Forget Kondylis

A critique of “Power and Decision” by Panagiotis Kondylis

"That is the "ultimate reality", as value-free descriptive decisionism apprehends it. Almost all people would without doubt not like to live in "such a world" - although they in fact do live in "such a world". The aversion to such a world must indeed be very lively and sincere, otherwise humans would not have made up any ethics and any metaphysics in order to embellish their world and to make it habitable - and over and above that, in order to reconcile themselves to some extent with death, which is not actually a future occurrence, but a part of everyday life and does not merely consist in biological demise, but also in the pitiless finiteness and relativity of all human undertakings." -Kondylis, Power and Decision

Kondylis is a writer who “ought” to be forgotten. He is not, as some contemporaries seem to think, a thinker who has been unjustly dealt with in the intellectual sphere. Or a thinker who deserves a “Renaissance”. He is a writer who has gracefully received what he desired: to be forgotten in silence. Those who preach his thought to signify affiliation have already committed the sin of rhetoric - of wishing to demonstrate psychological superiority over the ideological universe of the political discourse, deemed a “false militant decisionism” by their same mentor:

”Even the public announcement of value-free decisionistic theory constitutes an inconsistency, which is due to literary vanity or to the pleasure one tastes in provoking others.” -Power and Decision

This is said not as a proof of the uselessness of his thought but the opposite. It is simply the conclusion he himself prescribes to Reason, which we must do justice if we are ever to speak about his work. Indeed, Kondylis’ qualification of his own philosophy is as a “parasitic existence” upon the human world, let alone a cogent discourse (Power and Decision).

Kondylis places himself alongside a long line of Western thinkers in the school of “nihilistic materialism.” Emerging out of the post-Kantian break, he follows Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Carl Schmitt and rejects what he sees as the “normative” school of the positivists, the Soviets, and the Western Marxists.

However, what procures Kondylis with the ability to disappear—as opposed to Nietzsche or Schopenhauer, i.e. thinkers who also preach relatively “value-free” world pictures but fascinate liberal institutions today—is his defection from every school of thought he enters into. When Kondylis is a Nietzschean, he critiques Nietzsche as a preacher of a new normativity that does not derive from any existing Is. When Kondylis defects to Marxism, he says of Marxists that they themselves preach false consciousness.

Put simply, Kondylis’ fundamental project is to take both the critique of ideology from Marxism and the critique of normativism from the Right to formulate what he calls a “value-free decisionism” (to free Marxism from Hegelianism, perhaps?). “Value-free decisionism” posits that all human actions and formations, whether societal or individual, are based upon relative and partial “decisions”. These decisions then place the individual in a specific circuit of self-preservation alongside friends and against enemies. This is also why he is a staunch critic of false decisionism of the “mass-democratic”. For Kondylis, mass democracy only hides a normative judgement behind a decisionist veil of “choice” - this being that abstract “freedom” is good.

World-Pictures, Decisions and Power Claims

Let us then name the main questions of his oeuvre before undertaking our criticism:

-How could “objective” worldviews have been so often and so zealously put in the service of aggression and mutual annihilation?
-How can description be freed from norms?
-What are Competing World-Pictures, and how do they relate to the concept of The Pre-World?
-What role does self-preservation play in shaping human behavior and ideologies?-How does the Friend and Enemy distinction influence political and social dynamics?
-In what ways can scientific theories function as "oughts" rather than neutral "is" statements?

The question that launches Kondylis’ investigation is how various world-pictures arise from different historical decisions. He posits that since world-pictures are multiple and competing, there is not a single one which can be raised as the “true” one. Every single time a world-picture is posited as the true one, it is swiftly overthrown by the next one. Hence, there are an infinite multiplicity of world-pictures (up until humanity’s anthropological end), none of which are absolutely “true”. His most recurring defense is simply the “historical data” of human experience.

There are multiple issues arising from this perspective.

