Matt Schrage
type: channel
description: Why do we call all our generous ideas illusions, and our mean ones truths?
date: 2019-01-23T16:46:42Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Who Controls the Media?
items: The Foreclosure of Revolutionary Imagination
items: A Chemist’s Eye for Difference
items: Montaigne and Modernity
items: On Language and All That Is Lost in Transit
items: The Physiology of Politics
items: Reconciling Antinomy: Durkheim on Apriorism & Empiricism
items: Rousseau and Locke on Property and the State
items: The Irrational Origin of the Belief In Truth
items: Dependence, Freedom & the Structure of Obligation

Who Controls the Media?
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2019-01-22T11:28:16Z
subject: Frankfurt School
subject: Social Theory
description: The Rationalization of the Attention Market The phenomenon of mass communication is not coupled to any specific technology. Its essential feature is the capacity to articulate a message that saturates a social body. The mechanism of transmission is only related in so far as it enables this. Neither the printing press nor the transistor is prerequisite. […]
encoded: The Rationalization of the Attention Market The phenomenon of mass communication is not coupled to any specific technology. Its essential feature is the capacity to articulate a message that saturates a social body. The mechanism of transmission is only related in so far as it enables this. Neither the printing press nor the transistor is prerequisite. The vast, networked audiences of modernity are heirs to a much older tradition. The history of mass communication can be characterized by progression from meaning imposed coercively from above to an entertaining, if nihilistic, spectacle directed by the fascinations of the masses. In “The Implosion of Meaning in the Media,” Jean Baudrillard cryptically outlines this tension: “Are the mass media on the side of power in the manipulation of the masses, or are they on the side of the masses in the liquidation of meaning?” (Baudrillard 84). This paper seeks to destabilize the binary introduced by Baudrillard. The relationship between masses and media is not static. Through historical study, I will trace out the series of transformations in the dominant medium of mass communication that resulted in the shift from the former to the latter. I argue that the degree of competition for attention alters whether media is able to deliberatively articulate a purposeful message to the masses or whether the fascinations of the masses – that is what draws their attention – dictates the content that the media produces. The competitiveness of the attention market is shaped primarily by the logic inherent in the dominant technology of distribution: what Marshall McLuhan refers to when he says that “the medium is the message” (McLuhan 153). The Medium becomes its Message McLuhan is hasty in asserting an absolute identity between the medium and the message. Although a medium’s message is intrinsic to it, constitutive of it, generated out of it, the medium is not the message. Rather, the medium becomes the message, in a type of convergence. …

The Foreclosure of Revolutionary Imagination
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2019-01-22T11:02:20Z
subject: Social Theory
description: On the Concept of History is in many ways a prelude to Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. Indeed, after receiving a manuscript of the work, Adorno wrote that it manifests “the idea of history as permanent catastrophe, the criticism of progress, the domination of nature and the attitude to culture” – all of which […]
encoded: On the Concept of History is in many ways a prelude to Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment. Indeed, after receiving a manuscript of the work, Adorno wrote that it manifests “the idea of history as permanent catastrophe, the criticism of progress, the domination of nature and the attitude to culture” – all of which are themes that Adorno and Horkheimer later explore. These works are undoubtedly born of the same intellectual tradition. Each is undergirded by a deep skepticism: apparently neutral concepts are exposed as instruments which obstruct revolution and endorse the status quo. However, an examination of the theoretical implications reveals a radicalism in Dialectic of Enlightenment that separate the two. Benjamin’s treatment of history salvages its revolutionary aspects, while Adorno and Horkheimer raze the concept of enlightenment entirely. History can be appropriated and redeemed, but the use of reason forecloses the possibility of emancipation. The opening essay of the Dialectic of Enlightenment is designated “The Concept of Enlightenment,” which evokes the title of Benjamin’s work. With this allusion Horkheimer and Adorno signal that their intention is to self-consciously mirror Benjamin’s analysis. Thus, we are presented with a broad parallel between history and enlightenment: both concepts are to be viewed suspiciously and brushed against the grain. In On the Concept of History, Benjamin dispels the traditional notion of history as “recognizing [the past] ‘the way it really was'” (OCH 391). This methodology, the uncritical “establishment of a casual nexus,” is denigrated as historicism (OCH 397). Again with enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno turn conventional understanding on its head. Enlightenment is popularly conceived of as an affirmative project, as an emergence from man’s self-imposed ignorance. This fantasy withers, giving way a vision of the “wholly enlightened earth … radiant with triumphant calamity” (DE 1). These two works shar…

