Abolishing Freedom, Frank Ruda and Alenka Zupančič (Ljubljana Slovenia)
27:00 The signifier freedom can mean unfreedom. If you’re all for freedom its weird who your allies are: George Bush etc. And if people experience their freedom as their unfreedom. Freedom as naturally in our capacity (myth of the giveness of freedom) The existence of a choice can mortify the individual.
How to get out of such a situation (the argument of his book Abolishing Freedom). the modern rationalist thinkers of freedom (Descartes, Kant, Hegel) a concept of destiny, of fate. One must think God’s plan, at same time try to think the concept of freedom. How do you bring these 2 things together? Fate on the one hand and Freedom on the other.
Because the concept of Fate, in situations in which problematic freedom prevails, fatalism helps you to get rid of a problematic understanding of freedom. Switch assumption I always have freedom, to assumption I don’t always have freedom.
Moving from the assumption of natural giveness of freedom to a theory of the constitution of freedom. Fate, Predetermination, is actually allowing to make this transition.
Our very ways of trying to prevent the problem is the very reason that the problem arises. Assume the catastrophe is here. Invert the perspective, the catastrophe is absolutely certain, we can’t prevent it. Maybe then something will then prevent the catastrophe. But we have to first assume there is no way to prevent the catastrophe, it will happen.
38:00 Think of a situation in which you want to fall in love. This situation is hard to prepare for. Cafes, online dating. The assumption is one will never ever fall in love, that it is totally impossible. Previously you think there are possibilities, and it is your own action that you will fall in love. You move from letting this assumption, falling in love is part of your own capacity, and assume the own IMPOSSIBILITY, this move you are affirming something with falling in love. So its not a merely negative move, …
ALENKA: The signfier Freedom has turned into a signifier of oppression. The signifier became more and more compressed in the direction of the market, freedom of choice, freedom of markets. It’s quite obvious this has weird effects, Freedom of Speech … what we are witnessing today, Freedom of Speech is reinvented a right wing excuse to incite something.
Ruda moves beyond this superficial phenomena, and starts with Freedom as a possibility, as a capacity. This is a specific concept of freedom. Monty Python Meaning of Life, the first scene, you see this huge catholic family, every sperm is sacred.
Protestant couple: We could have done it any time we wanted. Man brags, he could walk down the street … and brags I want condoms. Two levels: if you have the possibility to do it, but they never do it, the possibility is enough. 2) This opens up another kind of trap, this trap of conceiving this freedom of just the possibility and the realization of this possibility. TRAP: If they were to act on this possibility, and had sex all the time then they would be free. There is nothing new you achieve by acting on it you get what you already have. Freedom of choice as possibility as literally, we have freedom as a possibility, and that should suffice, whether we do it or not doesn’t matter. Freedom is there.
This both thinking of freedom as capacity, and then following into this consumerist trap, once you have a possibility, you are expected to realize as many possibilities, you become caught up in frame of which the possibilities are and not being able to change the framework of possibilities.
Freedom has much more to do with things that BIND US.
51:00 Fatalism as a formula: the example of falling in love. There are 2 things intermingled in this example: 1) is it just we need to accept things are already decided, 2) expecting the worst.
Okay whatever I do is already decided,. and then expect the worst (and you’ll never be disappointed ..) Not just things will happen as fate, predetermined, but the worst will happen.
53:00 Frank … Freedom in strongest sense not with accepting given options but with the constitution of the very framework of the options.
Then the question is how to conceive of that, positing presuppositions, this possibility of constituting the framework in which I choose.
What I’m trying to say, this constitution must potentially happen for me to affirm the constitution of new framework as possibilities, I need an external trigger … something needs to happen to me, in a sense, which creates the possibility for me to REFRAME the framework of possibilities.
I want to say the best preparation for it is to expect that it WON’T happen. Why is this a preparation? Because thereby I don’t simply say I can’t make myself fall in love … I affirm something bout the very form, the very modality of the which I might act, I say something about this very modality, it must be impossible to happen, otherwise it gets caught up in the framework of possibilities.
Freedom must REFRAMING OF THE REALM OF POSSIBILITIES.
58:00 CONTINGENCY, this is what introduces the necessity. Necessity itself is brought about. There is this question of acting AS IF. What IF, I cannot this stupid woman who still hopes to fall in love … contingency to be in this state of mind where you can say … it’s not so easy, a problem of HOW TO ASSUME FOR REAL, do you really believe you are doomed. We hear all these catastrophe scenarios, but we don’t really believe.
1:00 FRANK the problem is how do I act on what I take to be true. Someone wants to stop smoking. Act as if he already stopped.
Can we just start believing, how do we get into belief. No there must be an EVENT of FAITH. I must imagine I’m only really alive when I believe in God. I imagine I’m in a state before mankind. The precise status that Luther plays a role for the whole argument. Luther believes God only gave us divine commandments to generate despair, anxiety of how incapable we are.
1:05 Alenka: AS IF, act as if you have faith and faith will come. Pretend as if you are involved in material practices and rituals that are associated with this state of mind you will become this state of mind.
1:10 Alenka: Apartheid regime in South Africa. Fight starts in bus. Stops bus. stop this fight, for me there are no black and white you’re all green. Now those lighter shade of green at the front, and darker at the back.
Freedom of possibilities, reducing of levels, of course we should say there are no black and whites, but if the practice still goes on, under the banner of democratic acceptance goes on, but nevertheless unequal practices still go on.
1:33 Good Question, Frank’s answer: Compulsion to do something might be closer to freedom than freedom of choice.
1:39 Alenka intervenes: What about this Kantian Transcendental Choice, although we are completely determined by your nature, at some level the only point where you can find freedom, at some level not consciously, you have chosen your transcendental character, its only retroactively from your actions can you deduce what you’ve chosen. It is only retroactively from your actions can you deduce your transcendental character. Make a different choice but not in a meta-way as in “Now for something completely different” bit nevertheless it changes your necessity.
Therapeutic Strategic Fatalism, what is quite crucial, this is an attempt to conceive of preparation as something you can’t prepare for. Badiou’s suggestion we’re living in an intermediary time, something’s collapse and no new orientation has emerged, old is dying the new cannot be born, we in an intermediary space … what does philosophy do in a time in which its task is to prepare for something for which one cannot prepare.