Thoughts on Suspicious Reading

There is one part of a David Graeber interview (in The White Review) my mind often circles back to. Asked how deliberation in anarchist circles works, he responds:

“One difference between the kind of anarchist groups I like and the classic Marxist group, for instance, is that we don't start by defining reality – our points of unity are not our analyses of the situation, but rather what we want to do, the action we want to take, and how we go about it. Plus you have to give one another the benefit of the doubt. One of the principles of the consensus process is that you can't challenge anyone on their motives; you have to assume that everyone is being honest and has good intentions. Not because you necessarily think it's true, but as an extension of what might be considered the fundamental anarchist insight: if you treat people like children they will tend to act like children. If you treat them like adults, there's at least some chance they will act responsibly. Ironically, I found this habit of generosity, this giving people the benefit of the doubt, was the exact opposite of the way I was taught to argue as a scholar.” (Graeber, 2011) [emphasis mine]

This was something of a revelation to me when I first read it. Characteristic not just of Graeber, but of much anarchist rhetoric in general, the principle is lucidly and directly laid out without the need for any qualifying jargon or theory; “you have to assume that everyone is being honest and has good intentions”. Imagine what a different place Twitter (for instance) would be if this were a fundamental principle of online discourse. It illustrates much of what is wrong with current discourse, the automatic assumption that the Other is coming from a place of bad faith.

Indeed, as he goes on to say, such a good faith discourse is the “exact opposite” of how scholars are currently trained to argue. The experience was also mine to an extent - with a seemingly unlimited armoury of Marxist and Post-Structuralist theory, my job as a scholar was to tear off the superficial mask of any given classic literary text and reveal the toxic, bourgeois ideology beneath. This was framed as the “disinterested” and scientific basis of criticism which separates you – the enlightened scholar – from them – the naïve and passive ordinary readers.

Not to give the impression that I don't find this mode of reading necessary and useful however – it remains necessary for understanding what literature is and how it functions. But this mode of reading, otherwise termed the “hermeneutic of suspicion”, its "masters" being Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, has been overwhelmingly the predominant method for analysing literary texts at university. This is not to say that there aren't other methods available, but I think there is a delay between these new methods becoming available and their widespread adoption. Consequently, such suspicious reading remains highly prevalent online and, when articulated through the commodifying mechanisms of social media, it risks total debasement.

The suspicious mode of reading one learns at university can, as such, be applied to any social media post and, given the exponential pile-on effects of such a platform, where echo-chambers collide and character limits preclude any semblance of nuance, anything other than “bad faith” and suspicious argument becomes impossible. Again, I would clarify here that the problem is not the mode of interpretation or the people conducting it – it is an in-built feature of the platform. In comparison, Graeber's “good faith” argumentation occurs within a vastly different platform - much smaller anarchist circles, where consensus is actually possible. Switching to a platform like Reddit, or a private group on Facebook, “good faith” discourse is actually much, much more common.

For all the incisive, hilarious takes I see on Twitter, I think that the combination of its spectacle-oriented mechanics with a parasitic media can have truly damaging effects on public discourse. As helpful as such deliciously-worded tweets can be for cutting through to reveal some prevailing injustice, they cannot foster a true dialogue. Twitter doesn't require the disinterest of the scholar, so such incisive takes often end up causing emotional upset which, in turn, causes a feedback loop of inflamed, bad faith argumentation with no foreseeable resolution.

The problem I do find with the hermeneutic of suspicion, however, to put it bluntly, is that in cultural studies it can over-read a text to the point of total paranoia. The “enlightened” critic is always in a potentially dominatory position here, under the impression that they possess the kernel of gnosis to which all things must be measured. But, even if the critic does touch upon some underlying truth, we must ask if such a textual Other can be reduced to so singular an interpretation.

I think a basic example of this can be found in Marx's critique of religion in the introduction to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right:

"Religion is, in fact, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet gained himself or has lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state, society. This state, the society, produce religion, which is an inverted world-consciousness, because they are an inverted world [...] It is the fantastic realization of the human being because the human being has attained no true reality. Thus, the struggle against religion is indirectly the struggle against that world of which religion is the spiritual aroma. 

The wretchedness of religion is at once an expression of and a protest against real wretchedness. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. 

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is a demand for their true happiness. The call to abandon illusions about their condition is the call to abandon a condition which requires illusions. Thus, the critique of religion is the critique in embryo of the vale of tears of which religion is the halo..."

