From 1fd7d5bdb37d7167adaeab2dc40a4abff6c6e2cf Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: grr <grr@lo2.org>
Date: Thu, 2 May 2024 21:34:54 -0400
Subject: breakout 'social philosophy' essays

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+\chapter{On Social Recognition}
+
+The most important tasks which the individual can undertake arise not 
+from personal considerations but from the general conditions of society. The 
+standards of accomplishment for these tasks are implicit in the tasks, and are 
+objective in the sense that they can be applied without reference to public 
+opinion. For example, given that humans express themselves in statements 
+which are supposedly true or false, there arises a fundamental philosophical 
+"problem of knowledge." Then, the fact that societies are organized in 
+different ways at different times and places poses fundamental problems of 
+"political" thought and action. Sometimes the most important task posed by 
+the conditions of society is to invent a whole new activity. The origination 
+of experimental science in Europe in the seventeenth century is an example. 
+For lack of a better term, these tasks will be referred to as "fundamental 
+tasks." 
+
+The fact that a fundamental task is posed by the general conditions of 
+society does not mean that public opinion will be aware of the task, or that 
+the ruling class will commission someone to undertake it. It may well be that 
+the first person to perceive the problem is the person who solves it; and 
+public opinion may not catch up with him for decades or centuries. 
+
+The person who devotes himself to a fundamental task is, more often 
+than not, persecuted or ignored by society. Society puts up an immense 
+resistance to solutions of fundamental problems, even when, as in the cases 
+of Galois and Mendel, those solutions are politically innocuous. There is no 
+evidence that this state of affairs is limited to some particular organization of 
+society. Further, there are cases in which an objectively valid result is 
+known, and yet apparently society can never adopt the result institutionally. 
+Art is objectively inferior to brend, as I have shown, and yet all indications 
+are that art will always be a major institution. The persecution of individuals 
+who undertake fundamental tasks is an instance of a general human social 
+irrationality which runs throughout history, from human sacrifice in ancient 
+times to present-day war between communist countries. The conclusion is 
+that for an individual to commit himself to a fundamental task tends to 
+preclude social approval for his activities. 
+
+Quite apart from the fundamental tasks which are posed by general 
+social conditions, the ruling class needs a continual supply of new talent at 
+all levels of society. At the lower levels, this supply is assured by the 
+necessity of selling one's labor power in order to eat. At the higher levels of 
+accomplishment, the ruling class assures itself of a continual supply of new 
+talent by offering publicity or fame---social recognition---as a reward for 
+accomplishing the tasks specified by the ruling class. Famous men such as 
+Einstein are held up to children as examples of the proper relationship 
+between the talented individual and society; and an international institution, 
+the Nobel Prize, exists to implement this system of supplying talent. 
+According to the doctrine, the individual has a duty to benefit society, to 
+choose a task posed by the ruling class as his occupation. (His publicly 
+known occupation is supposed to correspond to his real goals.) If he 
+performs successfully, he will receive publicity as an indication that he is 
+indeed benefiting society. 
+
+Our analysis of fame is the opposite of that of Ben Vautier. Vautier 
+asserts that the desire for personal publicity is an instinctive drive of human 
+beings, and that the accumulation of publicity is a genuinely selfish act like 
+the accumulation of food. In fact, Vautier goes so far as to make no 
+distinction between what Gypsy Rose Lee and Lenin, for example, did to 
+gain fame; and he assumes that a pacifist, for example, would welcome 
+military honors equally as much as he would a peace award. We assert, on 
+the contrary, that the desire for publicity is not instinctive; it is inculcated in 
+the young so that the ruling class may have a continual supply of new talent 
+to serve its purposes. The desire for publicity, far more than the desire for 
+money, is establishment-serving more than self-serving. (We suggest that the 
+principal reason why Vautier seeks publicity is not instinct, but economics. 
+Vautier has no inherited source of income, and has never been trained for a 
+profession. For him, the alternative to the art\slash publicity racket would be 
+common labor. If he had the opportunity for a life of leisure, he might feel 
+differently about publicity.) 
