Invisible Man

Relationship between The Prince, Leviathan and Invisible Man

Meryem Rabia Tasbilek

In this paper, I will share some quotes from Machiavelli’s The Prince and Hobbes’ Leviathan to compare, contrast and analyze their perspectives about leadership. However, because I believe that Machiavelli’s arguments are more related with Ellison’s Dr. Bledsoe character, I will use more sources from The Prince. I will also try to add my personal position about their preferences about ruling. I will compare these two leadership meditations with Ellison’s Dr. Bledsoe character in Invisible Man as a ruler. The reader will find more specific explanation about these specific topics in the next several pages. In addition, the paper will cover some explanations why we need both theorists to understand leadership.

First of all, I believe that it is always better to have more comparative and informative sources to understand political issues and notions. For this reason, Machiavelli’s The Prince and Hobbes’ Leviathan are very useful foundations for us to understand leadership. In my opinion, we are able to learn more about a ruler especially the Monarchic ones in The Prince’s than Leviathan. On the other hand, even though Hobbes includes the rulers to his audience, it seems like his main concerns is the ruled people and the nature and obligations of people in the society, because his main concern is creating a society rather than creating a manual for a ruler. Moreover, both of them have similar emphasizes about the importance of knowing himself and others for the ruler to understand and govern the people. For instance Machiavelli mentions that “for the same way that landscape painters station themselves in the valleys in order to get a good view of the plains, so it is necessary to be a prince to know thoroughly the nature of the people, and one of the populace to know the nature of the prince” (4). Similar to Machiavelli, Hobbes also argues that “He that is to govern to whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind: which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science” (83). It is interesting to see that even for different motivations, the solution to create a “good” ruler for Machiavelli or a peaceful society for Hobbes are all related with  “read thy self.”

In addition, Machiavelli categorizes all mankind dominations either as republics or monarchies. In The Prince, he only deals with Monarchies (5). Machiavelli’s ideal prince is so pragmatist and cannot and should not trust anyone: “You find enemies in all those whom you have injured by occupying that domination, and you cannot maintain the friendship of those who have helped you to obtain this possession, as you will not be able to fulfill their expectations” (6). I think this part is a good fit for Dr. Bledsoe’s perspective about his social environment. For him, everybody is a potential enemy and to keep his powerful position stable, he never let someone to be his real friend. It seems that he keep a distance with people (143). On the other hand, Hobbes argues that:

If any man desires the same thing, which never the less they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their End, endeavor to destroy, or subdue one another… If one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient Seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united to dispossess, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labor, but also of his life or liberty. (Leviathan 184)

Both of the authors have similar suggestions and beliefs about not trusting the others to keep the power stable. Only, Hobbes emphasizes that this condition is a product of equality and the human kind’s passion about competition poisons peaceful society (38). When the protagonist, the invisible man, talks with anger and tells Dr. Bledsoe that he will go to Mr. Norton and made a complain about him, because of the nature of Dr. Bledsoe’s ruling mentality and to keep the custom of the college rigid he decided to exile the protagonist. In my opinion, Dr. Bledsoe’s fake recommendation letters and his behaviors against the protagonist is a good match with Machiavelli’s advices. For instance, Machiavelli suggests that “for it must be noted, the men must either be caressed or else annihilated; They will revenge themselves for small injuries, but cannot do so for great ones; the injury therefore that we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance” (9). I believe that these statements are extremely perfect explanations of Dr. Bledsoe’s “malicious” letters’ motivation and unexpectable content. We may see these letters as evil, but for Machiavelli, they function very well and are necessary. Dr. Bledsoe could simply deport the protagonist, but he did not find this injury enough and decided to write the uniquely weird and evil letters to several people and he did not sent these letters by himself, he made the protagonist carry them to destroy his own hope unconsciously.

Truly, Dr. Bledsoe followed Machiavelli’s theoretical advices probably as a result of his leadership instinct. For instance, in The Prince Machiavelli says that same as the hectic fevers, the opponents people “at their beginning are easy to cure, but difficult to recognize, but in course of time when they have not at the first recognized and threatened, become easy to recognize and difficult to cure” (11). For some of us, Dr. Bledsoe’s decisions against the protagonist may seem extreme, but based on the Machiavelli’s leadership meditations, he is a perfect example. Not only Machiavelli, but also Hobbes has similar suggestions in Leviathan: “Therefore before names of Just and Unjust can have place, there must be some coercive Power, to compel men equally to performance of their Covenants, by the terror of some punishment, greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their Covenant” (202). By this way, the benefit of the general group and their Covenant can be safe. We are able to see the protagonist’s acceptance and obey for Dr. Bledsoe’ practices, for the same reason, too. He says that “somehow, I convinced myself; I had violated the code and thus would have to submit to punishment” (Invisible Man 147). It is possible to read this statement related with Hobbes’ Covenant notion.

