Abject trajectories

              TERRITORIES
"The human spirít constantly produces new
anxiety."
G. Delpierre
"The marriage of reason and nightmare
which has accompanied the 20th Century has
given birth to an ever more ambiguous
world."
J.G.Ballard
"...we would be happy ifwe could inspire a
few -or many- to bear their freedom, not to
exchange it at a loss; for it is not only their
thing, their secret, their pleasure, their
salvation -it involves everyone else. "
M. Merleau-Ponty
I
The much analyzed predicainent of
modemity and modem ideas, such as
freedom, progress, emancipation, utopia,
nationhood and history -even art in a
certain sense, axt "after Auschwitz," as
Adorno has put it- may have fínally
arrived at what has been considered one
of the most sustained and lasting resuks
of modemity: the welfare systems. These
systems are presently experiencing a
coinplex process of change, which is
deeply affecting the entire idea of
welfare. The welfare project aspires to a
society based on economic, poUtical and
cultural equality -reinforced by intensive
education, legally-founded security,
comprehensive institutionalization,
immense consumption in all parts of
society, affluence and a well-defined
sense of personal and social Ufe. This is
the "good life" in its essence; "the best
of all known worlds" [1]. The welfare
System has played a considerable role in
the world community post-WW2. It has
been related in various ways to the
ideologies of "bipolarity," "real existing
socialism" and "third worldism," as well
as to the development of societies in all
parts of the world, as reflected in the
declarations of the UN over the years.
This system has, in recent years, been
cast into a new and dimly perceived
crisis. There is an increasing dis-ease
regarding not only the actual day to day
functioning of the welfare systems, but
also in relation to the public support of
welfare. It is as if the idea of universal
welfare -not to mention welfare on a
global level- is no longer able to créate
consensus [2].
This increasing dis-ease emerges
variously in the system as xenophobia,
intolerance and violence. At other
moments, the problem may
simultaneously appear to be an
irresolvable problem of structure;
unemployment, poUution, illegal work,
etc. For example, when the newspapers
report that two thirds of land in
Copenhagen is irredeemably poUuted
(keeping in mind the fact that Denmark
has never been heavily industrialized
and is in general considered relatively
sound in environmental terms), we are
suddenly confronted with the
accelerating ecological cost of affluence.
When racist academics in the United
States launch increasingly high profile
attacks on the civil rights progress made
in the 'sixties by African-Americans, we
are made painstakingly aware of the fact
that the underlying ideas of welfare
-equality, tolerance, etc.- may be
discarded much sooner than we would
imagine. In short, it becomes apparent
that the confidence of a society based on
democracy, affluence, a strong middle
class, technology and education, is under
siege.
When contemporary commentators
dream of a global middle class of the
American kind, this dream may be
detached from the ideáis of welfare and
increasingly overshadowed by a '"selfish
and greedy middle class -a class which
continually elects cynical demagogues
willing to deprive the weak ofhope in
order to promise tax cuts to their
constituents,'" as Richard Rorty has
remarked [3]. A poli in Denmark a
couple of years ago revealed that welfare
XvA
(íNi»o*nArmco M AR^ Mowir+o
was not seen (by the middle class) as a
universal redistribution of wealth, but as
a device to maneuver resources í'rom one
segment of the middle class to another
[4]. A recent Danish poli eonfirmed
broad public support of the welfare
System, but primarilv of those parts of
the system aimed at the middle class.
Nobody cares for the needy when it
comes to welfare: they care only for their
share.
If there has been a narrative for
welfare, it may be in the process of
becoming "delegitimized" (Lyotard), as
yet another "mythology of the west"
(Young) [5]. The transformation of the
utopian gestalt in welfare into social
technology (as Jürgen Habermas has
characterized the current state of
affairs), may save welfare on the surface
-as the European Social Democracies
obviously hope- but it is at the same
time making way for a much more
complicated situation [6]. The trajectory
of post-industriahsm may be at odds
with welfare. People aspire to different
social and ideological forms depending
on their ages, occupations, affiliations
and personal options, all of which are
framed by fashionable buzzwords Uke
"life-quality" [7], and many of which
may be entirely incompatible with the
welfare system and its ideologies (which
are, not surprisingly, seen as outdated,
conservative, and counter productive).
