I had the immense privilege of reading two excellent books in the last few days. I should've been reading sections of Nietezsche's Birth of Tragedy and Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction for my Aesthetics, Criticism and Theory class but I found them too tough and, so in true Dyerian fashion, bunked that to first pick up Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism (that's been in my reading list for a long time) and Amia Srinivasan's The Right to Sex (which I discovered via reviews and bought for Sravani). Oh how fortunate have I been.
Capitalist Realism tied-in neatly with, and enriched, the subject of the relationship between narratives and society that I've been thinking of in the last few months. The central argument of Fisher's thesis is that since the end of the Cold War and the 'End of History', Capitalism has turned into the most hegemonic ideology in the world. Not only has its ubiqutousness blinded us to it omnipresence, but it has also lead to a failure of our imaginations in envisioning alternate forms of organising the economy, and the society. I was reminded of Fisher's book after listening to this interview about the new Auphebunga Bunga book. And it helped me clearly see what Jameson/ Zizek meant when they said, "It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to Capitalism."
A major part of it ofcourse is the immense inequality and environmental destruction it creates and Capitalism's refusal to neither care about nor be able to do something about it. But the additional reason I found it incredibly valuable is because it gave credence to my thesis that the failure of imagination, of not being able to envision a different world, is ofcourse a bigger crisis than charting a path to it. We seem resigned to our lives and lifestyles, with both its good and bad, and no wonder it feels like the future is some vague, scary vision. We can see the contours of a catastrophe but because we can't chart a path to avert it, we can only get more anxious and thereby more consumerist (as a coping mechanism).
So many of the ideas that he explored in the book, among them, Interpassivity, Eternal Presentism and Reflexive Impotence are absolutely remarkable. I found that they spoke to my condition, condition of the people I see and interact it, and I highly recommend it.
I know that I should be writing a more cogent, useful review but I'm currently so excited with all those ideas floating in my head, that I'm unable to get myself to calm down and share calmly. The same applies to the next book.
The Right to Sex is so important, so accessible and so incredibly thoughtful that I have this extreme urge to shove a copy into the hands of everyone I know. The philosophical tools that Srinivasan gifts are so enriching that I'm filled with immense gratitude.
Each of the six essays in the book deals with a contemporary problem (usually for Feminists, Progressives and even Liberals), sets the context, gives a historical brief and then lays out arguments from many angles. It is the highest kind of scholarship that I've come across and not least because of its unputdownable readibility. I will try to give a brief of each essay, but I recommend you pick up the book and read it. The follows notes are only so that I can reexperience the pleasure of thinking about those ideas:
1. The conspiracy against men: On the #MeToo movement. And how so many men are freaking out that so many innocent men can be, "are being", unfairly blamed and Cancelled on Social Media. After setting out to disprove that specific claim with statistics, elaborating on the inequal hierarchy even in women who're coming out (class, race, caste, sexuality etc.), she convincingly argues that men who're claiming that they assumed what they were doing was normal, and now have been caught unawares and are being punished retrospectively, are still evading responsibility and refusing to admit to their entitlement. She says it is impossible for most men to not know that what they were doing was wrong. They knew but they didn't care because there would be no retribution. And now what's changed is not them suddenly realising that their actions were wrong but that they're being called out.
2. Talking to my students about porn: Super interesting. Because the target demographic of the problem is the generation after me, I didn't relate too much to it personally. Having said that, the arguments around banning/ allowing porn was very interesting, because it can be applied to, say, item songs in Telugu films (which similarly objectify women for the sake of male arousal), and the analysis of how sites like PornHub, which like any major platform/aggregator, while being shaped by people's preferences also then start shaping people's preferences.
3. The Right to Sex: This and the next essay both confronted my self-proclaimed liberal sensibility.
4. Coda- The Politics of Desire: Somewhere in the middle of this essay, Srinivasan asks an amazing question: True, liberalism is about consent and about individual choice, and while it forbids one from imposing one's desires on others, it also stays away from judging people for their desires (and Id've argued rightly so). But it must also be accepted that our desires are shaped by society. Isn't it, then, important to ask what exactly shapes our desires? Why do we want what we want? What impact do the contours created by the majority, with each individual 'choosing as they wish', have on the minority, who for, ostensibly, no fault of their own, wish differently?
5. On not sleeping with your students: I felt she takes her strongest position in this essay. When dealing with male faculty members who have sexual relations with their female students, she again questions if consent is enough. Srinivasan's arguments regarding the role of the teacher, regarding the insitution of learning, and the implications it could have on the psyche of an individual who probably has internalised some notions of right behaviour and is acting consciously, or unconsciously, on them is an absolute masterclass. This is public philosophy on par with what I heard from Prof. Pratap Bhanu Mehta in his class and from Michael Sandel's Justice book.
6. Sex, Carceralism, Capitalism: This essays extends the Feminist movement to Capitalism and tries to show how it might not be possible to create a just world via Neoliberal Economics. In this essay, specific to the de/criminalisation of sex work, she talks about the reformative vs revolutionary axes of politics. I think it's a really powerful distinction to analyse public policy.
The genius of both books, especially The Right to Sex, is its refusal to reach simplistic conclusions and its willingness to complicate all matter political. The stellar achievement though is that that doesn't create nihilism nor escapism. It reinvigorates the mind and reminds us that the world is incredibly complex, most of our political posturing is so simplistic that it causes more problems than it resolves, and to fight against injustice, not only do we need empathy but also education and imagination.
While I feel I have not done justice to either book, my sincere hope is that my enthusiasm is communicated and will make you want to read the books yourselves.