            In addition, Machiavelli was arguing in The Prince that “Whoever becomes the ruler of a free city and does not destroy it, can expect to be destroyed by it.” This cruel, pragmatist and paranoiac perspective can be seen Dr. Bledsoe’s reactions against the protagonist. Dr. Bledsoe was saying that “I’ve made my place in it and I’ll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am” (Invisible Man 143). By using these statements, this seems that he sees every men even his own races as potential enemies against his position. That is why the protagonist’ behavior was a threat for Dr. Bledsoe. It is better to remember Leviathan here: “Every man is Enemy to every man; the same is conquest to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withal…” (186). Hobbes was talking about War here, but it seems like we can adjust all of his statement for the social competition and power conflicts, too.

Moreover, in Invisible Man, Dr. Bledsoe adds that “I do not even insist that it was worth it, but now I am here and I mean to stay-after you win the game, you take the prize and you keep it, protect it; there’s nothing else to do” (143). All of these samples from Dr. Bledsoe’s mentality is a perfect match with Machiavelli’s leadership model, do everything to keep your position and power, do it even cruelly, but not always openly, do it cleverly he advises. By practicing all these advices wisely, is equal to Machiavelli’s virtû as virtuosity notion that means a skill to handle. Machiavelli also suggests that even though “there are two ways of becoming prince which cannot be attributed entirely either to fortune or to ability” (31), he argues that “a prince must live with his subjects in such a way that no accident of good or evil fortune can deflect him from his course” (35). This seems like Dr. Bledsoe’s motivation of his cruelty on the protagonist. He could not put his position at any risk. In addition, Hobbes talks about similar things to eliminate the other powers by using power to secure himself, but in Leviathan it seems more general determination about the mankind rather than Machiavelli’s specific evaluations and suggestions about the rulers. Hobbes mentions that:

And from difference of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself, so reasonable, as Anticipation; that is by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him… And by consequence, such augmentation of domination over men, being necessary to a man’s conservation; it ought to be allowed him. (184-185)

In this part, Hobbes rationalizes the oppression and control over men to gain the security of the society. This might be a good interpretation of Dr. Bledsoe’s practices and his unmerciful statements while he was talking with the protagonist. For both of them, the main goal is the good of general structure and people rather than individuals. To fulfill this goal, some people can be sacrificed by a ruler. For instance, Hobbes equalizes the notion cruelty with power of the secure as individual practices (126), but when it is practices for the good of the society it is different. It is possible to see similar practices and suggestions in The Prince: “He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness, Cesare Borgia was considered cruel, but his cruelty had brought order to Romagna, united it… A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united…” (60). Machiavelli also concludes that “with regard to being feared and loved, that men love at their own free will, but fear at the will of the prince, and that a wise prince must rely on what is in his power and not on what is in the power of others, and he must only contrive to avoid incurring hatred” (63). I believe one of the reason that Dr. Bledsoe left a pretended open door for the protagonist for returning and letters for infinite, useless hope was this motivation of avoiding the hatred for himself and make him weaker in the future with this hope.

Moreover, Machiavelli’s pragmatist ruler profile is also a good match with Dr. Bledsoe and the protagonist’s understandable surprise after he came across with Dr. Bledsoe’s behavioral switch: 

It is not, therefore, necessary for a prince to have all the above-named qualities, but it is very necessary to seem to have them… Thus it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to be so; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to opposite qualities.” (The Prince 65)

 Because, in the students’ mind, Dr. Bledsoe was an ideal model, but he was able to call “N” word to another African American person when he took of his formal mask. He went even further and said that “Your arms are too short to box with me, son. And I haven’t had to really clip a young Negro in years… They haven’t been as cocky as they used to” (144). This is a cold blood, inhumane statement, but in his masked profile he is not the same person who can use these kinds of language. In addition, to be more strong in his position, he seems like he internalized the dominant power’ language pattern and labels. He is good at virtû as virtuosity in his formal position. He was praying during the service deeply, but on the other hand his reaction is extremely different than a person who has been doing all those prayers and gave those lectures. In addition, his behavior is a good translation of The Prince’s “and they do not know how to live in freedom, so that they are slower to take arms, and a prince can win them over with the greater facility and establish himself securely,” statement (19). Dr. Bledsoe was aware of his power and the protagonist's weakness when the protagonists threaten him to complain about him to Mr. Norton. For this reason, he became crueler.

Dr. Bledsoe emphasizes that:

Negroes, don’t control this school or much of anything else, haven’t you learned even that?.. I control it… The only ones I pretend to please are big white fold, and even those I control more than they control me. This is a power set-up, son, and I am at the controls. You think about that. When you buck against me, you’re bucking against poor, rich white folk’s power, the nation’s power-which means government power! (Machiavelli 142)

From the protagonist's perspective Dr. Bledsoe's behavioral switch was unexpectable. We are able to see this in his statements like: “Just inside the building I got another shock. As we approached a mirror Dr. Bledsoe stopped and composed his angry face like a sculptor, making it a bland mask, leaving only the sparkle of his eyes to betray the emotion that I had seen only a moment before” (102). Being able to see this without watching or expecting to see it must be very chockfull, but the protagonist has his own virtû as virtuosity to survive such as rationalizing the situation. In addition, in Leviathan we learned that:

In the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Difference; Thirdly, Glory. The first, market men invade for Gain; the second for Safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use Violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other signs of undervalue, either direct in their Persons, or by reflection in their Kindred, their Friends, their Nation, their Profession, or their Name. (Machiavelli 185)

We are able to see all of these causes in Dr. Bledsoe's quarrel.