+
+The issues which are raised here are extremely important for the person 
+who perceives a fundamental task, because his sanity may depend on 
+whether he understands the rationality of his motives for undertaking the 
+task. He will already have been inculcated with the establishment's concepts 
+of service and recognition, concepts which are epitomized in the image of 
+Einstein's career. What we suggest is that it is vital to disabuse oneself of 
+these concepts. To repeat, fundamental tasks are posed by the general 
+conditions of society. Yet the individual who undertakes such a task will 
+probably be persecuted or ignored. Given these circumstances, the doctrine 
+that the individual has a duty to benefit society is a hypocritical fraud, an 
+obscenity. For the individual to commit himself to a fundamental task tends 
+to preclude social recognition for his activities; or, to reverse the remark, 
+social recognition is not a reward to accomplishment of a fundamental task 
+(just as military honors are not a reward to pacifism). Thus, it is not rational 
+for the individual to undertake a fundamental task in order to gain fame. 
+
+The motive for undertaking a fundamental task should be genuine 
+selfishness. (We will continue our argument that the striving for fame is not 
+genuinely selfish below.) The individual who perceives a fundamental task 
+should undertake it for his private gratification. The task is of primary 
+importance to society. By accomplishing it, the individual gains the privilege 
+of knowing something which is socially important, but which society cannot 
+deal with honestly. The individual should undertake the task in order to 
+utilize his real abilities, to develop his potentiality for its own sake. The 
+undertaking of a significant task which utilizes one's real abilities is the true 
+source of happiness. To perceive a fundamental task and not to undertake it 
+is to be stunted: one loses one's self-respect and becomes progressively 
+demoralized. (Another rational motive for undertaking a fundamental task is 
+to transform the social environment by methods which do not depend on 
+society's approval or comprehension.) 
+
+We do not mean to suggest that the individual who undertakes a 
+fundamental task should conceal his results. Even though such tasks may 
+seem individualistic, they require cooperative, social activity for their 
+accomplishment. A proposed solution to a fundamental problem can hardly 
+develop without being scrutinized from a variety of perspectives. It is 
+essential to have qualified critics, and it is unfortunate that they are so rare. 
+Solutions to fundamental problems are social consumption goods (their 
+consumption is not exclusionary), so that critics or collaborators have as 
+much opportunity to benefit from them as their originators do. As an 
+example, most of my writings are really collaborations with Tony Conrad. I 
+often find that I do not understand my own position until I know how it 
+appears to him. When communication of results is essentially a form of 
+collaboration, it is very different from the attempt to gain publicity or fame. 
+
+It is precisely in the context of the generalized social irrationality which 
+runs throughout history that the attempt to gain fame must be seen as 
+foolishly un-selfish. What difference can it possibly make whether the masses 
+venerate one's name a hundred years after one's death? The adulation of the 
+masses after one is dead is of no conceivable value to oneself. It is society 
+which indoctrinates one to worry about one's reputation after one is dead, in 
+order to condition one to serve the interests of the ruling class. 
+
+Then, what does it mean to the individual who solves a fundamental 
+problem to have his name publicized in the mass media, to be a celebrity 
+among people who cannot possibly understand what he has done? Even 
+more important, we must recognize that publicity carries a definte risk for 
+the individual committed to a fundamental task. The solution of such a 
+problem must usually be expressed in categories which are incommensurate 
+and incompatible with the categories of thought which are common coin at 
+the time. In order for the solution of a fundamental problem to be exposed 
+in the mass media, it has to be translated into media categories and this 
+usually results in irreparable distortion. In fact, the solution is distorted in 
+precisely such a manner that it begins to serve the interests of the ruling 
+class. One encounters an immense pressure which tends to harness one to 
+goals which have nothing to do with objective value. More precisely, when an 
+individual who has solved a fundamental problem is publicized in the mass 
+media, a process of mutual subversion takes place as between the 
+establishment\slash media and the individual. In the process, the establishment is 
+likely to come out far ahead. 
