FAUSTIAN BARGAIN
By Jesenko Tesan
Art as an Antidote?
Hannah Arendt is back. German Historical Museum in Berlin presents her works, which is no coincidence, under the name: “Hannah Arendt and the Twentieth Century.” This exhibition is one of the most important meditations during this crucial global transitory moment. Why is Arendt important today? Can Arendt and art fight the modern “superbug”? There are several answers. Arendt’s work is important in understanding and fighting totalitarianism as much as is the great art a la Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy.
At this moment humanity is threatened by a pathological intelligence: Corona, or a superbug. This term “superbug” is used by Keller Easterling though in relation to the invisible AI’s forces, but it is not limited to it, for Plato already in his the Republic hinted in that infectious direction (see https://frieze.com/article/keller-easterling-where-activism-fails-and-how-we-can-reformat-it). Schismogenesis or dichotomizing – to stay at peace but in pieces – is superbug’s raison d’etre. For someone who in the ‘90s experienced the very same thing during the fall of Berlin Wall, siege of Sarajevo, or Rwanda’s gory hundred-day period between April and July 1994, this mantra or shall we say: schism, division and dichotomizing is not new. Yet what is new about this “superbug” intelligence, is that it fundamentally threatens the very existence of human social interaction or in Georg Simmel’s words: “sociability/Geselligkeit” by erecting the visibly invisible walls. Walls higher than Belfast Walls or the Great Wall of China. The new bug’s mantra is that society and individuals within society consists of the webs of multiple interactions, but these webs need to be suspended if not destroyed, if one is to prevent superbug from spreading and infecting. However, these webs are, as per Georg Simmel, the very building blocks of healthy functional cultural settings thence civilized relations. Simmel argues that society is a vibrant relation of crisscross-in-every-direction webs which are the product of the multiple interaction of many individuals: “Society is merely the name for a number of individuals, connected by interaction.”
This is clearly elaborated in Plato’s the Republic, the “forms” of interaction produce the democratic state and/or other political institutions or associations. Interaction be it institutionalized as in Plato’s form or not, the point is that interaction seems to be the building block of the very living social fabric and hence political institutions-to-be. It is a fundamental building block of living beings thence life on this planet.
Although, many intellectuals, starting from Plato and Aristotle, would argue that what distinguishes us (humans) from other animals is that we are “social animals.” Animals according to this thesis are incapable of understanding the importance and/or are not in the possession of the concept of interaction. Yet, the abundance of evidence shows the opposite that these fundamental patterns of interaction among individuals that underline the larger social formations are not only reserved to humans. Viruses, bacteria and other organisms engage in the similar patterns. Given enough time and every living creature would develop its own pattern of interaction – institutionalized sociability – though some would need billions of years to get “infected” by Plato in order to reach his Republic.
For instance, Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan succinctly explain this pattern in many of their works, but in particular in this sentence: “‘[m]an is a social animal,’ wrote Aristotle, or, as it is sometimes translated, ‘[m]an is a political animal.’ This [anthropocentrism] was mean to be characteristic of humans, but not defining; again, a necessary but not a sufficient condition. The subtle and volatile factionalism of chimp and bonobo societies shows how far off the mark this is as a distinction of humanity. The social insects—ants, bees, termites—have much better organized and more stable social structures than humans” (1992[1], 268). Sociability or as I prefer to call it consociation seems to be the result of multiple but nevertheless still intelligent categories of interaction. These interactions’ structure are all relations which may, or may not, give the enduring form as in the Republic. However, during this liminal moment the pressure of pathological intelligence forces upon humanity with an equally pathological choice; namely, Faustian Bargain[2]: if you don’t socialize (in this context socialize = pathologize)—interact with others—you will be saved. The above photo by “Badische Neuste Nachrichten” summarized it all. Can art’s infectious impulse transcend this pathology?
At peace but in pieces: on suspended kinesis/sociability
From anthropocentric point of view especially after the Renaissance the idea of art and sociability and/or interaction was firmly rooted in the Western thought. However, from a sociological point of view, the term can be understood as the drama of everyday sociability that predates the Enlightenment in Europe. In the work The Muqaddimah (The Prolegomena) by Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 CE), who some intellectuals consider as the father of sociology, Khaldun leaves written record on sociability as the main dynamo in the drama of rise and fall of civilizations. He indirectly links it with the notion of art and specific impulse. He says: “[i]t should be known that history, in matter of fact, is information about human social organization, which itself is identical with world civilization. It deals with such conditions affecting the nature of civilization, as, for instance, savagery and sociability, group feelings, and the different ways by which one group of human beings achieves superiority over another.”