In addition, in The Prince, we learned that Machiavelli was suggesting arming the citizens. He was arguing that “for by arming them these arms become your own.” I thought, Dr. Bledsoe could forgive the protagonists to practice this method, but I guess he did this part for the rest of the school by creating a surface for them to study in his College. He followed the white men’s practices by giving a space for him to rule and not giving the same opportunity to all Africans. I believe that this is equal with the next Machiavelli argument: “And since all the subjects cannot be armed (in this case this can be education and power), when you give the privilege of arms to some, you can deal more safely with the others” (77). I was always surprised to see some minorities and especially African Americans in the history who could reach quite good positions during the heaviest racist atmospheres. I do not want to hide or ignore these people’s struggles and passion to reach their positions, but most of the time I understand this as a white policy to control rest of the oppressed minority population. In different conditions, arming some of the subjects to control the rest can be various ways. This can be education or some political position; it does not need to be only traditional arming. It is a tool for assimilation and also a useful way to create tokenistic fallacies in the society. Creating imbalanced power inside the group of the minorities creates advantages for the rulers and alienations for the advantaged ones from their groups. Dr. Bledsoe is a perfect example for this especially when he called the protagonist “Nigger.”

Moreover, in Machiavelli argues that:

It is also very profitable for a prince to give some outstanding example of his greatness in the internal administration… When it happens that someone does something extraordinary, either good or evil, in civil life, he must find such means of rewarding or punishing him which will be much talked about. And above all a prince must endeavor in every action to obtain fame for being great and excellent. (Machiavelli 82)

 I believe that this mentality is the main reason of Dr. Bledsoe’s cruel, extreme behaviors against the protagonist. Dr. Bledsoe is a great sample of a ruler whose character is shaped by Machiavelli's arguments that he mentions in The Prince. I am not sure if he is aware of this or not, but it is amazingly clear. As a reader we may think that Dr. Bledsoe could domesticate the protagonist inside the college during his education, but he saw a stronger potential on him compared to the other regular students and rule challengers. For this reason, he did not want to leave any fortune to the protagonists to create a possible future opposition potential in his “own” environment. Also, by letting Mr. Norton to see the slum part of the area, according to Dr. Bledsoe, the protagonist violated the unwritten covenant as I mentioned before, so he must be punished to benefit the other covenant followers, the college and to keep the covenant, the rule of the college stable and rigid. It is better to remember Hobbes’ argument about this kind of situation: “When a covenant is made, then to break it is Unjust: And the definition of Injustice, is no other than the not Performance of Covenant. And whatsoever is not Unjust is Just” (202). For this reason, according to Hobbes, Dr. Bledsoe’s decision about the protagonist is not the matter of injustice, but the protagonist’s irresponsible behaviors about Mr. Norton is unjust. To practice the just, Dr. Bledsoe needs to punish the protagonist.

Moreover, we may also mention The Prince’s fortune argument. Machiavelli was arguing that “the prince who bases himself entirely on fortune is ruined when fortune changes. I also believe that he is happy whose mode of procedure accords with the needs of the times, and similarly he is unfortunate whose mode of procedure is opposed to the times” (92). It is clear that in Dr. Bledsoe’ decisions and plans against the protagonist are very similar with this mentality. Dr. Bledsoe did not want to have any gap in his power and campus system. He does not want to leave his future to any fortune. He also tries to not leave any chances for the protagonist in New York by writing these hateful and unethical “recommendation” letters. He was very systematic to fulfill his plan. He was following a similar path with Machiavelli’s argument such as: “whoever is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined himself; for that power is produced by him either through craft of force; and both of these are suspected by the one who has been raised to power” (14). Because, he did not want to ruin himself, his position and the order of the collage, he did whatever he can.

Ultimately, Machiavelli’s The Prince and Hobbes’ Leviathan have similar and different arguments for their perspectives about leadership. In addition, I believe it is better to have both theorists to understand leadership deeper. Machiavelli and Hobbes can give us a lot of hint about the rulers’ practices and their reasoning patters. If we are aware of the rulers’ mentality and how they implement their goals to keep the power in their hands, as a society we may create more balanced relationships with them. Both of them light the way for different parts of leadership and the obligation of the society. Hobbes is more focus on different parts of the society and their obligations rather than creating some tactics for a single ruler in Leviathan. His model is more collective than Machiavelli’s model and his audience are various than the target of The Prince. Machiavelli’s the main concern was keeping the power in the same hand by the help of all politic tools. However, it was interesting to see the similarities in the quotes that I chose from both theorists. In this paper, I tried to compare, contrast and analyze them with the support of some useful quotes and create some relations between these two writers’ claims with Ellison’s Dr. Bledsoe character in Invisible Man. I also tried to add my personal position about their preferences about their ruling preferences with my commentaries.

Works Cited

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage International, Random House. 1980.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. New York: Penguin Group, Penguin Classics. 1985.

Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. New York: The Modern Library, Random House. 1950.  

