1nc?
“The USFG should…” is a form of legal positivism, it doesn’t take into account the
moral “ought”, and you give away any chance of making any real change when you
give yourself away to the state
SCHLAG 91| PIERRE, “Symposium THE CRITIQUE OF NORMATIVITY ARTICLES NORMATIVITY AND THE
POLITICS OF FORM”
(http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3741&context=penn_law_review) A.B.
The orientation of American academic legal thought is pervasively and overwhelmingly
normative. For the legal thinker, the central question is "what should the law be?" Or, "what should
the courts do?" Or, "how should courts decide cases?" Or, "what values should the ubiquitous (and
largely non-referential) 'we' (i.e., us) believe?" Or, "how should . . . ." These questions and their
doctrinal derivatives constitute, organize, and circumscribe the tacit agenda of contemporary legal
thought. The key verb dominating contemporary legal thought is some version of "should."
Sometimes this "should" does not quite rise to the moral "ought," and remains merely an
instrumental, technical, or prudential "should." Sometimes it is a covert "should" -- hidden
beneath layers of legal positivism. But the fact remains that "shoulds" and "oughts" dominate legal
discourse. And the question of whether any given "should" is a true moral "ought" or another
instrumental "should" turns out to be just another internecine squabble among competing normative
perspectives. n10 The normative orientation is so dominant in legal thought that it is usually
not noticed. No doubt the very pervasiveness and dominance of this thought has enabled it to
escape conscious thematization. n11 Indeed, while the concept "normative legal thought" is
hardly unknown or unintelligible to American legal thinkers, its precise significance, its precise
movements in social or intellectual space, remain largely unrecognized and undetermined .
Indeed, the understanding (or rather understandings) of normative legal thought within the legal
academy are not nearly as refined or contested as the understandings, for instance, of legal
formalism, legal realism, legal process, law and economics, critical legal studies (cls), or the like.
The aff’s rhetorical performance is premised on the idea of a rational subject with free
will who can act upon the law – this normative model of subjectivity is bureaucratic
control itself – its essential meaning is the infliction of pain and death
Schlag 90|Stanford Law Review November, 1990 Essay “NORMATIVE AND NOWHERE TO GO” Pierre
Schlag [FNa1] Copyright © 1990 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior
(https://www.pravo.unizg.hr/_download/repository/SchlagSLR.pdf) A.B.
All of this can seem very funny. That's because it is very funny. It is also deadly serious. It is
deadly serious, because all this normative legal thought , as Robert Cover explained, takes place
in a field of pain and death. n56 And in a very real sense Cover was right. Yet as it takes place,
normative legal thought is playing language games -- utterly oblivious to the character of the
language games it plays, and thus, utterly uninterested in considering its own rhetorical and
political contributions (or lack thereof) to the field of pain and death. To be sure, normative
legal thinkers are often genuinely concerned with reducing the pain and the death . However,
the problem is not what normative legal thinkers do with normative legal thought, but what
normative legal thought does with normative legal thinkers. What is missing in normative
legal thought is any serious questioning, let alone tracing, of the relations that the practice,
the rhetoric, the routine of normative legal thought have (or do not have) to the field of pain
and death. And there is a reason for that: Normative legal thought misunderstands its own situation.
Typically, normative legal thought understands itself to be outside the field of pain and death
and in charge of organizing and policing that field. It is as if the action of normative legal
thought could be separated from the background field of pain and death. This theatrical
distinction is what allows normative legal thought its own self-important, self-righteous, selfimage -- its congratulatory sense of its own accomplishments and effectiveness. All this selfcongratulation works very nicely so long as normative legal [*188] thought continues to imagine itself
as outside the field of pain and death and as having effects within that field. n57 Yet it is doubtful this
image can be maintained. It is not so much the case that normative legal thought has effects on
the field of pain and death -- at least not in the direct, originary way it imagines. Rather, it is more
the case that normative legal thought is the pattern, is the operation of the bureaucratic
distribution and the institutional allocation of the pain and the death. n58 And apart from the
leftover ego-centered rationalist rhetoric of the eighteenth century (and our routine), there is nothing
at this point to suggest that we, as legal thinkers, are in control of normative legal thought.