In the guise of religión, a futurist
describes the result of welfare as the
"Dream Society" based on "thrills and
e-xcitement," "solitude and meditation".
Isabel / Nausea. Photo: Jeremy Cadáver.
"focus on personal identity" and
"understanding of life:" [8]
"77íe huge increase in material
wealth owes much to science and
technology, bul, in the future, attention
will turn away from science toward non-materialistic
and non-scientific valúes.
The highest-paid person in thefirst half
of the next centuiy will be the
"storyteller.'" The valúes of producís will
depend on the story they t.ell. Nike and
many other global companies are
already mainly stoiytellers. That is
where the money is -even today. The
corporate slrateg}'- sessions are
increasingly about stoiytelling —not
mcinufacturing. Our héroes at the
Olympic Games in Atlanta will be those
telling magnificent stories -and they will
be getting well paid laten " [9]
II
In "The End oí llie World." .Tolin Leslie
produces a systematic aceount of tlie
"dangers of extinction" for the liuiiian
race. Leslie expands oii a ''doomsday
argument," phrased in terins oi
probability, by ilie English cosmologist
Braiidou Cárter [10]. By iiieans of a
cornprehensive lisl of the catastrophic
dangers that face huniaiiity loday -from
future nano-technology and ground-breaking
stale of the art physics to
illness and war- he reflecls on
probability [11]. I lis aiialysis would no
doiibt appeal to any niisanthropes,
although this is nol its niost iinportant
aspecl. Shnilarly. it is perhaps necessary
to disregard liis al times highly
uncrilical marriage of phenomena and
logic. This is a first class maiiifestation
of enhanced anxiety, based on an
acknowledgment of dangers engendered
as a result of 250 years of industrial,
technological and scientific iiistory. In
other words, Leslie can be read
syniptomalically. as a prime exaniple of
the new and widespread sense of
insecurity:
"W'7í//e leclinological (Klraiices
encoiirage luigc popiiUiliuii c.ipla.'n'oNX.
the}- (liso briitg iivir ii'sks o/ <i midileii
popnlalion colhipsc lliroiigli iiiicledr
war, iiiduslriidpolliiliun. ele. Iflhe
luiiiiiui nire Cdiiic lo (iii ciid nooii (iflcr
lenrniíig a /i/./Je p/iy.sics and c/ieiíds/ry,
whal ivoLild be reiii<irk(d)le in lliaiy
Suppose ive mere exireiiiely conjidenl
l/ial iniiníuis irill liare a long jalare. )oa
and I umald llien niniply haré lo aceept
thal we mere exceplioiiídlv etaly (unong
(di hiaiKais irlio u'oald erer liare been
born. Bal iiiighl il nol iiiídíe more sense
to think oj oiirselres as liriiig al I he
same lime as. .SY/T. 10 per eenl of all
hiimansy And slioiddn V ihis
consideralion magnify any fears irhirli
ive mighl liare jor hiimaiiily's filiare,
making oiir risk esliimiles rallier more
pessimisliry" [12]
The fací liial we cannol. in terms
of Idgic. denv beiiig in llie posilion of
"ihe end of historv, opens us to a new
sorl of refleclion. If we aceept the idea
that we could be among ihe lasi hunians
wlio w ¡II e.xist, oiir sense of risk mav well
incj'ease. The (iernian sociologisi Ihicli
Beck has elaboraled a liieorv concerning
the siructure of a "risk society,"
resuhing from anaK'ses siich as Leslie's:
I^iiolo: Alan Si\'i'Oiii.
a "different modemity," as he terms it
[13]. His argument centers around risk
and risk-sensing as sociological
determinants, and focuses on modemity
and modemization as the central "theme
and problem" [14]. Beck asks how
systematic risks and threats -produced
in the continued process of
modemization- can be prevented and
made harmless, so that the ongoing
process of modemization may proceed
without the transgression of socially
acceptable ümits (be these limits social,
psychological, ecological or medical)
[15].
The entire process of
modemization is chíiracterized by a new
"Uability" stmctured as a logic of "risk."
