Bound of Aeschylus in this striking passage:
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid., 62.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
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lovers of sophia
Philosophy, as long as a drop of blood shall pulse in its world-
subduing and absolutely free heart, will never grow tired of
answering its adversaries with the… confession of Prometheus:
“In simple words, I hate the pack of gods,” [which] is its own
confession, its own aphorism against all heavenly and earthly
gods who do not acknowledge human self-consciousness as the
highest divinity. It will have none other beside… Prometheus
is the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical
calendar.19
Marx saw Prometheus as the primordial philosopher or as the god
who instilled the impetus to philosophizing in those that he made
in his own image.20 The young Marx’s poems to his lover Jenny are
filled with the Promethean spirit that inspired his own philosophical
enterprise.21 The titanic sense of Justice that breathes through these fiery verses of Marx is the spectral promise of Marx’s thought that
Derrida seeks, which exceeds the materialist ontology and the failed
party ideologies of Marxism in the Soviet Union and elsewhere.
Derrida notes that according to the Manifesto of 1844, the
“universal Communist Party, the Communist International will
be… the final incarnation, the real presence of the specter, thus the
end of the spectral.”22 The ontological commitment to substance
as contrasted with the insubstantial or unreal is a betrayal of the
permanence of “permanent revolution”, whose endurance is of
a spectral nature.23 Derrida is seeking a retrieval of the spectral
revolutionary force of Marxism beyond the ontology of “dialectical
materialism.”24 With reference to Blanchot and the manner of
temporality that pervaded the May of 1968 uprising in France,
Derrida remarks on the immanence of permanent revolution, which 19 Ibid., 65, 106.
20 Ibid., 104–143.
21 Ibid., 117–122.
22 Ibid., 128.
23 Ibid., 39.
24 Ibid., 110.
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is not some determinate final goal but which opens up Time in such
a way as one is addressed by an ever-present demand.25
This permanent revolution must proceed from out of a radical
reorientation of our thought processes to the end of attaining
the kind of “open mindedness” that Derrida means to evoke
with his suggestion that even our experience of time ought to be
revolutionized. David Bohm has developed a dialectical method for
bringing this about within small communities. Time is for us, after
al , a function of the interplay between memory and representational
thought. We are prisoners of past thoughts and patterns of behavior
that were never authentical y ours to begin with.
David Bohm argues that though human consciousness/cognition
is uniform from person to person, human beings also have thought
(which is responsible for their social being). Consciousness/
cognition is simply the direct presentation of what is before one’s senses to the brain. Bohm explains that thought however, is a
“system” of “symbolic representation”. That is, when one sees an
object (or a situation composed of various objects) it is presented to the brain, but it is also recorded there in memory. Thought then represents former recorded presentations, in order to determine how a current situation itself will be recorded for future re-presentation.
The point is that the presentation fuses with the representation. One
channel is coming from the senses, the other from memory, and the
two mix in experience. Ultimately, new representations are being
created by the criteria of aggregates of old representations, which
Bohm cal s “assumptions”.
Bohm’s central point is that we are not aware that thought
functions in this way, we lack “proprioception (self-awareness) of
thought”. “Proprioception” is a word that usual y refers to the mostly unconscious perception of spatial movement and orientation from
within the body itself, whether through the nervous system or canals
in the inner ear. By adopting and adapting this term to the context of thought processes Bohm is implying that it is possible for a deeper
awareness to become conscious of the typical y mechanical function
25 Ibid., 40.
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lovers of sophia
of mental representation as mediated by memory. Bohm suggests
that thought functions mechanical y on its own, whenever there is
an ‘object’ present before the ‘subject’ of a consciousness with a brain capable of memory (and language). Thus it is arbitrary in creating
representations, which results in many of them being contradictory
(in conflict with each other). We believe that we are obviously
looking at what actual y is, and that we are then free to think about how we respond to it. However, Bohm argues that the content of
thought (the representational assumptions) constantly effect the thought process – again, unconsciously. This means that when we
believe that “we” are thinking-about something our assumptions are
actual y thinking for us.