The problem for us, as legal thinkers, is that the normative APPEAL of normative legal thought
systematically TURNS US AWAY from recognizing that normative legal thought is grounded on
an utterly unbelievable re-presentation of the field it claims to describe and regulate . The
problem for us is that normative legal thought, rather than assisting in the understanding of
present political and moral situations, stands in the way. It systematically reinscribes its own
aesthetic -- its own FANTASTIC UNDERSTANDING of the political and moral scene. n59 Until
normative legal thought begins to deal with its own paradoxical postmodern rhetorical
situation, it will remain something of an irresponsible enterprise. In its rhetorical structure, it
will continue to populate the legal academic world with individual humanist subjects who
think themselves empowered Cartesian egos, but who are largely the manipulated
constructions of bureaucratic practices -- academic and otherwise.
Affirm the 1ac rhetorical strategy but reject the plan – refusing the temptation to
support normative legal thought opens up space to recognize the brutality beneath
the liberal humanist mask of the state
Need a better alt card
It’s vital that you refuse all reasonable value to their normative legal project –
allowing them case leverage is the most effective means of deflecting critical
interrogation of normative legal thought
SCHLAG 91| PIERRE, “Symposium THE CRITIQUE OF NORMATIVITY ARTICLES NORMATIVITY AND THE
POLITICS OF FORM”
(http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3741&context=penn_law_review) A.B.
It is apparent that virtually all aspects of normative legal thought are suited to the rhetorical
reproduction and maintenance of the sovereign individual subject. As Charles Fried put it,
"[b]efore there is morality there must be the person. We must attain and maintain in our morality
a concept of personality such that it makes sense to posit choosing, valuing entities -- free,
moral beings." n259 This insistence of normative legal thought on the importance of a morally
competent, normative subject is quite consonant with the rhetorical construction of the legal
thinker as a sovereign individual subject. Indeed, this rationalist rhetorical construction is at once a
prefigurement and the entailment of what Fried calls "choosing, valuing entities -- free moral beings."
The normative enterprise of norm-selection and norm-justification, with their emphases on
choice orientation, value orientation, and prescription, is keenly suited to keeping the
sovereign individual subject in the driver's seat. Likewise, the single-norm, conclusion-oriented
character of legal thought, with its FIXATION ON END-PRODUCTS and its requirements that
these end products be non-paradoxical, non-contradictory, complete, self-sufficient, discrete,
separable, and transsituational, is conducive to deflecting any serious interrogation of either
the rhetorical practices, forms, or processes that constitute the sovereign individual subject
or his rhetorical enterprise: Hence, we are drawn toward the meticulous dissection and examination
of what the legal subject has produced and whether these END-PRODUCTS have been produced in the
right (non-contradictory, non-paradoxical, linear, authority-driven) way. And in turn, this orientation
draws attention away from the legal subject who is producing all this stuff in the first place .
n260 The action-deferring and reader-centered character of normative legal thought likewise ensure
that no serious challenge is posed to the identity or character of the sovereign individual subject. The
[*901] texts of normative legal thought are supposed to have their effect by appealing to the choice and
the intellectual faculties of the reader. The texts are supposed to honor the reader's already preformed
views, ideas, prejudices, and aesthetic representations of social and political life. There is to be no
overt disabling or subversion of her identity or role. For instance, within the rationalist rhetoric of
contemporary legal thought, it is permissible to write articles about Derridean deconstruction of legal
thought -- but to actually practice Derridean deconstruction will simply evoke resistance,
misunderstanding, and incomprehension. The expectation is that any author will, of course,
explain and justify any significant departure from the default positions and will refrain from
any rhetorical exercise that might actually require active change on the part of the reader.
Finally, the adversarial advocacy orientation of normative legal thought -- which is attributable,
at least in part, to the conflation of the role of lawyer and legal academic -- does much to insulate the
sovereign individual subject and its rhetorical supports from scrutiny. Because so many legal
academics understand their legal thought to be positional in character -- on behalf of some
(intangible, often very worthy but poorly identified) client-surrogate, much of legal thought is
produced within the explicit context of adversarial advocacy among academics and is devoted
to advancing or defeating this or that position. Many normative legal thinkers understand
themselves to be engaged in "passionate advocacy" on behalf of some cause. Now admittedly, there is
no tribunal listening; no one is empowered to put all this normative passion into effect. But
this does not mean that this passionate advocacy is therefore without effect: on the contrary, it often
succeeds in BRACKETING ANY SERIOUS QUESTIONING of the rhetorical systems that enables
such aimless passionate advocacy to be produced in the first place. Indeed, when one is
engaged in passionate arguments to an imagined tribunal, the last thing one will do is
question the argumentative structures that allow the arguments to be framed and presented
in the first place. Not only does normative legal thought conduce to the maintenance of the sovereign
individual subject and his rationalist rhetoric, but one can see the reverse process at work as well.
