Pictures from an exhibition

If a museum of human perversity were ever to be built, the following tableaus would undoubtedly occupy pride of place in it:

Exhibit A: A screaming mob hunts down and corners a middle-aged gentleman. He is pinned against a fence and physically and verbally attacked. He is struck by fists, and various objects such as bottles and cups of coffee are hurled at him. His glasses are broken. The person in question happens to be the German consul in the city of Thessalonica and his crime is that he is on his way to participate in a Greek-German meeting organized by a local association to promote trade and sponsored by the mayor of that city. The stampeding herd is aroused to holy fury because a couple of days earlier another German official had made a statement to the effect that Greek local governement is overstaffed and inefficient. This is deemed an insult to the honor of the nation and its working class and open season is therefore declared on all Germanic-looking types who dare to walk the streets. After some time the police reluctantly intervene and lead the hapless diplomat away. That evening the whole country watches the incident played on its television screens. A junior government minister makes a tepid response to the outrage and the consul himself, wisely trying not to stir the fire, makes light of it. A couple of days later the police identify on the video three of the leading attackers and charges of causing disorder and grave assault are brought against them. Because they are arrested almost immediately after the event, their trial proceeds forthwith. And all three are acquitted. The judges decide that there was no mass violence, but only individual "indignation": individual "indignation" inspired by the right kind of political motives is thus officially declared as within the law even if it results in wanton violence against innocent persons. And the political motives of the attackers, needless to say, were as right as they could be: they were after all protesting against the "occupation of Greece by the 4th Reich" (namely against the frantic and clumsy efforts of the Europeans to save the country from its self-caused destruction even against its own will). The judges, further, wisely opined that the consul should not have decided to go to the meeting in the first place, because he thus provoked (!) the righteous fury of his would-be assassins. He was the real guilty party. So, next time you are in Greece before you foolishly decide to attend any function be sure to submit an application to the revolutionary police of your neighborhood to verify that the committe of public safety approves of it: for this is true "democracy" of the kind that you imperialists cannot even imagine. It has to be added that to his great credit the prosecutor in the case has appealed the despicable verdict of the court of first instance which has placed this country beyond the pale of civilization. The trial, I read today, will be repeated. I would like to hope that second time around a modicum of decency will prevail and the shame that has besmirched us all by the public lynching of foreign envoys will be mitigated. But -if I were to guess- this is not going to happen (I would gladly put on the hairshirt if I am found wrong). The courthouse will be besieged, as it was the first time, by enraged "unionists" trying to invade it in defence of their comrades' right to class struggle and the judges will at best impose some slap-on-the-wrist suspended sentence. If, contrary to expectation, they choose to act in accordance with their oath, they will be putting their physical safety in danger. Apart from this, though, it helps to keep in mind that the judges themselves are currently a shining example of a group shamelessly violating the law in order to protect the scandalous privileges of their profession against the foreign "ogres": the constitution expressly prohibits a strike by judges, but for the past couple of months they have been doing exactly that.

Exhibit B: in 2011 a new law regulating the public universities was passed by a three fifths majority in parliament. This law excluded the students and the admistrative staff (secretaries etc.) from the process of electing the academic authorities (president, rectors, deans etc.). Under the provisions that the law abolished (a bizarre arrangement unknown unknown in the rest of the world) anyone wishing to be elected to academic office had to negotiate with the student organizations of the various political parties (with those of the left, the hard left, the extreme left and the terrorist left at the forefront) as well as the unions of the admistrative staff. To gain their support one had to concede their demands, which as far as the "politicized" students were concerned amounted to two basic things: firstly giving free reign to these groups to do anything they wished within the university perimeter (including disrupting the educational process for months on end through occupations of buildings, regularly trashing them even when they magnanimously allowed classes to go on, occasionaly even putting them to the torch, as well as abusing and physically attacking teachers they did not like); and, secondly, abstaining from all educational regulations that make university studies worth the name, i.e. the requirement to attend classes, the insitution of pre-requisites, the requirement even to pass the final exams in a particular class in order to go forward -they had, and still have, the right to take the final exams for a given class an endless number of times!). The predictable result of this "democratic" arrangement was the disintegration of higher education in Greece. To right this situation the law of 2011 restricted the right of election to members of the faculty only. The body of teachers now elects a fifteen-member University Council, eight of them from the given insitution's teaching staff who then elect seven outside members among individuals of proven academic merit and distinction in Greece and abroad. The "revolutionary" stormtroopers predictably objected to this reform, with the specious argument that it abolished democracy (it did abolish their sick travesty of "democracy" by the jackboot). To prevent the application of the law their stick-wielding bravi occupied the polling stations on election day threatening to beat up anyone who dared approach. Finally voting had to be conducted electronically. But even then they did not flinch: at the University of Athens they occupied the building housing the main server of the school, causing damage to costly equipment. In this way they prevented, among other things, the functioning of four university hospitals. For two days we were without access to the internet. Needless to say the current president (elected under the previous regime and a vehement opponent of the new law) pleaded ignorance of any illegal acts being committed and refused to call in the authorities. It was only when the staff of the computer center found a way to circumvent the disabled university server, thus making it possible for the faculty to vote from home and not through their working stations at the university, that the election was held. The call for a boycot of the elections was ignored. 80% of those eligible participated, thus dealing a crushing blow to the lie that the "revolutionary" hooligans had been peddling for months, namely that the law was opposed by the teaching staff. At other institutions which also went through the same ordeal the levels of participation were between 80 and 90%. This is a ray of hope. The small beginning of a new beginning has been made. The external members of the University Councils that have been since elected include brilliant and distinguished members of the international academic community both Greek and non-Greek. But nothing has yet been settled.