This has major implications for the nature of the ‘Individual
Wil ’ of the ego, and deconstructs it in such a way that it is opened to a Hegelian unity with communal wil . If Thought functions as
Bohm claims that it does, then all of the objects that we identify
with ourselves, and in turn, which identify us, are il usory and
often contradictory. Our wife is not ours, we have been tricked by
thought into thinking she is. All of our possessions, are not ours
either. But most fundamental y our opinions are not our own, for
as Bohm suggests, they are nothing but assumptions that have been
randomly and reflexively created by thought through a series of
(subject-object) interactions. In other words, when consciousness or
cognition exists without thought (as it does in other animals), then
there is a fundamental universal self among all that are biological y
similar, but when thought intervenes it creates another constructed
self, the “ego”. This ego-identity varies from individual to individual (in fact it creates the ‘individual’) within a species with thought,
because representations are mechanical and arbitrary and will differ
if different entities are subject to different placements, situations and interactions.
The problem of the psychological “ego” or private self can be
seen as follows. Thought as a system of symbolic representation is
arbitrary in how it represents the world. However, in that it is also
tautological it has to reconcile these representations and guide future 420
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representations by their self-asserted criteria. Thus the division
between “private” and “public” and the solipsistic distinction
between “self” and “other” develops so that certain representations
or assumptions of Thought can disappear into a “back” region and
be hidden from others, while up “front” one gives a presentation
based on assumptions that contradict t
hose now hidden in the back.
With different people, different aspects of thought are concealed
and others presented. Furthermore, when one is ‘with-oneself’,
the same process of private and public concealment takes place in
a more complex and internalized way in that one is usual y tacitly
and subtly relating to oneself in terms of others – or what George
Herbert Mead cal s the “generalized Other” of society (or what
Martin Heidegger conceptualizes as the ‘They’ or Das Man). In other words, the coherence of “the self” as circumscribed by the system
of Thought, depends on suppressing the incoherence of that system
through giving conflicting assumptions their own time ‘on stage’ or
in the spotlight, and forcibly concealing others.
Thus in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman suggests that when we enter the presence of others we “define the
situation” in such a way as to indicate how we want to be considered.
We define the situation differently depending on who we are with
and where. Each person makes this definition and by being in tune
with and accepting each other’s definitions a given social situation is created. A performance is divided into what Goffman cal s “front”
and “back” regions. The “front” is the part of oneself which one
presents to certain people and the “back” is what one hides or does
not allow them to see. What is in the “front” and what is in the “back”
will depend on who our “audience” is. Goffman writes that when
engaged in performance (or interaction), for the sake of propriety:
“...each participant is expected to suppress his immediate heartfelt
feelings, conveying a view of the situation which he feels the others
will be able to find at least temporarily acceptable...each participant concealing his own wants...”26 This implies that the “back” region,
26 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday, 1959), 9.
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from which the performance of the “front” region is controlled, is
home to one’s true Self. It is the inner realm which contains what
one real y feels and “wants” and thus reflects who one real y is.
Our performance even continues to some degree when we are
on our own, because we are thinking about ourselves in terms of
something in respect to which we would need to express certain
aspects of ourselves and suppress others. Thus we come to identify
ourselves with a set of assumptions set within a complex of various
degrees of private and public presentation. We see any threat to
these assumptions as a threat to ourselves, and so the most profound
fear becomes a tenacious guardian of the “ego”.
Goffman argues that there are expressions that we “give”
purposely as part of the performance, and also expressions that we
inadvertently “give off” – those that escape our attempt to prevent
what is in “back” from being seen “in front”: “...The expressiveness
of the individual (and therefore his capacity to give impressions)
appears to involve two radical y different kinds of sign activity: the expression that he gives, and the expression that he gives off.” He
goes on to further emphasize this distinction when he explains how
because the audience’s keen perception often outsteps our measures
to hide the “back” region, we engage in further steps to prevent its
exposure. So a cat and mouse cycle develops between the keenness
of the audience and the tact of the performer, in which greater
measures are employed by each to maintain propriety. Goffman
believes that all of our social structures are circularly recreated
and maintained by our everyday small scale interactions with one
another in this manner of performance.27
In his work On Dialogue, David Bohm acknowledges that thought currently lacks proprioception or the self-awareness to realize that it is perpetual y casting a false divide between private and public realms,
but for him, this is not inherently so. He argues that thought does innately have the potential for self-awareness.28 For Bohm ‘external