The often irreversible damage resulting
from industriaüzation and technology,
can no longer be contained within
scientific and instrumental approaches,
but pertains to a new process of "social
definition" [16]. The result is an
expanded social field of danger, without
global Ümits: "•Starvation may be
stopped, needs may be met.
Civilizational risks are of a new level of
need without limits, unsolvable,
indefinite, selfproduced.'" [17]. Within
the "risk society," risks are everywhere,
and directed towards everybody (which
is not the same as saying that they are
equally distributed). In contrast to
wealth and resources, which can be
possessed, risks can only be a factor by
which one is affected: "ífísA: may be
defined as a systematic way ofdealing
with hazards and insecurities induced
and introduced by modemization itself
[18]:
"In the welfare states ofthe West,
a double process is now taking place.
On the one hand, the strugglefor one's
"daily bread" has lost its urgency as a
cardinal problem overshadowing
everything else, compared to material
subsistence in thefirst halfofthis
century, and to a Third World menaced
by hunger [...] Parallel to that, the
knowledge is spreading that the sources
of wealth are "polluted" by growing
"hazardous side effects".[19]
Thus, we should not discard the
perspective of another -or of a new-modemity,
based on enhanced
sentiments, that is, the mixture of
dretims and feelings such as anxiety.
One could argüe that a social field of
sentiments may automaticaUy include
problems of anxiety. However, the
phenomenon of enhanced anxiety has
always been confronted with a
"stubbom silence," as the French
historian Jean Dulumeau writes in his
book "Anxiety in the West." (Dulumeau
makes his comment in relation to
"coUective anxiety" in Europe between
the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries.)
[20]. According to Dulumeau, anxiety
and fear créate their own historical
determinants, sediments, áreas and
structures - a "land of anxiety," as he
puts it- which are active on the level of
the individual, in social contexts and in
historical formations [21]. With
modemity, anxiety becomes an essential
part of all experience in the West; ""All
human beings feel anxiety. Ifone doesn't
feel anxiety, one is not normal; it has
nothing to do with courage'" [22].
The enhanced anxiety evoked here
may be a historical conjecture in welfare
and in the westem world. It is not only a
problem of "nature," related to an acute
reaction, a biological mechanism or a
psychological disposition. It can be
considered a unique cultiu-al
problematic, which lies uncomfortably
between a sentiment beyond rationality
and language; and symptoms connected
with a specific hfe and a specific social
System. Obviously, this is not the same
as reÜgious "angst" or the sense of fear
that pervades war. The phenomenon of
enhanced anxiety relates to the sense of
imminent disaster reflected in so much
contemporary art and culture. The
inhabitants of welfare societies are
afraid, despite the fact that they seem to
have fewer reasons to be afraid than any
other htmian beings in history.
III
Julia Kristeva has commented on the
"powers of horror" {pouvoirs de
l'horreur) as a specific psychological
gestait, attached to what she calis
abjection [23]. Abjection is a complex
process with neither identity ñor focus,
""neither subject ñor object"" [24]. It
engenders a play with horror by means
of a particuletr reaction. It is an
enigmatic process, according to which
anxiety (as a biological phenomenon) is
transformed into "p/io6ía"
-accumulated horror- which has no
language and no explanatíon, ""but slides
beneath language,'" on the threshold of
incomprehensibility [25]:
"The phobic has no other object
than the abject. But that ivord, "fear"
-afluid haze, an elusive clamminess- no
sooner has it cropped up than it shades
offlike a mirage and permeates all
words of the language with
nonexistence, with a hallucinatory,
ghostly glimmer. "[26]
A language of fear is manifested as
a, "...language of wíint as such, the want
that positions sign, subject and object.
Not a language of the desiring exchange
of messages or objects that are
transmitted in a social contract of
communication and desire beyond want,
but a language of want, of the fear that
edges up to it and runs along its edges."
[27] Abjection is positioned where a
terrifying abject-referent is referring to
fear, "not yet a place," that is, "at the
crossroads of phobia, obsession, and
perversión." [28] In literature, we find
abjection in the texts of writers such as
Ferdinand Céline, where abjection leads
to the "rejection and reconstruction of
languages;" where, "...the subject of
abjection is eminently productive of
culture. Its symptom is the rejection and
reconstruction of languages." [29]
According to Kristeva, abjection is
related to taboo, blending with the
Christian concept of sin in religious
instances: "The various means of
purifying the abject -the various
catharses- make up the history of
religions and end up with that catharsis
par excellence called art, both on the far
and near side of religión." [30] Religión
and art are characterized by the duality
of procuring, as well as by the catharsis
of the abject. Thus, abjection is not only
related to the psychological structure of
the individual, but is, in a further sense,
embedded in cultural and social
realities.