Indeed, if normative thought occupies so much attention in the legal academy; if normative
legal thought seems like the obvious, the "natural" thing to do; if the "what should we
do?/what should the law be?" question seems so legitimate, so important; and if normative
legal thought seems veritably like law itself, it is because the rhetorical [*902] situation -- the
default settings -- have already enabled us, constituted our discourse, and configured our roles
so that we will produce normative legal thought.
A2: Perm
It’s not net beneficial – accepting the fundamental tenet of the aff that normative
legal prescription is good co-opts our criticism
Schlag 90|Stanford Law Review November, 1990 Essay “NORMATIVE AND NOWHERE TO GO” Pierre
Schlag [FNa1] Copyright © 1990 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior
(https://www.pravo.unizg.hr/_download/repository/SchlagSLR.pdf) A.B.
Yet normative legal thought can't wait to shut down these intellectual and political openings
as well. It cannot wait to envelop these inquiries in its own highly stylized ethical-moral form of normjustification. Normative legal thought cannot wait to enlist epistemology, semiotics, social
theory or any other enterprise in its own ethical-moral argument structures about the right,
the good, the useful, the efficient (or any of their doctrinally crystallized derivatives). It cannot
wait to reduce world views, attitudes, demonstrations, provocations, and thought itself, to
norms. In short, it cannot wait to tell you (or somebody else) what to do .
The perm maintains the central practice of normative legal thought – it brackets
questioning of the legal subject, precluding our criticism
SCHLAG 91| PIERRE, “Symposium THE CRITIQUE OF NORMATIVITY ARTICLES NORMATIVITY AND THE
POLITICS OF FORM”
(http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3741&context=penn_law_review) A.B.
In his systematic and foundational forgetting, Marshall established an extremely important precedent
for American legal thought. This forgetting [*1629] of the "we" who do the "expounding," this
bracketing of the "I" -- in short, this eclipse of the problem of the subject -- became a vital,
pervasive, constitutive characteristic of American legal thought. Indeed, American legal thought
has been conceptually, rhetorically, and socially constituted to AVOID CONFRONTING THE
QUESTION of who or what thinks or produces law. In a nutshell, then, this is the problem of the
subject. Notice that it has already become at least two problems. One problem is that we are
missing any convincing accounts of who or what it is that thinks or produces law . Another
problem is that apparently we and our legal rhetoric have been constituted to avoid inquiry
into this question of who or what produces law. n6 Hence, rather than sharing a rich matrix of
intellectual or cultural understandings that would help us inquire into the character of the subject, we
share a rich matrix of intellectual and cultural understandings that enables us to avoid inquiry
into the character of the subject (over and over again).
They externalize agency onto the state, obliterating personal subjectivity and
sanctioning nationalist violence
Shaffer 7 (Butler teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. B.S., Law, 1958, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; B.A., Political
Science, 1959, and J.D., 1961, University of Chicago; Member, Colorado and Nebraska State Bars. “Identifying With the State” June 29th 2007.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer159.html).
One of the deadliest practices we engage in is that of identifying ourselves with a collective entity.
Whether it be the state, a nationality, our race or gender, or any other abstraction, we introduce division — hence, conflict —
into our lives as we separate ourselves from those who identify with other groupings. If one observes
the state of our world today, this is the pattern that underlies our deadly and destructive social
behavior. This mindset was no better articulated than when George W. Bush declared you’re either with us, or against us.¶ Through years
of careful conditioning, we learn to think of ourselves in terms of agencies and/or abstractions external to our independent being. Or, to
we have learned to internalize these external forces; to conform our thinking and
behavior to the purposes and interests of such entities. We adorn ourselves with flags, mouth shibboleths, and decorate
our cars with bumper stickers, in order to communicate to others our sense of who we are. In such ways does our being become
indistinguishable from our chosen collective.¶ In this way are institutions born. We discover a particular form of organization
express the point more clearly,
through which we are able to cooperate with others for our mutual benefit. Over time, the advantages derived from this system have a
sufficient consistency to lead us to the conclusion that our well-being is dependent upon it. Those who manage the organization find it in their
self-interests to propagate this belief so that we will become dependent upon its permanency. Like a sculptor working with clay, institutions
take over the direction of our minds, twisting, squeezing, and pounding upon them until we have embraced a mindset conducive to their
interests. Once this has been accomplished, we find it easy to subvert our will and sense of purpose to the collective. The organization ceases
being a mere tool of mutual convenience, and becomes an end in itself. Our lives become institutionalized, and we regard it as fanciful to
imagine ourselves living in any other way than as constituent parts of a machine that transcends our individual sense.¶ Once
we identify
ourselves with the state, that collective entity does more than represent who we are; it is who we are. To
the politicized mind, the idea that we are the governmentu has real meaning, not in the sense of being able to control such an agency, but in
the psychological sense. The
successes and failures of the state become the subject’s successes and failures;
insults or other attacks upon their abstract sense of being — such as the burning of their flag — become assaults upon
their very personhood. Shortcomings on the part of the state become our failures of character. This is why so many Americans who have
belatedly come to criticize the war against Iraq are inclined to treat it as only a u201Cmistakeu201D or the product of mismanagement, not as a
Such an attitude also helps to
explain why, as Milton Mayer wrote in his revealing post-World War II book, They Thought They Were Free, most Germans
were unable to admit that the Nazi regime had been tyrannical.¶ It is this dynamic that makes it easy for
political officials to generate wars, a process that reinforces the sense of identity and attachment people
have for their state. It also helps to explain why most Americans — though tiring of the war against Iraq — refuse to condemn government
moral wrong. Our egos can more easily admit to the making of a mistake than to moral transgressions.
