Creating A Whole World - Two Karl's And Yesterday's Election

Perhaps the greatest bon mot of Karl Marx (not one given to the soundbite) is the last line of his Theses on Feuerbach. He wrote, "Until now, philosophers have sought to understand the world. The point is to change it." In changing the world, Marx saw the proletariat not only in a political struggle for freedom, but in a far broader struggle, with metaphysical implications - with the coming Revolution, the oppressed classes would create their own reality. Because Marx understood that reality was nothing more than an imposition, a "set", as it were, imposed by the class that controlled the means of production in order to maintain its power, the socialist revolution would turn the tables, and for the first time the powerless would dictate the terms by which we understand reality.

Reading Scott McLemee's review of the first scholarly survey of the Bush Administration, he reminds us of Karl Rove's infamous quote, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” Rove was roundly criticized by many on the left for this comment. Not just its arrogance, but for what many perceived to be a certain delusional quality; after all, isn't reality something that just happens?

In a comment, one reader gives the full context of Rove's statement:

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

Further down, the commenter glosses:

Was Karl Rove denying the ultimate priority of external nature? I tend to doubt it. I find his comments frightening not because they articulate an incoherent philosophy (if they did, they would merely be laughable) but because they are a reminder of the degree to which the goal of changing the world has been expropriated by the apostles of imperial expansion.

My problem with this gloss is simple - Rove was merely being forthright about certain fundamentals. While I might question the qualifier "now", the fact is the United States is an Empire. Those in power are engaged in creating new realities by their actions.

Part of the reason liberals and those further to the left in America have fared so badly is their refusal to acknowledge this. Many on the left side of the political internet have for years called themselves "the reality-based community". The point, it seems, is there might be some thing called "reality" that is independent of the intellectual tools we use - tools granted us by the ruling class, never forget (that's why John Stuart Mill disliked public education) - for understanding that reality. There is a certain limited utility in spending one's time pointing out, say, the fundamental factual error in the claim that President Obama is a socialist. Quite simply put, there is an entire structure of understanding the world that defines him as such. It is impervious to facts not because those who believe this claim are stupid. It is impervious to facts not because of some phenomenon known as "epistemic closure". It is impervious to facts because facts are disputed territory.

Re-reading Hannah Arendt's essay, "Lying in Politics", for a post on the Wikileaks contretemps, I was reminded of an important point we forget far too easily. Lying as a political strategy works because, for all that facts would seem to be self-verifying, really they are fragile as onion skin. Being contingent rather than necessary, even the least plausible claim merits a certain amount of attention for one simple reason - it might just be the case. Competing narratives, even those between liars and those who hew to the facts, have the disturbing virtue of a competition between potential equals.

Of course, there is a diminishing utility to this game, as Arendt also pointed out. At some point, those who accept as factual or "real" what is not the case, in the end, get mugged by the real state of affairs. All the same, the tactical advantage in the short run tilts toward the liar if for no other reason than the liar has the ability to be almost endlessly creative, while those in opposition continue to spin their epistemic and narrative wheels, stuck in a rut as much of their own creation as that of the opposition.

In light of yesterday's election and its mostly unsurprising results - there is a certain self-fulfilling prophecy in being told by corporate media that a party is going to lose en election and that coming to pass - it seems that, with the backing of tens of millions of dollars from corporations, we are witnessing the creation of a reality once again. Does it bear any resemblance to any actual facts of the matter? We shall see, I guess. At the very least, it seems that we still have far to go in coming to grips with the fundamental notion, embedded in Marx's little quip, that we need to be about changing the world. Understanding comes after.