16/10/2012
It is somewhat taken for granted today that revolution occurs through the passions, beliefs and desires of activist subjects. Why would someone revolt if they did not desire a better life, or believe in a particular cause, or feel warmed by the passion for change? Indeed, those who believe that thinking must be responsive to its times, and who have followed recent revolutionary political events – from the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi to the series of insurgencies that followed – might find it strange that the most trendy philosophy today is going by the name "object-oriented ontology." Less concerned with the structures of self-conscious activity, and more interested in the agency of objects and the end of human life, this philosophical turn seems oddly disconnected from its moment. I will argue in this talk, however, that there may be a valid and serious connection between revolutionary politics and the end of consciousness.
Perhaps, I want to suggest, there is a kind of revolutionary activity that comes not from belief and desire, but rather through their elimination. Indeed, we find in revolutionary thinkers like Kant, Thoreau and Gandhi, the argument that it is a dispassionate application of truths about basic human needs which gives life to a revolution. This talk will consider some of their thoughts about this other kind of politics, as well as their response to the charge of quietism. I will also consider the relation to several aesthetic practices with similar concerns, either explicitly or implicitly (Kuoan Shiyuan's Ten Bulls, John Cage's "Lecture on Indeterminacy", and Hitchcock's The Birds). The central question posed is this: is the end (purpose) of consciousness to bring about its own end (cessation), and could this end of consciousness take the lived form of a revolutionary non-violent politics based on the satisfaction of basic human needs?
