through europe

I would like to discuss anxiety and its relationship with work today, from a philosophical perspective. I will examine anxiety as connected to the problem of hospitality, and particularly to broken hospitality, then I will explore the changes that the traditional concept of hospitality has undergone under the current condition of Nihilism. It will be in the field of Nihilism that I will explore the connections between anxiety and contemporary work. Finally, I will try to look for a philosophical alternative.

Before starting, I must acknowledge two debts. Most of the first part of this talk derives from a conversation I had with my friend and fellow writer Robert Prouse, whom I would like to thank. The final part of this talk, on the other hand, has been very influenced by the poet Lucy Mercer, and I would like to thank her for that.

 

Der Arbeiter

 

In 1932, Ernst Junger published the first edition of Der Arbeiter (The Worker), one of the most penetrating and controversial investigations of modernity to have appeared during the 20th century. At that time, Junger – later to become an anarchist – was one of the most prominent voices of the young German national-bolshevik movement, and one of the sources of inspiration for Adolf Hitler’s party. Decorated as a hero after WWI, Junger wrote Der Arbeiter both as a description of a future world in which the ‘form’ of the Worker (a new human ‘type’ which expresses itself through ‘technic’) would take dominion over the world, and as an invitation to take part to the ‘total mobilization’ operated by the new regime of ‘total work’.

Mixing a crystalline prose with ante litteram cyberpunk visions, Der Arbeiter reads today as a bleak premonition of the world that is unfolding in front of our eyes. Its prediction of the rise of a ‘new race of the Worker’, transcending nationality and ethnicity, finds its realisation in the human landscape of today’s metropolises. Its description of a future ‘cult’ of work - so deep as to invade every aspect of the daily, social or personal, rational or emotional life – loses its sci-fi tone if applied to the world we live in. Junger’s vision of a world ‘totally mobilised’ by work appears to have found a much greater application within contemporary capitalism, than it ever did during the brief experience of national-socialist Germany. It might not be a coincidence that Heidegger’s text The Question Concerning Technology – deeply inspired by the book of his friend Junger – only appeared in 1949, under the dawning light of the new world order.

 

Like many other viral videos on Youtube, this liberating, mildly choreographic effort to say “goodbye” to a despotic boss made me release more depressant toxins that it apparently did to other million viewers.

The story behind it is now a popular fabula: Marina Shifrin, 25, was employed by “an awesome company” (her words) that produces animation videos. “For almost two years”, she explains, “I’ve sacrificed my relationships, time and energy for this job”.

It’s 4.30am and she’s still at work. It doesn’t seem to be an exception.

She positions her camera in strategic spots, looking straight into it with her thick glasses, then she unexpectedly starts to dance around the office, lonely yet glowing. “I quit”, is the caption flashing multiple times under her moves.

The potential list of objectionable adjectives that have been extended to the medley of policies collectively understood as ‘workfare’ is, much like any credibility once invested in the present coalition government, indubitably nearing the point of expiry. Indeed workfare, and its present puppeteer the Home Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, are now not not only regarded as mad, bad and malicious but alsothoroughly inept. Surely even ‘IDS’ thought the numbers, the returns on government ‘investment’ in awarding these deals to A4E and others would not be so precociously dreadful as to place the programs beyond the parameters of any credible defence?

 

The contribution of groups such asBoycott Workfare,DPAC and Solfed, among others, in discrediting workfare programmes is impressive. At the same time such a contribution has undoubtedly been embedded within a defensive approach that has come to characterize anti-austerity struggles throughout the OECD. At times, as with workfare, such a response can be impressive. The student movement of 2010 was similarly a defensive struggle but was nonetheless possessed of admirable flexibility, scale and intensity. The same is true, indeed to a greater extent, with the ultimately victorious Quebecois student movement of the last two years, impressively coordinated byClasse. Conversely the UK ‘pensions fightback’ by public sector unions in 2011, again essentially defensive, shared few if any of these qualities. This is for a variety of reasons and has nothing to do with the intelligence or integrity of those involved, nor the quantity or quality of legitimate grievances they possessed. Indeed for all its scale, tenacity and openness the UK student movement of 2010 likewise failed to achieve its objectives or indeed really catalyse a larger movement beyond itself - although in retrospect it undoubtedly undermined any credible argument the coalition could communicate about its ambition to ‘share’ the burden of austerity.

 

This text is based on a panel talk (together with Nina Power) by Bifo during the event ‘We Have Our Own Concept of Time and Motion’, organised by Auto Italia in collaboration with Federico Campagna, Huw Lemmey, Michael Oswell and Charlie Woolley in August 2011.

 

I beg your pardon for the frantic way of my exposition, but the problem is that the object of my reflections is frantic. We are doing so many things without really understanding what is the framework of our actions. I do not pretend to clarify this framework or our understanding of it; I don’t even pretend to come to some conclusions in this short time. But I will try to say something about the coming problem; the coming collapse; the coming insurrection.