De-Mystifying so Far

I've been thinking about Robiae's interesting thread on Negative Space and how it relates to various political ideologies.

One point that Marx makes is that the actual social relations of production are always "mystified" and I think fairly early in Das Kapital he points out for example that the value that is added by exchange is like a hieroglyphic (by which I think he means "illegable writing"...or an anti-social social term). Now I would say that ideologically mystified social relations are not so much negative space as space that forms an inconvenient nothingness, a nothing that is in fact always there and has to be constantly explained as being so close to nothing as not to matter at all: neither perfectly natural nor perfectly interestingly cultural. For example, what is culturally interesting about wealthy people is their choices in consumption or collecting or investing, not the immense social structures that it takes to seamlessly maintain the illusion that all the transactions that flow into their consumptive aura are not worthy of any cultural comment.

As with the social mystification of capital, so with the epistemological mystification of religion as having a philosophical side and only such social implications as seem appropriate to the adherents to a religion. Nothing is more ideologically inconvenient than the cultic side of religion...the place where the mystified exchange values of symbols enter into human motivation in a non-ideological, purely symbolic (ie heiroglyphic) way.

It's the Mystification

Cathy C said:

Sorry, I can't see how this fits into this forum, Sokal. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt if you can explain the effect negative space has on Non-Theistic writing. If not, we'll move this to the political forum.

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I wasn't thinking of anything economic or political, I was thinking of the mystification that obscures what seems to me to be the normal, local, cultic, non-theistic side of religion. The very term that Marx uses "hieroglyphic" (ie sacred writing) to describe the objects of mystification suggest a cultic/religious obscurity that may extend into may aspects of society that are hard to get into focus because they don't function well in ideological terms.

Mystical Steering mechanisms

Meerkat said:

Incisive as always, Sokalmeister. But would you tend to agree that the waste you mention inherent with the rich would actually be worse if not "refined" (i.e. confined in the use of resources...collectibles vs. having vast quantities of a resource, art vs. large...in short "best versus most?"
Don't get me wrong; I generally loathe the rich. But they are not economic villians.

Would you also tend to agree that the negative space you have recognized in the mystification of the social relations of production are similarly no worse than the waste inherent in almost everything else we do as well? Don't get me wrong here either--I crave simplicity/efficiency. But we are not an ant colony, and the waste/mystification you cite is the flavor of humanity, is it not?

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Well...negative space is this context was more Robiae's idea than mine. I'm thinking of a parallel characterization of a useful nothingness ("mystification" as some Marxists would say) that is placed as a kind of modesty-inducer over certain human behaviors that are hard to read in ideological terms. We don't know how much human time and interest is really taken up in sustaining the collection of expensive collectables -- perhaps not all that much...but what is odd is how many "collectables" are perfectly ordinary objects. That in itself makes you wonder.
Similarly (at least as I see it), we don't know how much religious passion derives from relatively local cultic interests...perhaps a certain modesty forbids that people actually describe what they really do religiously, what in fact their private cults really are. For example, my private Cult of Monica Bellucci (to suggest a possibly wide-spread type of private, non-thiestic cult) went on a definite upswing when she was the Papal Agent in the French Movie about werewolves, but came crashing down when she played the Virgin Mary in the Passion of the Christ....for obvious Oedipal reasons: one doesn't mind playing in cultic fantasy the incestuous son to a woman controled by the Pope-as-father-figure, but to try the same fantasy vs God-the-Father with Jesus as an incestuous fellow-co-sibling...is beyond the intensity potentials of my private, cultic, religious enthusiasm. Hence modesty forbids...etc.

Meerkat said:

I thought right off the bat not that Sokal is off his bat, but that this thread is in the right forum, due to Marx's theism as "opiate of the masses." Of course, I cannot possibly defend the rest of his friday afternoon thread above....

Happy, safe weekend, everyone!

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I looked up the Karl Marx religious opium quote online. So who knows?
Anyway, supposedly Marx said:

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/31765.htmlhttp://www.quotationspage.com/myquotations.php?add=31765
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
In context, it appears that Religion has the positive function of easing the pain of suffering at the very least. The formulation is also superficially paradoxical -- to say Religion is the Heart of a Heartless world suggests (as Marx probably meant) that it mystifies a world where there really is no compassion into a world where there this at least the hint of an idea of compassion. "Spirit" of course has to be understood in terms of Hegelian mental gymnastics...so I leave that to any Hegelians who feel like some exercise.

Close on the Opiates

Meerkat said:

So I was close?

Close enough! Thanks for the accurate research for which you have such a well deserved reputation. I hope that you don't find my seat-of-the-pants approach troubling!

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I didn't do any research, I just looked up the quote. I have no idea what Marx's discussion of Hegel's Philosophy of Right is like.

BUT...extrapolating further from what little I happen to have found:

Note that Marx puts forward opium in the context of relieving pain. Remember that when Marx wrote, opium in various forms was one of the few effective pain medications around. The delusional and addictive side does not really seem to be the point as far as I can tell.