Abjection is to be found near the
Umits of the psyche, where phobic
hallucinations stumble between giving in
to the demand of desire and antiphobic
reaction. [31] It is a special subUmation,
an ambiguity or a displacement which
appears through symptoms which refer
back to what prociu'ed them without
being able to explain them. By means of
the symptoms, it finds a sufficient cause
for existence: "/n the symptom, the
abject permeates me, I become
a¿yecí." [32] Abjection is a suffering
frozen as symptom, with a permanence
which is partly characterized by the
taboo in religión —""transgression, denial
and repudiation'" [33]- and partly
characterized otherwise: "'Abjection... is
immoral, sinister, scheming, and shady:
a terror that dissembles, a hatred that
smiles, a passion that uses the bodyfor
barter instead ofinflaming it, a debtor
who sells you up, afriend who stabs
you....'" [34] When abjection appears,
desire defends itself and revolt is created,
"a vomiting that protect (s) me:""
"There looms, within abjection,
one ofthose violent, dark revolts of
being, directed against a threat that
seems to emanatefrom an exorbitant
outside or inside, ejected beyond the
scope of the possible, the tolerable, the
thinkable. It lies there, quite cióse, but it
cannot be assimilated. It beseeches,
worries, and fascinóles desire, which,
nevertheless, does not let itself be
seduced. Apprehensive, desire turns
aside; sickened, it rejects. A certainty
protects itfrom the shameful —a
certainty of which it is proud holds on to
it. But simultaneously, just the same,
that Ímpetus, that spasm, that leap is
drawn toward an elsewhere as tempting
as it is condemned. Unflaggingly, like an
inescapable boomerang, a vortex of
summons and repulsión places the one
haunted by it literally beside himself.'
[35]
The exorbitant is horrifying in a
píirticular manner, halting horror on the
level of symptom. It comes from inside
and outside at the same time -and
makes the body just about give in to
"'dark revolts of being"" without this
actually happening. Ansiety is not
transferred to horror, but estabüshes a
recurring dimensionahty. Horror is
accumulated, püed up as a ""vortex of
summons,"" or, as enhanced anxiety. To
the individual -at the level of culture-this
"blocked" horror comes cióse to a
specific featiu-e; it becomes pathological,
sickly, an ambiguity in a very general
sense, but never an iUness, which is why
there is no chance of "cure" or rehef,
except for in the manifestation, where
the abject and the symptom intertwine
"halfway between the recognition of
desire and counterphobic construction.""
Does welfare have such a
dimensionality? In modem culture, we
find obvious evidence of abjection at the
level of art. But as a feature of the
welfare system -in the model of Ufe
which welfare has created- the situation
is more difficult. Psychological
dispositions, not to mention the
complexity of what Kristeva discusses as
the "power of horror," were completely
non-existent to the fathers of the welfare
system. Welfare systems were, and
remain -in their self-comprehension- a
barrier against insecurity, against
anxiety. The system was understood as
that other than fear, malice and
perversión (and therefore, not without
reason, Marx describes the realized
communist as an artist or an angler!).
The utopias of "classic modemity" had
no way to incorpórate anxiety in its
enhanced sense, ñor to react to it, as the
rise of fascism and Stalinism made
evident. Welfare was -and is-predominantly
seen as a measure against
horror and anxiety in "bricks and
mortar," that is, in terms of economic
figures and growth rates, in terms of
Volkswagens and Danfoss thermostats.
"Make good times better," resounds a
famous Danish Social Democratic slogan
of the postwar era.
But, as the crisis of these "meta-narratives"
of welfare has become more
apparent, confidence is shattered and
space is cleared for enhanced anxiety.