A Chemist’s Eye for Difference
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2019-01-22T10:57:59Z
subject: Essay
description: The Periodic Table can be viewed as an interrogation of difference. Primo Levi’s writing is animated by polarity. He recognizes division everywhere, questioning both the mechanisms by which it is enforced and the veracity of its claims. From the obvious division between Jews and gentiles, a number of other smaller dualisms emerge, either as allegory […]
encoded: The Periodic Table can be viewed as an interrogation of difference. Primo Levi’s writing is animated by polarity. He recognizes division everywhere, questioning both the mechanisms by which it is enforced and the veracity of its claims. From the obvious division between Jews and gentiles, a number of other smaller dualisms emerge, either as allegory for this primordial separation or in opposition to it, destabilizing and complicating the narrative of estrangement. Levi’s ambivalence towards difference is clear. However, he never openly advocates bridging the divide. For him, the will to unity is fascistic at its core. Throughout the book, there is a rhythmic oscillation between the general and the specific, similarity and difference, which never reaches a stable conclusion. This lack of finality is the point: to erase difference is to lapse unthinkingly into Fascism, but to elevate it is to reinforce traditional delineations, which demand a stereotyped similarity of their own. Ultimately, Levi delivers a hagiography of nuance against blind abstraction, finding a precarious balance that acknowledges the generalized differences across groups, while simultaneously preserving the individuality of the various members. Judaism is the first difference, it proceeds all others and casts its shadow over the rest. This division is introduced as timeless, as an ancient “wall of suspicion, of undefined hostility and mockery” that transcends any individual (4). The division is based on generalities and stereotypes. It is the work of the collective. So, an entire essay, “Argon,” is dedicated to committing to paper the idiosyncrasies of specific Piedmontese Jews relative to their gentile counterparts. In this opening explication of difference, Levi threatens the clarity of the separation. By examining its human element, he deflates the logic of religious tension. For example, when discussing his father, Levi characterizes him as “superstitious rather than religious,” describing in …

Montaigne and Modernity
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2019-01-22T10:56:30Z
subject: Essay
description: Montaigne’s essay, “On Vehicles,” contains, latent in it, a critique of fledgling modernity. In classic Montaignian rhythm, the work meanders hesitatingly between precepts for rulers, a recollection of the great Roman spectacles and a brief interlude into the frailty of human understanding, all culminating in an exposition of European conquest of the Americas. But with […]
encoded: Montaigne’s essay, “On Vehicles,” contains, latent in it, a critique of fledgling modernity. In classic Montaignian rhythm, the work meanders hesitatingly between precepts for rulers, a recollection of the great Roman spectacles and a brief interlude into the frailty of human understanding, all culminating in an exposition of European conquest of the Americas. But with Montaigne, despite the eclecticism, there is always a thread; to find it, one simply needs to look for the frayed edge. While this essay hinges on an implicit comparison between the New World and the Old, one must interrogate the source of the tension that leads Montaigne to say, “I very much fear that we shall have greatly hastened the decline and ruin of this other hemisphere by our contact, and that we shall have made it pay very dearly for our arts” (277). Montaigne sees a toxic seed that has taken root in the European world. This informs both his antiquarianism and his Rousseauvian views on the people, and notably the monarchs, of the New World. The titular theme — vehicles — become symbolic of modernity, an outward manifestation of the distinction between the old and new. The essay begins with a brief exposition on causes and the difficulty of settling on a single “fundamental” explanation given the myriad of potential factors (264). Quoting Lucretius, he writes: “It is not sufficient to state a cause, We should state many one of which will prove to be true” (264). This provides us our starting thread. Montaigne is in search of a cause; he seeks an explanation for the decline of the the Old World through a comparison with the Americas. Nothing about his inquiry is methodical – perhaps why it’s so easy to overlook. However, Montaigne is genuinely perplexed the fallen state of West and this essay is his attempt to “pile up” causes to see if the reason can be found among them (264). After a false start on Hungarian war vehicles, Montaigne transitions toward the concept of liberality, a willingness …