leaders for the lies, forgeries, and deceit employed to get the war started: to acknowledge the dishonesty of the system through which they
admit to the dishonest base of their being.¶ The truthfulness of the state’s rationale
for war is irrelevant to most of its subjects. It is sufficient that they believe the abstraction with which their lives are
identify themselves is to
intertwined will be benefited in some way by war. Against whom and upon what claim does not matter — except as a factor in assessing the
likelihood of success. That most Americans have pipped nary a squeak of protest over Bush administration plans to attack Iran — with nuclear
weapons if deemed useful to its ends — reflects the point I am making. Bush could undertake a full-fledged war against Lapland, and most
Americans would trot out their flags and bumper-stickers of approval.¶ The brightness or wrongness of any form of collective behavior
becomes interpreted by the standard of whose actions are being considered. During World War II, for example, Japanese kamikaze pilots were
regarded as crazed fanatics for crashing their planes into American battleships. At the same time, American war movies (see, e.g., Flying Tigers)
extolled the heroism of American pilots who did the same thing. One sees this same double-standard in responding to u201Cconspiracy
theories. Do you think a conspiracy was behind the 9/11 attacks? It certainly seems so to me, unless one is prepared to treat the disappearance
of the World Trade Center buildings as the consequence of a couple pilots having bad navigational experiences! The question that should be
asked is: whose conspiracy was it? To those whose identities coincide with the state, such a question is easily answered: others conspire, we do
not.¶ It
is not the symbiotic relationship between war and the expansion of state power, nor the
realization of corporate benefits that could not be obtained in a free market, that mobilize the
machinery of war. Without most of us standing behind system, and cheering on troops, and defending your leaders, none of this would
be possible. What would be your likely response if your neighbor prevailed upon you to join him in a violent attack upon a local convenience
store, on the grounds that it hired u201Cillegal aliens? Your sense of identity would not be implicated in his efforts, and you would likely dismiss
him as a lunatic.¶ Only
when our ego-identities become wrapped up with some institutional abstraction —
such as the state — can we be persuaded to invest our lives and the lives of our children in the collective
madness of state action. We do not have such attitudes toward organizations with which we have more transitory relationships. If we
find an accounting error in our bank statement, we would not find satisfaction in the proposition the First National Bank, right or wrong.
Neither would we be inclined to wear a T-shirt that read Disneyland: love it or leave it.¶ One of the many adverse consequences of identifying
with and attaching ourselves to collective abstractions is our loss of control over not only the meaning and direction in our lives, but of the
manner in which we can be efficacious in our efforts to pursue the purposes that have become central to us. We become dependent upon the
If nation-state loses respect
in the world — such as by the use of torture or killing innocent people – we consider ourselves no longer
respectable, and scurry to find plausible excuses to redeem our egos. When these expectations are not met, we go in
performance of group; reputation rises or falls on the basis of what institutional leaders do or fail to do.
search of new leaders or organizational reforms we believe will restore our sense of purpose and pride that we have allowed abstract entities
to personify for us.
