Philosophy

V pričujočem članku skušamo vzporejati Foucaultovo teorijo z nekaterimi temeljnimi problemi iz zgodovine in teorije zgodovinopisja. Foucaultov pristop je v tem kontekstu lahko zelo uporaben, saj se zoperstavlja tako zgodovinskim univerzalijam kot tudi instrumentalizaciji zgodovinopisja. Posebej se osredotočamo na vprašanje ali naj bo zgodovinopisje zgolj resnica o preteklosti ali naj vsebuje tudi nasvete in priporočila za sedanjost. Analiza nas pripelje do skrajno skeptične metode zgodovinopisja, kar v praksi implicira dvom in konstantno samoizpraševanje samih temeljev zgodovinopisja.

Paper introduces the classification of "White-trash" movies and discusses their relationship with American Dream, capitalism and social realism. It argues for a devaluation of values, which produces indistinctiveness between happy and successful and "trashy" life.  :)

In the article I try to explicate reasons for the popularity of the TV-series The Handmaid's Tale – especially in the year 2017. Totalitarian system, as it is presented in the series, is namelly in acordance with the realisation of ideals of the right-pole of the new cultural struggles, between liberal feminism, political correctness and campus culture on the one hand and transgression, chauvinism and radical freeedom on the other. Those ideas, that are often connected to the alt-right movement, present a dangerous bond between progressivism and conservativism and are therefore atracting the masses. While comparing the series and contemporary political events, we try to explicate that the main problem is already present in liberal postmodernism, which immanently strives towards its destruction in the totalitarian social system. In  the series, this is most obvious in the dichotomy between the gaze of the main protagonist and the all-inclusive system, in which she is captured.

KEYWORDS: The Handmaid's Tale, revolution, transgression, sexual difference, totalitarianism

The initial problem of the article is connected to Nietzsche's tendency to surpass morality. How is it possible to follow this gesture? It seems to be a problem that every rejection of some specific image of morality is necessarily done in the form of some other morality or in the form of uninterested knowledge (which is for Nietzsche just a sort of masking of morality). We connect this problem with Deleuze's question: how is it possible to reject the instance of judgment without judging it and without rejecting the principle of selection? Through Deleuze's interpretation of Nietzsche (which tries to connect the power of selection with the dividing between active and reactive forces) we develop a double meaning of »hierarchy« in Nietzsche's thought: on the one hand, everything that rules is something per se reactive, but on the other hand Nietzsche is against total equalisation. We have to exclude dominant morality through selection, but not in the form of some other morality. This implies resistance against the very form (and not specific content!) of morality – resistance against morality as “the habit”. Through Nietzsche's division between “primal masters” and “average men of dominant habit”, we try to explicate that Nietzsche's affirmation is oriented towards singular, ungregarious, what is in the end also connected to his thought of eternal return.

In the paper, I am going to focus on a particular epistemological difficulty, demonstrated in one sentence, which I think is crucial for the understanding of Foucault's concept of power. In one of his lectures on power, after explaining that power is not repression, that it is not in someone's hands and that it forms a »net-like« structure, Foucault stated: »/…/ But I do not believe that one should conclude from that that power is the best-distributed thing in the world, although in some sense that is indeed so.« 
It seems like a riddle: something is true and false at the same time. How to draw the difference in power on the basis of such a conception? If nobody possesses power, if it does not have a location, how can we explain the hierarchy and inequality of power? I hypothesize that in order to explain those phenomena, we have to (in a precise sense) return to the old conception of power as a sovereign. The question is as follows: why does the power, even if it is distributed and non-localized, represent itself as a steadily defined possession, central position, etc.? What is the advantage of such a »false« representation for power itself?
Precisely this masking of power is crucial for the reproduction of the same power relations.  So in order to resist the existing order of power, we should not divide it form anarchy. We have to reject the representation of power and unmask anarchy, which is already immanent to power itself. This epistemological turn may be crucial in the understanding of some of the problems in contemporary emancipatory struggles.

Keywords: Power, net, anarchy, representation, emancipation

In the article, I try to present the history of Rog Factory autonomous zone in Ljubljana through the perspective of some contemporary theories, which combine natural sciences (physics, biology, and chemistry) with the method of historiography. In this sense is formed specific organic history. “Organic” metaphors (autonomous, self-developed, self-organized) that often appear in the context of a theory of certain spaces are not mere metaphors. We try to observe the history of Rog through intensive inner-dynamics, that is characterized by often transitions and instability. Such “live” dynamics is something, what should city authorities respect and encourage, even if such spaces do not: 1.) produce direct surplus-value 2.) don’t raise the reputation of the neighborhood. 3.) don’t obey (as other institutional spaces do).

