The Division of Labour, Revisited

[Scott Johnson]

KEN:
...adorno also knew that the moment to realize a world 
without the division of labour was missed, so we, of the 
divided labour, are obliged ruthlessly to criticize it from within.
ken
   
SCOTT:
  Yes, criticize it forever and ever and ever and ever, because this
utopian bullshit can never be realized. It comes down to this, Ken: you
either think the material for a better world is here now or you don't.
That is, either you are utopian or not. I have asked you before "What
are you holding out for?". Abolish the division of labor? And in the
blink of an eye the world is transformed? Puh-leeze. Can this
transformation be so radical that the whole current situation, with its
necessary division of labor, disappears? Where is this transformation
supposed to come from, if not from the present? If a truly critical
consciousness is impossible (or has no epistemological basis, as you
seem wont to argue) how is this supposed to happen? The mysterious
appearance of THE OTHER (the breakthorough of auratic art, a release of
inarticulate libido...)? You, like Horkheimer, Adorno, Heidegger, and
Derrida, will be sitting by the roadside waiting for Godot forever until
you find that not only has the time to realize philosophy passed, but so
also has your time to wait. But at least you were "critical" (or at
least whiny)...
   The appeal of all this to Ken doesn't seem hard to find. Marx wrote:
"For as soon as labor is distributed, each man has a particular,
exclusive sphere of activity which is forced upon him and from which he
cannot escape." Ken, we know, holds with Adorno that ALL categorizations
are inadequate, a "positive" imposition from without. Ken, the romantic
individual, must always be something more than what he seems; nay, he is
_essentially_ other than what he is -- he is infinitely free. The world
must become friendly to such beings, must reform its institutions to
accomodate these (noumenal) libidinal strivings which escape concrete
expressions. D'oh! -- but those institutions would be confining too!
What we really need is a world without institutions!
   To borrow an expression from Ralph:

...PIFFLE!
   
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
                     Scott Johnson

105 W. 1st St. #214                sjohn@cp.duluth.mn.us
Duluth, MN   55802             voice/fax  (218) 722-1351

   http://www.cp.duluth.mn.us/~sjohn/sjohn_on.html
 --

A memo signed by Major Okuntimo of the Rivers State Internal
Security Task Force, dated May 12th 1994, states: 
"Shell operations still impossible unless ruthless military
operations are undertaken for smooth economic activities to
commence."

-- From a web page (http://www.gem.co.za/ELA/ken.html)
dedicated to executed Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, 
who led a group resisting Shell Oil's activities in his
homeland. The memo referred to was sent 10 days before 
Saro-Wiwa's arrest.