Johnny Rotten as an Abject Antihero (2)

Johnny Rotten as an Abject Antihero 

(SA/2024)

 

 

I. 

 

Following publication of a recent post on Johnny Rotten as an abject antihero, a young woman writes from France to accuse me of body shaming the former Sex Pistol: 

 

'If he wasn't larger-bodied than you and many others in our fatphobic society find acceptable, then I very much doubt you'd feel at liberty to ridicule Lydon and subject him to such unfair criticism.' 

 

Whilst I'd accept there's an element of truth in this, I think it misses the point of the post, which - as the opening reference to Julia Kristeva indicates - was essentially concerned with the state of abjection and what an abject individual may have to teach us, rather than with Rotten's weight per se (although his obesity obviously plays a role here). 

 

Perhaps I might offer a few further remarks in an attempt to clarify ... 

 

 

II. 

 

In critical theory, to be an abject individual is to exist outside of social expectations and moral standards in a manner that doesn't only challenge but unsettles conventional notions of identity. One isn't so much inhuman, as abhuman (i.e., not-quite-human and seemingly caught up in the process of becoming-monstrous). 

 

For Julia Kristeva, this can easily induce horror, particularly when one is confronted by an intrusion of corporeal reality into the symbolic order [1] - such as seeing Rotten on stage now whilst remembering him on stage back in the day. 

 

Being forced to face the abject truth is an inherently traumatic experience; like being asked to look at the decomposing corpse of a loved one. It's deeply disturbing and I understand how it can manifest in the desire not merely to look away, but do away with the abject subject. 

 

Learning how to accept others in their otherness - particularly when that otherness strikes us as repulsive - is to adopt what Roland Barthes describes as a politics of pure liberalism: I am a liberal in order not to be a killer [2]. 

 

 

III. 

 

The irony is that whereas in his punk period Lydon was merely pretending to be Rotten and a social outsider, he has now become truly abject. 

 

And yet, as I suggested at the close of the post we're referring to here, perhaps we should be grateful to him for this; for mightn't it be the case that Rotten, in his very abjectness, draws us unto him and not only grants us a perversely-morbid pleasure of some kind, but exemplifies a Christ-like level of passion by which we might all learn something important ...? 

 

I think so. 

 

And thus, I wasn't so much subjecting Rotten to 'unfair criticism', as my correspondent suggests, rather I was trying to find a way to view him in a positive light; recalling, for example, Jean Genet's insistence that it is only via a becoming-abject that the individual can achieve an existentialist form of sainthood (something that might appeal to the son of Irish Catholics who self-righteously believes himself to be the voice of Truth). 

 

 

IV. 

 

Ultimately, why Rotten does what he does now in the manner he chooses, is, I suppose, only something he can explain. 

 

Perhaps his speaking tour is not simply a commercial venture, but a method of public mourning; i.e., a form of catharsis via which he can express all his anger, sorrow, regret, etc. 

 

And perhaps his karaoke rendition of 'Anarchy in the UK', in which he invites the audience to clap and sing along as if they were the elderly residents of a care home, can be seen as a piece of abject performance art in which old ideals (such as artistic integrity) are devalued once and for all.

 

Or perhaps he's just become what he is (and what he formerly despised) ... 

 

 

Notes 

 

[1] See Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (Columbia University Press, 1982). 

 

[2] Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes, trans. Richard Howard (Papermac, 1995), p. 117. My italics.

 

 

Beyond Good and Alcohol

Alcoholic drinks do not agree with me. A single glass of wine 

or beer is amply sufficient to turn life into a valley of tears.

 

Nietzsche didn't just despise the moral narcotic of Christianity; he also hated alcohol and often wrote of the negative effect that booze has on the character.

Thus, although he'd enjoyed a drink or two in his student days, Nietzsche was pretty much a teetotaler all his adult life and insisted that for free spirits, such as himself, a refreshing drink of water was enough (or, on special occasions, maybe a small glass of milk). 

 

Alcohol, he insisted, dulled intellectual and emotional intensity and those who consume it - like the beer-swilling Germans - do so at their peril; they wilfully make themselves stupid as well as obese.      

 

Having said that, it's hard to imagine Nietzsche lending his support to the temperance movement of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, which is clearly a form of finger-wagging puritanism that coincided with Christian revivalism and women's suffrage (something else that Nietzsche was not a fan of).

Thankfully, Nietzsche is liberal enough to call for individual decision making on the basis of personal need, rather than a general prohibition on the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol; for this saves him from falling into fanaticism on the subject.     

 

 

Faith and Feminism in Pakistan

(Folio Books, Lahore, 2018)

The new book by feminist scholar and activist Afiya S. Zia - Faith and Feminism in Pakistan (2018) - asks a very simple question (with a post-Freudian undertone): what do women in Pakistan (and other Muslim majority countries) desire most; religious agency or secular autonomy? 