The Importance of being Made of Glass-Meryem Rabia Tasbilek

                       

In this paper, I will argue the importance of living like a person who is made of glass by the support of Nietzsche's aphorisms from The Gay Science, book three. Nietzsche argues about different types of danger and advantages of being a person made of glass.[1] I will build some arguments on this idea and metaphor. I will also argue the importance of errors and the problems of morality. In addition, I will create some arguments about prayers which differ from Nietzsche’s aphorisms.

You have no idea what you are experiencing; you run through life as if you were drunk and once in a while fall down a staircase. But thanks to your drunkenness, you don’t break your libs in the process; your muscles are too slack and your head too dull for you to find the stones of these stairs as hard as the rest of us do! For us, life is a greater danger: we are made of glass- woe unto us if we bump against something! And everything is lost if we fall! (Book Three 132, 133)

When I read this section, I thought that who are these two types of people for Nietzsche and for me? Nietzsche probably includes people to the drunken group who postpone today for the sake of optimistic tomorrow and also who believe afterlife. I believe that what we believe creates our social profiles, but what we believe and how we believe creates our characters. For this reason, the believers of afterlife in different ways can be excluded from this drunken categories based on their perspectives and unique practices, but definitely not the people who have optimism obesity. For instance, I do not do something for the motivation of heaven or scariness of God or hell.  I believe that these are necessary metaphors to educate human soul until it became mature. A child can expect some award for his or her good behavior and can stop himself or herself from some behavior because of some punishment, but if this child expect benefit or punishment to take or avoid actions when he or she grows up, we find something problematic about them. For human soul and character, I think the religious metaphors function similarly. However, after reaching a level of maturity, I believe that doing or not doing something for its benefits or harms, but not for the action itself is not ethical. For this reason, I think every person can switch his or her drunkenness to an active, fragile existence which is metaphorically equal to be a person made of glass. On this way, I think we do not have any luxury to look down to any drunkenness experience. All types of intoxication can be a stairway to reach this kind of active existence.

If I can go back to the notion of being a man made of glass, this must be our ideal position in our lives. I believe that being a person made of glass is equal to be active and probably in Nietzsche's argument being an evil. If we can manage to be an individual who is made of glass, we can stay awake and with this awareness we also can accept other people and all beings as made of glass, fragile. By this way, our interactions with people and all nature can become sensitive, active to not become lost and broken.  We can manage to not destroy the other’s existence. This perspective of existence creates an active awareness. Moreover, by this way we can get rid of the danger of “vegetarians’ or dieters’” narcotic ways of thinking to avoid the dangers of the staircases of life.[2]  

In addition, I believe that if we really consider ourselves as “made of glass,” this perception alters our goals and motivations, too. This awareness is powerful enough to make us get rid of our desire to become a function and an instrument for others. This motivation and practices of altruism which makes human addicted to use others as instruments rather than trying to manage self-actualization. A wild flower does not need any one to support its existence to produce beauty, actually it becomes a beauty. If there is a link between its existence and other natures, it is higher than using them as an instrument, it is an active relationship. If we manage to be a person made of glass, this can save us from parasitic lives. I think this way of living produce naturally active things that are more valuable than being instruments. We need pessimism, fragility for a self-actualization.  As Nietzsche argues: “I recognize the spirits who seek rest by the many dark objects with which they surround themselves: he who wants to sleep makes his room dark or crawls into a cave.-A hint to those do not know, but would like to know, what they actually seek most!” I believe that this darkness is also equal to pessimism. To become ourselves actively, we need darkness and fragility.

Moreover, Nietzsche argues that “Prayer has been invented for people who never really have thoughts of their own… The wisdom of all founders of religions, small as well great, has prescribed to them the formulas of prayer as a long mechanical work of lips, combined with exertion of the memory and a same fixed posture of hands and feet and eyes!”[3] I believe that this argument has a great generalization that makes it weak. I agree with Nietzsche’s argument at some point, because many traditional prayers become habits in many religions. The traditional prayers are mostly ritualistic. Step by step they lose their core and the only thing left for the believers are the empty shells of the rituals. Mostly, these prayers passivize people and create barriers between them and today’s responsibilities. They make them postpone the action and only lean to the power of God or other kinds of mystic powers. On the other hand, this is not always the case. I know a lot of people who change their verbal prayers and their physical positions or quit praying time to time just not to lose the meaning of it by getting used to it. For these people, prayers are the reminders of the face of active life. They do not beg for help, they just communicate and argue or fight intellectually with the God that they believe. Their prayers are also equal to questioning. For instance, I quit ritualistic prayers for a while, but I only accept active behaviors, taking positions in front of different situations as prayers. Not only these, but also producing questions and seeking answers are prayers for me. Also in Protestant life, working is a way of praying even though nowadays this idea becomes a tool or trigger for Capitalism. Nietzsche may argue that this type of working also equal to become an instruments for others, but I think we cannot monopolize all the Protestants’ interpretation of this acceptance as passive.

