Introduction.
In this text I will attempt a move beyond nihilism. I will, through a genealogical comparison of the gulag and the asylum, provide a basis for the rejection of punishment in the name of "structural nihilism". "Structural nihilism" will be defined by my genealogy, as the doctrine of punishment in the name of ideology. Camus extends the definition of nihilism to a belief in empty ideologies, such as Fascism and Stalinism, I follow in this. The text concentrates on rationalistic ideologies but this is not exclusive. I believe `In The Cathedral', in Kafka's `The Trial', shows the possible continuity of this genealogy of punishment in the name of irrational justice: `The narrative contains two important statements from the door-keeper about admission into the law, one at the beginning, one at the end. The first is that he "cannot grant him entry now" and the other "this entrance was meant only for you".' (TR.168) As well as this look at `The Trial', I have, prompted by Camus, examined Raskolnikov and Barazov, as literal incarnations of breeds of historical Russian nihilists. I concede that, although I have not always explitly made reference to the passages that have prompted me to do so, in my "investigation" I am following a course in many ways set by the Lukacs of `Theory of the Novel' and the Camus of `The Rebel'. There is also a, revised, Nietzschean slant here. This is a stance which rejects teleology (on my interpretation) rather than one that expresses any clear position on the Greek world (which all these thinkers admire). I take this stance to imply a rejection of excessive rationalism.
Through the genealogy I will try to define discourse in broadly Derridean terms, as related by Martin, and use the constructive ideas following from it. I wish to avoid the "relegation of the subject", which I find in Martin, because of a "romantic" agenda (to be found in Lukacs and Camus) which treats the subject as a centre of meaning. This is a logical necessity - nihilism is essentially the belief in nothing and meaning is its opposite. This conception of the subject will be linked to a concept of discourse.
Due to the constraint of space, and my own reading habits, I regret that I have not given sufficient space to the issue of gender. However, I have not ascribed gender to "the inmate" and have tried to deal with positionality and the heroine (in Dostoyevsky's work).
In this text I have used reasoned arguments to present my case but regret that I have not had the space or time to pursue Derrida's question as to the status of Foucault's critique of reason. This text occurs within the discourse of philosophy and its rationalism is a recognition of this. The text is Nomadic, it travels via the route of philosophical argument to the irrational domain of subjects and meaning. Derrida, in `Spurs' recognises that the history of truth is appropriation and that style must be plural. Is genealogy an appropriation of the philosophical style? When I turn my attention to the role of discourse, discourse will be shown to exist not merely as a function of language but also of power, i.e., I am presenting a philosophical argument, thus the styles of this work.
Ideology as Nihilism.
`Ideology-that is what gives evildoing its long sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honours. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilisation; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations. Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions.' (GA.174)
Orwell shares this conception of the role of ideology, expressing it paradoxically through O'Brien he writes, `"We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal."' (1984.227)
The ideology of contemporary society is founded on two schools of thought: rationalism and empiricism. Bertrand Russell has shown that empiricism cannot prove itself by an appeal to experience alone. The Cartesian circle shows the paradox which results when reason attempts to justify itself. It is my belief that reason does not exist "above" the sum of the ideology which represents, or appropriates, it - as Camus writes: `Truth, reason, and justice were abruptly incarnated in the progress of the world. But by committing them to perpetual acceleration, German ideology confused their existence with their impulse and fixed the conclusion of this existence at the final stage of the historical future' (REB.134). Reason itself then has all the hallmarks of an oppressive ideology - it justifies its own means - encrypted within its ideology is a principle that disorder and irrationality are to be punished (cured).
*
A Genealogical Analysis of The Asylum, The Gulag and The Role of Reason as an Ideology.
In this section I intend to compare Pinel and Tuke's concepts of "the cure" with literary representations of repression and the Communist gulags in order to view the terrain of "structural nihilism" and prepare for subsequent analyses. The representations of Pinel and Tuke are taken from Foucault's `The Birth of The Asylum'. This section also aims to show that the death of the ego, as a cure or as an actual death, is what is sought by regimes of structural nihilism.
We learn that the Soviet prosecutor Krylenko forces the "wreckers", at their trial, to concede they are "illiterate" or "barely conversant" with politics (GA.390). In the same way the "accused" of the mental health system are confronted with the idea they are irrational and thus unable to converse fluently. I will examine the status of discourse in Section three. Communism is now discredited, as are the institutions of Pinel and Tuke, what status will contemporary institutions laying claim to reason have in a thousand years?
Pinel and Tuke chose patients for their asylums on the basis of slightly different criterion but, regardless, `The Great Confinement' mirrors the gulags: `The buyers had to be sharp, have good eyes, and look carefully to see what they were taking on so that last-leggers and invalids didn't get shoved off on them.' (GA.562) Further, Foucault quotes Pinel, `The benefits of the renovated asylum were offered to all, or almost all, except the fanatics "who believe themselves inspired and seek to make converts."' (FR.146) Solzhenitsyn writes, `On the pretext that their spokesmen would be more comfortable in the "staff" car with the stores and equipment, they were deprived of their leaders. The "staff" car was detached at Vyatka, and the spokesmen were taken to the Tobolsk Isolator.' (GA.465). The world view of structural nihilism cannot tolerate any ideological opposition.