forces’ such as the expectations of conduct that reinforce the social
27 Ibid.
28 David Bohm, On Dialogue (London: Routedge, 1996), 79.
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structure, are only ‘external’ in that they come from many other
individuals and blindly act together on oneself. Thus, Bohm argues that “proprioception of thought” can only arise in what he cal s a true
“dialogue” between people. Since the representational mechanism
of Thought is collective, he argues that the response must also be
collective. Thus, Bohm argues that “proprioception of thought” can
arise in what he cal s a true “dialogue” between people. In his vision of “dialogue” Bohm hopes to bring about a social self-consciousness
by exposing Hegel’s dialectical process, in its psychological aspect,
to those who are undergoing it, and thereby accelerate its dynamic
of eroding the il usory individual wil , by exposing and negating its
contradictions, in favor of the realization of collective unity.
A sufficient number of participants so as to reflect a microcosm
of society are assembled for the sole purpose of participating in a
“dialogue” with each other. The first principle of this dialogue is that honesty must exist within the group, everyone must say what they
actual y believe. This can come about either by the sheer fact of a
number of people great enough that superficial cordiality ultimately
breaks down, or by a true dedication of the participants to abide by this principle. In addition to a commitment to honesty, the participants
must have a commitment to what Bohm cal s “suspension”. That is,
one must not suppress one’s possibly vehement reactions to others’
assumptions, in order that one’s own assumptions may be exposed in
that response. But one must only follow through and manifest one’s
emotions, so that their tacit assumptions can be “suspended” as if in
thin air, before oneself. One must have a commitment to real y look
at one’s own responses, no matter how emotional y entangled one is
by them. This is done because all who are participants are interested
in studying, and so understanding, themselves.29
If everyone expresses what they actual y believe on whatever
issues the discussion randomly turns to, then they will all make
statements that ultimately expose the “assumptions” of their
thought. Two parties may find each other’s statements wrong, even infuriating, and a third party may make yet a different statement
29 Ibid.
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lovers of sophia
confounding the first two and causing them to question the validity
of both of their statements. Many may agree with the third, but a
further participant or participants may hold yet a different view and
thus call the former into question as wel . The point is that, all of
the assumptions of the members, which reflect the assumptions of
society, will be exposed and through conflict with each other they
will all be discredited as ‘ the truth’ or how it is. Thus the group will become con
scious of the assumptions of “collective thought”
upon which society rests. They could only have done this through
each other, not realizing in isolation how what each believes is
part of a larger but fragmented picture. The ‘external forces’, cease
to be in dialogue, because the group is large enough to realize that
those forces have no independence. It realizes that it is creating those “forces”, and that many of the assumptions driving them are
contradictory – making for a confused society.30
The insight by each of the members into their own assumptions
is made possible by the others, and this insight inherently changes
one’s relationship to those assumptions. They are no longer ‘fact’,
just as the “collective thought” of the group no longer seems like a
law of nature that demands how each person function in society. At
this point, a new horizon opens to the group where the old has been
ful y realized and the new can begin. Exchanges between people become creative, not based on old assumptions — but on the present situation. Thus, new shared meanings come about, because each
person has stopped clinging to restrictive assumptions. The whole
attitude or conduct of the group itself may change, as slowly, (albeit in miniature form) a new society comes into being. But it is a society that is conscious of its own “collective thought”, in which individuals (through each other) have achieved “proprioception of thought”.31
This is the kind of revolutionary transformation of the human
condition that is presupposed by Marx’s so-called “abolition of the
family.” It is idiotic to imagine that monogamous marriage could
simply be done away with as a matter of state policy. People being
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
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such as they are now, this cannot but end in disaster. Rather, Marx’s
understanding of marriage as a form of private property holding
is based on his having taken the relationship of man to woman as
indicative of the degree of man’s metaphysical estrangement from his
Nature, in other words his alienation from his truly human Being:
The direct, natural, and necessary relation of person to person
is the relation of man to woman. In this natural relationship of the sexes man’s relation to nature is immediately his relation to
man, just as his relation to man is immediately his relation to
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