Picture Post #67 Unperturbed

by Nada Spencer *

Sculpture by Nada Spencer, 2020.

It was the first of three COVID-19 lockdowns which moved me to create this sculptural piece. 

The ropes bind tightly around the figure, thereby symbolising the anxiety we feel while facing a worldwide pandemic. Not only do the ropes wrap tightly around the torso, but they have become part of the figure, punching deeply through the skin. These ropes are the same colour as the skin, which further blurs the lines of external struggles and internal personal identity. 

The face, however, is thoughtful and calm, and not in anguish, as we might expect. This signals that, despite the pressures and struggles of life, we can retain hope and persevere. ‘Sometimes even to live is an act of courage,’ wrote Seneca, but ‘he who is brave is free.’

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* Nada Spencer is a ceramicist in Cape Town.

Imagining Freedom

 Posted by Emile Wolfaardt

Image: UNESCO. Vandal-ism, a tribute to Édouard Manet 

by the Spanish artist Pejac, 2014.

The human spirit is born yearning innately and continually for freedom. It seems that from the day we are dragged reluctantly out of the womb to our final rasping breath, we find the imposition of limitations an injury to our sensibilities.

We seek instinctively the dismissal of all censorship. Similarly, we feel we are our own source and standard for truth. Any burden of constraint or requirement that is not consistent with our opinion, we tend to naturally devalue and disqualify. Nature itself seems somehow complicit in denying us our freedoms as we look to the birds and cry, ‘Oh that I had wings like a dove.’

It was while seeking to throw off the restraint of British shackles in 1775 that the revolutionary lawyer and governor Patrick Henry stood in front of the Virginia legislature and implored, ‘I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!’

Yet the truth is that neither the bird, nor Patrick Henry, nor the human spirit is actually free, nor can they be! The bird cannot rise to altitudes where there is no oxygen. Mr. Henry could not derail the adoption of US Constitution despite his commitment to do so, and you and I, no matter who we are, live with a myriad of restrictions that we reasonably cannot defy.

What does it mean to be really free? Should Colin Kaepernick be free to ‘take the knee’, or Edward Snowden to publish classified information? Should the South African government be free to deport foreigners, or local sub-culture groups be free to articulate their prejudices? Should pastors, florists and bakers be forced to provide their services for same-sex weddings and celebrations that violate their religious beliefs? What if we flip the question? Should a homosexual graphic designers or printers be forced to create flyers for a rally opposing same-sex marriages?

Here is why the discussion may be more complex than simply shouting ‘freedom’ as loudly as one can, then giving one’s life to make that statement somehow more meaningful.

• Freedom is Both Relative and Subjective

It is relative because we tend to evaluate freedom by comparing it to the freedom of others, or the freedom we enjoyed in previous situation. When Martin Luther King declared “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” he was still part of a system of opression that had not yet changed.

It is subjective because it depends on your one’s mindset. The same group of militia may be called ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘terrorists’ depending on what side of the table they sit on. The psychiatrist and philosopher Viktor Frankl faced the incredible horrors of Auschwitz. With 6 million others, he was stripped of everything, including his dignity. But in the depth of his suffering, Frankl decided that there was a part of him the Nazis could never touch – and that was his choice to be positive, to have and optimistic outlook. That was his choice for freedom.

• Freedom is Both Negative and Positive

The concept of negative and positive freedom was popularized in an essay by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin published in 1958, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’.

Negative freedom centres on freedom from interference by others. It focuses on my freedom to act according to the dictates of my conscience without others preventing me from doing so. It asks, ‘In what areas am I master?’

Positive freedom is a little more tricky – it is about my right to do something rather than limiting the interference I may encounter from others. It is about my freedom to do, say, associate, worship, and express as I choose to.

However we define it – at the end of the day, we are as free as we choose to be – because freedom is more a state of mind than of circumstances. Circumstantially, we will never be free. There will always be limitations imposed by nature, governments, others, and even our own minds and bodies. That is not where true freedom is found.

The battle for freedom is fought and won in the mind. When we empower the actions of others to determine our state of mind, we empower them to determine our freedom. Freedom is available to all. The wisdom principle of freedom is simply this:

Where the freedom of one infringes on the freedoms of another, the net result is less freedom for all. As a matter of fact, the entire judicial system is purposed on this principle.

Nelson Mandela wrote, ‘To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.’ His autobiography, ‘Long Walk to Freedom’, was not primarily about political or physical freedom, although that was both the context and the occasion of his writing. It was about the choice to be free in his inner being, in his mind, and to afford others with the same respect and opportunity.

So, perhaps we should all take that long walk – and find the freedom in our minds. Mind chains are a terrible task-master to serve – and freedom is simply a choice away.

