[p2p-research] taking the standpoint of the body ... some questions

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear Andy and others,



I’m reading Commonwealth from Negri and Hardt,



In the first chapter, they discuss the turn to the standpoint of bodies. I
have a hard time understanding what this means. What I understand is that a
central category of Marxism was ‘consciousness’, so a shift to the body
makes some sense. N/H also relate it to the shift to the point of view of
the struggles (Tronti), subaltern studies, and castoriadis.

Some context. Part of my generation in the seventies and eighties, who felt
divorced from our bodies and others, undertook an intensive path of going
back to the body, a ‘regression in service of the ego’ if you like, but the
aim was re-integration in the body-mind, or better yet, body-mind-spirit. So
the turn to the body, the emotional and instinctual body, to the relatedness
in group dynamics, was, at least in the best efforts, geared towards
re-integration in a higher unity. (I’m by no means claiming that all these
efforts were successful, and indeed a lot of regressive efforts in that
sense led to spiritual authoritarianism, aided by the suspension of critical
cognitive functions)

In this context, a language of a return to the body seems regressive, an
indication that only half the effort has been done.

But of course, this interpretation which comes from juxtaposing two
different cultural contexts may make no sense.

However, to relate a personal experience, in the recent greek meeting around
Mignet, which some of you may know went very badly, all the talk was about
the ‘body’, yet, I have never seen people so divorced from their own bodies
and stuck in cognicentrism as in these kind of social milieus.

So, I’m puzzled, what is this turn to the standpoint of the body, what does
it mean politically, or is it just an ideological compensation from isolated
and cognicentric academics?

To what degree are these just compensatory language games, to what degree is
this a serious turn with practical consequences?

Any impact on a peer to peer understanding of our world.

Michel


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