An Officer of Civilization

by Nurit Buchweitz

  Houellebecq analyzes the current state of affairs as it is; the negation of interpersonal relations has led to a lonely, sterile, depersonalized, and automatic existence, driven by consumer attractions and operated by an identical capitalistic logic, which Houellebecq referred to in his essay “Le monde comme supermarché et comme dérision” as “the logic of the supermarket.”18 The immediate meaning of this logic is the destruction of free will, as Houellebecq further notes in the same essay (Houellebecq, Rester Vivant, p. 49, my translation):

  The logic of the supermarket presupposes a dispersal of desire. The person from the supermarket world is essentially unable to possess singular will or singular desire […]. This is the source of a certain suppression of will in the modern person; people do not desire less; on the contrary, they desire more and more; but their desires have something shrill and vociferous: Without there being pure simulacra, people ← 149 | 150 → are largely the product of external, even advertising definitions in the broader sense of the word. There is nothing in them reminiscent of that total organic force that is persistently directed towards its realization, pointing to the word ‘will.’ Consequently, a certain lack of personality is evident in everyone.

  [«La logique du supermarché induit nécessairement un éparpillement des désirs; l’homme du supermarché ne peut organiquement être l’homme d’une seule volonté, d’un seul désir […]. D’où une certaine dépression du vouloir chez l’homme contemporain; non que les individus désirent moins, ils désirent au contraire de plus en plus; mais leurs désirs ont acquis quelque chose d’un peu criard et piaillant: sans être de purs simulacres, ils sont pour une large part le produit de déterminations externes ― nous dirons publicitaires au sens large. Rien en eux n’évoque cette force organique et totale, tournée avec obstination vers son accomplissement, que suggère le mot de ‘volonté’. D’où un certain manque de personnalité, perceptible chez chacun.»]

  The loss of free will, the recognition that there are many ways in which our lives and consciousness are dependent upon non-human technological and ideological entities, is what postmodern theorists have described as the direct outcome of the postmodernist late capitalist reality: the new subjectivity, the personality-less subject, a hybrid of machine and organism19 or, in other words, the post-human.

  Throughout his oeuvre, Houellebecq depicts this post-human. The concept of the autonomous human – born into modernity and as portrayed in the realistic-modernist novel – is outdated. If we seek to provide a viable definition of contemporary human reality, matters must be depicted as they stand. Post-humanism relates with suspicion to concepts such as identity and subjectivity and views them as the tension between choice and an illusion of choice – people are fervent believers in free choice, and even believe that they are living in an age that has granted them the greatest possible degree of freedom; however, choice is often only an illusion.20 So the protagonist of Platform, the author’s alter ego, thinks about people:

  It is wrong to pretend that human beings are unique, that they carry within them an irreplaceable individuality. As far as I was concerned, at any rate, I could not distinguish any trace of such an individuality. As often as not, it is futile to wear yourself out trying to distinguish individual destinies and personalities. When all’s said and ← 150 | 151 → done, the idea of the uniqueness of the individual is nothing more than pompous absurdity. We remember our lives, Schopenhauer wrote somewhere, a little better than a novel we once read. That’s about right: a little, no more. (p. 130)

  [«Il est faux de prétendre que les êtres humains sont uniques, qu’ils portent en eux une singularité irremplaçable; en ce qui me concerne, en tout cas, je ne percevais aucune trace de cette singularité. C’est en vain, le plus souvent, qu’on s’épuise à distinguer des destins individuels, des caractères. En somme, l’idée d’unicité de la personne humaine n’est qu’une pompeuse absurdité. On se souvient de sa propre vie, écrit quelque part Schopenhauer, un peu plus que d’un roman qu’on aurait lu par le passé. Oui, c’est cela: un peu plus seulement.» (Plateforme, p. 175)]

  According to Žižek, in late capitalist consumer society one experiences hyper-actuality, a life of something that is not real, lacking substance and based on appearances, as staged by MTV and Hollywood. In his view, “In the consumer society of late capitalism a ‘genuine social life’ acquires one way or another the characteristics of a staged forgery, in which our neighbors behave in ‘real’ life like actors or extras in a play […]. The ultimate truth of the utilitarian capitalist universe devoid of all spirit is the dematerialization of ‘real life’ itself, turning it into a spectacle.”21

  The post-human is the product of a society of constant observers, continually measuring and controlling themselves according to the powerful images designed for them by various screens (computer, television, internet, cellular). The individual is entirely woven into the channels in which he lives,22 and he adapts his personality to the image of reality that surrounds him. This is the meaning of the loss of free will and post-humanism; yet how does pornography fit into this system?