In addition, in some theologies, for instance in Islam, if a person find something unpleasant and harmful for humanity and for the individual, the verbal prayer is only a reminder for the behavioral prayer. There is an advice from Prophet Muhammad: “If you see any injustice, try to correct it with your hands, if you cannot fix it with your actions, and then try to fix it with a good language. If you cannot manage to stop it by these two ways, then feel displeasure in your heart to not get used to it, this is the weakest point of believing.”[4] According to Nietzsche, the evil is the active one more than the good, but I think there are active goods, too. I think, religious expression that I just shared is very similar with Nietzsche’s this argument: “Put on your armour for a hard fight, but believe in the miracles of your god!” [5] In my opinion, behavioral prayer is equal to this quote. Even though it is not the universal interpretation of the prayer, it is still common in my social environment. This is an intellectual call for action, unfortunately some people might understand and misinterpret Nietzsche same as some religious call for actions differently and violently.  I also believe that for some people, religion and prayers are the opiate of people, but what is not? It is related with people’s perspectives. Same as religion, ideologies or philosophy can be an opiate, too. For this reason, we need to pay attention to our own interpretations.

Moreover, we should not become a tool in the hand of religions, philosophy or any epistemic groups with our existence; they need to become staircases and tools to help us to continue our self-cultivation. At the end, I believe that our soul will leave all tools behind with respect and loyal feelings same as a bird that needs to leave the ground to fly. After one point, believing and refusing should not be different or matter. I will support this argument with a Religious Philosopher from Anatolia, Yunus Emre says that “I understood that being a believer or a faithless are covers on the way of life, and I hug blasphemy and release my beliefs to the wind. They are both the same.”[6] All of these differences are the social covers, but the core of our characters should be over these preferences. By this way, same as Nietzsche argues, we can avoid the herd instinct: “Where ever we encounter a morality, we find an evaluation and ranking of human drives and action. These evaluations and rankings are always the expression of needs of a community and herd… With morality the individual is instructed to be function of the herd and to ascribe value to himself only as function… Morality is a herd instinct in the individual.”[7] Nietzsche’s this argument is also parallel with the Anatolian Philosopher. To avoid being an instrument, we need to have a merciful distance with tradition and crowd’s common morality. These create hierarchy by using positive images of morality in our lives. They shape and whittle the differences of people’s characters. If we do something, we need to do it by the fruit of the action. On the other hand, I do not feel any complex if there are some overlaps between my personal choices and common preferences. I am also criticizing to put compulsive distance between ourselves and the crowd to not have any similarities with “herd.” For instance, even though Nietzsche emphasizes the importance and value of being active and “evil” in many places, he does not look down on all kinds of good, either. He argues that “who always wants to put people to shame”[8] is a bad person.  And also, he frames a person as most human who spares someone shame. I think he affirms this as the opposite of bad and it seems like he gives credits to the notion of good in this argument. To avoid of being a part of herd, having an allergy against morality, traditions and norms can also make us rootless. We need to use some of the commonness or the sources of herd same as Nietzsche. He uses the Greek Tragedy as a source of self-cultivation. As well as the sources of the society, we can use our errors as tools for our self-cultivation and as the sources of knowledge. Nietzsche argues that “Man has been educated by his errors.”[9] I definitely agree with him. We owe a lot to our errors. However, we need to not convert the knowledge or philosophy to an occupation or duty. Nietzsche argues that:

The intellectual fight became an occupation, attraction, profession, duty, dignity- knowledge and the striving for the true finally took their places as a need among the other needs. Henceforth, not only faith and conviction, but also scrutiny, denial, suspicion, and contradiction were a power; all ‘evil’ instincts were subordinated to knowledge and put in its service and took on the lustre of the permitted, honored, useful and finally the eye and the innocence of the good. (The Gay Science, 111)

            I believe that, these kinds of practices are passivizing the knowledge and us. Hopefully, our awareness of our existence as being made of glass can support us to menage our individual self-actualization and avoid of living passively as an instrument. Ultimately, in this paper, I argued the importance of living like a person who is made of glass by the support of Nietzsche's aphorisms from The Gay Science. I also argued the importance of errors and problems of morality. In addition, I created some arguments about prayers which differ from Nietzsche’s aphorisms at some point. As Nietzsche argues that “the thoughts cannot entirely reproduce in words.”[10] I did my best interpretations.  I tried to put the ideas together like a philosophical wagons, because “one is always wrong; but with two, truth begins.- One cannot prove his case, but two are already irrefutable.”[11]

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[1] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p 132,133.

[2] Nietzsche, The Gay Science (GS), p 128, 129. 

[3] Nietzsche, The Gay Science, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p 122.

[4] Prophet Mohammed, Bukhari Hadith translated from Turkish version by me.

[5] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p 98.

[6] Yunus Emre, Translated from Turkish version by me.

[7] Nietzsche, The Gay Science (GS), p 114.

[8] Nietzsche, The Gay Science (GS), p 114, 152.

[9] Nietzsche, The Gay Science (GS), p 114, 115.

[10] Nietzsche, The Gay Science (GS), p 148.

[11] Nietzsche, The Gay Science (GS), p 150.

Modest Ideas on Marx

“The direct relationship of labour to its produce is the relationship of the worker to the objects of his production and to production itself is only a consequences of this first relationship and confirms it” (73). I think based on this argument, Marx helps us to understand and alter the understanding of labour and our relationship with it. Unfortunately, the system shape our understanding about our relationship with all these act of labour and some notions that are related with estranged labour.

