As requested here is the Radical Philosophy text on Sloterdijk: - Excellent
Magazine.....
Hope this helps...
http://www.ukc.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/rp/index.html
Flirting with fascism - the Sloterdijk debate
According to a recent article in The Observer (10 October 1999) the fashionable
dinner tables of German society are buzzing with controversy over `the death of
critical theory and the future of metaphysics'. The article refers to a debate
provoked
by a conference address given at Elmau in Bavaria last July by Peter
Sloterdijk. His
paper, `Regeln fur den Menschenpark : Ein Antwortschreiben zum Brief über den
Humanismus' (Rules for the Human Theme-Park: A Reply to the Letter on
Humanism), was addressed to an international conference on `Philosophy after
Heidegger'. Copies of the address began circulating among academics shortly
after the
conference. Subsequently, two heavily critical articles were published in the
national
press. Sloterdijk's bad-tempered response to these articles (Die Zeit, 9
September
1999) has generated an animated quarrel, whose participants have included
Manfred
Frank, Ernst Tugendhat, Ronald Dworkin and Slavoj Zizek, among others.
In his conference address Sloterdijk seeks to problematize discussion of the
ethics of
gene technology. He mounts a critique of the legacy of humanism after
Heidegger,
which, he claims, misrecognizes and places artificial limitations upon the
potential for
human development. In opposition to this legacy, he attempts to establish
grounds for
alternative interpretative practices through which to think the effects of
biological
research. Much of the controversy arises from his use of the German terms
Züchtung
(breeding, cultivation) and Selektion (selection) to elaborate an anti-humanist
theory
which would orient the use of gene technology.
Sloterdijk is Professor of Philosophy at the Fachhochschule in Karlsruhe. He
became
well known with the publication of his bestselling first book, Kritik der
zynischen
Vernunft (1983, translated as The Critique of Cynical Reason in 1987), in which
he
traces the fall of modern consciousness into a pervasive cynicism, understood
as
participation in a `collective, realistically attuned way of seeing things'.
Ironically, it
argues, the success of enlightening and consciousness-raising critical
interventions has
been to make it clear to everyone that they are miserable, whilst not providing
them
with the means to change their situation. Thus, `cynicism is enlightened false
consciousness'. In response, Sloterdijk attempts to reanimate a positive mode
of
kynicism, taken from Diogenes, through which to phrase new and resilient modes
of
enlightenment. One of the main characteristics of this positive mode of
cynicism is its
emphasis on strategic, satirical provocations.
Gene dream
In his address at Elmau, Sloterdijk develops just such a provocative position:
the
problem with humanism lies in its assumption of an empathetic and receptive
relation
between people. He describes European society, from the ancients onwards, as
having developed according to the codification of communication in a
`friendship
initiating telecommunication in the medium of writing'. For him, the
development of
civilized society has proceeded according to characteristically linguistic and
national
identifications, where writing acts as a tool for the task of holding power
over others.
Nowhere in Sloterdijk's contribution to the Elmau conference does he go into
detail
about modern genetic research. Rather, his examples are from Heidegger,
Nietzsche
and Plato. He addresses what one might call the `pre-history' of gene
technology and
the social conventions which characterize its discussion. He argues for a
reception of
genetic research that recognizes its results as an opportunity to reinvent what
it is to be
human.
Sloterdijk inflects Heidegger's assertion of ontological difference in the
`Letter on
Humanism' with a specifically technological bias. Identifying the condition for
empathetic relationships - which structure relations of power through texts -
he
gestures towards the human genome as a kind of alphabet, a codex, from which
human needs can be read and which can structure how they are met. His proposal
is
for a thorough technologization of humanity through genetic manipulation,
generalized
as a principle with which to govern the progress of society. In this
technological dream
of a new order, gene technology promises a recoding of the social/human
according to
a reductive model of the biologically determined organism, the body. The social
ramifications of this recoding are entirely speculative.
The latter part of Sloterdijk's address is a meditation on the criteria for the
selection of
those that will govern via gene technology, and the characterization of the
role they
would have in shaping society. As such it has been received in the German press
with
alarm. Thomas Assheur (Die Zeit, 2 September) reads Sloterdijk as calling for
an
elite group of philosophers and `appropriate' scientists to take up and
transform the
role of Plato's `statesman' to make the decisions that will guide humanity into
the
future. But what would differentiate this group from those already guiding the
situation? Sloterdijk gives only the vaguest clues. The corrective measures
this group
would perform rely on the historically unique opportunity presented by gene
technology to read a future from the codex of anthropo-technology.
Slavoj Zizek (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23 September) characteristically finds the
questions raised in the debate prefigured in a movie, Gattaca, which introduces
the
problem of a social reality structured by gene technology. Zizek argues that
what
Sloterdijk proposes will simply reproduce on another, stricter level, already
existing
forms of constructed inequality based on the manipulation of power and culture.
Regardless of whether this is done in the name of a more reliable form of
egalitarianism, it would only reproduce present social constrictions as the
conditions of
a new slavery. The key, for Zizek, to Sloterdijk's misunderstanding of the
problem lies
in his faith in technology, as such, to produce a better life. Zizek thinks
this would lead
to different and more dangerous forms of objectification than exist already.
Sloterdijk's re-alphabetization of the human would dismiss the impasse
presented to
thought by the demand to establish normative criteria for genetic
interventions. In the
process the existing relation of subjectivity to the body as the mysterious
ground of
experience would be lost. For Zizek the particularity of the body as that which
escapes my thought, but which as phantasm structures my experience, encodes the
potential of freedom in experience. To be fully aware of one's body as
overdetermined sphere of choice would negate the basis of this, at least
possible,
freedom.