  According to its classification in the study of literature, pornography belongs to the modus of fantasy; it is escapist literature23 that takes the reader to the realm of imagination and the impossible, in which reader and writer share the ability to create an imaginary, fictitious world distinctly separate from the phenomenological world in which they live. Pornography requires a different kind of reading to that of realistic works; as in the case of fantasy in general, so too in pornography, the fictional nature of the ← 151 | 152 → referents is axiomatic. In realism, after all, the referents have to meet the test of reasonability and probability. Moreover, pornography is discordant in the context of realism because it is ambivalent: it stimulates some just as it repels others, and slips into instinctive, primordial, basic, deep, even ambivalent feelings about sex (although this is connected to the encounter between the canonic and non-canonic).

  Distancing Language from Reality

  In order to understand fully the nature of pornographic representation, it must be viewed as a fundamentalist parody, as defined by Linda Hutcheon: “Postmodernist parody is a value-problematizing, de-naturalizing form of acknowledging the history (and through irony, the politics) of representations”.24 Parody is typical of postmodernism, in that it is a style that burrows through the reservoir of images from the past in a way that is intended to show the history of representation; however, it is not only the styles of the past; postmodernism quotes-all and stops at no existing style. The parody, which quotes styles, is a two-fold process of positioning.25 According to Hutcheon, parody is ironic and critical, exhibiting no nostalgia for the past. It is a means of planting a literary device in quotations and exposing it. Parody also conducts a polemic against our humanist assumptions regarding the originality and unique nature of art, as well our capitalist ideas of ownership and property. It foregrounds the politics of representation and in so doing contains a deconstructionist potential, which is in any case political.26 Thus parody stands out, is not integral to the text, and points to the function and meaning of the process of representation itself.27 ← 152 | 153 →

  Parody, like all types of reproduction, casts doubt on the concept of the original. This is of the utmost importance in understanding Houellebecq’s pornographic representation, since in his works pornography is clearly a ready-made repertoire of images, underscored as such in the text.

  As was noted above, pornography makes parodic use of stock representations that distance reality, emphasizing the staging of scenes and their artificiality, destroying the illusion of reality.28 The representation of pornographic sex, planted within literature which also provides fundamentally realistic representations, indicates that the basic theme of the realistic genre – individual awareness based on a solid and genuine emotional system – has undergone the mediation of convention; the ready-made reservoir of images of thrills replaces personal experience; a form that be
longs to the culture of the masses and thus consumer culture replaces unique, one-time, expressive representation.29

  Pornographic parody in Houellebecq’s works thus draws upon a pool of representations in order to direct the reader’s main focus to the historic nature of representing sexual and emotional life. This generates a contradiction in the text between a quote from the pornographic style – at the foundation of which is dehumanization and violation of the human, reducing man to no more than organs in action – and representation of a different kind, a realistic representation which, in contrast, seeks to connect the image, society, and history, to extol the entire essentialist, autocratic subject. The deliberately artificial pornographic representation, against the background on which it appears, is shocking – not, however, due to its crude exposure, but rather because it suddenly appears to suit the way of thinking exhibited by Houellebecq’s characters; all are subjects that think via the prism of their time, measure themselves against the images of life in which they fail. In so doing, Houellebecq invites us to rethink subjectivity; how our tastes and passions are formed, to what extent we have ← 153 | 154 → influence or control over them, if our existence is in fact no more than the imagined, collective sum total imprinted on it.