That is to say, do they want identities shaped by and within a theocratic order that come with ready-made meaning and promise fulfilment; or do they want the godless freedom to create their own non-essential selves and individual values that may very well prove to have tragic consequences?

In Nietzschean terms, the choice is this: live piously - or live dangerously.

Dr. Zia has clearly chosen option B. Indeed, she lives more dangerously than almost anyone I know and I very much admire her for that.* I also think she's right to contend that female piety - be it Muslim, Christian, or Jewish in origin - presents no serious challenge to the patriarchal structures that produce it. 

However, where she and I differ is that she seems to believe that her own choice is one that all women can (and should) make for themselves and that as more and more women affirm secular autonomy this will lead to a radical transformation of society. I'm sceptical about this. For not only do I not subscribe to any kind of universal project of liberation, but I don't really undertstand why exceptional women - and Afiya is an exceptional woman - fail to understand their own exceptionality and wish to think collectively in terms of gender or class, for example.        

Having said that, what do I know about any of these things - particularly within a Pakistani context? Not much. Whereas Dr. Zia has spent many years thinking through these questions - and has done so not from the (relative) safety and security of professional exile in the West, but whilst continuing to live and work in Karachi.

Thus, whilst this book is full of sophisticated theory and analysis, it's also very much shaped by direct experience. For Afiya, the personal is the political; but the political is also personal and that lends her text an intense sincerity that puts to shame those who pride themselves on their ability to discuss everything with intellectual reserve and objective irony.   

The book is forthright in its assault upon those scholars in the West who not only turn a blind eye to the manner in which the reactionary forces of religious miltancy encroach upon and often violently usurp secular spaces, but seem to think there's something rather thrilling about this in terms of radical alterity and cultural diversity, etc. 
 
As Dr. Zia notes in her introduction, by advocating the "anthropological recovery of Muslim women's non-liberal agency" [3] those who now think it radical (or profitable) to promote religious identity politics betray years of hard work by feminists who have fought for secular rights and freedoms.

I think that's a brave thing to say: for she's arguing that it's not just Islamism that has set the women's movement back in Pakistan, but also the lack of active support from liberals outside the country who are afraid of exposing the "misogyny and hatecrimes enacted or inspired by faith-based politics" [3] lest they should be accused of Islamophobia. 

Push comes to shove, I suspect that Dr. Zia prefers the open enmity of the former to the spinelessness of the latter who find what she says a bit awkward at times. Her real anger, however, is reserved for those diasporic scholars of South Asian, Middle Eastern, or North African origin based in Western institutions, who regard themselves as postsecular and postfeminist and spend much of their time mocking secular women's rights activists in these regions as Western collaborators or native informants. 

This, as Afiya notes, is ironic to say the very least ...

And whilst these retro-Islamist scholars insist that they are "simply reviving and interrogating a different way of being by show-casing the interiorised subjectivities of [...] pietist Muslim women", the danger is that their project "runs the risk of rehabilitating [...] patriarchal and nationalist agendas" [8] that seek to purge all rights-based initiatives and movements of Western influences.   

In a series of powerful passages Dr. Zia concludes:

"Those critics who keep pretending that religion and local cultural codes are not the immediate sources that limit women's progress or freedoms and who argue that women may be comforted by introspective spirituality and should negotiate with the tools available only within their domestic and communal locations, are missing the points being raised by [...] secular feminists." [178]

"Neither is it adequate to argue that it is not religious politics but really something called 'liberal-secularism' that is the source of all political damage in Muslim societies. Instead, it has been in the political subversion of Islamic law and reversion to the universalist and 'secular spirit' of the Constitution that has allowed an expansion of material and legal rights for women in the last decade." [178]

"Those advocating an anti-Modernity, anti-enlightenment, nonliberal, supposedly alternative Muslim politics need to acknowledge [...] that in practical terms, feminism and human rights activism is being successfully silenced in Pakistan. If there is a contest between feminism and faith-based politcs, it is quite clear which is the front-runner." [181]

And clear, too, who are are ultimately the real losers: the women and girls of Pakistan ...

* Note: it's worth keeping in mind that there are female activists and politicians in Pakistan who live under constant threat and require around-the-clock protection.

Readers interested in a guest post on Torpedo the Ark written by Afiya Zia (in 2014), should click here. 

Foucault's Islamic Folly

Photo from the front cover of the Turkish translation of 

Foucault and the Iranian Revolution

Michel Foucault wanted more than anything to be generous to the Iranian revolutionaries when he arrived in Tehran in September 1978 in order to report on events for an Italian newspaper. 

