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The object of criticism as Capital

a Marxian intervention into literary criticism

By Arsh K.SPublished 3 years ago 11 min read
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Criticism as is recognized in the literary establishment tends to command a niche patronage. With the rise and privatization of the academic industry, where the difference between a discipline and a trade school withers away, the market is increasingly in a position to dictate terms to educational enterprises, which in turn cease to be public goods and become a kind of graded apprenticeship which supply factories, offices and other establishments with skilled or unskilled labour to take up roles which the commercial establishment in question deems profitable to advertise as tenders, via bulletins, word of mouth, or other such means.

This is not an essay about a class alliance after the inking of a contractual agreement between an employer and an employee. That would be a negotiation between those two parties, in principle a private affair. One which may still hold the possibility of changes in the public sphere, either via resistance in the workplace, which may be generalized, and /or the sharing of experience among workers in discrete roles.

Once criticism is relegated to either of these roles, it tends to become either a strictly in-house inquiry, or something resembling the form of a workers newspaper etc. Indeed, this is an essay about the object of criticism, and without taking into account the above mentioned factors some may find this inquiry 'immature'. Here, I would like to remind the reader that maturity is ultimately a function of age, and when a term such as immature, itself a negation of maturity, is doled out as a response, either explicitly or implied in the stance taken by the adversary, the position which is confronted may be attempting to avoid an element in the task which we set ourselves. An element which is necessarily common; and this indeed is the beginning of any immanent critique.

Were one to choose to respond to a slew of political slogans for instance, one is, through an engagement with the demands (however minor) or complaints of a body, engaging that body in its collective dimension. This, indeed, may have been the public use of the genre of criticism - to compare demands and complaints, in a sense. The following question would be where are such accounts gleaned from? A meeting among friends? A debate in a classroom? A political rally? A worker's inquiry? Or literature which preserves a formalised body of these voices? This is a question which Capital today, in an age of the ubiquity of information requires to segregate, if only so that each respective party may be satisfied. And this, in turn brings us back to one of the earliest questions taken up by criticism - ie. the discernment of whether there is a politics to a form itself.

Here, we have to confront the question of what is a form. A question which, in the ears of a reader familiar with Plato, and perhaps later developments of a plethora of structuralisms, in the natural and social sciences - may sound philosophical, anachronistic even. Yet without being able to tell an apple from an orange, a letter from a novel, a factory from a workshop, or indeed a friend from a foe, we can make no progress in any grasp of a given task at hand. As I mentioned earlier, and as you may be beginning to recognize, Capital itself will be made to consider such discretions. But, what do I mean here; I mean wasn't the workers movement, indeed any basic humanism itself dedicated upon the maxim that Capital, at least in its form as money, is dead, and hence, cannot in itself dictate terms to the living? This is correct. Yet, Capital is nonetheless commanded, as a proprietor is at liberty to do so. In fact, this, inasmuch as it is a question of wealth in whatever form, is not a matter handled by banks or large companies alone. The workers, to reproduce their own labour power, may require to go to the market to buy groceries for example, and here, as regarding any other situation concerning wants he may want to satisfy, will have to make a choice regarding what to purchase. In this sense - the object of criticism, whether it is in terms of its prices, its availability, or its distribution, or in terms of its build quality, taste or some intrinsic property, is a consideration which cuts across any simplistic division between capital and labour, at least in any personified sense representing individuals. This is important to grasp. Yet, inasmuch as a customer, any customers, would have to pay for the goods procured, they would have to pay for it in a currency which is accepted by the shopkeeper, the most common of which is money. This is why it is foolhardy to consider capital, especially capital in the form of money, in whatever form, credit, bonds, etc. as dead - and to attempt to think the interests of the workers without it.

Within capitalism, ie. conditions of societal organisation where we work for a wage to purchase commodities to satisfy our needs, it is impossible that labour, in whatever form, not trade in Capital, as, at least money, leaving aside questions of machinery, land and labour power itself, as in an exchange of favors.

Having laid this ground, let us return to criticism. What does it mean to consider the object of criticism as Capital. To draw from the example already laid, any commodity, even for a shopkeeper, has an exhibition value, so to speak, its varieties assembled on the floorspace attract and offer customers choices of what it is that they may want to purchase, lets say a new pair of spectacles for instance, considering the relative merits and price of one vis-a-vis the other is ultimately what determines whether a product is sold or not.

Here, it is no surprise that evaluating and comparing products is an activity much indulged in. This is done in person, on the shopfloor, but also on online forums, brochures, rating agencies, and yes, today we do rate apps on Google play.