Generally we link our labour power with production, being useful, earning our bread and creating some products that are useful for others and so forth. All of these perspectives were synthetically produced by the system on purpose. We internalize these perspectives and miss the problem of the alienation. In this quote, it seems like Marx is trying to put the product to the secondary position and emphasize that our alienated labour’s main product is various alienation and our objectifications and disposable bodies and lives in this Capitalist Matrix.

“The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The workers become an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates” (Marx 1867: 71). We can link this statement with The Capital’s sections about slave labour, too. When I read all of these arguments, these make me check my family history and my personal experiences. My great grand parents and grandparents were exiled from Greek and Bulgaria before and some of them after the World War I. Except my mother and father, my 3 generations ancestors were all tobacco farmers who were working for another landowners. My grandmother was telling me that sometimes she was preparing dinner for my teenager aunts when they came back from work at a very late hours. She said that they were sitting around the food, but could not eat because of the tiredness of the hard and long hours work and sleep nearby the food on the floor. They did not have any insurance or retirement. My mother was the only small child who was sent to a boarding school in different city. When she was homesick and refused to continue to go to school away from home, my two aunts told her ok, tomorrow you will come to field with us to work. They forced my mother to do the same work that they had to do every day. I learned that this made my mother so tired and cry. This hard conditions, slave labor conditions forced her to change her mind and she continue her studies. But she could not go to university. On the other hand, thankfully my father was the only one who was able to go university after all those three generations of sacrifice. Sometimes, these family history make me think about my life conditions and as Marx argues in the cotton farmers section in Capital, their slave labor conditions affects my recent struggles to pay my school tuition, too. It is similar with some of the African American slaves’ recent generations’ economic struggles that they experiences today. The formal and informal slavery has similar effects on people. However, I do not ignore the differences, we might link the modern slave labour produces situation with Malcolm X’s home slaves because of the internalization of their conditions.

“...his own spontaneous activity as activity for another and as activity of another, vitality as a sacrifice of life, production of the object as loss of the object to an alien power, to an alien person, we shall now consider the relation to the worker, to labour and its object of this person who is alien to labour and the worker” (Marx 1867: 81) With this quote, we can link all the disposable body argument, workers alienation to another workers, too. Sometimes, I see the security workers of the Banks, or the people who carry NIUE's tuition money to the Bank by a special car. They make me think about their alienation of the product that they carry; money. They work with minimum wage and carry hundred thousands of dollars. They must need some special therapy for this type of extreme insulting. Several times, I came across with some security guards on the news who stole the money that they have to carry or protect. Generally, this makes me laugh and sad at the same time. I laugh because at least some of them feel the insult of their working conditions and the irony of their situation in the bank and did something about it. Even Though I do not prefer any steeling, compared to white collar’s systematic stealing, blue collar’s modest stealing from big corporations has a different place in my mind.

Idea Paper on Benjamin and Freud 10.12.2014

In the Critique of Violence, Benjamin has a lot of notions to enrich his argument that emphasize violence as a structural problem and the monopolization of the definition of it by the system and its law. The system, the positive law “can concern not its uses but only its evaluation” (237). So the positive law and the dominant power, the system produce and practice violence and become blind to consequences of it and its means, but only try to focus on the ends even partially by a pragmatist perspective. During this process to keep the power in the same hand stable by commanding the law keepers to produce violence. The system ignores the means of the violence and tries to rationalize and even moralize it with the benefits of ends. This “practical” process has been imposed to the public as a natural and necessary process by many ways including education and mass media. In the next several paragraphs, I will try to link this mentality with Freud’s some arguments about crisis, progress and the system’s tricks to label these differently to manipulate the bad side effects of the system.

Benjamin argues that “Since the acknowledge of legal violence is most tangibly evident in a deliberate submission to its ends, a hypothetical distinction between kinds of violence must be based on the presence or absence of a general historical acknowledgement of its ends” (238). He continued his argument by saying “the legal system tries to erect, in all areas where individual ends could be usefully pursued by violence, legal ends that can be realized only by legal power” (238). This is the monopolization of the violence and it is similar with Freud’s some arguments such as progress. The system label some conditions as progress and as far as the end of the practices, the cruel conditions of the workers, the veterans’ psych traumatic symptoms do not matter. The system can label them with some fancy names and exclude the responsibility from itself. If the economic benefits match with the definition of the progress, the reputation of the cruelty in the society does not matter. At the end, we can rationalize the meaning of this violent cycle and melt it in the label of progress. Two folded structure of the time; progress and repetition is very similar with two folded process of law: means and ends. For both of these, the dominant power use language to manipulate the means by using the end as a cover.

