subject-object relations nor the project of emancipation except as further violence - they continue to serve strategic materialist not merely symbolic ends (here, surely, even the dodgy idea of 'telos' seems useful).     

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On Utopia:
 Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment, relates strongly to the idea of counter-utopia (or dystopia) or the emergence of the 'counter-finality of reason'. Technical advances always bring the possibility of their negative application, and it is with this general negativity in mind that progress turns against itself and the potential fulfilment of emancipation towards catastrophic consequences. Vattimo explains this 'counter-finality of reason' as 'the rationalisation of the world turns against reason and its ends of perfection and emancipation, and does so not by error, accident or a chance distortion, but precisely to the extent that it is more and more perfectly accomplished.' (1992: 78). This is in stark contrast to the concept of utopia described by Thomas More or indeed that of technological utopia described by Francis Bacon in New Atlantis (published in 1627, in Vattimo, 1992: 79), where the known machines of the time open up new possibilities to serve humanity and reduce human suffrage. The (utopian) ideal is central to these ideas, either through some imagined possibility or in modernity through the operation of technology. There is the same assumption here that 'the true remains the whole' as Vattimo puts it, either already formed or at least anticipated, and that even 'in its most radically negative form, namely Adorno's, utopia still maintains a link with the totality that one could never imagine realised' (1992: 80). When progress no longer makes any sense, it is no surprise that counter-utopia is the norm. The counter-finality of reason is the horrible realisation that even when 'correctly' motivated, that it will turn against itself and the ends of emanicipation (Notoriously for Adorno, Auschwitz was a case in point, after which poetry and humanity would never be the same). It is the mechanism itself that is corrupt, addressed through 'a critique of instrumental reason' for Adorno and Horkheimer (add more on this). According to them, reason has been corrupted because of its reliance on scientific, objectifying, instrumental models, in tune with the capitalist system. Although of course it is possible to overturn this system, in the meantime, it may be affirmed only in negative terms. In fact it must be addressed as a faulty system, otherwise we remain stuck in useless self-contradiction - what might be described in terms of useless pastiche as opposed to useful parody (the endless dystopian works of science fiction say something of this sense of important purpose - social critique maybe, but served up in marketable form). Vattimo suggests that 'The ironic-nostalgic inventory of the talismans of progress is perhaps the only "utopia" still possible. It is perhaps the only future condition of humanity that can be imagined and, up to a point, described in later modernity, after the hopes humanity placed in the rationalisation and progressive enlightenment of the world have work thin before its very eyes.' (1992: 85). Wishful thinking is fine as long as it does not fall into teleological finality, and that contingency is kept in place as part of the system - in other words, that it is recognised as strategic. 

In this regard, it is important to trace the transformation of the dialectic in its Hegelian form to the idea of the 'negative dialectic' of Adorno (Theodor Adorno (2000), Negative Dialectics (Negative Dialektik, 1966), trans. E.B. Ashton (1973), London: Routledge.). The dialectical logic is retained but adjusted, not rejected, in the light of the total organisation and instrumental reason of the system. In contrast to the Hegelian idea of the whole will be eventually conceived of as the truth, Adorno sees this as largely realised in negative terms, and therefore that the whole must be conceived of as false. Rather than see this as simply completed and unchangeable (and as is perpetuated by dominant ideology and the rhetoric of the free market), Adorno insists this can be corrected through 'a critique of instrumental reason'. Vattimo further explains '... via a comprehensive transformation of society, rationalisation could know a new emancipatory destiny,' and that this might also point to alternative positive conceptions of utopia and history: 'in the idea that the whole is false precisely to the extent that it is realised there lies a new philosophy of history in embryonic form. This would be characterised by the replacement of the linear (ascending, descending, progressive or regressive) and the cyclic models, pertaining respectively to the Hebraic-Christian vision of history and the classical model of time, with one that could only be defined as ironic and distortive...Historical occurrence, in other words, would be neither progress nor regress nor the return of the same, but an "interpretation" in which the past and the principles we inherit always become in some degree false.' (1992: 87) (Note: Here is both affirming and rejecting Benjamin's 'Theses on the Philosophy of History'). Is it possible or useful to conceive of history as neither linear or circular? What about simply thinking of history as simply dialectical - and if so, isn't this reiterating what others have done before and using history to throw the present into perspective.  

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Add to Marcuse bit:
Following Adorno's positive reception of the avant-garde, Marcuse attempted to provide a synthesis of important aspects of the avant-garde - the transformation of relations between aesthetic experience and the everyday such as suggested by surrealism and situationism. (is this at all useful?)

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On reproduction (WB):

Adorno objected to Benjamin's idea that art should or could lose its aura that separates it from the everyday. This locates Adorno's criticism as locked into the tradition of aesthetics and Western metyaphysics, where art is a utopian place of harmony and perfection. His criticism of Benjamin's thesis lies in the detail of the change of essence (creativity, originality, harmony, etc) - is art's essence actually changed or merely unsettled? - or indeed, whether it is possible to conceive of a new kind of essence under the conditions of art's technical reproducibility. Whereas Adorno's problem arises from the distinction of the work of art's ideal use value (cult value in Benjamin's essay) and its exchange value (exhibition value) sullied by the market and fashion (Vattimo, 1992: 48). Adorno clearly does not see these changes as positive whereas Benjamin collapses the separation under aesthetic theory of its ideal state and that of wider cultural value. Furthermore, in late-modernity, it might be argued that objects no longer can be distinguished in terms of use value as they operate more on a symbolic level - as pure exchange value. This is where Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital might be useful.

In The Transparent Society (1992), Vattimo develops Benjamin's idea of the significance of the dadaist aesthetics of shock with reference to Heidegger's essay of the same year 'Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes' ('The Origin of the Work of Art') as a further disruption of the preconceptions of ideal work of art: 'A stability and permanence in the work, a depth and authenticity in the aesthetic experience of creation and appreciation are things we can no longer expect from late-modern aesthetic experience, dominated as it is by the power (and impotence) of the media. In opposition to the nostalgia for eternity (in the work) and authenticity (in experience), it must be clearly recognised that shock is all that remains of the creativity of art in the age of generalised communication' (1992: 57-8). Whether shock is still shocking is highly debatable, and my argument would suggest that a more appropriate analogy is autonomy in the context of generative systems - where essence is disrupted in ways that are more appropriate to the technological and cultural conditions of late capitalism (Note: I need to think through value here. How does shock translate to the computer environment - Richard Wright thinks the aesthetics of montage has been usurped by the aesthetics of transformation for instance (his PhD thesis). I would like to argue that montage, because of its dialectical oscillation, is still appropriate if defined more closely). It is important not to simply use Benjamin (as is often the case) as a way of glossing over the alienating effects of new technology - remember, he argued for the positive potential only. Vattimo adds: 'art is constituted as much by the experience of ambiguity as it is by oscillation and disorientation. In the world of generalised communication, these are the only ways that art can (not still, but perhaps finally) take the form of creativity and freedom (1992: 60). Ambiguity is seen in this way as a useful and playful positive force in resisting dry technicist automation.