Their politics lead to passivity
Antonio 95 (Nietzsche’s antisociology: Subjectified Culture and the End of History”; American Journal of Sociology; Volume 101, No. 1; July
1995, jstor,)
According to Nietzsche, the "subject" is Socratic culture's most central, durable foundation. This prototypic expression of ressentiment, master
reification, and ultimate justification for slave morality and mass discipline "separates strength from expressions of strength, as if there were a
neutral substratum . . . free to express strength or not to do so. But there is no such substratum; there is no 'being' behind the doing, effecting,
becoming; 'the doer' is merely a fiction added to the deed" (Nietzsche 1969b, pp. 45-46). Leveling of Socratic culture's "objective" foundations
makes its "subjective" features all the more important. For example, the subject is a central focus of the new human sciences, appearing
prominently in its emphases on neutral standpoints, motives as causes, and selves as entities, objects of inquiry, problems, and targets of care
(Nietzsche 1966, pp. 19-21; 1968a, pp. 47-54). Arguing that subjectified culture weakens the personality, Nietzsche spoke of a "remarkable
antithesis between an interior which fails to correspond to any exterior and an exterior which fails to correspond to any interior" (Nietzsche
1983, pp. 78-79, 83). The "problem of the actor," Nietzsche said, "troubled me for the longest time."'12 He considered
"roles" as
"external," "surface," or "foreground" phenomena and viewed close personal identification with them as symptomatic of
estrangement. While modern theorists saw differentiated roles and professions as a matrix of autonomy and reflexivity, Nietzsche held
that persons (especially male professionals) in specialized occupations overidentify with their positions and
engage in gross fabrications to obtain advancement. They look hesitantly to the opinion of others, asking themselves, "How
ought I feel about this?" They are so thoroughly absorbed in simulating effective role players that they have trouble
being anything but actors-"The role has actually become the character." This highly subjectified social self or simulator suffers
devastating inauthenticity. The powerful authority given the social greatly amplifies Socratic culture's already self-indulgent "inwardness."
Integrity, decisiveness, spontaneity,
and pleasure are undone by paralyzing overconcern about possible causes,
about what others might think, expect, say, or do
(Nietzsche 1983, pp. 83-86; 1986, pp. 39-40; 1974, pp. 302-4, 316-17). Nervous rotation of socially appropriate "masks" reduces
persons to hypostatized "shadows," "abstracts," or simulacra. One adopts "many roles," playing them "badly and
superficially" in the fashion of a stiff "puppet play." Nietzsche asked, "Are you genuine? Or only an actor? A representative or that which is
represented? . . . [Or] no more than an imitation of an actor?" Simulation is so pervasive that it is hard to tell the copy
from the genuine article; social selves "prefer the copies to the originals" (Nietzsche 1983, pp. 84-86; 1986, p. 136; 1974, pp. 232- 33,
259; 1969b, pp. 268, 300, 302; 1968a, pp. 26-27). Their inwardness and aleatory scripts foreclose genuine attachment to others. This type
of actor cannot plan for the long term or participate in enduring networks of interdependence; such a person is neither willing
nor able to be a "stone" in the societal "edifice" (Nietzsche 1974, pp. 302-4; 1986a, pp. 93-94). Superficiality rules in the arid
meanings, and consequences of acts and unending internal dialogue
subjectivized landscape. Neitzsche (1974, p. 259) stated, "One thinks with a watch in one's hand, even as one eats one's midday meal while
reading the latest news of the stock market; one lives as if one always 'might miss out on something. ''Rather do anything than nothing': this
principle, too, is merely a string to throttle all culture. . . . Living in a constant chase after gain compels people to expend their spirit to the point
of exhaustion in continual pretense and overreaching and anticipating others." Pervasive leveling, improvising, and faking foster an inflated
sense of ability and an oblivious attitude about the fortuitous circumstances that contribute to role attainment (e.g., class or ethnicity). The
most mediocre people believe they can fill any position, even cultural leadership. Nietzsche respected the self-mastery of genuine ascetic
priests, like Socrates, and praised their ability to redirect ressentiment creatively and to render the "sick" harmless. But he deeply feared
the new simulated versions. Lacking the "born physician's" capacities, these impostors amplify the worst inclinations of the herd;
they are "violent, envious, exploitative, scheming, fawning, cringing, arrogant, all according to circumstances. " Social
selves are fodder for the "great man of the masses." Nietzsche held that "the less one knows how to command, the more urgently one covets
The deadly
combination of desperate conforming and overreaching and untrammeled ressentiment paves the way for a
new type of tyrant (Nietzsche 1986, pp. 137, 168; 1974, pp. 117-18, 213, 288-89, 303someone who commands, who commands severely- a god, prince, class, physician, father confessor, dogma, or party conscience.