Here, perhaps, we can see some opposition to Graeber's contention that, “if you treat people like children they will tend to act like children,” whereas “If you treat them like adults, there's at least some chance they will act responsibly”. For Marx, religion possesses some truth in a negative form, but it is still something of a naïve illusion of “false consciousness” from which people must, essentially, mature from. I find there to be some truth to this assessment, but to reduce matters of spirituality in this way can be damaging when applied wholesale in an apparently "scientific" manner.

I think I'm at risk of building quite a straw-man here, but I want to emphasise not the method of reading itself but its practical application. For this reason it is the institution, as the site where the idea (in this case: the hermeneutic of suspicion) is normativised and increasingly commodified through the marketised demands of academia, which is most at fault – not the idea. So, in the example cited above it is not Marx so much as the uncritical acceptance of this passage of Marx, which can almost attain the weight of law when transmitted through the hierarchical structure of the university and the heavily regulated spaces of public discourse.

Above, I mentioned the current distinction between the disinterested critical scholar and the sentimental ordinary reader. This binary only holds true to a certain extent. The scholar can bring certain, privileged knowledges to their reading and something of a scientific methodology for engaging with the text on a more structural level. But it is impossible to perform a reading of a text without sentiment and interest. This sentiment can be reflected upon and deconstructed through close reading, but to even comprehend a literary text one must be emotionally engaged. I think Herbert Read articulates the point well in Reason and Romanticism (1926):

"The danger is, that the critical faculty, elaborating its laws too far from its immediate object, may construct categories or ideals which are in the nature of impassive moulds. The critic then returns to the plastic substance of art and in a moment, in the name of science, he has presented us with a rigid shape which he would persuade us is the living reality. But obviously it is dead; it no longer pulses with that life and variability which we ascribe to emotional facts.

To guard against this false method, the critic has to maintain an attitude which we must describe in another metaphor. He is a man who has carefully elaborated a few dogmas, in the sure belief that without such fixed points no course can be steered, no height measured, and no distances maintained. But having fixed his points, he does not stand still; he is impelled in some direction, and the force that drives him is feeling or emotion. That is the final test of criticism: that its methods are perfected in science, but that the motives are spontaneous, impulsive - aspects of courage, constancy, and devotion. The real act is instantaneous, and the course of history is directed not so much by foresight as by insight." (Read, 1926: 27-28)

This post might seem quite scattershot, but I am attempting to trace the contours of an idea which I want to continue to develop. I started with a quote from David Graeber, and it's to his ethical position I am trying to comport myself. I mentioned above that I thought the problem was an institutional one, this is something I shall return to. But, for now, I'll try and state my basic thoughts on the matter. There are at least as many different ways of reading a text as there are different readers. This isn't to then say that all readings are, effectively, meaningless, but that your socio-historical position determines your approach to the text and, atop this, there is an emotional/creative aspect which further informs that reading. One could say that this creative aspect is also materially determined (emotions have material origins), but I believe that it is counter-productive to believe that one can ever fully comprehend this material determination.

Persons require a space of their own (a personal space, if you will) in which to develop autonomy and recognise how to live meaningfully. I believe this to be something which goes beyond any sort of institutional framework, and I think it should become an adopted common-sense. I also think that this logic can be attributed to literary texts. I referred to the literary text above as the “textual Other”. This sense of “Other” I take from Emmanuel Levinas, that the Other is infinitely unknowable, and that this should inform our ethical conduct towards the Other. Considered alongside Graeber's “good faith” discussion, I think that alongside any suspicious reading of a text – readings which attempt to discover the extent of a repressive normativity or ideological markers – there should also be “good faith” readings which demonstrate how the text actively creates spaces of autonomy. Neither one of these readings would be privileged overall, but certain readings can be emphasised within the overall discourse depending on the context of that discourse. This would be a pragmatic approach which responds and contributes to the real time unfolding of discourses and avoids the institutional congealment of singular modes of reading. This would foster a dialogue (instead of a dialectic), which I believe to provide the surest access to attaining truth. 

Such an “anarchist hermeneutics” has already been discussed, and in future posts I would like to engage with the different thinkers on this issue. So far, these include Jesse Cohn's Anarchism and the Crisis of Representation, James Gifford's overarching “meta-critical” project in Personal Modernisms and A Modernist Fantasy, Roger Rothman's article 'Anarchism and the Hermeneutics of Faith', Jerry Zaslove's 'A Report to an Academy: Some Untimely Meditations Out of Season', the various critical works of Herbert Read, and Paul Goodman's essays in Creator Spirit Come!