On Language and All That Is Lost in Transit
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2019-01-22T10:54:23Z
subject: Essay
description: Is there anything more than those ideas and thoughts that can be put into words? Can you think something that is unable to be expressed, something that cannot be mechanically translated from the ‘pre-lingual’ notion in your head into a collectively understood syntax? Is there ‘thought’ before language? This is the question that remains to […]
encoded: Is there anything more than those ideas and thoughts that can be put into words? Can you think something that is unable to be expressed, something that cannot be mechanically translated from the ‘pre-lingual’ notion in your head into a collectively understood syntax? Is there ‘thought’ before language? This is the question that remains to be answered. In a highly scientific age, such as our own, the habitual response is to make thought a universal feature in nature; to flatten thinking, until it is ubiquitous. Clearly, the brain operates before language is acquired. Infants ‘think’ in this colloquial sense – that is, they exhibit the outer signs of life, they have some sensory experience. They smile back at the face of their mother. They cry when they feel pain. Animals could be said to ‘think’ in this way as well. The lion intends to hunt for it is hungry. The sparrow builds its nest and feeds its young. The outworks of intent are present. These ‘thinking’ creatures respond to stimuli and mere “sensations are enough to guide them automatically” (Durkheim 338). Thought understood like this – as a feature of sentience, undifferentiated – is a reflection of our modern, scientific ethos, which urges us to imagine ourselves as indistinct from nature. Of course, the scientists are right. Each of us is part of nature. We are composed of the same material and have a shared physiognomy: we are animals. Yet, it seems to me that the drive to entirely untether thought from anything specifically human is misguided. Schopenhauer said somewhere that “the mere addition of thought gives rise to the vast and lofty structure of human happiness and misery from the same basic sensations of pain and pleasure, which are experienced by every animal.” (Schopenhauer, 17). He captures a subtlety that has been lost in modern discourse. We can embrace our animal nature, while simultaneously understanding mankind as somehow distinct, and that thought is the demarcation. It seems, however, we ar…

The Physiology of Politics
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2018-04-26T17:03:37Z
subject: Modern Political Thought
description: Friedrich Nietzsche binds the political to the physiological. His political intuitions emerge from a theory of breeding: that cultures and peoples are shaped by the conditions in which they are produced. Adverse conditions breed strength and conformity of type, while superabundance leads to variation, “whether as deviation (to something higher, subtler, rarer) or as degeneration […]
encoded: Friedrich Nietzsche binds the political to the physiological. His political intuitions emerge from a theory of breeding: that cultures and peoples are shaped by the conditions in which they are produced. Adverse conditions breed strength and conformity of type, while superabundance leads to variation, “whether as deviation (to something higher, subtler, rarer) or as degeneration and monstrosity” (211). In Beyond Good & Evil, he pushes against the false universalism that he sees as ascendant in Europe, and injects the countervailing idea that advancement of man-as-species requires the recognition of hierarchy, of distinctions between men. Nietzsche sees the political movement toward democracy as the outer-works of a “tremendous physiological process,” the leveling and mediocritization of biological man, which is taking place concurrently (176). He condemns this future of commonness and vulgarity, but suggests that it may yield, in the exceptional cases, strong “human beings of the most dangerous and attractive quality” — a new Nobility (176). For Nietzsche, what is noble is “all that is rare, strange, privileged, … and the abundance of creative power and masterfulness” (139). Nietzsche emphasizes the elevation of the noble: “the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher responsibility” (139). Noble qualities imply a hierarchy. If the noble soul “knows itself to be at a height,” this elevated status begs the question: higher than what? (215). Nietzsche’s political theories are tinged with a proto-evolutionary logic. He argues that adversity in conditions produces a “fixed and strong” type of man (210). A type, a species, a culture learns to prevail because it must prevail, as failing to do so risks extermination. This “long fight with essentially constant unfavorable conditions,” both fortifies and culls (210). Through conflict and conflagration, the essential qualities that allowed a people to “always triumph,” reveal themselves more readily (210). Har…