Focus on the transcendence of the state replicates slave ontology and leaves us powerless
to effect change
Smith 1998 (Daniel W. Prof at Grimmell “The Place of Ethics in Deleuze’s Philosophy”; New Mappings
in Politics, Philosophy and Culture)
2. How
is a mode of existence evaluated? The first ethical question concerning the
determination of modes leads directly into the second question: How does one evaluate modes
of existence thus determined? This, one might say, is the ethical task properly speaking, and it
is here that Deleuze and Foucault have come under criticism, even from sympathetic readers,
for their apparent inability (or refusal) to put forward normative criteria of judgment, leading
critics to caricature the political consequences of such a philosophy as everything from an
"infantile leftism" to "neo-conservative."' What does it mean to evaluate modes of existence
according to purely immanent criteria? If modes of existence are defined as a degree of power
(the capacity to affect and to be affected), then they can be evaluated in terms of the manner
in which they come into possession of their power. From the viewpoint of an ethology of
humans, Spinoza distinguishes between two types of affections: passive affections, which
originate outside the individual and separate it from its power of acting; and active affections,
which are explained by the nature of the affected individual and allow it to come into
possession of its power. To the degree that a body's power of being affected is filled by
passive affections, this power itself is presented as a power of being acted upon; conversely,
to the degree that a body manages to fill (at least partially) its power of being affected by
active affections, this capacity will be presented as a power acting. For a given individual, its
capacity to affect and be affected (its degree of power) remains constant and is constantly
filled, under continuously variable conditions, by a series of affects and affections, while the
power of acting and the power of being acted upon vary greatly, in inverse ratio to each other.
But in fact this opposition between passive and active affections is purely abstract, for only
the power of acting is, strictly speaking, real, positive and affirmative. Our power of being
acted on is simply a limitation on our power of acting and merely expresses the degree to
which we are separated from what we "can do."' It is this distinction that allows Spinoza to
introduce an "ethical difference" between various types of modes of existence. In Spinoza, an
individual will be considered "bad" (or servile or weak or foolish) who remains cut off from
its power of acting, who remains in a state of slavery or impotence; conversely, a mode of
existence will be called "good" (or free or rational or strong) that exercises its capacity for
being affected in such a way that its power of acting increases, to the point where it produces
active affections and adequate ideas. For Deleuze, this is the point of convergence that unites
Nietzsche and Spinoza. It is never a matter of judging degrees of power quantitatively; the
smallest degree of power is equivalent to the largest degree once it is not separated from what
it can do. It is rather a question of knowing whether a mode of existence, however small or
great, can deploy its power, increasing its power of acting to the point where it goes to the
limit of what it "can do."" Modes are no longer "judged" in terms of their degree of proximity
to or distance from an external principle but are "evaluated" in terms of the manner by which
they "occupy" their existence: the intensity of their power, their "tenor" of life.' What an
ethics of immanence will criticize, then, is not simply modes of thought derived from
base modes of existence but anything that separates a mode of existence from its power
of acting. This is the second positive task of an immanent ethics. When Spinoza and
Nietzsche criticize transcendence, their interest is not merely theoretical or speculative (to
expose its fictional or illusory status) but rather practical and ethical: far from being our
salvation, transcendence expresses our slavery and impotence at its lowest point 5' This is
why Foucault could interpret Anti-Oedipus as a book of ethics, insofar as it attempted to
diagnose the contemporary mechanisms of "microfascism" —in psychoanalysis and
elsewhere—that cause us to desire the very things that dominate and exploit us and that cause
us to fight for our servitude as stubbornly as though it were our salvation. At the same time,
the book attempted to set forth the concrete conditions under which a mode of existence can
come into possession of its power, in other words, how it can become active. This leads us to a
third question.
The governmental system is the basis of the oppression the affirmative critiques. The
only way to solve for this is to completely dismantle the state
Helfand 13 (Judy Helfand, Media activist, University of Dayton, “Constructing Whiteness,” http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/white11.htm)
Government economic and political policies affecting workers also construct whiteness. The
Social Security Act of 1935 is an important example. The act was designed by corporate
leaders and experts working in think tanks financed by Rockefeller money and grew out of a need for corporations to
control the labor market and make it more efficient. Largely as a concession to Southern plantation capitalists,
agricultural workers were excluded from the provisions of the act. This exclusion especially
affected people of color, who worked disproportionately as agricultural workers. Brodkin discusses
some ideologies invoked in the public arena during the debate surrounding the passage of the Social Security Act and revisions proposed a couple years later. First,
wages sufficient to support a family were seen as belonging to men. Despite the fact that many women worked, their contributions necessary to the family, a
"successful" man could support his family by himself. But, Brodkin states,
"The idea that a man's wage should allow him to
support children and a non-wage-earning wife was never meant to apply to nonwhite men."
