thao'smile

A conference was held in Prague, Czech Republic, in November 2002 that was entitled “Issues Confronting the Post-European World” and that was dedicated to Jan Patočka (1907-1977). The Organization of Phenomenological Organizations was founded on that occasion. The following essay is published in celebration of that event. Essay 50 Thao’s Smile: Phenomenology and Non-European Thought © Paul Majkut National University majkut@cox.net Society for Phenomenology and Media Abstract Post-European world philosophical issues, ideological as well as philosophical, are today inextricably bound to discussion of “post- colonial” or, more accurately expressed, “neo-colonial” projects. Pressing questions concerning the ability of the colonized subaltern to “speak back” within the European imperial narrative are widely discussed today outside of the phenomenological movement and may serve as a deciding test of European phenomenology’s ability to transcend what are primarily German and French cultural studies and come to an understanding that addresses the unpleasant possibility of an eidetic colonialism that is neither intended nor acceptable. A pivotal link between European thought is provided by Tran Duc Thao’s enigmatic place between phenomenology and the “non-European world,” his early stance as an “Husserlian Marxist,” and his final critique of phenomenology through the natural science of historical materialism and the philosophy of dialectical materialism. The ironic “smile” he was said to have after returning from the Husserl Achieves in Louvain to L’ École normal supérieure in the late 1940’s may be taken as an expression of his unique position as a transcultural philosopher. Further, discussion of “post-European” issues confronting phenomenology allows for reflection on Jan Patočka’s failed political philosophy as well as practical problems confronting international phenomenological societies, in this case, the Society for Phenomenology and Media. The copyright on this text belongs to the author. The work is published here by permission of the author and can be cited as “Essays in Celebration of the Founding of the Organization of Phenomenological Organizations. Ed. CHEUNG, Chan-Fai, Ivan Chvatik, Ion Copoeru, Lester Embree, Julia Iribarne, & Hans Rainer Sepp. Web- Published at www.o-p-o.net, 2003.” MAJKUT: Thao’s Smile: Phenomenology and Non-European Thought 2 Introduction The “Thao” I speak of is Tran Duc Thao, the Vietnamese philosopher whose long career at L’ École normal supérieure influenced Louis Althusser and others. The “smile” I speak of is mentioned by Althusser in his memoirs. I will return to Thao’s smile after a few digressions. At different times in the admirable planning of the founding meeting of the Organization of Phenomenological Organizations, suggested topics for discussion were made by its organizers, each of interest: (1) consider an issue or issues confronting the post-European world; (2) comment on Jan Patočka; (3) discuss a topic of our own choosing; (4) summarize the activities and nature of the phenomenological organization they represented. Because all of the topics are or interest, because I have, with the exception of Jan Patočka, written on them and am able to draw, in part, on those reflections, and because I am interested in what other participants have to say, I have decided to sketch each theme. It slowly came to me that all of the suggested topics were related—or could be related. I. Issues Confronting the Post-European World Discussion of “post-European world issues,” ideological as well as philosophical, is today inextricably bound to discussion of “post-colonial” or, more accurately expressed, “neo-colonial” projects—this depending on class perspective in an era of political-economic “globalization” and corrupt bourgeois democracy. Outside of the complex position that lumbers through a swamp of unresolved issues within the Western philosophical tradition under the flag of “phenomenology,” more pressing questions concerning the ability of the colonized subaltern to “speak back” within the European imperial narrative— whether that narrative takes place on the European or any other continent, whether the narrative is philosophical or other—are widely discussed today outside of the phenomenological movement and may serve as a deciding test of European phenomenology’s ability to transcend what are primarily German and MAJKUT: Thao’s Smile: Phenomenology and Non-European Thought 3 French cultural studies and come to an understanding that addresses the unpleasant possibility of an eidetic colonialism that is neither intended nor acceptable. Discussion of “post-European world issues” leads to a specific challenge to phenomenology at the present historical juncture, the creation and practice of a phenomenology of listening. Setting aside for the moment post-colonial theorists’ claims that the subaltern has no authentic voice but must speak within the imperial narrative (better known today as “globalization”), the other possibility of stillborn dialog is explained by a failure of imperialism, political and philosophical, to listen. Unheard subaltern “speaking back” may as readily be explained as a failure of imperial listening as a failure of subaltern speaking. In either case, listening along with speech forms the corrective feedback loop that defines a living language, as contemporary linguistics, a natural science, has taught us. Listening, as a passive or receptive perception, rather than an active or constituting act, presented an additional problem for phenomenological intentionality since the essential referential character of language “apodictically” accepts a transcendent other. Implicit in the task of listening is the acceptance of phenomenology as not only Geisteswissenschaften, but as itself a European cultural expression of universal themes. A phenomenology of listening entails self-transcendence as well as the transcendence of cultural barriers. Listening, grounded in the acoustic aspect of phonology, is built into the structure of a natural language along with speaking, grounded in articulatory aspect of phonology, but a higher-order communicative function permits people to receive what is heard as “noise” or block the message. Reasons for this “blocking” of the feed-back loop of speaking-listening dialog are, I suggest, intimately bound to ideological considerations arising from class differences. Contrary to post-colonial claims, the problem of “narrative” does not solely exist within a one-sided, context of voice as speech, grounded solely in articulation, but in voice understood as listening, and it is in this regard that the implications offered by Roman Ingarden’s understanding of “reading” and Wolfgang Iser’s reader-response theory can be useful, accepting the analogy between writing-reading and speaking-listening, though not, of course, conflating the two processes. At this first meeting of the Organization of Phenomenological Organizations, we have the opportunity to confront directly the problem of a phenomenology of listening in its global context, as out conference theme invites. The discourse of our times is that of the natural sciences and political economy is here understood as a natural science, which means that the study of MAJKUT: Thao’s Smile: Phenomenology and Non-European Thought 4 oîkos is more than a Greek etymological wild-goose chase, the sort of clever hermeneutic adventure all-too-common in the prevailing subjectivism that has earned “scientific” phenomenology such contempt among our non- phenomenological colleges. Such excursions are especially unhelpful, even obfuscating when pressing issues of global economics affect lived families every day. Other than an etymological connection, valuable perhaps as a springboard for speculative rapture, the relationship between the oîkos of antiquity and the political economic of contemporary globalization is not only deceptively fruitless but also deceptive, placing the subaltern, once again, within the Western explanatory imperial narrative. Such exegetic excursions on oîkos make as much explanatory sense as descriptions of contemporary bourgeois democracy in terms of the Greek polis. Current global political-economic considerations go far beyond explanation through family hearthside economics (oîkos) and, as Marx and Engels long ago pointed out, The bourgeois claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of modern industry, all family ties among proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour (Marx, Manifesto 55). The globalized forces of production, consumption and distribution in our time are undergoing profound change, producing economic displacement and social unrest and, again relying on Marx’ insights on the source of this change, “with the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed” (Marx, Contributions to the Critique of Political Economy 12) and, as Lenin challenged concerning this transformation, A new capitalism has come to take [old capitalism’s] place, bearing obvious features of something transient, a mixture of free competition and monopoly. The question naturally arises: to what is this new capitalism “passing”? But the bourgeois scholars are afraid to raise this question. (Lenin, Imperialism 43). This superstructural/ideological transformation entailed by a more fundamental shift in the means and mood of production in the economic base (i.e., neo-liberal globalization) needs to be accounted for because it is this MAJKUT: Thao’s Smile: Phenomenology and Non-European Thought 5 change—a very material, political-economic transformation—that the subaltern narrative addresses and whose narrative requires close listening. This transformation transcends national, cultural and gender considerations, as important and as intrinsically bound up as they are to political economy, although the subaltern “speaking back” to which our proposed phenomenology of listening directs its attention responds, point for point, to the entire range of issues spoken by the imperial project in its globalized narrative, including philosophical issues. It is the subaltern narrative of economic base that speaks the loudest and, in order to focus our phenomenology of listening on this narrative, we are led to class analyses that underpins cultural and gender content. In turn, these analyses offer the possibility of a first step in the retraining of our power to listen, an unplugging of Western our ears—a bracketing of class presumptions. Political-economics, a natural science, is decidedly not a cultural study. It is in this regard that the work of Tran Duc Thao provides an opening for discussion, one that begins with Husserl’s observation that “at the base of all other realities one finds the natural reality, and so the phenomenology of material nature, undoubtedly, occupies a privileged position.” (Ideas 192). Discourse on post-European issues by its very title places discussion within the context of historical reflection, bringing The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology to stage center. I do not find this focus to be helpful. Others have noted that the Crisis itself might not qualify as phenomenology by Husserl’s own criteria: If a treatise on the history of philosophy seems out of keeping with Husserl’s phenomenological approach, a philosophy of history, at least in the most familiar sense of that term, seems even more so.” (David Carr, “Introduction,” The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology xxxiii) and “The question of historical genesis is explicitly banned from phenomenology per se in Husserl’s writings up through Cartesian Meditations.” (xxv) So—inspired by the speculative philosophy in Balnibarbi observed by Lemuel Gulliver—rather than trying to “extract sunshine from cucumbers,” focus is better placed on phenomenology’s place in a wider sense of history. As such, discussion of issues confronting phenomenology in a post-European world is itself not phenomenological but takes place and relies on philosophical traditions that have given longer and greater attention to the theory of history MAJKUT: Thao’s Smile: Phenomenology and Non-European Thought 6 and history itself, specifically the science of historical materialism, an approach that Husserl would undoubtedly have considered an unacceptable reduction, that is, historicism, but one that, as Marx noted when warning of possible confusion in times of rapid transformations in the economic base: In considering such transformations, the distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production which can be determined with the precision of a natural science [italics added], and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophical—in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.” (Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 12) Nonetheless, I have no difficulty considering this discussion “phenomenological” because I have come to consider phenomenology as a style, what I have referred to in other places as phenomenological eloquence (Husserl’s “queer sentences, Fink’s “phenomenological sentences”), and, even though the present discussion of post-European issues may not be strictly phenomenological—this discussion takes place within the discourse of Naturwissenschaften rather than Geisteswissenschaften—discussion on the post- European theme not only shares a context with theoreticians of political economy and history as natural sciences, but also shares concerns for methodological reflection and rigor in common with the natural sciences. Our conference theme presumes that the world was, in fact, at one time European. In a political-economic sense, the distasteful truth is that the world was, indeed, at one time European and, in that same sense, it can now be argued that the world is more European than ever—hardly “post-European.” But the term “post-European”—like the term “post-modern”—is itself ambiguous, even misleading. The globalization entailed by the “New World Order,” empowered by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and encouraged by a renewed class-impulse towards imperialism, intertwined with the radical transformation of the digital mode of production of artifacts and knowledge in the economic base, means that the world remains European, though the people in this hyper-European world are not all European. What does it mean to be non- European in a European world? Specifically, what does it mean for phenomenology to confront issues in a “post-European”—in fact, more- European—world? MAJKUT: Thao’s Smile: Phenomenology and Non-European Thought 7 The post-European theme suggested for this first gathering of OPO was undoubtedly primarily meant to refer to philosophical issues, not ones of political economy. In this sense, the theme suggests a number of interpretations—most easily, how European thinkers deal with the expansion of and reaction to phenomenology by non-European philosophical thought and culture. A more relevant way to approach the theme might be for phenomenology to confront philosophical issues that arise in non-European philosophical traditions, to find parallels in the thought that arises in diverse cultures and open itself, at the minimum, to the possibility of discovery of ideas more sophisticated than those in Europe. That may be difficult. The European philosophical tradition and its thinkers have often deafened themselves to universals discovered elsewhere and there is no evidence that present-day reactions are different, so the danger remains one of “ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.” As noted above, during these periods of change, at a certain stage of their development the material forces of production in society come into conflict with the existing relationships of production, or—what is but a legal expression for the same thing—with the property relationships within which they had been at work before. From forms of development of production these relations turn into fetters. (Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 12) We cannot believe that the theme has the trivial and vulgar meaning that Europeans are now willing to accept non-Europeans into the ranks of those who study European phenomenology, a notion as condescending as it is demeaning, but it is difficult to avoid this conclusion. Sorrowfully, this seems to be the case. Phenomenologists will now admit into its club non-Europeans. This is not to confront, but to conquer, and it is in this sense that phenomenology is in danger of becoming a narrative justification within the imperial project. The OPO theme does not imply that phenomenologists have discovered a universal road to truth—fratricidal disputes within European phenomenology hardly bare that out. If the theme is merely an invitation given to non-Europeans to take up European Cultural Studies, then the pursuit is no longer a philosophical one. When this condescension, together with concerns of ideological neo-colonialism are in the air, then phenomenology must pause and consider the possibility that its discourse is tainted by the power its own base provides. Nonetheless, MAJKUT: Thao’s Smile: Phenomenology and Non-European Thought 8 phenomenology has within itself and has from its inception been a reflection on its own reflexivity. What is called for is a phenomenology of listening. It is not that the subaltern is silent in the face of the narrative of the imperial project or can speak only within the narrative and language of the imperial master, as post- colonial theorists maintain, but that those who benefit from its reach have not listened carefully. Listening to non-Europeans could provide phenomenology with verification for its own ideas in other cultures. This is not intended to suggest that phenomenology become a study within “comparative philosophy,” as worthwhile as that enterprise may be, but a process of discovery that transcends cultural studies. An archeology of knowledge that emphasizes “digging up” cultural knowledge should not conflate the process of digging with what it dug up. It is the later that is of interest here. Other Western philosophical traditions have already addressed questions of what “post-European” and related issues mean in depth, particularly post- colonial and Marxist theorists. Some have come to the conclusion that “post- colonial” is a neologism for “neo-colonial” and, in the era of globalization, “post-Europeanism” is “neo-Europeanism.” Of course, “Europe” includes much outside of the continent; the ruling classes of many former colonies throughout the world, as we all know, are also culturally “European.” Two problematic aspects of “post-European” ideology draw our attention: 1) the role of Husserlian phenomenology within the larger philosophical context of dialectical materialism; and, 2) the meaning of “post- European” in the context of neo-liberal globalization. “Post-European” theory understood as “post-colonial” theory faces the danger of becoming the ideology of neo-colonialism—and phenomenology the danger of becoming a form of eidetic colonialism.