With the increasing loss of confidence in
the ideas of a social utopia,
emancipation and progress, new and
strange pathologies of horror have
escaped the control of the system
(although not the attempts to introduce
new forms of control, as Gilíes Deleuze
has pointed out [36]). In the more
humorous instances, we might observe
the craze for delightful shocks -as in the
case of bungy jumping and the hkes- or,
the popular reconstructions of family
accidents, crimes and pohce activities
that are so weU-received by televisión
viewers. In such phenomena, we are
witness to compulsive behavior, the
excessive demand for security (of the
individual, the home and the
community), and the melancholy which
resounds throughout contemporary pop
culture and fine art. We could include
here, tendencies towards the
fetishization of suicide, self-mutilation,
sadism and masochism, violence, pain,
anguish, and "low risk" malicious
suspense, which are apparent, for
example, in atavistic movies such as
Pulp Fiction and Seven. Or, in the
"opposite" direction; the creation of a
new and cynical middle class which
defensively barricades the zones of
career, family, health and "carceral
cities," [37] with an impulse which can
only be described as escapist. In the
most extreme cases, we are confronted
by serial killing, terror without end, civil
struggle, and absurd maUce (as in the
case of the two children who killed
another child in England, for the fun of
it seemingly, and for no apparent
reason). Such incidents exist in a field of
enhanced anxiety, structured according
to its own enigmatic logic. Something
from within and without "... beseeches,
worries, and fascinates desire, which,
nevertheless, does not let itselfbe
seduced. Apprehensive, desire tums
aside; sickened, it rejects. A certainty
protects itfrom the shameful -a
certainty of which it is proud holds on to
it.'" [38] Yet this is a certainty without
security, it is a condition in which desire
becomes labile in a new way, revolting
without distinguishable reason: "Buí
simultaneously, just the same, that
Ímpetus, that spasm, that leap is drawn
toward an elsewhere as tempting as it is
condemned. Unflaggingly, like an
inescapable boomerang, a vortex of
summons and repulsión places the one
haunted by it literally beside himself .^
[39]
Whereas religión has historically
been in the position to repress horror, by
means of religious catharsis, by "'various
means of purifying the abject;" in the
welfare system, the absence of religious
catharsis -and the precarious position of
art- make the system incapable of
counteracting abjection. Abjection
produces enhanced anxiety, frozen
horror with no end, no means, no cure.
The less than viable fusión of welfare
with utopia, social harmony and security
is increasingly obvious. A strange kind
of horror -embedded in the mechanisms
of desire- has closed in upon welfare in
a rather unforeseen way. (Such an
entwinement of horror and desire was
earlier expressed by Andre Bretón, in the
years between the wars, in the cali to
enter the streets and unload one's
revolver into the masses (before fascism
made such actions customary), to
explore the pleasure and pain of violence
and terror -the "jouissance" that George
BataiUe depicts with such mastery in his
description of the perverse murder of the
priest in "Histoire de l'oeil.") [40]
IV
In "Aussichten auf den Bürgerkrieg,"
Hans Magnus Enzensberger discusses
-with an ahnost Gothic lust and
"eigensind"- what he calis the molecular
civil war. [41] This war is not an
ordinary war, but a structural feature of
present societies, particularly in the
West:
"fVe look at the map ofthe world.
We lócate the wars in remote áreas,
primarily in the Third World. We speak
of under-development, un-timeliness,
fundamentalism. It appears to us that
the incomprehensible wars are acted out
at great distance. But this is to deceive
oneself. In reality the civil war has
already entered the metropoles. Its
metastases are part ofeveryday Ufe in
the large cities, not only in Lima and
Johannesburg, in Bombay and Rio but
on the contrary also in París and Berlin,
in Detroit and Birmingham, in Milán
and Hamburg. The war is not only
conducted by terrorists and intelligence
organizations, Mafiosi and skinheads,
drug gangs and death squads, neo-nazis
and black gangs, but also by
untarnished citizens who at night
develop into hooligans, arsonists, and
seríal killers. As in the African wars,
these mutants become still younger. We
are fantasizing ifwe think that peace
reigns just because we are able to bríng
home muffins without being hit by
snipers." [42]
This civil war is "aw endogenous^
process, which is produced by a certain
societal State. It has not yet grasped the
masses, but exists as a chimera: it is
molecular. It is profoundly irrational
anid has no need for legitimation. It
comes from everywhere and nowhere
and is not attached to traditional
institutions such as the nation state and
its traditional opposites, terror and
guerrilla warfare, which, according to
Enzensberger, still need to legitimize
themselves. [43] It arises from senseless
conflicts based on accidents that "'carne
in handy'" [44] for "•autistic'"
combatants. [45] This war displays a
new sort of self-hatred, a loss of self
based in a lack of interest in the self.