Poetry: Eulogy for Democracy

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except...”

A Eulogy for Democracy

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 A poem by Chengde Chen 

(Breaking news: A democracy elects a fascist president…)

Democracy has committed suicide.
Freedom, at the funeral that is almost for itself,
invites Reason to give a eulogy.
Reason says, ‘This, however…
also shows the greatness of Democracy:
Dictatorship may let a madman rule the majority;
Democracy allows the majority to be mad!’

No one knows what is being added up in the ballot box
– wisdom or stupidity?
But the wonder of ‘water kindling fire’
has shown how absurd Democracy can be.
The sacred formula of ‘one man one vote’
casts the power in proportion to the birthrate.
‘Majority rule’ is to bully by numbers
– neither freedom, nor goodness

Democracy doesn’t mean freedom,
but the majority oppressing the minority.
That ‘all men are equal before the law’ is only half true –
the legislative process has favoured those in the majority.
From the point of view of mechanics,
to be oppressed by the many is no less uncomfortable
than to be oppressed by one person.
To avoid the oppression one has to join the majority,
so those in the majority may also be compelled.

Democracy doesn’t mean goodness either.
Don’t be deceived by the look of the ballot box,
which seems big and square, appearing to be fair.
Being big is able to accommodate both good and evil.
Being square is easier to confound right and wrong.
When the majority fancy gambling,
gamblers are regarded as heroes.
When the majority get drunk,
those sober are seen as abnormal.
When the majority decide to wage war,
death is entertained with mothers’ agony!

Granted being somewhat just,
Democracy is destined to be fragile.
Democracies lacking bread are dying of hunger.
Democracies lacking efficiency are dying of exhaustion.
Democracies lacking education
– like crowds of uncultured children –
are directing flattering politics to dodder along,
mistaking funerals for festivals!

Democracy is not a Gospel from heaven,
nor is it a serenade of a dreamland.
It is the tracks of a chaotic herd of sheep.
It is an average probability of molecules colliding.
It is a rough competition of head counting.
It is an institution of coercing respect,
made for beings who don’t respect each other.
This simple game of ‘51 beats 49’
is merely a way out of a no-way-out civilization!

Is this what we fought for with our lives?
Yes, and no
We pursued Democracy because we had never had it,
so we had a wrong dream, which assumed that
with driving dark away, what would be left would be light.
In fact, driving dark away is only driving dark away
– what is left is the problems not seen in the dark!
Democracy is nothing else but these problems –
the problem of freedom,
the problem of law and order,
the problem of the economy,
the problem of education.
The problems are as numerous as the hairs on a dog.
The problems are as chaotic as tangled hemp.
Democracy is the right to contribute problems.
Democracy is a machine to generate problems!

Democracy carries freedom of speech.
There comes the problem of abusing the ‘holy right’ –
the problem of libelling others,
the problem of deceiving the public,
the problem of inciting racial or religious hatred,
the problem of advertising violence or pornography.
Once Democracy tries to exert control,
there comes the problem of gagging opinion,
the problem of media discontent,
the problem of human rights,
the problem of foreign criticism,
the problem of international relations,
et cetera, et cetera.

Democracy establishes freedom of marriage.
There comes the problem of marriage rates falling,
the problem of divorce rates rising,
the problem of single parent families,
the problem of youth crime,
the problem of drugs,
the problem of AIDS,
the problem of the rights of HIV carriers,
et cetera, et cetera.

Problems have the infinite ability to produce problems.
Every solution is a reproduction.
The wisdom of dictatorship is to forbid problems arising,
like a sealed cylinder giving no oxygen for reactions.
Whereas Democracy is an open chemical space,
or a chain of uncontrolled nuclear reactions.
It is its very nature
to generate more problems than it solves!

Democracy expects the law to deal with problems.
This is both underestimating human creativity
and over-estimating what society can endure.
In the modern age, especially with social media,
the amount of human activities increase exponentially,
the number of conflicts resorting to court are exploding.
There have been so many laws that we have to
make indexes for the indexes, find lawyers for the lawyers,
while the legislation machine still runs round the clock.
At such a pace, two hundred years later,
half of the population would have to be lawyers,
and the other half would have to be policemen.
This is not a joke, but the destiny of Democracy!

A system that increases problems infinitely won’t last.
This law of mathematics won’t yield to the majority.
Democracy may be powerful enough to crush its enemies,
but the obese body can’t overcome the weight of itself!
When it is too exhausted to carry its fairytale,
it may have to turn to its enemy for help.
Thanks to the accommodating ballot box,
which is open to anything!
When Democracy votes for Dictatorship,
who dares to say it’s being undemocratic?