+
+There are two other reasons why it is actually advantageous to the 
+individual who undertakes a fundamental task to avoid publicity. Since one's 
+activity is likely to be treated as a threat by society, one can minimize the 
+energy required to defend it, and can carry the activity further, if one 
+receives no publicity. Then, there will unavoidably be false starts made in 
+developing the solution to a fundamental problem. If one is not operating in 
+the glare of publicity, it is far easier to abandon these false starts. 
+
+It used to be that when I saw publicity being given to an inferior way of 
+doing a thing, and I knew a better way, then I reacted with a sense of duty. I 
+had to appoint myself as a missionary, to enter the public arena and start a 
+campaign to replace the inferior approach with the better approach. But this 
+sense of duty must now be called into question. Is it really in my interest to. 
+thrust myself on the media as a missionary? The truth is that in the context 
+of generalized social irrationality, it is un-selfish and self-sacrificing to believe 
+that I must either agree with current fads or else contest them publicly. The 
+genuinely selfish attitude is *hat it is sufficient for me to know what the 
+superior approach is. I can ignore the false issues which fill the mass media; I 
+do not have to participate in public opinion at all. The genuinely selfish 
+attitude is that "it does not concern me." Genuine selfishness is living one's 
+life on a level which does not communicate with the level of the mass media 
+and public opinion. 
+
+If we recognize that it is irrational to undertake a fundamental task in 
+order to benefit society and gain social approval, then our very choice of 
+fundamental tasks shouid be affected. The most visible fundamental tasks 
+are those which the establishment is to some extent aware of, and which if 
+accomplished would immediately be rewarded with social approval. (In the 
+natural sciences, there literally may be a race to solve a well-known problem). 
+But if our motives are genuinely self-serving, and have to do with the 
+development of our potentiality for its own sake, then there is no reason to 
+limit ourselves to widely understood problems. We can undertake to discover 
+timeless results---permanent answers to questions which will be important 
+indefinitely---without concerning ourselves with whether society can adopt 
+the results institutionally. We can pose problems of which neither the 
+establishment, the media, nor public opinion are aware. We can undertake 
+tasks which draw on our unique abilities, so that our personal contribution is 
+indispensable. 
+
+There is a difficulty which we have postponed mentioning. The 
+individual is always compelled to engage in some socially approved activity 
+in order to obtain the means of subsistence. We cannot assume that the 
+individual will have an inherited source of income. In order to pursue a 
+fundamental task, he will have to pursue a legitimate occupation at the same 
+time. It may be extremely difficult to lead such a double life, because to do 
+so requires precisely the self-assurance. that comes from accomplishing the 
+fundamental task. Leading a double life is not a game for the person who is 
+unsure about his real abilities or his vocation. If the individual is capable of 
+leading a double life, our suggestion is to obtain the means of subsistence by 
+the most efficient swindle available. Do not hesitate to practice outward 
+conformity in order to exploit the establishment for your own purposes. 
+
+There remains the case of the individual who, like Galois, is not 
+prepared to lead a double life. His problem is one of destitution. However, 
+he is different from an ordinary pauper. By assumption, he is more talented 
+than the members of the establishment; he does not belong to the 
+establishment because he is overqualified for it. Given that he is more 
+talented than members of the establishment, and that his survival is 
+threatened, a collateral fundamental task emerges, the task of immediately 
+transmuting his talent into power to handle the establishment on his own 
+terms. To perceive this task is a major resuit of this essay. The task cannot be 
+defined accurately without a perfect understanding of the difference 
+between fundamental tasks and the serve-society-and-get-famous fraud. We 
+contend that Galois should have regarded the task of immediately 
+transmuting his talent into power over the establishment as an inseparable 
+collateral problem to his mathematical researches. From a common sense 
+point of view, this collateral task will seem utterly impossible. However, we 
+are talking about individuals whose vocation is to do the seemingly 
+impossible. Thus, we conclude by leaving this unsolved fundamental problem 
+for the reader to ponder. 
+
-- 
cgit v1.2.3