In fact, she sees the whiteness and maleness of white men's work as inseparable. Unskilled factory
work or hard manual labor was not seen as manly work but as suited to women or "boys." White men working in the trades, skilled occupations, or in middle-class
public discourse and policy reflected
this sense of entitlement. Public programs designed to compensate for the loss of male
breadwinners' jobs (and which tacitly acknowledged that the capitalist labor market does not always work as it should) were available in
practice to white men only. Thus for much of its history, unemployment insurance excluded from coverage many of the industries, such as
agriculture and domestic labor, in which men of color and women have been concentrated." The National Labors Relations Act of
1935, which affirmed the right of workers to form unions, also exempted agricultural, seasonal, and domestic workers
from its provisions. Other provisions of the law encouraged unions to form around trades,
bureaucratic or management positions, felt entitled to a wage that could support their family, and
not across a given industry. This had the effect of separating the white men in the skilled
trades from other workers in a plant or factory, keeping labor divided along race lines and
less united in struggles with management. Protective labor laws, designed to prevent abuses of industrial workers, also excluded
domestic and agricultural work. In all these cases, economic and political forces combined with dominant racial and gendered beliefs about work to privilege white
These
invisible assets are woven into the stories of white success in which individual hard work pays
off, and they remain unacknowledged as white workers blame people of color themselves for
their poverty and lack of advancement.
male workers, reinforcing beliefs about the social importance and value of their jobs and their own entitlement as white men to a living wage.
(Cap Link?)The state obscures mass violence, which it increasingly creates for its own
economic benefit
Chomsky 03 (Institute professor at MIT, 2003, Noam, Toward a New Cold War, pages 5-6, Nexus Magazine)
In modern
state capitalist societies such as our own, domestic decision-making is dominated by the
private business sector in the political as well as the strictly economic arena. Its
representatives largely staff the state executive, and more significantly, it sets limits on what the state
can do. Actions that “erode business confidence” would lead to capital flight, investment
cutbacks, and in general an intolerable deterioration of the social and economic climate, facts that
state managers committed to significant reform could hardly disregard, in the unlikely event
that they should attain political power. Furthermore, those who have a dominant position in the
domestic economy command substantial means to influence public opinion. It would be
surprising indeed if this power were not reflected in the mass media—themselves and corporations—and the schools and universities; if it did
not, in short, shape the prevailing ideology to a considerable extent. What we should expect to find is (1) that
foreign policy is guided by the primary commitment to improving the climate for business
operations in a global system that is open to exploitation of human and material resources by
those who dominate the domestic economy, and (2) that this commitment is portrayed as guided
by the highest ideals and by deep concern for human welfare. And this is indeed what we do
find, again, to a very good first approximation, though with a finer-grained analysis one find
conflicts between state managers and private corporate power, internal conflict within business circles, and an
It is more difficult, and far more important, to adopt the same rational stance with regard to one’s own society or its close allies or dependencies.
impact of ethnic and other pressure groups; and some critical discussion and analysis, along with intermittent accurate reporting. Some examples of such second-
Improvement of the climate for business
operations in under-developed societies is generally facilitated by destruction of unions and
other popular organizations, undermining of programs devoted to welfare (e.g., agricultural programs
directed to local consumption rather than export crops), and considerable brutality if there is resistance to such
measures. Investigating regions of the Third World that have been subjected to US influence and control, we find a pattern of just this
sort, and we find that it has regularly been enhanced by US intervention. We also should expect to discover, and do
discover, that the general public is rarely exposed to the impact of the United States on the Third
World, and that in the occasional discussion of sporadic examples (e.g., state terror in Guatemala), the US role is generally suppressed. The suffering,
starvation, murderous, repression and exploitation throughout the domains of US influence
and intervention are rarely perceived to be related to systematic US policy initiatives guided
order phenomena will be discussed below, but I will concentrate on the major factors.
by the interests of those who with effective domestic power, in striking contrast to our
interpretation of the systems dominated by official enemies.
