Precarity and Loss: On Certain and Uncertain Properties of Life and Work

143 Pages·2017·1.224 MB·English

by  Tadeusz Rachwał (auth.)

Prekarisierung und soziale
Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien
Tadeusz Rachwał
Precarity
and Loss
On Certain and Uncertain
Properties of Life and Work
Prekarisierung und soziale
Entkopplung - transdisziplinäre
Studien
Series editors
Rolf Hepp, Germany
Robert Riesinger, Germany
David Kergel, Germany
Die Zunahme sozialer Unsicherheit und kultureller Verunsicherung in postfordis-
tischen Gesellschaften erzeugt einen Status Quo, in dem Prozesse der Prekarisie-
rung und der „sozialen Entkopplung“ (Robert Castel) verstärkt das Zentrum der
Gesellschaft durchziehen. Der Verlust sozialer Garantien führt dabei zur
Aushöhlung sozialstaatlicher Errungenschaften. Dadurch werden die Lebenskon-
texte und das Alltagsleben der Menschen stark verändert.
Das sozialwissenschaftliche Netzwerk S.U.P.I. beschäftigt sich auf europäischer
Ebene seit Jahren mit den gegenwärtigen Formen von sozialer Unsicherheit,
Prekarität und Ungleichheit. Die Reihe, herausgegeben von Mitgliedern des
Netzwerks, präsentiert transdisziplinäre Forschungen zu den sozialen und kultu-
rellenTransformationenindensozialstaatlichgeprägtenDemokratien.Sieversteht
sich als Forum für die Diskussion in nationalen, europäischen und auch globalen
Kontexten. Ebenen einer kritischen Analyse aus multidisziplinären und feldorien-
tierten Perspektiven werden dabei initiiert, aufgenommen und unterstützt. Über-
schreitung und Öffnung dienen programmatisch als Wegmarken für
theoretisch-analytische Beiträge und empirisch-angewandte Forschung.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15037
Tadeusz Rachwał
Precarity and Loss
On Certain and Uncertain Properties
of Life and Work
Tadeusz Rachwał
University of Social Sciences
andHumanities
Warsaw
Poland
ISSN 2509-3266 ISSN 2509-3274 (electronic)
Prekarisierung undsoziale Entkopplung - transdisziplinäre Studien
ISBN978-3-658-13414-3 ISBN978-3-658-13415-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-13415-0
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Preface: Hesitations
Butinthisquestforabsolutemeaning,Frenhoferhassucceededonlyinobscuringhis
idea and erasing from the canvas any human form, disfiguring it into a chaos of
colors,tones,hesitatingnuances,akindofshapelessfog.
(GiorgioAgamben,TheManWithoutContent)
Balzac’s Frenhofer, the painter from The Unknown Masterpiece to whose figure
Giorgio Agamben refers in the epigram above, seems to be losing his idea in
“hesitatingnuances”,thusshowingthatheisnotreallyanxiousabouttheloss.He
paints what Agamben sees as “the precarious significance of human action in the
interval between what is no longer and what is not yet” (Agamben 1999: 112).
What is thus precariously significant is the present, something which we call
“now”, and which is in fact never present. We cherish the present also because it
signifies “what is”, because it testifies to being present whose precariousness
frequently goes unnoticed and which seems to be one of those things which go
withoutquestioning.Wecanlosethings,butthelossisseenasbecomingabsentof
present.
Thisbooklooksatwhatcanbetermedtheanxietyoflossfromtheperspective
of the culture of production, of “our” culture in which gain, increase, growth,
development or expansion are seen and encouraged as assuredly positive catego-
ries. Ipairthis anxietywithprecarity,“aninelegantneologism coinedbyEnglish
speakers to translate the French precarité” (Neilson and Rositter: 1). This term is
now frequently used with reference to, very generally, the uncertainty of emplo-
yment, recently involving numerous groups of people of different classes, sexes,
professionsorethnicities.Whatisunderstoodbyprecarizationoflabourisnotonly
the ease with which people lose jobs, but first of all its normalization within the
neoliberal economies which translate it into a necessity comparable to the struc-
turalnecessityofunemploymentincapitalisteconomyingeneral.Thoughvarious
v
vi Preface:Hesitations
states officially struggle with unemployment, precarization of work rhetorically
masks it and translates into a normal state of things within the fluid and flexible
society. Therefore, precarity is understood a projection of fluid life on work, a
transitionoftheflexibilityoflifeintotheflexibilityoflabour,whichthusbeginsto
constituteaunityofsomesortofnormalcy.Inthiswayflexibility,asitwere,hides
therigidityofthedemandsofthecapitalistproduction,theFordistmechanization
and rhythmicization of work and seems to be meeting the social expectations of
broadening the sphere offreedoms and independence from others. Precarization,
writes Isabell Lorey referring to the Frassanito Network,
symbolizes a contested field: a field in which the attempt to start a new cycle of
exploitationalsomeetsdesiresandsubjectivebehaviorswhichexpresstherefusalof
the old, so-called fordist regime of labor and the searchfor another, better, we can
evensayflexiblelife(Lorey2015:10).