First, how is it that a certain unified world-picture persists for a given historical time? Does it not designate that this specific world-picture has acquired the mercy of “objective reality” enough to persist, i.e. that it contained one of the reflections of Truth? As opposed to other nihilist materialists, Kondylis does not propose a theory of matter. He is too skeptical for that. Instead, he goes for the general human anthropological concept of “self-preservation”. Depending on certain biopsychic factors, the Subject builds a world-picture which allows him to fight off the “foe” (a possible threat to his self-preservation and subsequent identity). An example would be early humans taking caves as their refuges and lions as their foes, along with all the mythology to justify such acts. Hence, this would justify their world-picture relative to their contingent historical conditions.

However, these historical conditions are not simple one-sided reflections of the Subject. They are a demand from the very Object too. Not only is the Subject “self-preserving” (through his Ought) but the Object itself is “self-preserving” and persisting. Hence, the Ought is inscribed within the very Object which develops necessarily and according to laws. When the Subject reflects on the Object, one of the inscribed Oughts manifests - depending on context. If Ought and Is were distinct, no unified world-picture would even be possible - not even as a Subjective delusion. The Subject is, per his nature, not self-sufficient. He can not create a contingent reality as he will. Hence, the only option to further defend Kondylis’ point is to say the Object is always changing (or has many faces) and that the Subject always misapprehends it in totality. This is why he arrives at untrue Oughts. Indeed, if there was a single Ought out of the Object, then this Ought would be objective and absolutely true. We are now at the classic Kantian dilemma of the thing-in-itself. Let us continue with its presupposition.

What then would be the difference between two or more world-pictures? One could say one would have more or less a larger sample of the Object and hence a potentially different Ought (different historical conditions, climate, ethnicity, geography, etc). But then that would only show that the Ought is indeed universal, only with differing determinations. All of those determinations would still constitute one world-picture since each Ought would be true in its specific relation. This is seen if we analyze the situation in the form of conditional statements for a historical condition. “If” this and this condition is true, then this absolutely “Ought” to be - in the sense that this specific “Ought” will necessarily arise with these specific “Is” conditions.

To resume: Under specific circumstances (biopsychic, biological, social), a certain Ought arises out of this Is to define a specific historical world-picture. This world-picture necessarily excludes information opposite to this Ought to preserve its identity. This other competing world-picture forms its foe and its elements arise from alien Object information, “outside” the existing world-picture and hence radically heterogeneous to it. Hence, we must say that every world-picture is necessarily incomplete.

However, this whole view presented by Kondylis assumes an unfounded fundamental theory of Object information. It must be said that Object information outside of the current world-picture necessarily deletes the current Object information. But is this really the case? Does new information delete previous information? Not necessarily. What is deleted through historical development are false extensions of such information - but the information and the Ought arising out of it persist.

Let us make an example. Let us take two societies. One society preaches that Theft is an absolute moral wrong. The other society, a nomadic one, preaches that (some) Theft is a necessity for survival. Let us even assume that the nomadic society wins over the moral society. Do these two world-pictures cancel each other? Well, here’s the surprising reality for Kondylis; not only do they not cancel each other, but they mutually prove each other. Under the specific conditions of the moral society, Theft was a moral wrong as a way to preserve a certain given Is, i.e. societal organization and civilization. As for the nomadic society, the same reason is given; Theft was a moral right to preserve a certain structure of the Is. Hence, for each Is an Ought arises respectively. None of the two positions is “wrong”. In fact, they are perfectly reconcilable. Historically, the merging of the nomads and the sedentary created the land empires of Asia - which subsumed both moral paradigms against Theft and for “Theft”. Here, we observe clearly that previous Object information can not be destroyed or erased, but only transformed. A fundamental principle of information conservation. Both Oughts were preserved, even though their opposition and annihilation - which Kondylis cites as proof of his theory.