Impact: The state is the basis of crime, injustice, abuse, disease, and oppression for their goal
of suppression and exploitation of the people
Goldman 09 (Emma Goldman, writer and activist, July 1909, A New Declaration of Independence, Mother Earth Volume IV)
The history of the American kings of capital and authority is the history of repeated crimes,
injustice, oppression, outrage, and abuse, all aiming at the suppression of individual liberties
and the exploitation of the people. A vast country, rich enough to supply all her children with
all possible comforts, and insure well-being to all, is in the hands of a few, while the nameless
millions are at the mercy of ruthless wealth gatherers, unscrupulous lawmakers, and corrupt
politicians. Sturdy sons of America are forced to tramp the country in a fruitless search for bread, and many of her daughters are driven
into the street, while thousands of tender children are daily sacrificed on the altar of Mammon. The reign of these kings is
holding mankind in slavery, perpetuating poverty and disease, maintaining crime and
corruption; it is fettering the spirit of liberty, throttling the voice of justice, and degrading and
oppressing humanity. It is engaged in continual war and slaughter, devastating the country and destroying the best and finest
qualities of man; it nurtures superstition and ignorance, sows prejudice and strife, and turns the human family into a camp of
State power is the crux of all environmental destruction and causes escalating ecowars
Thomas 95 (William, author, Scorched Earth: The Military’s Assault on the Environment, 161)
“The more important the military-industrial complex is within a country, the more likely it is
that the nation state will act as a protector of its military rather than as a protector of the
biosphere,” writes Matthias Finger in The Ecologist. “Where the military can appear to be environmentally ‘useful,’ environmental degradation will increase
the relative importance of the military-industrial complex within each state, which in turn will perpetuate military pollution, which will raise global environmental
“the military must be addressed as a cause and not a
cure of global environmental problems.” Sooner or later, this analyst believes, “the military-industrial
security concerns and so further strengthen the military.” For Finger,
complex must be dismantled. This is the sine qua non for effectively dealing with the entire
global environmental crisis.” Cindy Millstein of the US-based Left Green Network thinks that the UN’s Green Beret
proposal could create environmental superpowers that profit from the military’s degradation
of environment. Major Britt-Theorin replies that the environmental response teams would be assembled and answerable to the UN. General Assembly
comprised of all member nations, rather than the Security Council of the superpowers. Developing countries, she explains, would retain a major voice in
implementing the resolution. If the Swedish government was seriously backing Britt-Theorin’s proposal, Jonas Olsson of the Swedish-based Cooperation for Peace
suggests, it could start by reallocating army facilities to restore 20,000 acidified lakes in the country. Who calls the shots in the mounting eco wars? Even if a civilian
credibility is crucial when attempting to
resolve disputes involving water allocation and trans-border pollution.
agency of the UN undertakes the task of providing worldwide environmental security,
Obedience to the state assures our participation in violence without us knowing. It
surrenders self-determination in exchange for false feelings of safety
Kovel 84 (Joel, Psychotherapist and Activist, 1984, Against the State of Nuclear Terror, p. 132-33)
Viewed in this wider perspective, violence, which is a forcible alteration of the nature of
something, is an attack by the Other upon our human nature. Carried out within the society
defined by the self and others, violence is always a political act. War is the terminal point of
violence, its integration at the widest level. It is the organized violence of states, a violence where no
boundaries are respected. Warfare becomes the end development of violence by reducing all Others to things, and correspondingly, by
aggrandizing the state. The soldier who cedes his moral principle to state, so hat he can kill its enemies, escapes culpability and is made not to feel guilty for what he
does. But he can only do so at the cost of violence to his own nature. By giving his morality over to the state he has sacrificed self-determination, self-expression and
self-recognition all at once. He may appear mighty because he shares in the organized violence of the state, but he is poorer as well, having sacrificed his birthright.
The bigger the state, the more dangerous it is, and the less moral; and the more the state becomes the usurper of human powers. The more obedient people
We become obedient, we lose the strength of our human nature,
we lose our active spirit and yield to passivity. This is the very passivity which the drillsergeant exploits in the recruit in order to make him into a more complaisant and violent soldier. By mustering the
passivity of a population, a state gets people to do its violence automatically. But a people so
manipulated are also more prone to fear. Having surrendered their own powers, they lean on
the power of the other. However, this power comes from the outside, as an alien force. A
population which has surrendered its human powers is a population open for terrorization.
Nothing spurs this process along, even as it masks it, more than the development of
technocracy. The technocratic attitude contains within itself the seeds of violence , since by divorcing
facts from values, it breaks apart the unity of the human world. At the level of the warfare sate, technocracy makes
“good soldiers” out of millions of sober solid citizens who would never lift a hand in overt
violence on their own. By dividing up the tasks of warfare into a myriad of discrete technical details, technocracy gets people
to participate in violence without any self-recognition at all, thus involving them in a double
violence—to the victims of the state and to themselves.
become to it, the more reduced they become.