Churchill once said, and it’s often quoted,
‘Democracy is the worst form of government
except for all those other forms that have been tried’ –
monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, theocracy, dictatorship,
none of which is ‘of, by, and for the people’
Yet, have we exhausted all the forms possible?
Won’t there be ones with more reason and efficiency?
Civilisation is young, albeit a few-thousand-years-old
When looking back after a few more thousand years
we may find the democracy worship of today laughable –
if not a frog at the bottom of a well looking upward
asserting that the sky is as big as the well…


Wouldn't democracy look crazier than al-Qaeda?

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Chengde Chen is the author of Five Themes of Today: philosophical poems. Readers can find out more about Chengde and his poems here

Doublethink 24 - Short-term Slavery

 

Have We Normalised Oppression?

Posted by Bohdana Kurylo

There are forms of oppression and domination, wrote Michel Foucault, which become invisible – the new normal. Have we normalised oppression today? Are we even aware of it any more?

In the introductory volume of The History of Sexuality, Foucault drew his readers’ attention to the workings of power on the level of one’s sexuality and desire, as both an example and a metaphor of all power relations. He debunked the idea that sex is the locus of the truest form of the self. In fact, this idea turns out to be an invisible mechanism of control. As Foucault put it, it is ‘a new mode of investment which presents itself no longer in the form of control by repression but that of control by stimulation’. In turn, the ‘stimulation’ cannot do without sex being regulated and monitored, to effectively manage the populace. Still, modern control would not be effective without control being exerted by individuals over themselves, however unknowingly. And the more self-governing our self becomes, the more relevant this becomes.

As such, there is a clear difference between the repressive methods used by the Soviet state to regulate society and the self-discipline of the modern sexually ‘liberated’ generation. The latter has willingly measured and categorised itself through all-encompassing examination and normalisation through beauty standards, nudity and endless discourses on sex. A confessing animal, modern man has made, perhaps, the most intimate part of his self available for mass surveillance. The force of surveillance has significantly increased with the rise of social media, the efficacy of which is not inferior to Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon: its prisoners are close, yet in isolation from each other; perfectly visible for the watchers, yet unable to see them. In short, the soul is governed by aligning new norms with individual desires and pleasures.

Nevertheless, it is questionable whether such control necessarily has negative implications, as in the case of conventional forms of oppression and domination. It is indeed a hybrid power that does not oppose one’s wishes, but in fact creates them. On the surface of it, Foucault himself seems to take a neutral stance in relation to the new style of governance, rejecting the idea that society can exist without power relations. However, his emphasis on the effects of normalisation on the individual – which ‘attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognise’ – reveals a negative attitude. It seems that Foucault confronted the issue of modern governance because of his urge to go beyond the existing perceptions of the self. Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the ‘will to power’ – an ‘attempt to overcome, to bring to oneself, to incorporate’ – may well explain it. It is precisely this ‘instinct for freedom’ that would lead Foucault’s subject to want to become a master in playing these games of power with the strongest possible protection against the abuse of power.

At this point, the connection between freedom and ethics unfolds. Foucault pronounced the nature of freedom to be ethical in itself: ‘Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics’. Yet, he wondered whether it makes sense to say ‘let’s liberate our sexuality’, for the problem of freedom is much more ethical than the rhetoric about desires and pleasures. Thus, it is important, once again to debunk the myth that sexual liberation – or any liberation – is equal to freedom. Indeed, is liberation only about genitals and not about conscience, dignity and self-reflection? Freedom is impossible without self-reflection and the ‘care of the self’. Hence, as ‘taking care of oneself requires knowing oneself’, freedom from imposed knowledge and control becomes a major argument for resistance against modern power.

A bigger question, however, is whether resistance is possible – and here, Foucault led his readers into the labyrinth of philosophical paradoxes. The problem is that the relationship between the self and power is mutually determining. Paradoxically, as the self has essentially become the locus of power today, humans face the challenge of resisting themselves. As a result, the individual is constituted both through the practices of subjection and liberation. Although a fully autonomous self is impossible, those who dare to follow their instinct for freedom inevitably have to overcome these paradoxes on the path of the never-ending process of self-cultivation. As an option, Foucault proposed shaping individual subjectivity through the force of creativity, virtually transforming everyone’s life into a work of art. Metaphorically, ‘why should the lamp or the house be an art object but not our life?’

The questions remain: Who exercises power? Who makes decisions for me? Foucault referred to the notion of ‘governmentality’ to describe modern political reason. Its main characteristic is societies in which governance follows the principle of ‘enterprise’, in which the self is self-sustainable and self-governing, ensuring higher productivity. This is a world in which discipline and control have been internalised by the individuals themselves.