[46] Sports, cultural centers, facilities,
the mere presence of resources can be
made into occasions for the molecular
war, which consists in its essence, of
expanded cowardry: "'anybody who gets
the chance will turn his back on the
fight and escape."" [47] What is left, is a
measure of irreality doubled by the
media, which demonstrates a
pathological loss of self: "^Any half-wit
today can maintain a hope of getting on
thefrontpage ofthe cynical New York
Times with a beer bottle fdled with
gasoline in one hand and the other
raised in salute to Hitler." [48]
Enzensberger envisions a world which
slowly bows to the dynamics of
abjection, with the media in the front
Une. Somewhat paradoxically, he
suggests the possibility of counteracting
the molecular war by means of a retum
to the "intímate" valúes represented by
family and children, a showdown with
arsonists in the neighborhood. [49] His
disUlusioned, local humanism seems
nevertheless to confirm Kristeva's
analysis of abjection. The molecular civil
war is related to a pathology which
grows from the summoned and blocked
horror entailed by abjection and its
ambiguous relation between the
trappings of desire and antiphobic
reactions. The fight can be over at any
moment, at which point everybody turns
away and hits the road, in order to be
ready for the next time. No diagnosis, no
treatment, no penance -rather, enhanced
ambiguity and absurdity. Pathological
behavior.
Francis Fukuyama has outlined a
condition similar to that of
Enzensberger's molecular civil war.
According to Fukuyama, history must be
seen as one long struggle for recognition,
which, in the modem world, is brought
to an end with the de facto global
recognition of Western democracy and
the liberal market economy. [50] Today
the big social, economic and political
systems created by the westem world
have become almost omnipotent.
Consequently, they become victims of a
new kind of powerlessness which
Fukuyama connects with a specific type
ol limiian hciii;; wlio appeurs al llic end
ol' liislory. 'iiieii irillioiil clic.tl.i^
(lollowiiig Nictzsclio) [51]. l'ukuNania
describes llic iinmaiieiit daiíger oí a
gi'oU'S(|ii(' sli'iiggle lo7' recogiiilidiL. I'lic
epocli is iinpri'ssed 1)\ •llic eiid of
histoi'\ aiid lile lasl man. " a slale ¡n
whii'li man ma\ end np lanling and
raviiig. sIíaiigeK in-lielween indoleuce
and an amhixalein will lo htniggle:
"....sii¡>¡)o.siii<i IIKII IIIC irorlfl IKI.S
bci'ii "jilled iip. " so lo s/ictilú irilli lihcial
(leiiiorrdcics. .siiiii llial llicrc c.rix/s no
iM'diiiiy (iiitl <)/>/>r<',s.sioii irorlliy of l/ic
iHiiiie (igdiiisl irliicli lo -slriigíílcy
lírpcríence siiírgcsln lliiil ¡J iiivii cdiinol
•slriígglc Olí IK'/KIIJ OJ (I jiisl ciiiise
bccuiisc IIKII jiisl cdiisc iriis riiiorioiis iii
(III i'iirliiT irciirnilioii. l/ii'ii llicy irill
sliiiggle dgdiiisl llw jiisl cdiisc. Tliey
will slniggli'/or I lie sdke of ni riiggle.
'Iliey irlll slriígglc. iii ollier irords. oiil oJ
a ccrldiii borcdoiii: for llicy cdiiiiol
iiiidgiiie liiiiig ¡II d irorld irillioiil
slriíggle. And if llio giriiler parí oj llic
ivoild ¡II irldrli llny Un- ¡s rÍKiriirleiizcd
by pedccfid diid prosperoiis IHienil
dciiiorriKy. llicii llicy irHI slriíggle
dgd¡iisl llidl pvdct' (111(1 pnispciilv. diid
agiun.fl dciiiocrdcw " [52]
Willionl llie pcissiliilily ofslruggle,
limnaniU will consli-ncl slill moi-e
al)surd eonriicls. in (ii'dei- Ki lie alile lo
olilain a elianre oí siruggle loi'
recognilioii., "¡IIIIIICIIÍÍC iriirs oj llif
.sy;//-//. " [.5.'5] rile era of modeiii man
inay liaxc reaelied ¡Is end, and
-aeeording lo llie elassieal e.\|)eelalions
ol wellare ideology- a woilil willioul
Ron ;\ilic\.