From a very different perspective, Dworkin's right-wing, pro-genetic
engineering
response (Die Zeit, 16 September) defends progress as a good thing and tells us
to
trust institutional science to make the right decisions. He lists more or less
patronizing
examples to reassure us that genetic research will not end with diminished
biological
diversity nor in the escalation of social injustice. The anxiety that we would
be playing
god by allowing the development of gene technology free rein is false. There is
no
essential difference between the development of gene manipulation and that of
any
other previous new technology - which is right, in a sense. Dworkin's argument
rests
on the idea that progress has always brought with it developments in ethical
thought,
and that if we don't allow this we will sink back into ignorance. Both of these
thoughts
seem to miss the fact that some norms have been contingently and often
violently
imposed. Or, obversely, some norms have been granted validity only after a
struggle.
Zizek's liking for science fiction seems more realistic when one thinks of the
progress
Dworkin outlines. Scientists are as thoughtful and as caring as anybody, but
the new
technologies of gene manipulation are not emerging into a world free of
interests.
Dworkin has faith that some form of egalitarianism will prevail, perhaps in the
form of
government grants to poor people to help them choose the characteristics of
their
offspring. But these suggestions seem much more likely to follow the path of
radically
limited choice, marketed as freedom, which characterizes other, already
existing
applications of technology.
At the beginning of September, Sloterdijk published an extraordinary letter
(Die Zeit,
2 September) accusing Habermas of agitating against him. The tone of the letter
is
petulant: `you have talked about me with numerous people, never with me.' It
appears
that Habermas - who has not published anything on this affair - did, however,
write
letters and make phone calls to criticize the Elmau address. Sloterdijk also
accuses
him of sending copies of the text to ex-students working in the press, marked
with
instructions on how to misinterpret it. All of this is summed up in the claim
that
Habermas `objectifies' Sloterdijk. Habermas's criticisms position Sloterdijk
`as a
mechanism, not as a person'. This makes Sloterdijk feel free to vent his own
spleen:
`You belong to the inhuman heirs of the ideology critique style of thought....
You are,
in this, only an average supporter of a problematic habit that one once glossed
over
with the honorary office of critique.' All very entertaining. The letter rises
to its
hyperbolic finale in which - on the grounds that Habermas chose to discuss his
speech
among colleagues and not directly with him - Sloterdijk accuses Habermas of
performatively contradicting the premisses of his own discourse theory. If
Habermas
(of all people) achieves his polemical goals in such an underhand fashion, then
what
remains of the inheritance of the tradition of Frankfurt Critical Theory. Not
much, says
Sloterdijk.
Critical theory is, on this Second of September, dead. She was long
since bedridden, the sullen old woman, now she has passed away
completely. We will gather at the grave of an epoch, to take stock, but
also to think of the end of an hypocrisy. Thinking means thanking, said
Heidegger. I say, rather, thinking means to heave a sigh of relief. (Die
Zeit, 9 September)
Even if we take Sloterdijk's letter seriously, it is still a source of surprise
that the
author of The Critique of Cynical Reason is overcome in the face of the outrage
his
own provocation has caused. Manfred Frank (Die Zeit, 23 September), himself no
fan of Habermas, dismisses Sloterdijk's claims as a `pointless flirtation with
embarrassing material'. Ernst Tugendhat, in his contribution, says Sloterdijk's
claims
are `rubbish', asking `what have things come to when critique must always first
obtain
the consent of the author?' If significance is to be granted this exchange then
perhaps it
could be found in elaboration of Sloterdijk's failure to live up to his own
call for bold,
kynikal, provocation ?
To the more substantial points Sloterdijk presents, Tugendhat responds with
great
reservation. A programme of genetic `breeding' or `training' discussed in terms
of
selection, and of specifically German experience, that does not attempt to
think
through the legacy of the Second World War is naive and dangerous. Tugendhat
holds Sloterdijk to account over this point by asking, `Why does Sloterdijk
choose
the word selection? When I hear this word in this context I think involuntarily
of the
selection on the platform at Auschwitz. Is that only my problem?' He answers
that the
historic resonances of this particular word should be thought in this context
(there are
many other words that carry a similar meaning). He describes two senses in
which
selection has been practised - selection through breeding (practised
conventionally in
all cultures) and selection through extermination - and claims that without an
explicitly
historical understanding of the relationship between these two, no clear
distinctions
can be made. In this case the discussion of selection threatens to reproduce,
implicitly,
the previously explicit dangers of the National Socialist era: selection,
`determined
only according to power'.
Sloterdijk seems to have risked his reputation and career in the paradoxical
and
ironically generous act of falling on the sword of fascist ideology to give
others the
opportunity of demonstrating their own relation to the ideological interests
that inform
their views of the future. His reactions to his critics, especially Habermas,
tell us that
this was not fully his intention. But his Elmau address leaves the reader
puzzled as to
what work he actually means this text to do. It is clear that he wanted
explicitly to
provoke, using the particular materials and combinations of claims that he did.
He got
the controversy he sought. However, it was his contribution to the debate which
diverted the argument and began its degeneration. His provocational stance,
which
might have redeemed the weaker aspects of his arguments, and even his
flirtation with
fascist ideology, would have had to register in what Sloterdijk did with the
controversy once he had provoked it.
All of the texts discussed here are available on the Internet at
http://www.zeit.de, which has a webpage devoted to the debate.
Andrew Sinclair:
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