Such a discourse, inasmuch as it evaluates objects of consumption, for such is a commodity to a customer - places the commodity in a certain light. A cookie, a pen, clothes, etc. these artifacts inasmuch as they are considered as potential purchases, are thought of in terms of the use that may offer to a customer. A shopkeeper, in turn, would consider the margin of profit that can be made of a certain commodity, in the difference of its price of purchase from the producer, to its price of sale to the customer. Another consideration for him or her would be whether the space on the floor it occupies and the price and volume of sales it commands, justifies its exhibition as wares. These considerations of course precede their final sale itself, and before money changes hands, a use of criticism as an advertisement for instance, by a customer to indicate taste, preference, purchasing power and other such factors is deployed by a customer, who in these acts begins to resemble the capitalist he or she is buying from.

Not all objects of criticism are face to face encounters however, haggling between a buyer or seller for example. Yet I bring up this instance because, when in the public domain, it communicates a rationality of choice, one which does not remain between the buyer and seller in question. Inasmuch as this is the case, the consideration of the object of criticism does not function as mere capital but bears with it a social use in terms of justifying the criteria of a purchase, if nothing else. A reader here will notice the analogy in this example with the presentation of evidence, and it is not lightly that I use the word 'consideration', for I do acknowledge what the institution of criticism, in its various forms has stood for.

So here we have, in one and the same situation, two divergent effects of criticism - one as advertisement, demonstrating taste and purchasing power, the other as a transference of a possible criteria of purchase, information which, if nothing else is valuable to the seller vis-a-vis how the shopfloor is decked, or to use a more contemporary example, the merchandize or itenary on offer on a website. Yet, a not strictly commercial byproduct, is the possibility of using such communication to express (whether voluntary or not) preferences, criterias of purchase, including how the buyer feels about the price, to the other customers on the platform. It should be evident by now, how criticism has a definitive social function.

My point in reaching for examples from the shopfloor and ubiquitous online platforms is not to invite some amassing populism, but to use situations which are commonly relatable so that my argument may be understood.

The point of criticism is not exhausted in its posseting a retroactive status contingent on the object it can take up, whether it be a commodity, an artform, a cuisine, or a relationship. It is indeed necessary, for criticism to meet its vocation, to historicize the relations already in place, those which are necessary for the object in question to reach the purview of the critic. Any passionate undergrad in literature would know what I speak of in the tendency of a critic to be disparaging of authorial intent. The making of a reading, however well crafted, remains a political act, and it is legitimate to take up positions which do not highlight the imaginary an author draws from, so as to focus on seemingly minor relations, between characters, absences, silences, etc. The space of criticism, if it is a genre, needs to be able to hear or read what these positions have to offer and notice what is their take.

Often, antagonisms here are over a question of method. The enterprise of theory as practiced by the likes of Fredric Jameson seek to situate disparities between schools of thought, structuralism and phenomenology for instance, to highlight their respective historical developments, and who they were responding to. Even prior to the consideration of their arguments, how they relate to other parties, will tell you something about the kind of associations they seek and which they would like to restrict. Here, we are approaching a domain which perhaps could be described as the historicity of a genre, which here could be thought of as the conglomeration of milieus from which thematically similar voices emerge. I notice I use a geographical metaphor 'milieus' whereas a more established sense here would be authors, perhaps representing a canon or school of thought for example. I do this because, often, particularly in the emergence of a new genre, individual authors have yet to emerge as recognized personalities. Travelogs on lonely planet for instance are rarely about the authors. The crime beat on a city page in a newspaper often draws on reports from many writers, reporters, and news bulletin agencies like the Press Trust of India. This multiplicity, I believe highlights the importance of studying these literatures as forms, for factors such as deadlines, production costs, and profitability do end up determining their mode of representation. In fact, in being able to trace the conditions of production of such narratives we may be able to step aside from any photographic or knee jerk response to their contents and perhaps discern, in the expressions used, their tone, style, point of view, biases, etc. something resembling a position, perhaps political, in a strategic sense - that the form itself tends to take. Here, I would like to emphasise the importance of not mistaking such forms, like the essay, novel, postcard etc. for genres themselves, which may be representative of historical tendencies and movements; partition literature in the sub-continent for instance, long being a fascination of historians.

Of course, the political content in these works is gleaned through their narratives, and it is here that we may see what may resemble the story of a people. However, we live in a world where belonging, association, networks, are as much objects of consumption, and in fact, investment, as gold or stocks.

The work of criticism to be responsive to formal changes, in narrative, which are often the product of historical phenomena, industrialization, technological changes, migrations, financial booms and busts, would need to place itself at a distance from a fixation of the story of a chosen people, which really does slide into a religious register and ceases to be elucidating in any sense which tells us about the lives these literatures represent, unless of course we situate them in an allegorical register, which tends to reify morals, maxims, and other such elements from narratives of the past, hence deadening itself to what Ernst Bloch once described as the darkness of the lived moment.

With these concluding remarks, I think we have been able to bring to notice certain dangers in the practice of criticism, and the reification of its object. This may most commonly take the form of its dehistoricization, or the invisibilization of the process of production, in other words, its appearance as capital - which can no longer tell us anything about life apart from its own influence and purchasing power.

Wednesday, 28th July, 2021.

economy
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