Second, how is it that a world-picture overthrows another if they are supposed to be radically heterogeneous? It is like asking for air to overthrow water. For any interaction to occur - even war - a certain identity and homogeneity between the parties is necessary. What happens through historical development is not that certain people come up with certain moral realities and then are defeated by new more expansive theories. What happens is that they are only defeated when another moral theory proposes that it is even more moral, on the terms of the previous moral theory, than this current moral theory itself. Hence, to win over an enemy can only be to replace him on his own grounds. To replace him on his own ground means that his own Ought is also preserved. It is only subsumed. It is not that the Good “will be realized” in the future as Kondylis rightly critiques, but that the Good is always already realized in the world. Every world-picture is reconciling itself and confirming itself with its own premises in its oppositions.

To resume our criticism when it concerns the concepts of world-pictures, decisions and power claims, here is our condensed view. The Subject (in the general sense, including individual, group, collective, civilization) makes a world-historical decision. This decision is inscribed within the very Is of his condition and gives rise to his Ought. His Ought is fully complete and perfect. It is not partial since it includes everything he is. The void of his world-picture is also part of his world-picture. His enemy does not deny his Ought, but confirms it. In fact, he creates his own enemy out of his own decision (Kondylis does accept this, but he doesn’t take it far enough; that both the Subject and his Enemy are right since they operate under different faces of the same paradigm, as the example we gave for sedentary/nomad societies). The defeat of the Subject only happens when he himself is not honorable to his own Ought. Thus, Kondylis’ worldview turns into its direct opposite. Instead of both sides being relative and wrong, both sides are absolutely right. This is the real tragedy of human existence. That it is forced to combat those who are right to stumble upon truth.

Finally, let us address the question of evil - which hovers around Kondylis’ work. Kondylis could reproach that the absolute confirmation of an Ought is not a possibility because of the existence of radical evil - an evil which does not even try to interact with reality (as different empires would) but tries to erase all reality. This is the peak of his worldview and what he secretly seems to want to achieve; death. He says that for him, necessarily, authentic thought leads to not participating in life. In its militant (decisionist) form, it says: Ought not to Ought. This position is easily defeated by the infinite regress of its premise and its material end in the juridical system of civilization. The criminal is not breaking the laws of the Ought society, he is asking for a very specific Ought. In fact, the criminal creates his own Ought - the Ought of his destruction by society. But in the version Kondylis preaches, a non-militant decisionism - what evil is there? Since the non-militant decisionist operates outside of life (and hence is actively dying), he is the same as the non-objective. His rejection of the Ought led him to reject the Is.

Under non-militant decisionism, which accepts the relativity of all world-pictures, the Is itself disappears. Now, there are only relative world-pictures. Hence, the Is of any reality can not be affirmed - only the interplay of their appearances. But then again, the Ought collapses into the Is. The appearances and Ought-structures themselves become different Is structures, as atoms colliding with each other, since there is no Is to contrast them with. Non-militant decisionism only leads to its direct opposite; the affirmation of the absolute truth of each atomic world-picture, only that each takes a different “space” in the constellation and that this space shifts and moves. Are we to say of Hydrogen that it is truer than Oxygen? Non-sensical…

The Issue with Description

Kondylis wishes to make philosophy into a surgical operation. To operate objectively and outside the body of the human constellation. But what if this is the very status of non-objectivity instead? What if non-partisanship leads to a tautology which does not develop any new “objective information” or reality? Or put in other words, what if reality is itself partisan? This is what Kondylis tries to refute.

Description without norms is silence. Kondylis knows this. But what he does not say is that this renders “value-free decisionism” as a mere cookbook of existing recipes. In other words, it can not be science, since it has no tools for progressing knowledge, i.e. constructing world-pictures, but only the vapid presentation of the different already existing world-pictures and their facets. Kondylis makes this clear in his other work “Science, Power and Decision”. Kondylis accepts the classical Marxist critique that science is necessarily ideological and is making power claims. What can the description do? It can say only this: that a thing is not a description. A yes or no question is the only thing the “value-free decisionism” can answer. “Critique” is not possible under this paradigm. Knowledge, or the more sophisticated word Wissenschaft (System-Of-Knowledge) as the Germans call it, isn’t created. Kondylis confirms this:

"The - in any case impossible - renunciation of the "dogmatic" power claim would lead to the drying up of the psychological sources of action and therefore to theoretical sterility" -Science, Power and Decision

Let us give an example to critique this perspective. Let us take two different scientists. One “decisionist” and the other “partisan” or “ideological”. Which would discover more about the objective world and why? Well, since the decisionist is only describing the actions of his brothers, he arrives at no new conclusion. He says that the atom could be spherical, wave-like, light-like, etc. He describes how each of these positions arises from a given thought structure and power-claim. He showcases all this. But his comrades complain; we already know this! Then, take the “ideological” scientist. He is convinced that there is a spherical aspect to the atom. He investigates and tries to prove this specific theory. He formulates experiments around this theory. Then, he discovers a certain oddity based on these very experiments. Certain atoms are at a given time sphere-like and others are at a certain point wave-like. With this theory, practical technology is built (lasers, etc). His Ought reflection is crystallised within the Is. Do we not say that reality itself is partisan in this case? That it was only “waiting” for a specific formulation to manifest a certain power, or Object information, which wasn’t disclosed previously? The Ought scientist discloses a specific Ought formation within the very object - a reciprocality between the Subject and the Object.

The issue is not when the scientist Oughts but when he extends this duty to a metaphysical idol; meaning that he has to prove a certain theory no matter what. There is a fine line between science and dogma since both are fueled by similar fires. But when the scientific Ought reaches practical Is, it is consolidated and any further science will have to deal with its findings - even when refuting it. Its theory will be subsumed (e.g. Geocentrism → Heliocentrism → Relativity → Both Geocentrism and Heliocentrism are true). What science proves over time is not that paradigms are destroyed, but that every (true) paradigm is correct. Truth is not neutrality, but the fact that both sides of the opposition are correct.

Kondylis’ worldview is tainted by the presupposition that non-normative means objective. But there is objective normativity too. The Object extends itself through the Subject to justify itself. Without the Subject’s Ought, there is no Is. Without the Ought, there is no rational organization of matter - no Is. The sun and the stars are only reflections of the future state of the organization of humanity. The sublime power of the state and its consequences concentrates base matter to make the universe possible:

''Because only the de-cision, understood as segregation and as power claim, is able to explain the coming about of so many idiosyncratic worlds. No normativistic position, no - in good times open and in bad times concealed - homage to One Reason and to One Truth can do the same.'' -Power and Decision

The reason for the many idiosyncratic worlds is not the relativity of truth. Since the very conjugant of the many involves a fundamental unification. The reason is that Truth itself is divided into itself. There isn’t Truth on one “physical side” and falsehood on another “physical side”. There is one Truth which is self-divided into poles. “Falsehood” only arises when there is an abstraction from this self-division of Truth. Or else, we couldn’t even say that there are “multiple worlds”. In this way, Truth is within-itself segregated.

Why Kondylis?

To conclude our critique, let us take a meta-perspective. Why is Kondylis to be read? Simply, he is to be read as an exploration of the necessity of the void of critical reason, the “unhappy” consciousness as Hegel calls it. Kondylis represents the void between the political divides. He turns Left into Right and Right into Left. This in itself is laudable. For the Left, he empties it of its false moralism. For the Right, he empties it of its inaptitude faced with the world.

However, authentic left-wingers and authentic right-wingers wouldn’t fall into Kondylis’ tricks. For the authentic left-winger knows he prescribes no new morality to the world, but names an existing developing morality. As for the authentic right-winger, he knows his consciousness is not to transform the world-picture but to embellish it from within.

Then, what is left of Kondylis? Let us let the man speak for himself:

"[Value-Free Decisionism] does not have any kind of advice to give and it cannot help any subject with regard to the vitally necessary rationalization of its own power claims" -Power and Decision

In conclusion, just forget Kondylis.