I'liolo: .IciciiiN dadávci'.
¡njnsliee and diliecence will. in llie
l'oreseeable fnlure. eJiaraelerize our
hislory. Bul as \ve liave understood, Üie
presenl world is nol nmning aeeording
lo lliese |)i'edielions. The welíai'e syslenis
are nol in a seeure slale bul seeni to
inove inlo llie iineerlain, under ihe
pressure ol' slrange desires and desperate
reaelions. Wellare is a|:)|)areiitly nol vei'V
well prepared for llie ineasuro of
íreedoni wliicli seems lo be pul witliin
ils reacli. The opposile seems lo be more
correcl. The moi-e llie mela-iiarralives
disap|)ear. ihe more eonlingenev seems
lo be enhaneed. 1 he liiture looks iieilher
hke a hopeí'ul "patchwork of
minorilies." [.54] a prospeel wliich was
reeei\c'd so emhnsiasliealK in ihe
'eighlies, iior like ihe o|>posile and less
opliniislie "ineonunensuraliility of the
d¡scoui-se-gemes." [55]
ll seems ihal for al! ihe securily
and social pi'osperilv ihal underwrile ihe
exislence of wellare in ihe West and
elsewhere, enhaneed an.viety cannot be
done awav wilii. The phenomena
discussed above seeni lo find llieir
ralionale williin the core of lítese
Systems and as su('h lliey are closely
assoeiated witli imporlanl as])eels of
iheir (•iilinre. fliey cannol be done away
willi easilv and llie\- lell an increasingly
eoherent and markeil hislory of their
own. ll is lo ihese dial llie Irajeclofy of
abjeel cullni-e perlains. The reason for
lilis is ainlhing lint clear. ihougli we
155
may find some clue in the peculiar
notion of freedom which philosophers
like Maurice Merleau-Ponty
contemplated shortly after the end of
WW2, as the: "''contingency of the
future..,'" where men ha ve nevar before
had "... such good evidence that the
course ofeffects arefull oftwists and
turns, that much is asked ofdaring that
they are alone in the world and before
one another.'" [56] This is a trajectory
according to which freedom would take
on a completely new meaning, to reflect
a century impregnated by the '^marriage
of reason and nightmare, " as well as
the final abortion of the great hopes of
the previous century, in this sense
circumscribing a new and difficult
freedom: "...we would be happy ifwe
could inspire a few —or many- to bear
their freedom, not to exchange it at a
loss;for it is not only their thing, their
secret, their pleasure, their salvation —it
involves everyone else."" [57]
[1] Discussions about the concept of welfare
and the system of welfare are widespread
in public and scientific literature. Among
the more interesting discussions, one
finds the effort to develop a qualitative
welfare indicator related to the GNP. (cf.
Peter Rormose & Elisabeth Melgaard. On
the Measurement of a Welfare Indicator
forDenmark 1970-1990, Studie Nr.2,
The Rockwool Research Unit, Danmarks
Statistik, Kobenhavn 1995). See also, the
reports by Niels Ploug & Jon Kvist, Social
tryghed i Europa. Udvikling eller
afviklingy, (Socialforskningsinstituttet
Kobenhavn 1994). The debates on
"abject art" in the 'nineties are of course
relevant for the subject of this article.
However, abject art is only part of the
issue raised here and may be considered
as one of many phenomena.
[2] Theoretically and philosophically
influenced discussions about welfare are
widespread in the debates on
postmodemity and poscoloniality. See,
for example, the writings of J.F.Lyotard,
Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson,
Jürgen Habermas, Niklas Luhmann,
Ulrich Beck, Lutz Niethammer, Reinhart
Koselleck, Richard J.Bemstein, Robert
Young, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Homi
K.Bhabha, Arjun Appadurai and
Christopher Lasch.