Reconciling Antinomy: Durkheim on Apriorism & Empiricism
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2018-04-26T16:48:24Z
subject: Social Theory
description: In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Emile Durkheim reconciles the apparent antinomy between apriorism and empiricism. In order to unify these two approaches to understanding, Durkheim explores the source of their contradictions: an “essential duality,” which goes by many names — sacred and profane, part and whole, specific and general, material and ideal, all […]
encoded: In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Emile Durkheim reconciles the apparent antinomy between apriorism and empiricism. In order to unify these two approaches to understanding, Durkheim explores the source of their contradictions: an “essential duality,” which goes by many names — sacred and profane, part and whole, specific and general, material and ideal, all of which, Durkheim suggests, are various incarnations of the same relationship, that between the individual and society (39). Durkheim succeeds in situating the external truth that characterizes apriorism within the constrains of the material world by explaining reason as social phenomena, constructed via collective thought and imposed by the moral authority of society. Sociology, the new science of man, is the product of this synthesis. The classical understanding of knowledge can be divided into “two contrasting doctrines:” empiricism and apriorism (15). Each offers an apparently irreconcilable explanation for the source of the categories of understanding — the “notions of time, space, genus, number, cause, substance, [and] personality” — which enable rational thought and are basic requirement for social life (11). Empiricism asserts that “these categories are constructed, made of bits and pieces, and it is the individual who forges this construction” (15). The individual is subjected to repeated sensations and experiences and, in order to make sense of the maelstrom of perceptual inputs, the mind categorizes. In contrast, apriorism maintains that these categories are “simple givens, irreducible and immanent in the human mind by virtue of its inherent make-up” (15). Reason — “the whole set of fundamental categories” — precedes experience; it is an essential feature, a precondition, of human cognition (15). Each of these explanation has its own merits. Empiricism reflects the reality of the individual biological being, while apriorism reflects that of the social being. Yet both also present difficulties…

Rousseau and Locke on Property and the State
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2018-04-26T16:39:40Z
subject: Modern Political Thought
description: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke each explore the origins of the state, seeking its essential purpose and the source of its legitimacy. Their inquiry diverges over the question of property, specifically over whether property proceeds the state. For Locke, property rights arise prior to the state as an element of natural law, whereas for Rousseau, […]
encoded: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke each explore the origins of the state, seeking its essential purpose and the source of its legitimacy. Their inquiry diverges over the question of property, specifically over whether property proceeds the state. For Locke, property rights arise prior to the state as an element of natural law, whereas for Rousseau, a social contract is a necessary precondition for the creation and legitimacy of property rights. This subtle distinction metastasizes into a salient difference between Rousseau’s vision of the general will and Locke’s view of supreme power. The essential purpose of the state differs between them: the Rousseauvian contract fostering civil equality and Lockean compact preserving natural inequality. Locke asserts that private property precedes the state; legitimate ownership is not created by contract, but derived instead from a natural right. For Locke, the origins of property can be traced to one’s undeniable ownership over their physical body: “every Man has a Property in his own Person” (Second Treatise, Ch. V, 287). From this original ownership over the body, the Lockean understanding of property unfolds. Labor, the physical actions that constitute “the Work of [one’s own] hands,” mixes the sole thing that man can claim legitimate ownership over, his corporeal body, with raw, natural material that is common to all (Second Treatise, Ch. V, 288). This exertion removes the object of his labor from the “common state Nature placed it in,” annexing it as his own and excluding it from other men (Second Treatise, Ch. V, 288). By mixing his labor with some common resource, man ‘fixes’ within it something that is unequivocally his and thus “makes it his Property” (Second Treatise, Ch. V, 288). Notably, this conversion occurs without the “assignation or consent of any body” (Second Treatise, Ch. V, 289). Locke’s conception of a right to property directly relies on the axiomatic belief that man has incontrovertible possession ov…

