Ruthless Deconstruction

Edvard Munch, ‘Friedrich Nietzsche’ (1906), oil on canvas, 201 x 160 cm. Thiel Gallery (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

I recently read an essay from 1989 by my new favourite philosopher, Richard Rorty, in which he imagines what will have happened by 2010 to the ‘Nietzschean left’, a term he borrows from Allan Bloom, the author of the then controversial book The Closing of the American Mind, that  was intended to label the advocates of the hyper-theoretical social justice ideology that was taking over the Humanities departments of American universities in that period. This, Rorty writes, was an ideology that “tells the country it is rotten to the core – that it is racist, sexist, imperialist society, one which can’t be trusted an inch, one whose every utterance must be ruthlessly deconstructed.” Rorty was confident that by 2010 “the brightest Ph.Ds in English that year will be people who never want to hear the terms ‘binary opposition’ or ‘hegemonic discourse’ again as long as they live.”

Oh dear. He was wrong. Instead, the ‘Nietzschean left’ dug in and moved mainstream.

So, in 2022 we have Russell Brand’s entertaining cheerleader version to enjoy on YouTube. Now, as I mentioned in my last post, I am a fan of Russell. It’s exhilarating to listen to a handsome guy who talks so fast and so furious, while also making you laugh. But as I mentioned in my last but one post, since the Ukraine-Russia War began, Russell’s brand (sorry) of ‘Nietzschean leftism’ suddenly seems rather awkward, even callous.

He always begins by saying something like: “Now, I know there’s no excusing the brutal aggression of Putin, and I totally empathize with the suffering of the Ukrainian people. But….” And then he shares with us yet another iteration of basically the same story: western society is “rotten to the core – that it is racist, sexist, imperialist society, one which can’t be trusted an inch, one whose every utterance must be ruthlessly deconstructed.” The Ukraine-Russia war seems to be just another opportunity to do some “ruthless - but fun- deconstruction.”  

Now, ‘ruthless’ may not seem like an appropriate word to use in relation to Russell, who seems to be a genuinely nice guy, someone who’s been down to Hell and come back up again, and wants to share his wisdom with the world. But what else is it, really?  A typical dictionary definition of ‘ruthless’ is: ‘having or showing no pity or compassion for others.’  As I said, Russell is definitely a guy who is full of pity and compassion for others. In fact, he would probably want to say that he is all about the very opposite of ruthlessness: he is into mercy, compassion, and gentleness.  But is this true, in practice?

I wouldn’t say so, at least not in his ‘Under the Skin’ podcasts on YouTube. I’m not talking about the subscription ‘Luminary’ podcasts in which he interviews people.  In the former, I think he’s unfortunately often pandering to his immense audience’s resentment and anger, our perverse desire to see everything as “rotten to the core.”  Yes. I see myself as participating in this destructive impulse. Especially when I was young I was very keen to see everything as conspiring to hide the terrible truth.

Weird isn’t it, how the usually pretty nasty official ‘‘mainstream’ version of the terrible things going on is always less appealing than the alternative nasty versions spotlit by radical deconstruction?

I can’t talk for anyone else, so I will ask myself: From where within me comes this seemingly insatiable desire to see things as being “rotten to the core”? I think it probably comes from the sorrowful feeling that there’s a great and disheartening chasm between how I believe things should be – for myself and the world in general – and how they actually are.

What would Richard Rorty say? Rorty is a neo-pragmatist. Pragmatists, Rorty writes, “do not believe there is a way things really are. So they want to replace the appearance-reality distinction by that between descriptions of the world and of ourselves which are less useful and those which are more useful. When the question ‘useful for what?’ is pressed, they have nothing to say except ‘useful to create a better future’.” I think this puts a finger on the problem with my younger self and the so-called ‘Nietzschean left’ in general, but perhaps most especially its hipster incarnations.  We still assume there’s an ‘appearance-reality distinction’. The ‘appearance’ is the tawdry facade that has been erected by the rich and powerful, and our ‘ruthless deconstruction’ is driven by the belief that this nasty ‘appearance’ goes all the way down.

This is of course precisely what Nietzsche said. There is no reality, or truth, or essence, just different perspectives, and these perspective, so he pronounced, are driven by the ‘will to power.’ Rorty agrees. At least with the first bit. There are indeed no bedrock essences to dig down to. But he fervently disagrees with the second bit. Thinking about the ‘will to power’ is not the best way to explain how the world is the sad way it is. Rather, one should consider the relative usefulness of a given perspective in relation to how well it carries forth the project of creating a better future.

So, I ask: is Russell Brand helping us to feel our way to a better future?

He surely thinks he is. And indeed he is, in the main. But he is also the victim of the default perspective of the ‘Nietzschean left’, which is  to see the corrupting influence of power all the way down. And it gets its intellectual and ethical sustenance - and also an emotional ‘high’, and certainly a sense of superiority and clannishness - from this apparent insight into the truth.  

Rorty writes of Michel Foucault, a key figure for the ‘Nietzschean left’: “when asked why he never sketched a utopia, Foucault said ‘I think that to imagine another system is to extend our participation in the present system.’”  Really? Oh, come on! Rorty rightly call this “one of Foucault’s most fatuous remarks”, but  it  reflects the general resistance amongst today’s radicals to imagine a better future, simply because the present is so rotten and one can never free oneself from its rottenness.

Russell Brand will rightfully protest vociferously. He will say that of course he is all about imagining another and better future,  but that first of all you have to ‘ruthlessly deconstruct’ the present. But I ask: at what point does the secret joy of deconstruction become an end in itself? The feelings and thoughts it panders to make one feel smarter, freer, more exclusive than the dumb masses, less bowed by the powerful,  and part of a community of like-minded deconstructors who think the scales have fallen from their eyes and who see the bitter truth.

***

There’s a Korean Seon (Zen) Buddhist saying that has been resonating in my mind ever since I first read it. It goes like this:

Mountains are mountains. Rivers are river.

Mountains and not mountains. River are not rivers.

Mountains are mountains. Rivers are rivers.

Now, this can mean many things – or nothing at all.  But in the present context, I like to think it means this:  we start our naively thinking the world we inhabit is the real and only world. Then we get savvy and see that it is a mere appearance, one foisted on us when we were to young to defend ourselves. But then, there’s the third stage. It seems to be a reversion to the first stage. But it’s not. In the third stage, we realize that the ‘reality-appearance’ binary is the cause of all the problems in the first place. It is in itself an illusion.

Where does that leave us? Back with ‘Mountains are mountains. Rivers are rivers.’ But now we understand them as a pragmatist might:  we don’t go around constantly pointing out that the mountains really aren’t mountains, and the rivers really aren’t rivers. Instead, we strive to live with the version of mountains and rivers that is most useful for helping to realize a freer, more egalitarian, and more fraternal future.

Russell Brand is undoubtedly deeply committed to articulating the values of the third stage. But it’s the second stage that brings him the high ratings.  The NOT stage. It can be useful, and it can be fun. But, frankly speaking, I don’t think the NOT stage is a useful platform from which to deal with the tragedy unfolding now in the Ukraine.