Exhibit C: At the University of Thessalonica the outgoing president was elected under the old system and is also a rabid opponent of the new law. His administration, continuing the policy of previous ones, has been hiring on time contracts hundreds of cleaning staff through private agencies. When a pay dispute arose between the cleaning workers and their agencies the president encouraged the workers' unions to press their case by occupying the central administration building of the school and also to demand that they be hired by the university (i.e. the Greek state) as permanent public employees. This they proceeded to do about two months ago. At that time they also stopped refuse collection. You can imagine, possibly even smell however far you may be, the result. At this point the university is a sprawling, stinking garbage dump. The students health is directly threatened, classes have been mostly suspended, the school has practically ceased to exist. The organized detachments of "revolutionary" hoodlumry appeared immediately on the scene in support of the occupiers. Students and teachers tried to organize cleaning teams, but they were immediately attacked by the guardians of the revolution. They were spat upon, reviled, threatened, some of them had to actually go into hiding. Whatever garbage they had managed to collect and put away was taken out of the bags and strewn all over the place once again. At some point even the president himself had to intervene, appealing for an end of the occupation which he had instigated, and at long last asking for help from the police. The police did intervene and evict the occupiers of the administration building, but the president immediately made a heart-rending appeal that those arrested be set free. In any case the very next day the building was re-occupied and is still being held. The school is still suffocating under tons of rotting, oozing garbage, proudly under the control of the "revolution" and marauding armies of rats. This infinitely sad image of a dying university is a fitting symbol for a whole dead social system.

The most distressing part the story is that the activities described above have the full political and ideological backing of the main opposition party, the one claiming to be ready to form the next government.

All told, if the museum I mentioned at the beginning is ever to be built no prizes are given to anyone guessing what its location is likely to be.

As a Greek I feel the deepest shame to be in a place and time stamped by such deeds, which even to think, let alone write, about makes one filthy. As a human being I feel violated to the very core of my being.

Marx and science: afterthoughts

I wrote in the last post that Marx's definition of ideology as "false consciousness" makes sense only within the context of a logical opposition between (subjective) falsity and (objective) truth, the latter paradigmatically instantiated by the methods and theories of natural science. If this bifurcation is done away with, then the concept is voided of meaning.

Now, this thesis might be construed as endorsing Althusser's infamous claim that there is a "break" between the "ideological" ingredients of Marx's thought (typically associated with the earlier work) and the supposedly "hard science" of the later writings. But such an interpretation of my suggestions would be utterly misguided. The reason for this is that for all the obsessive repetition of the mantra of "science" in connection with Marx's theories, Althusser's use of the word "science" is, firstly, pure homonymy (in Aristotle's sense): i.e. the same sound (word-sign) is employed in order to denote something which has nothing to do with what is generally understood as scientific procedure.

Althusser does not (care to) understand what science is in the ordinary sense (in the sense that Marx himself understood it). Instead, he surreptitiously substitutes an understanding all of his own, which if spelled out in plain terms is straightaway convicted by its own presposterousness. According to this fanciful notion "science" amounts to the theories contained in certain selected works of Marx as interpreted by Althusser himself. "Truth", thus, resides in certain "canonical" texts as interpreted by the authoritative exegete. This is Talmudism pure and simple. The scripturae auctoritas is thus raised in opposition both to common sense empirical knowledge of facts as well as to all other interpretations (including Marxist interpretations) of his chosen texts (and the totality of Marx's oeuvre). Surely we can recognize here the gist of Augustine's epistemology, which was the staple of the schooling that our "scientific Marxist" received during his youthful stint at the seminary.