The Irrational Origin of the Belief In Truth
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2018-03-28T20:51:23Z
subject: Social Theory
description: The Genealogy of Morality begins with an articulation of human ignorance with respect to the self: “we remain of necessity strangers to ourselves, we do not understand ourselves, we must mistake ourselves…” (1). What is the necessity that demands this ignorance? What is the “good reason” that knowers cannot know themselves (1)? This provocative question, […]
encoded: The Genealogy of Morality begins with an articulation of human ignorance with respect to the self: “we remain of necessity strangers to ourselves, we do not understand ourselves, we must mistake ourselves…” (1). What is the necessity that demands this ignorance? What is the “good reason” that knowers cannot know themselves (1)? This provocative question, this apparent paradox, is never explicitly resolved. I argue that the requirement of self-ignorance does not spring forth from intellectual coercion or psychological aversion, but rather it is the expression of a tautology. For Nietzsche, in order to qualify as a “knower,” one must believe in truth; one must have faith that there are things that can be known — and to know oneself destroys this requisite belief. The language of the text confuses, eliding the distinction between knowing as an act of believing in truth and knowing as personal awareness, as knowing oneself, but they are distinct and Nietzsche believes that the latter precludes the former. To know oneself, to stare into the abyss, leads to awareness of the ascetic ideal and thus, ultimately, the understanding that all idols and prophets are false and cynical; that science is a charade; that the value of truth itself has no foundation. Thus, in order to know about the world — to believe in reason, calculation, causality — one cannot submit to the type of deep introspection required to truly know oneself, to be self-aware. Now to examine the origins of the knower. Throughout the Genealogy, Nietzsche evokes them, including them as a co-conspirators, as confederates in his effort to awaken man from his hibernation and inactivity. However, this is merely a rhetorical device. The knowers are not intentional participants in this project. They are those committed to a “naturalistic or scientific view of the universe” (120). However, the knower, the scientist-philosopher, the priest, all function similarly and, at this stage, the will to truth compels them to lis…

Dependence, Freedom & the Structure of Obligation
type: item
creator: mattschrage
date: 2018-02-15T20:37:15Z
subject: Social Theory
description: If human beings are entirely dependent upon one another, as Adam Smith suggests, then how is it possible for them to be free? Does the state of freedom preclude dependence? Can one be free while unable to exist in isolation? Rousseau and Smith clash on this point because of their distinct views on human nature. […]
encoded: If human beings are entirely dependent upon one another, as Adam Smith suggests, then how is it possible for them to be free? Does the state of freedom preclude dependence? Can one be free while unable to exist in isolation? Rousseau and Smith clash on this point because of their distinct views on human nature. For Smith, freedom is a result of fortuitous accidents; it is historically contingent, a product of selfish market forces rather than high-minded political intention. This contrasts with the Rousseauvian vision of a highly intentional social contract, where freedom is built upon a deliberate and considered conversion from self-interested individuals into a body politic. Dependence, in its various forms, is central to the stories that both authors tell about freedom. Rousseau condemns it as humanity’s original sin, while Smith embraces it as, not only natural, but also beneficial. However this apparent tension is, in fact, entirely superficial, stemming from the conflation of two distinct types of dependence, one centralized and the other distributed. Both types of dependence entail a reliance on others, yet the structure of these obligations is different. Centralized dependence, where multitudes are maintained by just a few, corrodes freedom and condemns men to slavery. On the other hand, distributed dependence, characterized by a complex web of mutual obligations between many distinct individuals, not only permits, but also promotes, freedom. According to Rousseau, human beings, in their natural state, were free because, like animals, they relied upon no one but themselves. Each man, he envisioned, had no “greater need for another man than monkey or wolf has for another of its respective species.” (Rousseau 60). Entirely independent of everyone, Rousseau’s savages were endowed with natural freedom, a primitive type of liberty where man was free to do as he wished, to give in to any passing temptation, to live by himself on the fruits of his own labor (Rousse…