On Natural Dialectics

On Natural Dialectics, Ideal and Material part 1
Lelyn R. Masters




ANT 5200
Dr. Jefferson Boyer
Spring 2014


There is, however, a tendency to become most subjective in judging the structure and laws that govern the development of human society, to judge in terms of the so-called consciousness of society, that is, its contradictory, disjointed, conservative, unverified ideology. Of course, one can become insulted and raise the objection that social ideology is, after all, at a higher elevation than the sensation of a lizard. It all depends on one's approach to the question. In my opinion there is nothing paradoxical in the statement that from the sensations of a lizard, if it were possible to bring them into proper focus, one could draw much more direct conclusions concerning the structure and function of its organs than one could draw concerning the structure of society and its dynamics from such ideological reflections as, for example, religious creeds that once occupied and still continue to occupy so prominent a place in the life of human society: or from the contradictory and hypocritical codices of official morality; or, finally, from the idealistic philosophic conceptions that, in order to explain complex organic processes occurring in man, seek to place responsibility upon a nebulous, subtle essence called the soul, endowed with the qualities of impenetrability and eternity.
-Leon Trotsky, "Dialectical Materialism and Science." September 17, 1925


The line dividing human from animal is not an idea found in nature. The golden ratio is found in nature; so is the conservation of Energy. The Betz limit is found in nature, as is the number π. Nature is littered with such abstract items. But a clear line demarcating mineral from vegetable, vegetable from animal and animal from human is nowhere to be found in the observable natural world. Examples of animal behavior in people and people behavior in animals are so legion that we hardly need to recount them here. The arbitrariness of any given definition of what it is to be human signals for us a deeper ambiguity. This deeper ambiguity is where does the activity of a so-called rational agent begin and the unconscious motion of mere physical, material processes end? Pre-historical and early historical peoples are said to have anthropomorphized all things natural: are we any less superstitious to believe our own actions to be the product of an enlightened intentionality?
This is the theoretical space in which to situate Eric Assadourian's (henceforth EA) statements on culture in The Rise and Fall of Consumer Cultures. "Human beings are embedded in cultural systems, are shaped and constrained by their cultures, and for the most part act only within the cultural realities of their lives. The Cultural norms, symbols, values, and traditions a person grows up with become 'natural.' Thus, asking people who live in consumer cultures to curb consumption is akin to asking them to stop breathing-they can do it for a moment, but then, gasping, they will inhale again" (3). EA places nature in scare quotes to signal a dynamic element, one he believes capable of transformation, a transformation necessary for survival.
What's important to EA is that we stop finding meaning through consumption. Any idea of how this could take place will require, at least implicitly, an idea of what is essential human nature and what is mere social and historical circumstance. EA falls directly into a certain paradigm where humans, whatever their essence, produce change intentionally. "Transforming cultures… will require decades of effort in which cultural pioneers-those who can step out of their cultural realities enough to critically examine them-work tirelessly to redirect key culture-shaping institutions: education, business, government, and the media, as well as social movements and long-standing human traditions" (4).
EA goes on to articulate all of the ways that our consumer culture is unsustainable. We take this science for granted: it is well established. Our concern is getting a proper idea of how changes happen. We will find that EA's soft concept of human nature evades the pitfall of economism but dives headlong into a kind of idealism.
Consumer Culture in Eric Assadourian
Culture, we are told by EA, is not just Opera, pop music, "the arts." It is neither the summation of a society's emotional and intellectual understanding of its self, nor just its economic and political institutions. Culture is "all of these elements-values, beliefs, customs, traditions, symbols, norms, and institutions- combining to create the overarching frames that shape how humans perceive reality" (7). Culture is the summation of all social forces that create for us a meaningful experience, that tell us how sweet a rose smells by any other name, whether a glass is half full, what behavior is 'natural.' Culture defines for us what about us is natural and what is aberrant, what is base and what is superstructure, what is unchangeable in us and what is intentional.
We see now the value of withholding judgment about where the natural begins and where the human ends: it allows us to objectively analyze culture, and to view social realities not as permanent natural laws but as contingencies exposed to change, nay destined for it. The question now repeats itself on a superior level: from what foundation does intentional human activity proceed and how does it break with the continuous fabric of 'natural' human culture? On this level we must elaborate not how an unchanging human nature finds itself in different forms of cultural alienation, but rather how does human being dynamically develop alongside and within the context of a broader, dynamic natural environment. For there is yet one further mystification to peel away: the idea of a harmonious and static natural environment at peace when not disturbed by human activity.
In the 60s an idea of nature was developed that did not resume nature as a mere resource. No longer was nature a set of objects left for us by God for our use, or a material palette for the construction of human meaning. Nature had an independent existence and a right to that existence. Ecology described a world that existed in a state of static equilibrium that we disturb at our peril. We are indebted to Adam Curtis (henceforth AC) for having traced the lineage of this idea in his documentary "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace Part 2: The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts." In this documentary AC documents the rise of systems theory, computer technology and the idea that the natural world produces harmony if left to itself. As the science progressed it was found that this natural harmony is only an effect of the lens the earlier experts were perceiving nature through. Computer models contributed to this perception by allowing simplified dynamic models to describe ecosystems. This was a mechanical dream of nature, and it never succeeded at capturing the complexities of the natural world. Beginning in the 70s, more and more scientists with a more piercing gaze tore holes in the theory of a balanced natural world. Even in the absence of human culture nature undergoes periodic disturbances that transform radically the paradigm of natural behavior. Our concept of the natural world has progressed beyond the idea of universal harmony, but liberal theorists insist on organizing society as though there were a pre-ordained harmony that would arise if only institutions withdrew from direct involvement. This is the point where Democrats and Republicans come together to produce what is known as the Public/Private partnership. This is the paradigm under which we live, our culture, and it is against this 'natural' background that we must now make a break.