In the class, while we were discussing Freud and crisis, it made me think about midlife crisis. The notion itself is very problematic. The system creates a common notion label for individual crisis to rationalize the bed side effects of the “progress.” Normally, each “midlife crisis” has individual meanings and we all need to deal it uniquely. In addition, all of these crises also might have some common triggers because of our society’s structure and its repetitive failure. But by labeling these “symptoms” as expected, common crisis as a result of being at the middle age, we skip questioning the reasons behind it. This makes us ignore the responsibility of the system and only miss our ontological questions. The system converts some of the ontological problems to a simple, common, midlife crisis. I think we can link this with Benjamin’s Critique of Violence a lot, especially about riots. The system labels all kinds of civil riots as violent by the same mentality. The public internalize this label and do not question why these riots started, who was the first producer of the violence. For instance, about the death penalty, Benjamin also argues that its purpose is not to punish the infringement of law but to establish new law. For in the exercise of violence over life and death, more than in any other legal act, the law reaffirms itself” (242). This was very interesting to read. Why? Because, it made me think what type of function the death penalty does by law. What is the establishment of new law? I think one of them is renewing and reminding the system’s legitimation in the eyes of the public, the refreshing the perspective about the monopolization of the right to produce violence by law. In addition, this death penalty creates an image of moralistic identity for the government. If it punished the criminals, it cannot be a criminal, especially the factory of all types of violence. If the positive economic system has power to label the symptoms of the working environments side effects, cruelty, how can we assume that they produce them at all!


Meryem R. Tasbilek

Contemporary Philosophy

Interview 1

Meryem R. Tasbilek

Senior Seminar in SOC

09.15.2014 from 1-2:15 pm

1. What were the specific experiences in your life that drew you Sociology?

(I asked this and this type of questions with some personal background supports. Before I went to the interviews, I reread the instructors’ autobiographies from the department’s internet site. By this way, I personalize the questions with their educational history. For instance, for the first one, I learned that the professor studied Marketing as his undergraduate degree. I asked that what brought you to Sociology from Marketing. etc. By this way, the conversation is more comfortable and I feel like they are happy to recognize that I spent some efforts to learn some information about them before I meet with them.) *These answers were written as incomplete sentences. I summarize them from my notes. For the subject of this interview, I will use “A” when I need to mention his name.

The professor responded me this way: His father was a glassblower and his mother was working in a bakery. One of his brothers went to 2-year College. He did not think a lot about his bachelor major. One of his mentor friends was also studying a similar major. However, during the last semester of the university, he took one Early Childhood Development Class as a part of Honor program’s requirement. The female instructor of the class was very sensitive person who had also a lot of passion to be part of some social changes. She was trying to do some good projects for Native American tribes, too. On day, in the class, she said that she was raped. “A” was shocked and deeply affected by the information and the way she shared the experience. “A” was also impressed because of confidence of his instructor. He was getting emotional while he was sharing this part of his experience. He told me that in his family and close relatives such as aunts and including his father, there are many sexually and violently abused people. Their experiences influenced his life, too. For this common point, he went to his instructor’s office to mention that he was touched by what she said. His first reaction was masculine according to him. He wanted to save her somehow or at least decrease some part of her pain by saying some good stuff. He had a deep empathy because of his family members’ experiences. At that time, he wanted to do something about these kinds of things that have been happening in the society. This was the first trigger for him about Sociology. In addition, with his one of the cousin, he is the first generation who were able to go 4-year University.

(During our conversation, I link this question with the second one.)

2. When did you know “your place” in sociology? (Areas of study B.A./M.A./Ph.D.)

(In your biography, I read that you are very interested in Intersections of gender, power and violence. One of the main interests of you that captured my attention was Academic Masculinity. I guess we can say that this is a type of Epistemic Monopolization, too. How did you end up with these specific interests?)

The instructor A did not go to graduate school for Sociology directly. He said that first he worked for a company that was selling playground equipment. They were also working with public parks. While he was working with public services and in the office, his work environments seemed to him so racist and sexist. He was aware of these at some point, but it was worse and bolder than that he get used to it. He emphasized that he was practicing some of those discriminative actions, too, but even with this reality, the common atmosphere was too much for him. The division of labor was extremely gendered and the language was so racist. The workers were all white and they are talking about African Americans a lot with racist ways. It disturbed him a lot and leaded him to think about these kinds of issues more often. On day, one of his roommates told him that Sociology seems like a good for him. He opened a Sociology book and was very impressed about the topics such as racism, rape, gander and masculinity and so forth. He thought that this is very interesting. I can study all these things and this can be my professional job.

Moreover, after a while during our conversation he also shared some old job experiences as a waiter in a restaurant that I though it is better to place those information under this question. When he was at graduate school he worked as a waiter and other working partners, waiters were overwhelmingly sharing their sexual violence experiences. These affected him a lot about shaping his Sociology interests, too.

3. What was missing from your sociology education?

He said that it is a nice question and let me think about. While he was thinking, I said everything is incomplete and he said that that is true. He responded back by emphasizing that Sociology can be a good tool to create some radical change, but so far, there is nothing like this. The scholars publish some articles, but who is going to read these. The academia has a problem about linking themselves to public. Sociologists have paradox by reading critical ideas, but not taking actions. It is hard to create balance between activism and academia. We generally only publish articles. In addition, it is hard to do both in this Capitalist system.

At one point, we were talking about social progress and he said that having gays and ethnic diversity in the army is not a progress, because they are still bombarding civilians. For the victims of the war, it does not matter if the soldiers are multi-cultural, hetero, or homosexually diverse. I liked this statement a lot.

4. What drew you to teach at NEIU?

5. What keeps you continuing to teach at NEIU?

(I asked these two questions together to not bother the conversation by cutting it from the middle very quickly.)

He mentioned that the student profile is very effective for him to be here and continue here. First, because of his partner’s occupation who is a ballerina and artist they lived in New York first, but then they came here. Even though, this university has many problems, too he likes to be here.