  Indeed, a considerable proportion of the pornographic representation in Houellebecq’s works appears in connection with a loving relationship, in which sex is represented as a source of sharing, innocent sensual harmony, and closeness. However, in the place of descriptions of love and sex that are unique in their subjectivity, functional and emanating from the circumstances, singular and directly connected to the idiosyncrasies of the protagonists, we find a repetition of the same, standard pornographic passages. This is not because the phenomenon conforms to the standardization of that which is human. If realism is connected to the representation of the essentialist subject, then pornographic representation is a way of depoliticizing realistic representation, which does not conform to contemporary circumstances. Pornography is representation that suits the post-human; the way he is capable of thinking via ready-made – déja-fait – cultural images.

  It is not only in the sexual realm that Houellebecq presents reflections via ready-made mediations. The village of Surat Thani, a stop on an organized excursion taken by the protagonist Michel in Platform, is also described in this manner. Instead of observing the village, learning about it and responding to what he sees, instead of “daring to use his mind”, Michel chooses to quote the guidebook which is constantly in his hands. In other words, he mediates the location that he sees with his very own eyes by means of its image as reflected in the travel guide; the guidebook serves as a code that mediates reality for the protagonist. Ironically, in the following passage, the guidebook dismisses any possibility of interest in the village, thereby obliterating what the observer actually sees with his own eyes:

  Surat Thani – population 42,000 – is distinguished, according to the guidebooks, by the fact that it is of no interest whatever. It is, and this is the only thing you can say about it, an obligatory stop on the way to the Koh Samui ferry. Nonetheless, people live here, and the Michelin Guide informed us that for a long time the city has been an important center of metallurgical industries – and that, more recently, it has gained a significant role in metal-based construction and assembly. (Platform, p. 60)

  [«Surat Thani – 816 000 habitants30 – se signale selon tous les guides par son manque d’intérêt absolu. Elle constitue, et c’est tout ce qu’on peut en dire, un point de passage obligé pour le ferry de Koh Samui. Cependant les gens vivent, et le guide Michelin nous signale que la ville est depuis longtemps un centre important pour les industries ← 154 | 155 → métallurgiques – puis, plus récemment, qu’elle a acquis un certain rôle dans le domaine des constructions métalliques.» (Plateforme, p. 85)]

  The same is also true of the following passage, at the beginning of Whatever:

  Friday evening I was invited to a party at a colleague from work’s house. There were thirty-odd of us, all middle management aged between twenty-five and forty. At a certain moment, some stupid bitch started removing her clothes. She took off her T-shirt, then her bra, then her skirt, as she did she pulled the most incredible faces. She twirled around in her skimpy panties for a few seconds more and then, not knowing what else to do, began getting dressed again. She’s a girl, what’s more, who doesn’t sleep with anyone. Which only underlines the absurdity of her behavior. (Whatever, p. 3)

  [«Vendredi soir, j’étais invité à une soirée chez un collègue de travail. On était une bonne trentaine, rien que des cadres moyens âgés de vingt-cinq à quarante ans. À un moment donné il y a une connasse qui a commencé à se déshabiller. Elle a ôté son T-shirt, puis son soutien-gorge, puis sa jupe, tout ça en faisant des mines incroyables. Elle a encore tournoyé en petite culotte pendant quelques secondes, et puis elle a commencé à se resaper, ne voyant plus quoi faire d’autre. D’ailleurs c’est une fille qui ne couche avec personne. Ce qui souligne bien l’absurdité de son comportement.» (Extension, p. 3)]

  Why does the girl at the party behave in a manner defined by the author as absurd and which is clearly inappropriate in the circumstances (the complete indifference of those present) and not suited to her conservative character? Here too, the answer lies in a malfunction of free-will. In an essay called The Party, Houellebecq explains the existence of parties as a primeval need to distract ourselves from being “lonely, miserable and doomed to die.” The contemporary Westerner, maintains Houellebecq in his essay “La fête”, is no longer able to reach a state of exaltation that will distract him: «il aimerait être un fêtard, ou du moins passer pour tel» [“but he wants to be a party animal, or at least be considered one.”] (Rester Vivant, p. 71, my translation). This is precisely how the girl in the passage above acts: she insists on having fun on the basis of ready-made images existing in her mind of “how to party”. As pornography, this scene also relates to a study of subjectivity. Houellebecq draws attention to the fact that our social and individual existence is determined by the way in which knowledge regarding the nature of reality is organized for us and replicated into our minds. These images constitute a person’s personality (and sexuality). The subject is assailed on all sides by these images, and tries to live them ← 155 | 156 → in his own life. Houellebecq emphasizes fame, for example, as a source of human images, as in this passage from Whatever:

  The next day I didn’t go to work. For no precise reason; I simply didn’t fancy it. Squatting on the moquette, I leafed through some mail order catalogues. In a brochure put out by Galeries Lafayette I found an interesting description of human beings, under the title Today’s People:

  After a really full day they snuggle down into a deep sofa with sober lines (Steiner, Roset, Cinna). To a jazz tune they admire the style of their Dhurries carpets, the gaiety of their wall coverings (Patrick Frey). Ready to set off for a frenzied set of tennis, towels await them in the bathroom (Yves St. Laurent, Ted Lapidus). It’s before a dinner with intimate friends in their kitchens created by Daniel Hechter or Primrose Bordier that they’ll remake the world. (Whatever, pp. 123–124; emphasis in the original)

  [«Le lendemain, je ne suis pas allé travailler. Sans raison précise; je n’avais simplement pas envie. Accroupi sur la moquette, j’ai feuilleté des catalogues de vente par correspondance. Dans une brochure éditée par les Galeries Lafayette j’ai trouvé une intéressante description d’êtres humains, sous le titre ‘Les actuels’:

  «‘Après une journée bien remplie, ils s’installent dans un profond canapé aux lignes sobres (Steiner, Roset, Cinna). Sur un air de jazz, ils apprécient le graphisme de leurs tapis Dhurries, la gaieté de leurs murs tapissés (Patrick Frey). Prêtes à partir pour un set endiablé, des serviettes de toilette les attendent dans la salle de bains (Yves Saint-Laurent, Ted Lapidus). Et c’est devant un dîner entre copains et dans leurs cuisines mises en scène par Daniel Hechter ou Primrose Bordier qu’ils referont le monde.’» (Exte
nsion, pp. 123–124; emphasis in the original)]

  The reading material is a commercial text which serves as a source for images that human beings try to embody in reality, when the need is generated, for example by texts such as these. The last part of the advertising text is especially amusing: they’ll remake the world?

  In Houellebecq’s novels, pornography impairs the reality of representation, causing us to question the weight of cultural imprinting on our minds, our behavior, our memories. The people participating in pornographic acts are spiritually and morally exhausted subjects at the end of history; the protagonists have undergone careful interpellation as subjects, making it impossible for them to think beyond the possibilities of their time. Perhaps, under such conditions, pornography is the only possible representation. ← 156 | 157 →

  The Waning of Subjectivity

  The connection between pornography and post-humanism becomes stronger and more emphatic in Houellebecq’s depictions of neohuman societies and individuals in his futuristic novels The Elementary Particles and The Possibility of an Island, which testify to his preoccupation with the future. Like other futuristic novels, they present a picture of the future based on the technical and cultural present, predicting its realization and implications. As such, these two books present a cultural history of sex and science in the twentieth century. They deal with the topics that occupy our cultural scenery to a growing extent – the promise of a biotechnical future through cloning, organ transplants, the halting of aging (plastic surgery), control over emotions, and chemistry. All these are presented as a way to resolve the problems that face the post-human, of dealing with the primordial trails of the human race and the decline of the body. In our world, death is not only the end of life, it is also the end of humanity’s fall; the neohumans, however, seek to contend with this fall. They are protected from the loss of youth and the betrayal of their bodies, yet are captives of their own genetic programming. Houellebecq reinforces the image of the future subject that he creates and intensifies its implications, when one of the protagonists in The Elementary Particles compares our world to Huxley’s dystopian vision of the world in Brave New World, stating that we are in actual fact living this nightmare, viewing it as the objective of all our desires. Modern dystopia has become a fundamentalist utopia: