Cynicism: The Twilight of False ConsciousnessAuthor(s): Peter Sloterdijk, Michael Eldred, Leslie A. AdelsonSource: New German Critique, No. 33, Modernity and Postmodernity (Autumn, 1984), pp. 190-206Published by: New German CritiqueStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488361Accessed: 12/05/2010 17:52

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Cynicism - The Twilight of False Consciousness*

by Peter Sloterdijk

Times are hard, but modern. Italian saying

And indeed one no longer saw anyone stand- ing behind everything. Everything turned con- tinually about itself. Interests changed hourly. There were no more goals ... The leaders lost their heads. They were drained to the dregs and calcified... Everyone in the land began to notice that things didn't work any- more ... One path left open was to postpone the collapse... Franz Jung, Die Eroberung der Maschinen, 1921.

The discontent in culture has assumed a new quality: it appears as universal, diffuse cynicism. The traditional critique of ideology stands by helplessly. It cannot find the lever that would enlighten this cyni- cally alert consciousness. Modern cynicism presents itself as that state of consciousness which follows naive ideologies and their enlighten- ment. In it lies the real reason for the complete exhaustion of ideology critique, for the latter has remained more naive than the consciousness it sought it expose. Its well-behaved rationality did not follow the twists and turns of modern consciousness toward a cunning, multi-faceted realism. The usual list of forms of false consciousness - lie, error, ideology - is incomplete. The current mind-set demands a fourth addition: cynicism. Speaking of cynicism means trying to find a new entrance into the old building of ideology critique.

It is not customary to designate cynicism as a universal and diffuse

*With the permission of the University of Minnesota Press, we are printing here the first two chapters of Peter Sloterdijk's two-volume Kritik derzynischen Vernunft (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983). The complete translation will be forthcoming in Min- nesota's Theory and History of Literature series.

190

Peter Sloterdijk 191

phenomenon; in the common conception, cynicism is not diffuse but striking, not universal, but peripheral and highly individual. The unusual adjectives indicate something of its new appearance, which at the same time makes it explosive and unassailable.

The ancient world knows the cynic (better: kynic) as a bird that flies solo, a provocative, stubborn moralist. Diogenes in the tub is con- sidered the archetype of this figure. In the picture book of social characters he creates distance with his mockery, a biting and evil individualist who pretends not to need anyone and who is loved by no one because no one escapes unscathed his crudely unmasking gaze. His social origins point to an urban figure who received his cutting edge in the bustle of the ancient metropolis. One could characterize him as the earliest example of a declassed or plebeian intelligence. His 'cynicial' turn against the arrogance and the moral secrets of an estab- lished, higher civilization presupposes a city setting with all its suc- cesses and shadows. Only in the city, under the pressure of public speech and a general love-hate, can the cynic clearly emerge as the negative profile of the city. And only the city can accept the cynic, who demonstratively turns his back on it, as one of its eccentrics, who attest to the city's penchant for developed, urbane personalities.

The fertile ground for cynicism in modernity is to be found not only in urban culture but also in the courtly sphere. Both are dies of an evil realism through which people learn the crooked smile of open im- morality. In both, urbane, intelligent minds accumulate a worldly knowledge which moves elegantly between bare facts and conven- tional facades. From the very bottom, the declassed, urban intelli- gentsia, and from the top, the height of conscious statesmanship, serious thinking is invaded by signals attesting to a radical ironization of ethics and of social convention. It is as if the general laws were only meant for the stupid, while those in the know smile with fatal clever- ness. More precisely: the powerful smile this way, while the kynical plebeians burst out in satirical laughter. In the vast space of cynical knowledge the extremes meet: Eulenspiegel meets Richelieu; Machiavelli meets Rameau's nephew; the loud Condottieri of the Renaissance meet the elegant cynics of the Rococo period; unscrupulous entre- preneurs meet disillusioned outsiders; jaded system strategists meet advocates of refusal without ideals.

Since bourgeois society began to bridge the knowledge of those at the top and those at the bottom, ambitiously proclaiming to ground its worldview entirely on realism, the extremes have been coalescing. Today the cynic appears as a mass figure, an average social character in the elevated superstructure. This is the case, not only because ad- vanced industrial civilization produces the embittered loner as a mass

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phenomenon. Rather, the cities themselves have become diffuse clumps whose power to create generally acceptedpublic characters has been lost. The pressure towards individualization has dropped in the modern climate of cities and mass media. The modern cynic - extant as a mass phenomenon in Germany, since the First World War - is no longer an outsider. But less than ever does he appear as a tangibly developed type. The modern mass cynic loses his individual sting and spares him- self the risk of exposure. He has long since ceased to subject his eccen- tricity to the attention and mockery of others. The man with the clear 'evil eye' has disappeared in the crowd; anonymity now becomes the large space for the cynical deviation. The modern cynic is an integrated asocial character whose deep-seated lack of illusions is a match for that of any hippy. He does not regard his own clear, evil gaze as a personal defect or as an amoral quirk to be privately justified. Instinctively, he no longer understands his way of life as something evil, but as part of a collective, realistic view of things. It is the widespread form in which enlightened people see to it that they are not taken for suckers. There even seems to be something healthy in this attitude, as there is general- ly in the will to self-preservation. This is the stance of people who re- alize that the times of nalvete are gone.

Psychologically, the contemporary cynic can be understood as a borderline melancholic; he is able to keep his depressive symptoms under control and remains more or less capable of work. Indeed, the ability of the cynic to work is decisive in modern cynicism: in spite of everything, after all, especially that. Society's key positions have long since belonged to a diffuse cynicism in boards, parliaments, commit- tees, company leadership, editorial offices, practices, faculties, law and newspaper offices. A certain elegant bitterness colors its activity. For cynics are not dumb, and every now and then they certainly see the nothingness to which everything leads. Their spiritual make-up has become elastic enough to make the constant doubt about their own pursuits part of their quest for survival. They know what they do, but they do it because, in the short run, the objective situation and the instinct for self-preservation speak the same language and tell them it must be so. Others would do it anyway, perhaps worse. The new, integrated cynicism thus even feels itself, understandably, both as vic- tim and as sacrificer. Behind the conscientiously hard fa,ade of col- laboration there is a mass of vulnerable unhappiness and the need to cry. Here is something of the mourning for a 'lost innocence,' for the better knowledge against which all one's actions and labors strive.

This yields our first definition: cynicism is enlightenedfalse conscious- ness. It is the modernized, unhappy consciousness, atwhich Enlighten- ment has simultaneously labored successfully and in vain. It has learnt

Peter Sloterdijk 193

its lesson in Enlightenment, but it has not implemented it and prob- ably was not even able to do so. Well-placed and miserable at the same time, this consciousness is no longer vulnerable to any critique of ideology; its falseness is already reflexively buffered.

'Enlightened false consciousness': such a formulation seems to strike a blow against the tradition of Enlightenment. The sentence itself is cynicism in a crystalline state. Nonetheless, it claims objective validity; its content and its necessity are developed in this essay. Logical- ly, we are dealing with a paradox, for how could enlightened con- sciousness be false? This is precisely the issue.

Acting against one's own better knowledge is the global situation in the superstructure today. One knows oneself to be without illusions and yet dragged down by the 'power of things.' What appears in reality as an objective state of affairs is thus what we consider in logic a paradox and in literature a joke. This shapes a new consciousness of 'objectivity.'

'Enlightened false consciousness' should not be understood as an incidental phrase but as a systematic approach, as diagnostic model. It thus commits itself to a revision of enlightenment; it must uncover its relation to that which is traditionally called 'false consciousness.' Fur- ther, it must revise the course of Enlightenment and the labor of ideol- ogy critique, which made it possible for 'false consciousness' to re- absorb Enlightenment. If this essay had historical intentions, it would be to describe the modernization of false consciousness. However, my intention is not historical but physiognomic: the focus is the structure of a reflexively buffered false consciousness. I nevertheless want to demonstrate that this structure cannot be grasped without placing it in a political history of polemical reflections.

Without sarcasm modern-day Enlightenment can have no healthy relation to its own history. We can only choose between a pessimism - reminiscent of decadence - loyal to its beginnings and a light-hearted disrespect in pursuit of original tasks. As things stand, the only loyalty to Enlightenment consists in disloyalty. This can be partly understood from the position of the heirs, who look back on 'heroic' times and are necessarily more skeptically disposed to the results. To be an heir always carries a certain 'status-cynicism' with it, as we know from stories about inheritance of family capital. The retrospective position, however, does not itself explain the particular tone of modern cyni- cism. Disillusionment with the Enlightenment is not merely a sign that epigones may and must be more critical than the founders. The pecu- liar hautgout of modern cynicism is fundamental: a consciousness dis- eased with Enlightenment and instructed by historical experience refuses cheap optimism. New values? No thanks! With the passing of

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defiant hopes, the listlessness of egoisms pervades. In the new cyni- cism, we see a detached negativity which scarcely allows itself any hope, at most a little irony and self-pity.

In the final analysis, it is a matter of the social and existential limits of Enlightenment. The pressures to survive and the desire to assert one- self have humbled enlightened consciousness. It is ill from the com- pulsion to accept existing conditions which it doubts, to accommodate itself to them and finally even to conduct their business.

In order to survive, one has to attend the school of reality. Certainly. Those who mean well call it growing up, and there is some truth to that. But that is not all of it. Always a bit unsettled and irritable, the col- laborating consciousness looks around for its lost na;vetes, to which there is no return, since the attainment of consciousness is irrevers- ible.

Gottfried Benn, himself one of the prominent voices of modern cynicism, has probably uttered the cynical formulation of the century, lucid and insolent: "To be stupid and have a job, that's happiness." Only the converse of the sentence reveals its full content: to be intelli- gent and to perform one's work in spite of it, that is unhappy con- sciousness in its modernized form, ill with Enlightenment. Being "stupid" and trusting are no longer options, and innocence cannot be regained. Unhappy consciousness clings to the belief in the sheer weight of things, to which it is bound by its instinct for self-preserva- tion. In for a penny, in for a pound. At two thousand marks net a month, the counter-enlightenment quietly begins; it banks on the fact that everyone who has something to lose comes to terms privately with his unhappy consciousness or engulfs it with 'engagements.'

Precisely because it is lived as a private disposition which absorbs the world situation, the new cynicism is not as strikingly noticeable as would befit its concept. It surrounds itself with discretion, as we shall see, a key word of charmingly mediated alienation. The accommoda- tion which knows about itself, having sacrificed its better knowledge to 'objective determinations,' no longer sees any need to expose itself offensively and spectacularly. There is a nakedness which no longer has an unmasking effect and in which no 'bare fact' appears on whose ground one could stand with spirited realism. The neo-cynical accom- modation to the given has an aura of plaintiveness; it no longer is self- confidently naked. For this reason it is also methodologically difficult to render this diffuse, hazy cynicism articulate. It has withdrawn into a mournful detachment (Abgeklirtheit) which has internalized its knowl- edge, useless for attacks, like a curse. The great offensives of cynical impudence have become a rarity; ill humor has taken their place, and there is no energy left for sarcasm. Gehlen even thought that not even

Peter Sloterdijk 195

the English can be cutting any more because the supplies of dissatisfac- tion have been used up and the rationing of stocks has begun. The peevishness which follows the offensives doesn't open its mouth wide enough for enlightenment to take a step forward.

That is one of the reasons why, in the second part of this book, a dis- proportionate amount of'cynical material' is taken from the Weimar Republic - aside from the older documents that are also given atten- tion. In the historical section entitled The Weimar Symptom, I attempt a physiognomy of an epoch, a characterization of a decade whose first heir was fascism and whose second heir we are.

Speaking of the Weimar Republic still means dealing with social experience of the self. For citable reasons the Weimar culture was cynically disposed to a highly unusual degree; it yielded an abundance of brilliantly articulated cynicisms, which read like textbook examples. It experienced the pain of modernization more violently and ex- pressed its disillusionment more coldly and more sharply than any present could ever do. We discover in it striking formulations of mod- ern unhappy consciousness, burningly relevant even today. Indeed, perhaps we can only today comprehend them in their full validity.

A critique of cynical reason would remain an academic game with glass beads if it failed to pursue the connection between the problem of survival and the danger of fascism. In fact, the question of'survival,' of self-preservation and self-assertion - to which all cynicisms provide answers - touches on the central problem of defending the status quo and planning for the future in modern nation states. From various approaches, I attempt to determine the logical locus of German Fas- cism in the convolutions of modern, self-reflexive cynicism. So much can be said in anticipation; in German Fascism typically modern dynamics of psycho-cultural fears of breakdown, regressive self-asser- tion and new-objective, rational coldness combined with a venerable strain of military cynicism, which on German, and especially Prussian, soil enjoys an equally macabre and deep-rooted tradition.

Perhaps these thoughts on cynicism as the fourth configuration of false consciousness will help to overcome the peculiar speechlessness of genuinely philosophical critique regarding so-called fascist ideol- ogy. Philosophy as a ',discipline' does not have its own theory of 'theoretical fascism' because the latter is considered beneath all cri- tique. The explanations of fascism as nihilism (Rauschning, et al.) or as the product of "totalitarian thinking" remain sweeping and imprecise. The "inauthentic," bastardized nature of fascist ideology has been suf- ficiently emphasized, and all contents that it "represented" have long since been subjected to a critique by the individual sciences: psychol- ogy, political science, sociology, historiography. For philosophy, the

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programmatic statements of fascism do "not even" rate as serious, substantial ideology which would pose a serious challenge to a reflec- tive critique. But precisely here lies the weakness of the critique. Fix- ated on 'serious opponents,' it neglects the task of comprehending the ideological pattern of'unserious,' shallow 'systems.' To this day cri- tique is no match for the modern mixture of opinion and cynicism. But since questions of social and individual self-preservation are discussed precisely in such combinations, there are good reasons to study their composition. One has to approach questions of self-preservation in the same language as those of self-annihilation. The same logic of the repudiation of morality seems to be effective in them. I call this the logic of the 'cynical structure,' i.e., of the self-denial of the ethics of high culture. Clarifying this will elucidate what it means to choose life.

Enlightenment as Conversation - Ideology Critique as Continuation of a Miscarried Conversation with Other Means

Whoever speaks of cynicism draws attention to the limits of Enlight- enment. In this respect, the concern with the salient features of Weimar cynicism - aside from the advantage of clarity - also promises to be fruitful for the philosophy of history. The Weimar Republic represents in the course of German history not only the belated development of a nation-state - heavily burdened by the Wilhelminian legacy, the spirit of a cynically illiberal government - but also a paradigm for 'failed enlightenment.'

It has often been shown that, and why, the protagonists of repub- lican Enlightenment at that time could not have been anything else but a desperate, well-meaning minority (representatives of reason) vis-a- vis almost insurmountable odds: massive currents of anti-Enlighten- ment and hatred of the intelligentsia; an array of anti-democratic and authoritarian ideologies which knew how to use the press to achieve their desired objectives; an aggressive nationalism bent on revenge; an unenlightenable mixture of hard-headed conservatisms, extended petit-bourgeois (Biedermeier) attitudes, messianic sects, apocalyptic political tendencies, and equally realistic and psychopathic rejections of the impositions of an uncomfortable modernity. The sores of the World War became infected again and again in the smoldering crisis; Nietzscheanism flourished as the most developed style of thinking marked by a German-narcissistic irritability and a moody, arrogant, 'protestant' relation to the 'bad reality.' In a climate of crisis-like excite- ment there developed a pervasive psycho-political atmosphere of resentment and anxiety about the future, of tenuous pseudo-realisms and makeshift spiritual responses. If there was ever an era which

Peter Sloterdijk 197

demanded an historical psychopathology, it is the one and a half decades between the fall of the Kaiserreich and the establishment of National Socialism.

First impressions must be given their due here: whoever sought to carry on enlightenment in such a society was fighting a losing battle. The forces of enlightenment were too weak, for a number of precise reasons. The Enlightenment had never been able to form an effective alliance with the mass media, and political maturity (Miindigkeit) was never an ideal of the industrial monopolies and their associations. How could it have been?

Obviously, the Enlightenment is defeated by forces opposed to it. However, it would be wrong to view this only as a question of the arithmetics of power. For Enlightenment is also defeated by a qualita- tive resistance located in the consciousness of its enemies. The latter, outraged, resist the invitation to discussion, to the "decadent" (zerset- zend) talk about truth; even talking itself is resented, because it ques- tions conventional views, values and forms of self-assertion. The inter- pretation of this resistance as the basis of ideology has become one of the main motifs of Enlightenment.

Modernity is not the first historical context in which Enlightenment faces an opposing consciousness which is increasingly resilient to it. In principle, the front can be traced back to the days of the Inquisition. If it is true, as the workers' movement taught, that knowledge is power, then it is also true that not every knowledge is welcomed with open arms. Because there are no truths which can be occupied without a struggle, and because every knowledge must choose its place amidst dominant and oppositional forces, the means by which knowledge is accorded validity seem almost more important than the knowledge itself. In modernity, Enlightenment is revealed as a tactical complex. The demand that what is reasonable also be generalizable draws Enlightenment into the maelstrom of politics, pedagogy and pro- paganda. Here Enlightenment consciously represses the acid realism of older doctrines of wisdom, which considered it a certainty that stupidity belonged to the masses and reason only to the few. Modern elitism has to encode itself democratically.

It is not our task to unfold historically the darkening of the Enlight- enment. We know that in the 18th and 19th centuries, in spite of much resistance and contradiction, it knew how to deal mostly productively and with an eye to the future with the ferment of self-doubt as it con- sidered its own achievements and plans. In spite of all hardships and setbacks it could still believe it had the law of progress on its side. Great names of that time stand for great achievements: Watt, Pasteur, Koch, Siemens. One can reject their achievements but that would be more a

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gesture of ill humor than of justice. The press, the railway, social welfare, penicillin - who could deny that these are remarkable in- novations in the 'garden of humanity'? However, since the technical horrors of the 20th century, from Verdun to the Gulag, from Ausch- witz to Hiroshima, experience mocks optimism. Historical conscious- ness and pessimism seem to boil down to the same thing. And the catastrophes which have not yet happened, which smolder in the undergrowth, feed the omnipresent doubts about civilization. The late 20th century rides on a wave of negative futurism. "The worst was expected," it "only" has to happen.

I would like first to focus on the theme of unfulfilled Enlightenment on one point: the question concerning the means of power available to Enlightenment vis-a-vis an opposing consciousness. It is already in a certain way incorrect to ask about "means of power," since Enlighten- ment is essentially concerned with free consent. That is the "lesson" which cannot be learned under a pressure that lies outside reason. One of its axes is reason; the other is the free conversation of those striving for reason. Voluntary consensus is both its methodological kernel and its moral ideal. This means the opposing consciousness changes its position under no other influence than that of cogent argument.

This is a sublimely peaceful event, when, under the fire of plausible reasons, old, superceded opinions are surrendered. Enlightenment thus harbors within itself, so to speak, an original utopia - an epis- temological idyl of peace, a beautiful and academic vision: that of free dialogue among those freely interested in knowledge. Here, impartial individuals, not enslaved to their own consciousness, not repressed by social conditions, come together for a dialogue aiming at truth, under the laws of reason. The truth which Enlighteners want to disseminate arises through the force, without coercion, of stronger arguments. The protagonist or discoverer of an enlightened thought took this step only earlier and usually by surrendering a former opinion of his own.

Accordingly, Enlightenment proceeds in two steps: the acceptance of the better position and the departure from the previous opinion. This gives rise to an emotional ambivalence: gain and loss. The utopia of a gentle, critical dialogue foresees this difficulty. The loss becomes bearable in the consciousness that it can be accepted voluntarily and collegially as the price of commonality. The 'loser' may view himself as the real winner. The conversation of Enlightenment is thus essentially a struggle of opinions and an exploratory dialogue among persons who, from the start, submit themselves to rules of peace, since they can emerge from the encounter only as winners, winners in knowledge and solidarity. For this reason, the surrender of one's preconceptions is considered bearable.

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An academic idyl, as I said; at the same time, it remains the regula- tive idea of any enlightenment which does not want to surrender the goal of reconsiliation. The fact that reality is different will come as no surprise. In Enlightenment's confrontations with preceding con- sciousnesses, truth is the last thing at issue: hegemony, class interests, established doctrines, desires, passions, and the defense of'identities.' These preconditions affect the conversation of Enlightenment so strong- ly that it would be more appropriate to talk of a war of consciousness than of a dialogue of peace. The opponents have not agreed to a peace treaty, but rather confront one another in a competition aimed at re- pression and annihilation. And they are not free in relation to the powers which make their consciousness speak just so and in no other way.

Faced with these sober facts, the conversation model consciously behaves unrealistically. It allows the arch-pragmatic statement,primum vivere, deindephilosophari, to hold only conditionally. For at least it knows that situations will recur again and again where the only thing which can help life further is 'philosophizing.'

It is inviting to poke fun at the 'methodological anti-realism' of the dialogue idea, and part of this book indeed tries to give the derisory laughter about every form of foolish idealism its due. However, when all contradicitons have been taken into account, one will return to this beginning, of course with a consciousness which has gone through all the hells of realism. One of the last tasks of philosophy is to preserve the healing fiction of a free dialogue.

Of course, Enlightenment itself is the first to realize that rational and verbal dialogue alone will not see it through. No one can feel the stagnations, the distorted conditions of life, the ruptures, the mis- carriage of conversation more keenly. At the beginning of ideology critique there is also astonishment about the opponent's stubborn resistance to hearing - an astonishment which quickly gives way to a realistic awakening. Whoever does not want to hear lets others know it. Enlightenment is reminded how easily speaking one's mind can lead to camps and prisons. Hegemonicpowers* cannot be spoken with so easi-

* In this book I uniformly designate every powerwhich rules as hegemonic power, in order to indicate that this power is never a power in itself but always 'rides,' so to speak, on the back of an oppositional power. In a realistic theory of power, omnipotence and impotence occur only as quasi-'mathematical' ideas of power, as the infinitely great and the infinitely small within power. Omnipotence and impotence cannot confront one another, but hegemonic power and oppositional power can. That which exists possesses power, a positive quantum of energy, which is centered in conscious bodies and which extends itself through appropriate tools and weapons. For this reason, the

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ly, and do not come voluntarily to the negotiating table with their opponents, whom they would prefer behind bars. But even tradition, if one may speak of it allegorically, has no initial interest in granting Enlighteners a right to exert influence. From the dawn of time, the old has been held to be true, while the new has always been suspect. This 'archaic' feeling for truth had to be overcome by the Enlightenment before anything new could be plausibly presented as truth. Earlier, one took for granted that political and intellectual hegemonic powers were allied in a conservative front, disinclined to all innovations. Wherever religious reforms took place (I have in mind above all the monastical movements of the Middle Ages and the religious upheavals of the 16th Century), they understood themselves as 'conservative revolutions' which obeyed a call to return to the origins. Finally, beside hegemonic powers and traditions, people's heads - already too full - constitute a third instance which does not like to listen to the spirit of Enlightenment innovation. They meet Enlightenment with the resis- tance of ingrained habits and time-honored attitudes which occupy their consciousness and which can be brought to listen to a reason other than conventional wisdom only in exceptional circumstances. But the vessel of knowledge cannot be filled twice. Enlightenment as critique recognizes in everything which is 'already there' in people's heads its inner arch-enemy; it contemptuously designates these con- tents: prejudices.'

The threefold polemic of a critique of power, a struggle against tradi- tion and an attack on prejudices belongs to the accepted understand- ing of Enlightenment. All three imply a struggle with opponents disinclined to dialogue. Enlightenment wants to talk to them about things which hegemonic powers and traditions prefer to keep silent: reason, justice, freedom, truth, exploration. The status quo is better served by silence. In speaking, one pursues an uncertain future. En- lightenment enters this dialogue with almost empty hands, with the fragile offer of free consent to the better argument. If it could impose itself by force, it would not be Enlightenment, but rather a variation on an unfree consciousness. So, it is true: as a rule, people adhere to old

logic of all-or-nothing is dangerous in the field of politics, even fatal. In Sieyes' state- ment, "What is the Third Estate? Nothing. What does it want to become? Everything," we see disastrous self-characterization of the oppositional power, a false logification of political struggle, through which the part wants to make itself into the whole. In con- tent, this false all-or-nothing logic has been reproduced in Marxism, which wanted to make the proletariat 'everything.' Is this false concept of power a general legacy of the Leftist opposition? Even the French New Philosophy fails due to this. Walking old paths, it confuses omnipotence with hegemonic power and imposes aManichean ontol- ogy onto an evil state of power.

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positions for anything but well-founded reasons. What can be done? Enlightenment has tried to make the best of this situation. Since it

was never given any breaks, it developed almost from the beginning, in addition to the friendly invitation to conversation, a second, comba- tive stance. It is beaten up, so it strikes back. Some exchanges of blows are so old that it would be senseless to ask who started it. The history of ideology critique comprises for a large part the history of this second, polemical gesture, the history of a great counter-offensive. Such a criti- que, as theory of struggle, serves Enlightenment in a twofold way: as a weapon against a hardened, conservatively complacent conscious- ness, and as an instrument for practice and self-assurance. The op- ponent's refusal to engage in dialogue creates such an enormous problem that it has to be dealt with theoretically. Whoever wants no part of Enlightenment must have his reasons, and probably others than he is willing to admit. Resistance itself becomes an object of Enlightenment. The opponent thus necessarily becomes a 'case,' his consciousness an object. Because he does not want to talk with us, we have to talk about him. As in every combative attitude, however, the opponent is no longer thought of as an ego, but as an apparatus in which, partly openly, partly secretly, a mechanism of resistance is at work which makes it unfree and binds it to errors and illusions.

Ideology critique means the polemical continuation of the miscarried dialogue with other means. It declares a war of consciousness, even when it pre- tends to be oh so serious and 'non-polemical.' The rules of peace are objectively forced into abeyance. At this point it becomes clear that there is no inter-subjectivity which is not inter-objectivity as well. In hitting and being hit, both parties become subjective objects for each other.

More exactly, ideology critique does not merely want to 'hit,' but to operate with precision, in the surgical as in the military sense: to out- flank the opponent, expose him, reveal his intentions. Exposing im- plies uncovering the mechanism of false and unfree consciousness.

In principle, Enlightenment knows only two grounds for falsehood: errorand badfaith. Only the latter can possess the worthiness of a subject, for only when the opponent lies consciously does the 'false opinion' have an ego. If one insinuates an error, then the false opinion rests not on an ego but on a mechanism which falsifies what is true. Only a lie carries responsibility for itself, whereas an error, because it is mechani- cal, remains in relative 'innocence.' Error, however, quickly splits into two different phenomena: the simple error, based on logical or per- ceptual illusion and relatively easily corrected; and the persistent, sys- tematic error, which clings to its own conditions of existence, i.e., ideology. In this way, the classical series of false consciousness arises: lie,

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error, ideology. Every struggle leads necessarily to a reciprocal reification of sub-

jects. Since Enlightenment cannot surrender its aim of helping a self- obstructing consciousness to better insights, in the last analysis, it must 'operate' behind the opponent's consciousness. Ideology critique thus acquires a cruel characteristic, which, if it admits to being cruel at all, desires to be nothing but a reaction to the atrocities of'ideology.' Here we see more clearly than elsewhere that 'philosophical' ideology criti- que is basically the heir of a great satirical tradition, in which the motif of unmasking, exposing, stripping, has always served as a weapon. Modern ideology critique, however - this is my thesis - has dan- gerously cut itself off from the powerful traditions of laughter within satirical knowledge, which have their philosophical roots in ancient kynicism. Modern ideology critique appears in the wig of seriousness, and in Marxism and especially in psychoanalysis has even put on suit and tie so as to assume a complete air of bourgeois respectability. It has shed its life as satire in order to conquer its position as 'theory' in books. From the lively form of biting polemic it has retreated to positions wihtin a cold war of consciousness. Heinrich Heine was one of the last authors of the classical enlightenment to defend literarily, in open satire, the right of ideology critique to commit 'just atrocities.' The public sphere did not follow him in this regard. The bourgeoisi- fication of satire to ideology critique was as inevitable as the bour- geoisification of society in toto, including that of its oppositional forces.

Serious ideology critique imitates surgical procedure: it cuts open the patient with the critical scalpel and operates under impeccably sanitized conditions. The incision into the opponent is made in public, until the mechanism of his error is laid bare. The upper skin of de-

lusion and the nerve endings of'real' motives are hygienically severed and embalmed. Having come this far, Enlightenment is, it is true, not satisfied, but it is better armed in its insistence on its own claims for the distant future. Ideology critique is no longer concerned with winning the dissected opponent over to its own side; it is concerned with the 'corpse,' with the critical extract of his ideas, which is preserved in the libraries of Enlighteners where one can effortlessly read up on how false they were. It is obvious that one does not come any closer to the opponent this way. Whoever did not originally want to engage in Enlightenment will want to do so even less, once he has been cut open and exposed by the opponent. Of course, according to the logic of the game, the Enlightener will at least have one victory: sooner or later, he will force his opponent to speak in self-defense.

Irritated by the attacks and 'unmaskings,' the counter-Enlightener will one day begin to propagate his own 'enlightenment' about the

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Enlighteners, in order to denounce them as human beings and to criminalize them socially. They are then usually called 'elements.' The word is unintentionally well chosen, for it does not seem promising to fight the elements. It will prove inevitable that the hegemonic powers will begin to blabber out of line in their counter-critiques. Then, increasingly irritated, they reveal something of their secrets; generally acknowledged values of high culture are thereby cunningly suspen- ded. In the compulsion of the weakened hegemonic powers to make confessions, as remains to be shown, lies one of the roots of the mod- ern cynical structure.

Without really wanting to, 'dissatisfied Enlightenment' has in turn taken refuge behind this front. Threatened by its own fatigue and undermined by the need for seriousness, it often contents itself with having wrung involuntary confessions from its opponent. In time, the practiced gaze will decipher 'confessions' everywhere, and even when the hegemonic power shoots instead of negotiating, one will not have any trouble interpreting the bullets as signs of a fundamental weak- ness. This is how powers express themselves who have no more ideas and can only cling to their strong nerves and executive organs to save themselves.

Arguing behind the opponent's back and through his head has its paradigm in modern critique. The gesture of exposure characterizes ideology critique, from the critique of religion in the 18th Century to the critique of fascism in the 20th. Everywhere one discovers extra- rational mechanisms of opinion: interests, passions, fixations, illu- sions. That helps somewhat to lessen the scandalous contradiction between the postulated unity of truth and the factual plurality of opinions - as long as the contradiction cannot be removed. Under these assumptions, a true theory would be one which not only ground- ed its own theses best, but also knew how to disarm with ideology critique all essential and persistent counter-positions. In this regard, as one can easily see, official Marxism has the greatest ambition, since the major part of its theoretical energy is dedicated to outflanking and exposing all non-Marxist theories as 'bourgeois ideologies.' Only through this continual one-upmanship are the ideologists able to "live" with the plurality of ideologies. De facto, ideology critique implies the attempt to construct a hierarchy between exposing and exposed theory; in the war of consciousness one desires to be on top, that is, to attain a synthesis of claims to power and better insights.

Since critique, contrary to academic custom, does not hesitate to use personal arguments, the universities have probably approached ideol- ogy critique with deliberate caution. For the attack from the flank, the argumentum adpersonam, is despised within the 'academic community.'

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Serious critique meets its opponent in its best form; it honors itself when it overcomes its rival in the full armor of its rationality. For as long as possible, the community of scholars has tried to defend its integrity against the arm-to-arm combat of ideology critique. "Do not unmask, so that you yourself will not be unmasked," could be the unspoken rule. It is no accident that the great representatives of criti- que - the French Moralists, the Encyclopedists, the socialists, indi- vidually Heine, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud - remain outside the republic of scholars. They all have a satirical, polemical component which can scarcely be hidden under the mask of scientific seriousness. These signals of a holy non-seriousness, still one of the sure indices of truth, will be used here as signposts leading toward the critique of cyni- cal reason. We discover a reliably unreliable travelling companion in Heinrich Heine who better than any other managed to combine theory and satire, knowledge and good cheer. Following in his tracks, I shall try to reunite the capacities for truth in literature, satire and art with those of'scientific discourse.'

The right of ideology critique to argue personally was acknowledged even by the strictest absolutist of reason, J.G. Fichte - aptly compared to Napoleon by Heine - when he says that the kind of philosophy one chooses depends on what kind of person one is. This critique intrudes into the conditionality of human opinion either with compassionate lightheartedness or cruel seriousness. It seizes error from behind and pulls up its roots in practical life. This procedure is not exactly modest, but it excuses its immodesty by insisting on the principle of the unity of truth. What dissection brings to light is the everlasting embarrassment of ideas in face of the underlying interests: human, all too human; egoisms, class privileges, resentments, persistence of hegemonic powers. Under such illumination, the oppositional subject appears not only psychologically but also socio-politically undermined. Accor- dingly, one can not understand its standpoint until one complements its own self-portrayal with whatever truths lie hidden behind and beneath it. Ideology critique thus makes a claim which links it to her- meneutics: the claim to understand an 'author' better than he under- stands himself. What at first sounds arrogant can be methodologically justified. The other often perceives things in me which really do escape my attention - and vice versa. He has the advantage of distance, from which I can profit only retrospectively through dialogical mirroring. This of course would presuppose a functioning dialogue, which in the process of ideology critique is precisely that which does not take place.

An ideology critique, however, which does not clearly accept its identity as satire, can easily be transformed from an instrument in the

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search for truth into one of "being right." All too often, it hinders the conversation instead of opening it to new paths. Leaving general anti- scholastic and anti-intellectual attitudes aside, this explains some of the current dissatisfaction with ideology critique.

Thus it happens that an ideology critique which presents itself as science, because it is not allowed to be satire, becomes increasingly entangled in serious radical solutions. One of these is its striking ten- dency to seek refuge in psychopathology. False consciousness appears first of all as sick consciousness. Almost all important works of the 20th century on the phenomenon of ideology do this - from Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Reich to Ronald Laing and David Cooper, not to mentionJoseph Gabel, who has drawn the most extensive analogy be- tween ideology and schizophrenia. Precisely those postures are sus- pected of being sick which loudly proclaim themselves to be the most healthy, normal and natural. A critique based on psychopathology, although probably in substance justified, risks alienating opponents more and more deeply; it reifies and abrogates the other's reality. In the end, the ideology critic stands before the opposing consciousness like one of the modern, highly specialized pathologists who, admitted- ly, can precisely diagnose the pathological disturbance, but knows nothing about therapies, because that falls outside his area of com- petence. Such critics, similar to some doctors corrupted by their pro- fession, are interested in the diseases and not in the patients.

The most humorless reification of every opposing consciousness has grown out of the ideology critique connected with Marx (and I will not comment whether this is a case of legitimate use or of misuse). The radical reification of the opponent has been in any case a factual conse- quence of the polit-economical realism which characterizes Marxian theory. However, an additional motif comes into play here: if all other exposures lead false consciousness back to dark elements of the hu- man totality (lies, nastiness, egoism, repression, division, illusion, wishful thinking, etc.), then the Marxian exposure comes up against non-subjective elements, the laws of the polit-economical process as a whole. One does not uncover 'human weaknesses' when one criticizes ideologies from the perspective of political economy. Rather, one hits on an abstract social mechanism in which individuals, as members of classes, have distinct functions: as capitalist, as proletarian, as inter- mediate functionary, as theoretical stooge of the system. But neither in the head nor in the limbs of the system is there any clarity about the nature of the whole. Each member is mystified in away that corresponds to its position. Even the capitalist, in spite of his practical experience with capital, sees no true picture of the total network, but remains a necessarily deluded epiphenomenon of the process of capital.

206 Cynicism

A second shoot of modern cynicism grows here. As soon as I assume, using Marx's formulation, a'necessarily false consciousness,' the spiral ofreification turns further. The heads of humans would then be filled with precisely the errors which have to be there for the system to function - towards its collapse. In the gaze of the Marxist critic there glitters an irony which is a priori doomed to cynicism. For he admits that the ideologies which, from an external point of view, are false consciousness, are precisely the right consciousness when seen from the inside. Ideologies appear simply as the appropriate errors in the corresponding heads: 'correct false consciousness.' One recalls the definition of cynicism in my first preliminary reflection. The difference is that the Marxist critic accords 'correct false consciousness' the chance to enlighten itself or to be enlightened - by Marxism. Then it would have become "true" consciousness, not'enlightened false con- sciousness,' as the cynicism formula reads. Theoretically, the option of emancipation is kept open.

Every sociological systems theory which treats 'truth' functional- istically carries with it an immense cynical potential. And since every contemporary intelligence is caught up in the process of such socio- logical theories, it becomes ineluctably entangled in the latent or open master cynicism inherent in these forms of thinking. Marxism, at least in its origins, maintained an ambivalence between reifying and eman- cipatory perspectives. Non-Marxist systems theories of society aban- don the last trace of such reservations. In alliance with neo-conservative trends, they proclaim that useful members of society must internalize certain 'correct illusions' once and for all, because without them nothing functions properly. The naivete of others should be planned, "capitalfix being man himself." It is always a good investment to make use of a naive will to work, never mind for what. After all, the systems theoreticians and maintenance strategists are beyond naive belief from the start. However, for those who are supposed to believe a ban on reflection and a call for stable values are in effect.

Whoever provides the means of liberating reflection and invites others to use them strikes the conservatives as an unscrupulous and power-hungry idler, whom they accuse of letting "others do the work." Well then, for whom?

Translated by Michael Eldred and Leslie A. Adelson