Thisflexibilityoflife,paralleledwiththeflexibilityoflabour,isareflectionof
what some theoreticians of postmodernity see as a schism with modernity along
withitsinsistenceonorderandorganization,andthusalsoaschismwithorganized
capitalism which gave way to a “disorganized society and a disorganized capita-
lism” (Bauman 1992a: 47). However, though labour has only to some extent
ceased to be measured by the hands of the factory clocks, the flexibility thus
producedisfrequentlyseenasatransformationofthepostmodernsubjectintoan
agent, an actively mobile individual with a seeming infinity of choices ahead of
him or her. This mobility, however, can be practiced only at the cost of loss of
stabilityandsecuritywhichisascribedtoothers,tothosewhostillhaveit,evenif
those others are few or simply imagined.
Flexibilization also involves destabilization of places, the places of work and
theplacesofdwelling.Itdemandstheabilitytochangeplaces,atransitionfroma
sedentarylifetoanomadismofsortswhichIwilldiscussinmoredetaillater.From
theperspectiveofmodernity,thisdifferentplacementofthesubjectisdisorienting,
linkedwithlossinthetopographicalsense,andthequestionsof“whereamI?”and
“where am I to go?” cannot be answered by means of any reliable self-guidance.
Theprecarizedarestrangerstowheretheyare,anditisinthissensethatwemay
talkaboutsomesortof“touristificationofeverydaylife”andaboutwhatBauman
calls the tourist syndrome. (Franklin 2003: 206). The tourism of the precarized
consists,accordingtoBauman,in“notbelongingtotheplace”,andthemetaphor
of tourism is applicable mainly to the impermanence of positions which one can
take,totheexperienceof“beinginaplacetemporarilyandknowingit”(Franklin
2003: 207). This condition
Preface:Hesitations vii
issharedwiththemodalityofordinarydailylife,withthewayweareall‘inserted’
in the company of others everywhere—in places where we live or work; not only
duringthesummerholidays,butsevendaysaweek,allyearround,yearbyyear.Itis
thatcharacteristicofcontemporarylifetowhichIprimarilyreferwhenspeakingof
thetouristsyndrome.(Franklin2003:207)
The loss of the security of position is accompanied by the loss of any clearly
definedtaskofthetravel,ofapointofdestinationwhichmighteventuallyendthe
journey. Bauman wrote about the rise of the postmodern subjectivity in terms of
movement from pilgrimage to tourism, the movement which also involved a
radical disruption of the idea of time which, no longer guiding us to a single
destiny,becamefragmentedbyonlytoomanypointsofdestination.Theresultof
this change was “the fragmentation of time into episodes, each one cut from its
past and from its future, each one self-enclosed and self-contained. Time is no
longerariver,butacollectionofpondsandpools”(Bauman1996,25).Thuslost
in fragments, we feel that we are not responsible for the fragmentation of the
world, simultaneously feeling that the unity, which is not there, has been lost.
The absence of responsibility for things falling apart may come from another
uncertainty, from the uncertainty of our ethical judgements which can no longer
relyon theauthority ofa moralcode orsystem comingfrom elsewhere, fromthe
outside of the individuals orphaned from the care of the modernist fathers.
“Modernity was”, writes Bauman,
amongotherthings,agiganticexerciseinabolishingindividualresponsibilityother
than that measured by the criteria of instrumental rationality and practical achie-
vement.Theauthorshipofmoralrulesandtheresponsibilityfortheirpromotionwas
shifted toasupra-individual level[…]Theethicalparadoxof thepostmoderncon-
ditionisthatitrestorestoagentsthefullnessofmoralchoiceandresponsibilitywhile
simultaneouslydeprivingthemofthecomfortoftheuniversalguidancethatmodern
self-confidence once promised. Ethical tasks of individuals grow while the socially
producedresourcestofulfilthemshrink.Moralresponsibilitycomestogetherwiththe
lonelinessofmoralchoice.(Bauman1992a:xxii)
This loneliness, however, is experienced within a community or a society in
whichothersmakeequallylonelymoralchoices,andthelackofanyauthoritarian
ethicalguidancenecessitatesanethicsofcohabitationcapableofdoingwithoutthe
choicesofwhowelivewithandcarefor.Wedonotchooseour“others”,andthe
very idea of otherness may be an instance of moral exclusion. Though there are
those who believe that they can make decisions as to who should live near them
andwhoshouldnot,thiskindofthinking,asJudithButlernotices,“presupposesa
disavowal of an irreducible fact of politics: the vulnerability to destruction by
othersthatfollowsfromaconditionofprecarityinallmodesofpoliticalandsocial
interdependency” (Butler 2012: 148). This leads Butler to a broad existential
viii Preface:Hesitations
allegation of all of us being precarious (I will take up this point again in the
discussion of Guy Standing’s idea of the precariat in the final chapter), and to a
statementwhichreadsprecarityasepistemologicallycrucialinseeinghowweare
ratherthanwhatweare:“Precarityexposesoursociality,thefragileandnecessary
dimensions of our interdependency” (Butler 2012: 148).
GeraldRaunigdefinesprecarityas“not-auto-determined”insecurityinallareas
oflifeandwork(“lainseguridadno-autodeterminadadetodaslasáreasdelaviday
deltrabajo.”Rauning2004:3).Whathethussuggestsisthattheremayexistsome
kind of auto-determined or self-determined insecurity in life and work, an inse-
curity which may be controlled, wanted, perhaps desired. This kind of insecurity
wouldbeamatterofchoice,perhapsthechoiceofdangerousoradventurouslifein
which contingency is anaccepted and normalized. Such a possibility seems to be
lyingbehindQuentinMeillassoux’ideaofabsolutecontingencywhichIdiscussin
thefirstchapter.However,if“theprecarizedmindisfedbyfearandismotivated
by fear” (Standing 2011: 20), then the autodetermination may take up violent
forms of action which Guy Standing envisions in his The Precariat. The New
Danderous Class. “There is a danger”, he writes, “that, unless the precariat is
understood, its emergence could lead society towards a politics of inferno”
(Standing2011:vii).Whatfollowsisanattemptatsuchanunderstanding,though
an attempt which goes a little beyond Standing’s approach to precariat as a class
andprecarityasacomplexoftrapsintowhichpeople,especiallytoday’syouth,are
drifting(Cf.Standing2011:67).Thetrapsarethere,butitisalsouswhohaveset
them, and a significant aspect of this setting is the power of loss which, in its
various aspects, is responsible for the presence of precarity and precariousness in
our lives. The power of loss is inscribed in Michel Foucault’s notion of
“power/knowledge”,anditisthewaysinwhichthispowerwasandisexercisedby
means of techniques and tactics which this book also addresses. These ways,
whoseverybriefmapIamhesitantlytryingtodraft,areinevitablyusingprecarity
and precariousness as, sometimes misleading, orientation points.
Precarity sometimes seems to be a less general term than precariousness,
though therelationship between the two is bothobvious and complex. For Judith
Butler, precarity is a political issue:
Precarity only makes sense if we are able to identify bodily dependency and need,
hungerandtheneedforshelter,thevulnerabilitytoinjuryanddestruction,formsof
socialtrustthatletusliveandthrive,andthepassionslinkedtoourverypersistence
as clearly political issues. (Butler 2012: 147)
Precariousness, on the other hand, is ontological, though the ontology which is
involved in it is social rather than the one which lays “claim to a description of
fundamental structures of being”:
Preface:Hesitations ix
Rather, to be a body is to be exposed to social crafting and form, and that is what
makes the ontology of the body a social ontology. In other words, the body is
exposed to socially and politically articulated forces as well as to claims of
sociality-including language, work, and desire-that make possible the body’s per-
sistingandflourishing.Themoreorlessexistentialconceptionof“precariousness”is
thuslinkedwithamorespecificallypoliticalnotionof“precarity”.(Butler2009a:3)
Precariousness and precarity cannot really be untangled, and what ties or tangles
themistheinevitabilityofepistemologicalpositioningofthesubject,ofhisorher
apprehension of the “socially and politically articulated forces”, in which articu-
lation he or she partakes. The need for existential security is paired with episte-
mologicalsecurity,andthetwoareasitweredrivenbythenegativityofloss—loss
oflife,lossofsense,lossofmeaning,gettinglost.WhatIhavecalledthepowerof
loss does not have any headquarters, and its traces can be followed only with a
certain uncertainty, hesitantly.
It is for this reason that this book is in a sense a hesitant book. It is also
uncertain.Itshesitationsresultfromtheprecariousnatureofcertaintyitself,ofthe
precariousnessofconfidencewhich,asweknow,canalwaysbelost.Itapproaches
certainty with caution, wavering over making choices or certain decisions. In
philologicaltermsthisbookfollowsNietzsche’slessonof“slowreading”,of“that
venerableartwhichdemandsofitsvotariesonethingaboveall:togoaside,totake
time, to become still, to become slow” (Nietzsche 1997: 5). What is involved in
thiskindofreadingisadelayoftheaccomplishmentofthetask,oftherevelation
or knowledge resulting from it, a delay of its final achievement. This delay itself
involves precariousness which is partly brought in to the title of this book by the
word “precarity”. I will, I promise that I will, slowly arrive at the vicinities of
precarityinthecourseofthistextthough,atthesametimeIwill,afterNietzsche,
go aside and take time, attempting, also at the same time, not to quite lose it.
Slow reading, we may say, delays capitalization, the potential gains resulting
from the work of reading. This work, the work of reading, hides a number of
concernswhichcanbeascribedtoworkingeneral.Theveryideaofgainingfrom
reading,of,howeverspiritual,enrichmentofone’slifethroughreading,translates
slowandhesitantreadingintoawasteoftime,intolosswhichcanbeavoidedifthe
work of reading is done more speedily. The economy of slow reading is not
governed by optimization of gain because the object to be gained is, through
hesitation, different from itself, postponed in the movement of the Derridean dif-
férance which disables appropriation through delay. I make this recourse to Der-
rida here, at the beginning, because thinking about loss and uncertainty, as it
seems,isvisiblyinscribedinhistextsthroughwritingundererasure(sousrature),