In the Muqaddimah, Khaldun explains the dramatic innerworkings of sociability thence society—civilization to be. He indirectly unpacks the ways (technology/art) toward what would later, in Simmel’s work, become known as the social “impulse.” This drama or social impulse seems to be the main pillar of consociation/sociability. He explains, though in different context, the idea of sociability which manifests itself as “assabiyya.” Assabiyya[3] is notoriously difficult to translate but it seems to represent a notion, a tie or an impulse toward group cohesion: the stronger the bond/tie the stronger community, Khaldun argues. assabiyya possess the elements of kinesis or movement towards, what Simmel later would frame as “group affiliation” and “interaction” thence this drama is the living-force of the society, and thus it ought to lead to political institutions such as (democratic) state: the Republic?
[1] Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
[2] Faustian Bargain refers to the notion one willing to sacrifice anything to satisfy a limitless desire for a specific ends.
[3] On “asabiyyah” see Hasan Susic The Social and Political Significance of ‘asabiyya
During the Enlightenment to constrain this “drama”, or to give it “rational spin,” and distance humanity from the canonic laws, Immanuel Kant naturally aimed at the “unsocial sociability” in the realm of Plato’s analogy of the Cave as an example of anarchical society. In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant showed how reason is responsible for ruling over the dualistic nature of mind. It is pure reason, he argues, that must intervene to construct order out of disorder (on current situation via Kant’s argument see Arpad Szakolczai “The End of Kantian Universalism: The Current Pandemic Madness (Part I)” https://voegelinview.com/the-end-of-kantianism-the-current-pandemic-madness-part-one/. Kant in his fourth proposition/essay Idea for a Universal History argues that this drama seems to be attributed to:
“The means which nature employs to bring about the development of innate capacities is that of antagonism within society, in so far as this antagonism becomes in the long run the cause of a law-governed social order. By antagonism, I mean in this context the unsocial sociability of men, that is, their tendency to come together in society, coupled, however, with a continual resistance which constantly threatens to break this society up. This propensity is obviously rooted in human nature. Man has an inclination to live in society, since he feels in this state more like a man, that is, he feels able to develop his natural capacities. But he also has a great tendency to live as an individua~ to isolate himself, since he also encounters in himself the unsocial characteristic of wanting to direct everything in accordance with his own ideas” (1970 [2016], 44).[1]
Kant assumed that such a dichotomizing approach – mind versus body – is universally applicable. Therefore, pure reason exists, and its sole responsibility lies in it that it is the mover toward the cosmos, rather than some invisible social impulse/interaction. Simmel seems to agree with Kant’s proposition that human’s “unsocial sociability” is the dynamo of the civilization, but not so Khaldun indeed for valid reasons. However, Simmel adds the “spin” to this formula: the “impulse.” He argues that in there – the impulse – lies the very dynamo that Kant seems to ignore while attributing the order solo to the Reason. In other words, for Simmel the notion of “impulse” can be indirectly linked to Khaldun’s “assabiyya” thence interaction—con-sociation—as the building bloc of the world we all live in.
In recent history the subject of sociability and interaction was the buzz word for many intellectuals. In the Civilizing Process, according to Norbert Elias, the civilizing process happens during the liminal moments or major transitory moments and it originated highly regulated the realm of court society. Elias and Franz Borkenau, separate but together, according to Arpad Szakolczai (2000a), show that these processes came at the liminal moments in which “interactions” or contacts became highly regulated leading toward social changes from medieval to modern times For instance, Elias explains “habitus”, the concept he develops in Civilizing Process, to show how a given social structure, the royal courts, dictates and/or follows the habits and patterns of the behavior contact of particular people, leading towards common understanding or encapsulation into a “civilizing process.” Elias is applying and tracing his idea in the process of the transformation of manners and social change. His notion of the (European) modern civilizing processes, even how one should seat at the table, should be understood as a socially and individually intertwined process managed, perhaps invented, by the realm of court society.[2]
[1] KANT Political Writings, 2016
[2] On transition see Borkenau, 1934, The Transition from the Feudal to the Bourgeois World View; Elias, 2000, p. 45ff., see also Elias, 1987, Involvement and Detachment; on liminality and modernity see Szakolczai, 2013, 2015, 2017.