[3] Richard Rorty. Objectivity, Relatívism
and Truth, Philosophical Papers VoL 1.
(Cambridge University Press 1991, p.l5,
note 29.)
[4] Tine Eiby. "Unfair velfaerd," in:
Weekendavisen 16.-22/6 1994, and, BT-Observa/
GfK, BT 16/12 1994.
[5] cf. Jean-Frangois Lyotard. Le Condition
Postmoderne. Les Edition de Minuit
1979, Robert Young, White Mythologies.
Writing history and the West, Routledge
1992. (1990).
[6] Jürgen Habermas, Die Neue
Vnübersichllichkeit, Frankfurt am Main
1985, p.l41ff, Jürgen Habermas, Der
Philosophische Diskurs der Moderne,
Frankfurt am Main 1989, p.390ff
[7] cf. for example the investigations of the
Danish physician Soren Ventegodt.
[8] Rolf Jensen, "The Dream Society," in:
The Futurist, May-June 1996, p.9 ff.
[9] Ibid, p.9.
[10] John Leslie. The End ofThe World.
Routledge 1996.
[11] Leslie discusses the problem from an
epistemológica! and ethical position
which is "pro-mankind."
[12] Leslie, op.cit. p.2.
[13] Ulrich Beck, Risikogesellschaft. Aufdem
weg in eine andere Moderne. Suhrkamp
Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1986.
[14] Ibid, p.l2ff, p.26.
[15] Ibid, p.l6.
[16] Ibid, p.37ff.
[17] Ibid, p. 30.
[18] Beck op.cit. Here quoted from Malcolm
Waters, Globalization, Routledge 1995,
p.59.
[19] Beck op.cit. Here quoted from Waters,
op.cit., p.59.
[20] George Dulumeau, La Peur en Occident
(XIl^-XVIIF siécles). Une cité assiégée,
París 1978.
[21] Dulumeau, op.cit. p.39.
[22] Ibid, p.20.
[23] Julia Kristeva. Pouvoirs de l'horreur.
Éditions du Seuil 1980, here quoted from
Julia Krísteva, Powers of Horror. An
essay on Abjection, Columbia University
Press, New York 1982.
[24] Kristeva, op.cit., p.L
[25] Ibid, p.38.
[26] Ibid, p.6.
[27] Ibid, p.38
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid, p.45.
[30] Ibid, p.l7.
[31] Ibid, p.41.
[32]Ibid, p . l l.
[33] Ibid, p.6.
[34] Ibid, p.4,
[35]Ibid, p.l.
[36] cf. Gilíes Deleuze, "Postscript on the
Societies of Control,' in: October 59
(Winter, 1991).
[37] cf. Edward Soja, "Postmodern
Urbanization: The Six Restructurings of
Los Angeles," in: Sophie Watson et al.
(ed.). Postmodern Cities and Spaces.
Blackwell 1995.
[38] Kristeva, op.cit., p.l.
[39] Ibid.
[40] George Bataille, Histoire de l'oeil,
Societé Nouvelles des Éditions Pauvert,
Paris.
[41] H.M.Enzensberger, yl«««(c/iíen aufden
Bürgerkrieg, Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt
am Main 1993, p.l8ff
[42] Ibid., pp.18-19.
[43] Ibid., p.21ff.
[44] Ibid., p.26.
[45] Ibid., p.28.
[46] Ibid., p.27.
[47] Ibid., p.63.
[48] Ibid., p.70.
[49] Ibid., p.87.
[50] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History
and the Last Man. Hamish Hamilton
Ltd., London 1992.
[51] Fukuyama, op.cit., p.300ff.
[52] Ibid., p.330.
[53] Ibid., p.328ff.
[54] cf. Jean-Frangois Lyotard. Das
Patchwork der Minderheiten, Merve
Verlag Berlin 1977.
[55] cf Jean-Frangois Lyotard, Le
Dijférend, Les Edition de Minuit, Paris
1983.
[56] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-
Sense, Northwestern University Press
1964, p.l86.
[57] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Adventures of
the Dialectic, Northwestern University
Press. Evanston, 1973, p.233.