EA contributes to our understanding of ourselves by critiquing the cult of the shopping mall, but he still imagines at bottom a natural realm characterized by static equilibrium. This is why he cannot account for change without appeal to a humanistic paradigm where the ideas of people can create a human order, as though human order were not itself a natural item. We have inherited institutions who are dependent upon consumerism, and underneath that the Capitalist extraction of surplus value. The great strength of Marxist critique is that it predicates change on antagonisms that are internal to a system, rather than on the intercession of some supra-historical human mind.
We are not opposed to EA's diagnoses: our current way of life alienates us rather than fulfilling us. Our current material culture undermines our continued ability to survive as a species. Consumption is out of control, but without an understanding of how Capitalist competition requires growth and sales and consumption, we miss the revolutionary task that stands before us. Our task is more than just changing attitudes about consumption. Our task is to revolutionize the way production happens in the first place, because this fundamentally productive relationship of human being to nature as a resource is the source of the consumer impulse. We agree that the media are complicit in manipulating culture to maximize consumption, and we go further by insisting that this is proof that a falling rate of profit pushes Capitalism deeper into crisis, a material and moral crisis.
Cultures of Sustainability
"Institutions will have to be fundamentally oriented on sustainability. How can this be done?" (EA 16). Indeed. "Altering a system's rules… or its flow rates… can change a system too, but not as fundamentally. These will typically produce only incremental changes. Today more systemic change is needed" (16). Agreed. Moreover, it is incontestable that the values EA identifies as inherent to a culture of sustainability must be embraced to ensure the persistence of human life on this planet: "ecological restoration," "equity" and "foster[ing] a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship" (16). The power of this idea is incontrovertible: its appeal is direct and popular. Broad sections of the Capitalist ruling class now believe this very thing. We reject this approach because it does not rely on any material basis. If ideas alone changed the world, we would already be living in a utopia. Ideas are material when they seize the masses, and the masses seize upon those ideas that course through society. To be sure, the dominating ideas of any society are the ideas of the ruling class, but there is always a margin for resistance. The ideas in society are always dynamic and contradictory. What is required to correctly grasp our crisis? What is required is a dynamic center, an intentional surfing upon the antagonisms inherent to the system itself. What is required is dialectical materialism. What is lacking in EA is not a beautiful ideal, but the means to approach it.
On the topic of "places to intervene," we are directed to the systems analysis of Donella Meadows who "explained that the most effective leverage point for changing a system is to change the paradigm of the system-that is to say, the shared ideas or basic assumptions around which the system functions" (16). We leave aside for the moment that this assertion is bald tautology. Instead, note that in this prescription change is a matter of mind, and specifically of bringing this mind back to a natural harmony presupposed to be universal without the intervention of humanity. This idea is pure fantasy. We are enjoined to make conspicuous consumption "taboo," to encourage mass transit and vote with our dollars for goods that are "cradle to cradle." It is not surprising that EA goes on to identify shifts in the current institutions of the Capitalist class that are embracing ecology: social entrepreneurship and Earth jurisprudence are going to save us. We are witnessing in our times the creation of a secular religion, not universally accepted, but combining in itself an ethics and an eschatology. These are the stories we tell ourselves when we aren't looking at the antagonisms we live in that are resources for revolutionary change. The problem with such an approach is that it cannot account for change in nature, including human society, from within nature. In two thousand years the Catholic Church has proven completely unable to eradicate extramarital sex. No ethical idea can intercede in the fabric of the material world, and we must recognize in the rise of green consumerism the full presence of a pervasive, catholic, moral hypocrisy. "Sustainability" has and will be commodified, and once it is it too contributes to the material causes of environmental catastrophe. It is disastrous and wrong-headed to depend on the individual consumption choices or abstentions of millions of individuals to turn the tide. Furthermore, this picture of social change depends upon a view of the natural world as one of pre-existing harmony where the only locus of change is human intentionality, as though humanity were the extractable quantity whose potential vantage outside of the system gifted it with agency. We do not deny that this agency exists, only that it must itself be a natural item. Our challenge is to find the natural power of human agency, its material force outside of the cultural paradigm we live in. The natural foundation for our culture is dialectical in nature. Our project is not, for all that, essentially negative. It takes us beyond the scope of our current assignment to produce a truly Marxist elaboration of the deep structures of what EA calls "consumer culture".

Works Cited
Assadourian, Eric. State of the World 2010. "The Rise and Fall of Consumer Cultures."
Coclanis, Peter and Louis Kyriakoudes. "Selling Which South? Economic Change in Rural and Small-Town North Carolina in an Era of Globalization, 1940-2007."
Curtis, Adam. All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. Available: http://vimeo.com/73536828
Trotsky, Leon. "Dialectical Materialism and Science." Problems of Everyday Life: and Other Writings on Culture and Science. Monad Press, New York. 1973.