The “civilizing process” in Elias terms is not a static thing. The social change is a permanent process in motion, and it appears that it depends on a certain impulse, or should one call it in Tolstoy’s terms: specific “infection?” Elias defines civilizing process as something that does not happen out of the blue. It is always present and part of distinct manners. Its existence has its roots in ongoing manners. In this sense, there are no cuts or lacks in the process. In the postscript to Civilizing Process, presenting a counter argument to the Parsons’s “…accidental, externally activated malfunction of a normally well-balanced social system” (2000: 456), Elias offers his view on social change de novo. He writes: “…based on abundant documentary material, that [social] change is a normal characteristic of society. A structured sequence of continues change serves here as the frame of reference for investigating states [manners] located at particular points of time” (2000: 457). In relation to the above argument one can argue that public spaces, bars, theaters, museums or even Facebook and other “social anti-social” platforms seem to be the consequence of the impulse toward contact interaction. What is important here is that Elias’s argument, also Simmel’s, and Khaldun’s seem to stress that the transition is inevitable. Yet the change is related to the notion of bodily and socially contact/interaction, which is naturally rooted in the nature of living species thence “impulse.” Civilizing Process is explicit on how certain decorum, bodily behavior and proper manners in society can be exogenously architectured, but also endogenously nurtured as Khaldun would argue via his term of “assabiyya.”
Going back Khaldun via Georg Simmel, whose analysis on sociability shows that this concept of sociability is rooted in an “impulse” and/or desire of being in-contact-with-others. It is therefore important for the well-being of both the society and the self that this impulse is democratically nourished and institutionalized during the major transformative experiences. The nature of the self is thus concomitant with the society and the very impulse for sociation. Simmel defines impulse as something that “Darwin noted that the physical weakness of human beings in comparison to equally large mammals is probable the impulse which let them from an isolated to a social existence; the latter, however, bought all the abilities of the intellect and the will to fruition, with which the human being was able not only to compensate for its physical inferiority, but also – precisely because of that infertility – increase its overall strength beyond that off all its enemies” (1997 [2000], 134[1]). This kind of association or “asabiyya” is where and how society and civilization enter as part of the natural sociability between different groups which formed a unified whole (on sociability, see Georg Simmel, 1955, 1971: 127-40, 1994). Yet Faustian Bargain demands different.
[1] Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society)
Sociability is therefore marked by a radical formula: I +other I=We. Sociability is linkage/bridge towards the other which, according to Simmel, is a natural participatory process. The gestation of the self is fundamentally different from “equal and equality.” (This is extremely close to Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of word of “we” as social function is only possible via participatory dialogical aspect.) Simmel asserts that sociability is difficult, and he traces its emergence in an “impulse” to basic human social existence and public spaces exhibiting the “sublimated dynamics of social existence and its riches” (1949, 261). Nevertheless, according to Simmel, the intrinsic part of the human “impulse” or an “impulse to sociability” is best describe in his own words: “[a]nd as that which I have called artistic impulse draws its form from the complex of perceivable things and builds this form into a special structure corresponding to the artistic impulse, so also the impulse to sociability distils as it were, out of realities of social life the pure essence of association” and “[i]t thereby constitutes what we call sociability” (Georg Simmel On Individuality and Social Forms 1972:128). Thus, healthy interactions are part of art, which then goes to produce a phenomenal representation or an art work –the web of multiple contact interactions– “formalized” as a work of art and expressed through geometrical –aesthetics: society. Yet what happens when this “art-form” is inverted?
Superbug: Faustian Bargain?
Sociability, the impulse of human interaction and its role in human experience is at the moment threatened by an exogenous agent called Corona virus or a superbug. Leaving its genealogical structure to the virologist and epidemiologists, this work unpacks it from a sociological aspect. This pathology attacks the very core of sociability; namely, human impulse to-contact-and-to-interact. For example, if Corona existed during Plato times Athenian Agora would be now closed. The open public spaces – the Agora – a place where democracy was forged which served as the main association would be designated as ground zero. The Agora—the place where Athenians exchanged the ideas and dialogue—would no longer be possible. Public space of sociability has always existed, but now they are closed and are slowly withering away along with in vivo personal interactions which is the core of adequate democratic order. Can one dare to ask this question: are we facing modern Faustian Bargain?
Corona, that intelligent superbug, attaches itself to the basic social interactions whilst creating a completely new interaction order—no interaction order. This pathology is both Simmel and Khaldun in reverse. This new order is within the framework of new individual standards. Social gatherings, even basic interaction in vivo is attributed to the spread of deadly infection. Human is constrained from engaging in any kind of social interaction which further echoes what happens in larger social situation. The very self-imposed restriction of interaction is novel and inevitably will impact the level of democracy and/or social structures yet to come. If sociability and its core impulse of interaction is all about “self-toward-other” then under the impact of Corona the very “I” + “I” = “We” becomes vulnerable, if not obsolete. The vulnerability is both personal and social, for without I there cannot be We, as Bakhtin would argue. In other words, the consequence of this pathology is social “distance” pathology par excellence in which “self” only thinks that it thinks of “self” which in the long run opens the plenty of space for totalitarian social structure to capillary permeate via anti-social social platforms thence Hannah Arendt; no coincidence exhibition in Berlin, 2020.