The most egregious feature of the Althusserian account is a sustained polemic against "formal logic", common sense and empiricism: all three are terms of abuse. That science in any intellible sense cannot possibly subsist without the above elements is disdainfully left out of the discussion. To the extent that one can follow its abstruse verbiage Althusserism is, thus, a fanatic denunciation of science rather that its defense. It is not accidental, therefore, that "post modern Marxism" (a silly contradiction in terms, anyway) as spawned by Althusser's verbal abracadabra is saturated with a hatred of the scientific spirit and its core pre-requisites such as intersubjective testability, factual adequacy, falsifiability, epistemological equality with your dialectical opponent etc.

It is, however, instructive to note that their rejection of empiricism does not employ the standard criticisms of empiricist epistemology with which the philosophy of science is replete. Of these they are unaware. Their anti-empiricism is premised on purely political considerations: to be an empiricist means to be a political conservative, where "conservative" means not to be a Marxist (which is the only "scientific" world-view). The circularity of this is worse than puerile.

Furthermore, they do not get that their ignorant raving against empiricism actually undermines their own dogmata. For through pure epistemological empiricism one can very well reach the position that they want to espouse, namely that all theory is ideology pure and simple sustained only by political power. Experience is the world as perceived from the standpoint of a certain individual or collective subject: esse est percipi. Their claim that only Marxism is true is based upon the alleged fact that it expresses precisely the experience of the proletariat and that it will triumph when the power of that class is brought to bear upon social conditions. Thus, by discrediting empiricism you ipso fact saw off the branch that your proud Althuserism is sitting on. Since no other comprehensible epistemology is supplied, apart from unfathomable talk based on the notion that logic has no value (or in other words that anyone upholding the tertium non datur principle is a despicable counter-revolutionary who does not deserve to exist), then we must conclude that the Althusserian enterprise amounts to nothing more than a glorious exercise in self-nullification.

A significant sleight of hand in all this is the identification tout court of theory with practice. Philosophy is supposedly "philosophical practice". This shibboleth may mean a number of things, all of them wrong. It may imply that theoretical insight (ideological conviction) can make or create the world of reality in accordance with its visions. This is another age-old theological fallacy: facts that do not conform to the demands of ideological faith (or individuals that uphold these facts) do not exist -or do not deserve to exist. Only philosophy (more precisely, only the "true" philosophy possessed by "us") has the right to declare what the world is. There is no natural or human (social) world outside the webs of concepts spun by theory.

Alternatively, that dictum may mean that there is no self-contained world of ideas -apart from those ideas which the physical power of victorious social groups allows to exist because they serve their practical purposes (wealth and power). If there are ideas which cannot be pressed into the service of the political interests of the dominant groups (or individuals upholding these ideas), then they ought to be destroyed. Individuals and their idea(l)s have no inherent theoretic (and hence ontological) worth. They are mere "place-holders" in "structures". Only those idea(l)s have the right to exist that serve the "good" structure as the only "true" theory (the one held by "us") defines it. It all coheres in one appalling, groundless circle of empty talk.

So all in all, this stupefying conceit of the Theoretician-as-God has absolutely nothing to do with good old Marx and his rather common sense idea of science taken from the real scientific activity and achievement of his time. In Marx's idea of science empiricism is indeed the only epistemological means of getting at reality as it is in itself. In this view of science empiricism is indispensable, but science does not end with empiricism (which in and of itself is solipsistic and relativist, and only to be rescued from these traps by a theistic postulate in the manner of Berkeley and Descartes). Scientific empiricism is underpinned by a realist metaphysic, namely the belief that there is indeed an objective world separate from and ontologically independent from our theories, whose truth depends upon whether they allow us to make a connection with this self-contained sphere of objective Being. Now, how this is possible is a mightily vexed issue in the philosophy of real science -as opposed to that caricature of pseudo-science the Althusserians specialize in. It is also extremely problematic how one can apply this understanding of science to historical knowledge -as Marx too readily assumed. And this is of course the reason for Marx's endless vacillation between a positivist and a historicist model of knowledge. There is indeed a tortured confusion about these issues in the very heart of Marxian theory. But this confusion derived from too great a respect for natural science as practiced by real scientists. And it is an insult to call "Marxist" the obscurantist mysticism of our structuralist and post-structuralist friends with its rabid hatred, born of utter ignorance, of the scientific spirit.