The reality that has been presented in rap music and its celebrity culture has always been connected with two extremes: the reality of the " thug " life of the streets on the one hand and with a specific sort of " American Dream " reality that presents climbing from bottom to top on the other hand. This article explores the reasons why trap music, which originated as a type of rap music in the south of the USA, is now with its specific mixture of hedonism and nihilism, darkness and joy, becoming the music of our times. It argues that this is not a coincidence: the twofold reality, the cruel reality of living " in a trap " on the one hand and the idealized, dreamy reality full of gold and diamonds on the other hand, is the main allegory of " real " life in late capitalism. How to get out of the trap? In the article, I investigate some crucial problems of contemporary theory regarding class and racial differences and argue that we can extract far-reaching social, political, and theoretical statements through interpretation of music that is often presented as apolitical, vacant, and of poor quality. Interpretation of contemporary development in pop culture will be combined with readings of theorists such as Foucault, Mbembe, Balibar, Marx, Moretti, and Deleuze and Guattari. I argue that identification with trap music, even if it seems conformist and non-critical, is producing paradoxical minoritarian universalism, that could, if we understand the universalization of a dream of individual success as an implicit request for egalitarian society, present certain emancipatory potential.

Multitude presents a crucial problem for modern political philosophy. On the one hand, it seems that political decisions of the multitude are the most rational ones. That is why the modern democratic regime is defined as a rule of the masses. However, on the other hand, rational political thought, that is grounded in modern philosophy, remains skeptical towards the masses, because of their supposed inherent irrationality. In this paper, we will try to show the genealogy of this ambivalence. We will expose the connection between the philosophical ideal of a thinker’s solitude and the ideal of a citizen in the enlightened state, who argues, but at the same time also obeys the laws. In the end, we will try to expose how such an enlightened philosophical attitude, that excludes unenlightened masses, relates to the position of bourgeoisie in a sense that it protects private property against unenlightened masses. We will argue that the turning point of thought as presented by enlightenment (in which the connection between bourgeoise and rational philosophy replaces the connection between religious authorities and aristocracy) immanently includes the intention for the universalization of reason, but at the same time also prevents the accomplishment of revolution in which rationality of everybody would come to power.

V zadnjih nekaj letih se je na diskurzivnem področju, ki ga je tradicionalno obvladovala konservativna desnica, zgodil kvalitativen premik, ki ga najbolje naznačuje pojav tako imenovane alternativne desnice (alt-right). Pojem se ponavadi nanaša na kontekst ZDA, vendar menim, da je analizo diskurzivnih gibanj, ki so pomagala ustoličiti Trumpa, v različnih variacijah mogoče zaznati tudi širše po zahodnem svetu in v vzhodni Evropi. Nenazadnje je ideologija desničarskega identitarizma, za katero je na eni strani značilen odklonilen odnos do migracij, drugih ras in kultur, na drugi strani pa zavračanje t. i. domačih »liberalnih elit«, močno zaznamovala tudi nedavno volilno kampanjo v Sloveniji. Ne trdim, da lahko sorodne razvoje drugod po svetu pojmujemo kot čiste ponovitve dogajanj v ZDA, vsekakor pa predstavlja evolucija v ameriški politiki zadnjih let paradigmatski primer novih trendov na radikalni desnici, ki se širijo deloma zaradi kulturne hegemonije ZDA, deloma pa so plod skupnega prostora, časa in okoliščin, v katerih živimo (vloga interneta, problematika migracij, vloga levo-liberalizma v zahodnem svetu itd.). Tudi z ozirom na slovenski kontekst se mi zdi pomembno izpostaviti, da smo soočeni s kvalitativno drugačno politiko sovraštva kot doslej, ki zato terja tudi drugačen odziv. Do sedaj je kot glavni odziv levice prevladovala strategija frontalnega napada, ki ga na ravni ulice morda najbolje simbolizirajo taktike black-bloca in geslo »It's OK to Punch a Nazi« (nastalo v odziv na fizični napad na znanega belskega supremacista Richarda Spencerja), na ravni diskurza pa strikten boj proti sovražnemu govoru in poskus njegovega popolnega izrinjenja iz javnega prostora, ki ga ponazarja ideologija politične korektnosti.

Ena izmed osnovnih tez uvodnega teksta simpozija Ljudstvo, ki mi je posebej padla v oči, je stava na prehodu: če so bila »prejšnja desetletja zaznamovana s poskusi konceptualizacije (neposredne) demokracije, se danes zdi ključni pojem njen goli negativen pojem populizma«. Skušal bom orisati svoje videnje pričujočega prehoda, ki ga zaznamuje, poenostavljeno rečeno, upad vere v progresivno moč množic in nenaden pojav strahu pred množicami na levici na eni strani ter povezovanje levičarske pozicije z elitistično pozicijo na drugi strani.