I asked him, how did/does his economic class background, his family roots affects his experience in the academia?

He said that even though he has not have working class identity, he came from a working class family and with this, he has more flexible and free perspective about formal education and academia’s problematic rituals, rules, reactions, etc. He does not take all the privilege too seriously which generally makes people limited. Being a “professional” is a problematic thing, too.

During the conversation, I switched another question’s place and added to this dialog because it was useful to link based on the way we discuss. Based on the conversations, sometimes I asked these questions indirectly.

9. What do you think is missing from sociology? OR What about sociology misses the mark?

While we talk about the previous issues, at one point he mentions that Foucault says, “They do not call anything Disciplines without a reason.” I really liked this quotes. It enriches the dialog about the formal education conversation. The system link Sociologist to its organism by this systematic education and Science Disciplines. It disciplines us by several ways even if we resist and critique the system these were some points from our conversation. The interrelations with some majors are monopolized. We need more departments to work together. He also emphasizes the problem of gendered and racist Sociology canon when we talked about the masculinity in academia.

10. What has/hasn’t changed within the department since you’ve started teaching Sociology at NEIU? And would you have attended NEIU with its current administration and department/course offerings for your own education?

He said that being here helped me to shape myself and committed to justice. He took the question more personally than evaluate the university. Because of the way conversation goes, I sometimes altered the order of the questions. Because of this, we already talked about some changes and problems while he was talking about the advantages and disadvantages of tenure policy. I did not re-ask this question to correct him.

Somehow, we also talked about campus atmosphere and ROTC classes and his Anti-Militarist interest, which I was familiar from our class experiences with him. He emphasizes that some of the university embers says that we need to support veterans on campus, but I think we should not do this by opening this type of classes. How about not reminding them their militarist background at least on campus and not sending more young people to the army?! This is one of the best support option I guess. I agree with him.

7. Please name/define your approach/theoretical stance in Sociology. Conflict V. Functionalism?

Conflict.

We had a long conversation, but the most important part was about the dominant power’s reactions about/against Sociology or Humanity departments. The system constantly tries to eliminate these majors or at least decrease their power and economic opportunities; because they produce, critical thinking is which compel the system.

8. Name your sociological influences. (Sociologists, Philosophers, friends, family, aspects of society, personal motivations, movies---ANYTHING)

He gave several names and showed several books as examples from his library. We talked about them fairly. Such as White Racism’s author Joe Feagen, Particia Colums, J. Williams. A. Merry Romeo, Denise Danicidie (?). He gave one article name which was about Burgeoning with Patriarchic Society, which I could not catch very well, and need to search. R. W. Connell was very important for him, too. Many massive scholars were important models for him as he mentioned.

He mentioned that she is a Transsexual woman (Australian, elite). I said that I guess by this way, she can have richer observations from both genders to use them in her intellectual products. We laughed.

10. Do you think Sociology could benefit from an interdisciplinary approach? How could Sociology influence other disciplines? What could Sociology gain from other disciplines? Which disciplines would be most beneficial? Is there a discipline you feel might be anti-Sociology?

He said that there are interdisciplinary studies, but it is weird that Women Studies are from one point excluded form Sociology. It is mostly included in Human Studies. When he was working for the Sociology text book, he was surprised that most of the female researchers were hidden in the Human Studies archives. Generally female researchers have hard time to break some rigid labels about them and this creates hard time to have label as Sociologist. Mostly they have labeled as Political Activist or Feminist and so forth.

11. Have you ever experienced discrimination (glass ceiling, ivory tower, etc.) in your career? If so, would you mind talking about it? Has this experience changed your Sociology career focus or strengthened your original focus?

He responded this question unexpectedly. He said that because he is interested in masculinity in academia and he focuses on many abounded issues by males, he receive some privileged especially from female Sociologist and some part of general Sociology academia members. So he feels lucky about it rather than experiencing some specific type of discriminations. However, sometimes these interests cause some isolations from male scholars, too as he mentioned during the interview. Overall, he emphasizes his situation in academia as positive, prompt and advantaged.

13. Do you think tenure allows professors to be freer in their work or does it promote restriction? How has that freedom/restriction manifested itself for you? How do you feel about this?

This was my favorite question to ask. When I asked this question, I mentioned that maybe I am mistaken, but I link this tenure policy with Marx’ alienated labor argument and its sub-results. I also asked his opinion about this possible relationship. Because sometimes it seemed to me that it is a kind of pacifier tool and a kind of hush money. When the professors are oppressed for several years about their job security and their places in the academia by not having the advantages of being tenure or tenure track position, after waiting all of these years without emphasizing their ideas not totally freely, this must change their reactions, bravery and personality, too.

He said that it is true from one point same as the conditions and functions of the unions. The unions normally need to be the negotiators between the working class and Capitalists, but mostly they are not working completely this way. Unfortunately, they reproduce the system, too. Getting a professionalized is a problem, too for academicians. The problems start from education process. 15 years we spend some time to be professionalized in a major with a graduate training and its side effects are hard to be break down when we have more power to emphasize our ideas. On the other hand, it is better than nothing is. They can use it for some good purposes.