Despite their aggressive xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and fetishization of martyrdom, Foucault was keen to counter the idea that these bearded opponents of the Shah were simply political extremists or religious fanatics. On the contrary, he argued, their demand for the impossible was perfectly reasonable and their goal of establishing a new Islamic order held out the hope of a genuine revaluation of all values; the first great insurrection against global hegemony inspired by a creed of combat and sacrifice.      

Just a few short months after writing this, Ayatollah Khomeini and his mullahs assumed power and established a murderous theocracy which has endured to this day. For a while, Foucault continued to defend the regime - or, rather, he continued to promote his quasi-mystical belief in ecstatic violence and revolution as a crucial form of limit-experience (however tragic the outcome). But, eventually, Foucault was obliged to break with what André Glucksmann described as the terrorist radicalism of the theoretical avant-garde. 

Indeed, before his death in 1984 Foucault even found it possible (and important) to rethink questions central to the Enlightenment and to liberalism. He conceded that whilst the concept of human rights is a political fiction, it's nevertheless a useful fiction which needs vigorously defending; as does secular society when threatened by militant religious fascism.

And this is something I wish more of our intellectuals, media commentators, and public officials would have the courage and the tactical intelligence to acknowledge today.   

Note: those interested in reading more on this topic should see Janet Afary and Keven B. Anderson; Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, (University of Chicago Press, 2005).

Nietzsche and Capitalism

Nietzsche's opposition to capitalism and his loathing of modern bourgeois society is present throughout his writings. In an early essay entitled 'The Greek State', for example, he argues that self-seeking, money-loving entrepreneurs and stateless corporate executives should be regarded as the enemy within, threatening as they do the stability and welfare of the community. 

Like Marx, Nietzsche is concerned by the manner in which the market determines the value of everything; including the value of all other values. The consequence of this is not only that all things become commodified and given price tags, bar codes, and registered trade marks, but that everything becomes permissible - providing, of course, that it's economically viable and can generate profit. Thus it is that, within liberal society, all types of commercial exchange and all modes of conduct are discreetly sanctioned; including those that many advocates of free trade like to publicly condemn and make illegal, but do nothing to actually prevent.

Like Marx, Nietzsche is concerned by the prospect of a world in which there is no connection between people other than shared greed and a desire to succeed at any cost. Such a world would be one suspended in a state of systematic anarchy and nihilism; a world in which an aggressive philistinism would effectively cancel out the possibility of culture as he conceives of it in a classical sense. 

The permanent substratum of money under everything in the modern world causes Nietzsche to experience a feeling of ugly disillusion; he rejects liberalism and democracy as forms of political degeneracy. As for the equality of opportunity that is said to be opened up by capitalism, he dismisses this as merely the freedom to buy and sell one another in a universal slave market. 

As an alternative, Nietzsche advocates a strong model of volksgemeinschaft that rests upon a bond of trust formed between rulers and ruled and an agreed series of duties and obligations. If this fails to guarantee the rights of the private individual, it will, he says, at least ensure the production of a small number of sovereign men and women and allow for cultural greatness (which is something other than material and scientific progress).

Of course there are problems with Nietzsche's thinking here as elsewhere; his views on politics, culture and society are never fully developed and often in need of radical revision and recontextualization. But one thing is surely clear: Zarathustra hates shopkeepers and there is nothing - neither property rights nor human rights - given to us by liberalism which fully compensates for what Deleuze and Guattari describe as the "meanness and vulgarity of existence that haunts democracies ... The ignominy of the possibilities of life that we are offered".

See Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?, trans. Graham Burchell and Hugh Tomlinson, (Verso, 1996), pp. 107-08.   

On the Political Importance of Making Lists

The list often acts as a manifesto and call to arms: divided into dialectical categories of things loved and things hated, such lists are exemplified by the early McLaren/Westwood t-shirt design entitled: 'You're gonna wake up one morning and know what side of the bed you've been lying on!'

For Malcolm, punk was a form of blackmail and a type of terrorism. It forced a generation into making a fateful choice: you were either for the Sex Pistols or against them - and if you were for them, then your commitment had to be absolute: there could be no passers-by and no part-timers in this revolution. 

Much the same type of list was drawn up by Roland Barthes. However, unlike McLaren, Barthes didn't want to bully anyone with his list or display his penchant for fanaticism and provocation. In fact, with his list of things liked and things not liked, he was attempting to provide grounds for a model of negative liberalism:

"I like, I don't like: this is of no importance to anyone; this, apparently, has no meaning. And yet all this means: my body is not the same as yours. Hence, in this anarchic foam of tastes and distastes ... gradually appears the figure of a bodily enigma, requiring complicity or irritation. Here begins the intimidation of the body, which obliges others to endure me liberally, to remain silent and polite confronted by pleasures or rejections which they do not share.
      (A fly bothers me, I kill it: you will kill what bothers you. If I had not killed the fly, it would have been out of pure liberalism: I am liberal in order not to be a killer.)"

                    - Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, trans. Richard Howard.