The emphasis is on this new pathology of interaction – superbug – between individuals and social structure which goes even deeper. Self-isolation and avoidance of the Agora can be seen as the emergence of the new voluntary totalitarian system order. As the natural byproduct of no-contact and isolation superbug emerges and lingers as (is) an “actor” closely following Earthling’s[1] argument. It mimes kinesis and true social structure whilst fermenting this new voluntary totalitarian infrastructure. This further might enable a kick start of a new logarithm, as per Facebook repeated Freudian slips, that acts as a torpedo into Simmel’s “impulse” and Khaldun’s “assabiyya” whilst self-perpetuating new conventions where social, consociation and sociability is artificially controlled rather than exercised freely via its art impulse. However, the problem arises with the Faustian Bargain. One is forced to juggle the impossible: if one is to fully socialize one may not live; but if one does cooperate with the superbug and not cooperate within larger community one may live. The core of functioning democracy, as Socrates through Plato’s scriptures argues, are the free associations whose existence relies on the free human impulse toward interaction.
In summary
In order to preserve democracy and democratic values one needs to comprehend these moments as the moments of transition or a grand rite of passage. Democracy and sociability are challenged by an intruder. The intruder demands Faustian Bargain suffocating the very core value of how species interact with each other and what social structures would come out of those interaction. Plato in the Republic shows that painters and poets do not possess knowledge of objects or forms; they copy copies. Homer writes about war but, has never been through war. The Republic book ten ends with an attack on Homer, artistry and poets, but what Plato cherishes the most is the dialogue, contact and sociability which is the essence of the form of democratic society: the Republic. In other words, to Plato non-being and/or mime of good leadership was the major threat to sociability thence the need to write the Republic, “…doubts about democracy’s ability to survive go back to Plato, who regarded it as very fragile because it occupies liminal space. What the Republic is about, is not only justice and the just person, but rather a perpetual wrestling for democracy-to-be. In fact, what makes a harmonious condition or society, thence political institutions, to be worthy of the label democratic is the perpetual resistance of extreme ends competing in a free context”[2]. In this world the superbug appears to be in the form of a pathological intelligence which even to Plato would be puzzling.
Going back to Lev Tolstoy’s “What is Art?”, and Hannah Arendt’s “radical thinking,” one can ask: can general purpose of art save democratic values and fight totalitarianism? Can art support con-sociation thence democracy? The shortest answer is: Yes. Long before Martin Heidegger’s project in examining art, Tolstoy was clear that art or in his words “Что такое искусство? Chto takoye iskusstvo?” has more to do with the complex lived experience [iskusstvo] and above all transition or in his words “infection.” For Tolstoy this notion on “lived experience” is very similar to Homer’s art and less to Plato’s dialogues although both are highly infectious poets. Tolstoy, however, argues one does not need to survive the war or Titanic catastrophe in order to be able to communicate that experience. What Tolstoy asks is not what art or beauty per se is, but what does art do or what lived experience does to individual and community? Art is “infectious,” says Tolstoy, as it carries the impulse towards con-sociation which transcends spatiotemporal realm.
It is here where Arendt’s critical thought unpacks the “banality of evil,” though from a completely different stand point than that of Heidegger’s notion of art in and related to the destruction of con-sociation and democracy via art as “technology.” In Faustian Bargain Arendt would probably agree with Tolstoy that through great art human is elevated from lower feelings and narrow paths of totalitarianism. Great art helps transcend the difficulties human face on daily basis. Finally, intellectuals mentioned in this work would probably all in unison agree that shocking art objects, consider Lebeus Woods’ architecture, such as DaDa attack monotonous and standardized genres of today’s situation. Great art is radical, for it gives birth to a new creative imperative much needed during transitory moments: “[t]he clearness of expression assists infection because the receiver, who mingles in consciousness with the author, is the better satisfied the more clearly the feeling is transmitted, which, as it seems to him, he has long known and felt, and for which he has only now found expression” (What is Art, Tolstoy); can one conclude that appears as the most powerful antidote to infectious Faustian Bargain(s)?
[1] On the elaborate concept of “superbug” see Keller Easterling Medium Design, 2018.
[2] “Leadership amidst Transition and Liminality: The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former Yugoslavia”
© 2021 Jesenko Tesan