Krylenko has chosen a `chorus of eight' (GA.395) from thousands, how selective were Pinel and Tuke in their choice of models? I will show that their methods of coercion are similar to those of the gulag. Solzhenitsyn writes, `Mercy for the defendants who cooperated in one trial was an important prerequisite of the next. And hope was transmitted via this chain...But the understanding is that you have to carry out all our conditions to the very last! The trial must work for the good of socialist society. And the defendants would fulfill all the conditions.' (GA.397) Do prisoners feign rehabilitation to receive parole? Do pragmatic patients feign the cure?
In `The Trial', Josef K.'s objections and the dismissal of his defence lead directly to his death, his death will send a message to all the accused, as his cooperation and, thus, the postponement of his guilt would have done. In Kafka's world, as in all worlds, the accused keep a careful eye on other cases and gossip about them.
Foucault writes, `The legends of Pinel and Tuke transmit mythical values, which nineteenth century psychiatry would accept as obvious in nature. But beneath the myths themselves, there was an operation, or rather a series of operations, which silently organized the world of the asylum, the methods of cure, and at the same time the concrete experience of madness.' (FR.142) The silent organisation of the gulags, the asylums and Kafka's world are, in part, the broken egos of inmates.
Solzhenitsyn writes (GA.406-7) of one Yakubovich, he has chosen to confess, his anger is not directed at his accusers but at Russian emigres. He does not ask for mercy but simply to be shot. Is the death of an ego necessary for cure? for rehabilitation? We are also told that hypnotism and drugs were used by the GPU, to `retard and muddle' (GA.409) defendants, what is the status of these practices in modern psychiatry and related discourses?
Tuke was not surprised to find a lot of former priests and monks as well as religious fanatics inhabited his asylum, in some cases he removed their religious books. The communists populated their gulags with anarchists, socialists, Bolsheviks and SRs - these people are Communism's equivalent of the religious fanatics. The logic is the same, the ideology by which their respective societies are guided has ceased to have a functional effect - the madman and the dissident socialist are equally at odds with their respective regimes.
Contemporary capitalism has two cornerstones: acquisition and consumptive leisure. Should we be surprised that its prisons are full of persons within which capitalist ideology has become dysfunctional? Aren't gangsters and thieves people who wish to acquire? Are not drug addicts the ultimate pursuers of hedonistic leisure. Contemporary clinics and mental hospitals also contain many drug addicts and persons who have used violent means of acquisition. In `A Clockwork Orange', Alex is dismissive of his parents status as "rabbits", he uses violence as a leisure pursuit and a means to acquire. He thus ends up in jail, then hospital.
(i) Silence
Foucault examines the three methods by which Pinel effects the cure of his patients, he focuses on the case of a religious fanatic who believes himself to be Christ. The fanatic's position has been hardened by his chains and the continual sarcasm to which he has been subjected. This fanatic is unchained and ignored, this causes him to rejoin the community of patients and effects a cure. Solzenhitsyn tells us of Konstantin Rokossovsky (GA.448), he was repeatedly taken off to dummy executions. His captors would level their rifles and then drop them, in effect, he is being treated with silence.
Pinel's removal of the fanatic's chains has a logical basis, we are told, `Submissiveness to fate, the total abdication of your own will in the shaping of your life, the recognition that it was impossible to guess the best and the worst ahead of time but that it was easy to take a step you would reproach yourself for - all this freed a prisoner from any bondage, made him calmer, and even ennobled him.' (GA.560) Foucault's interpretation of Pinel's religious fanatic reads: `His torment was his glory; his deliverance must humiliate him.' (FR.152)
Orwell relates the same idea, from the perspective of the Party, through O'Brien, `"The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: "Freedom is Slavery". Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone - free - the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all powerful and immortal. The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body - but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter - external reality, as you call it - is not important. Already our control over matter is absolute."' (1984.227-8)
O'Brien, Pinel, Foucault, Solzhenitsyn (and I) all agree: the imitation of Christ in his shackles is all-powerful. Those who chain and mock him make him Christ-like. He has assimilated himself with a Party but not the Party in control of his epoch.
Kafka creates Josef K. in a similar situation, all of Josef K.'s early actions reflect an indecisive approach to his case. As he learns more of his situation he is lead in the direction of calm acceptance of what will be. At his end he is resigned and walks to his death, a distant figure in a window is his only hope for a future in which he will not exist.
The solitary confinement cell is the most barbaric form of silence, it is silence without any form of therapeutic purpose, rather the contrary.
(ii) Mirrors
Foucault also focuses on Pinel's use of `Recognition by mirror' (FR.152). At the Retreat like-minded patients are placed together or are compared to their peers by the Keepers. In the gulags this effect was not lost on the bluecaps. Solzhenitsyn writes of an instance of a staged death sentence (GA448). This is followed by the placement within the cell of two "stoolies", these seemingly condemned persons agree to sign confessions and are reprieved. This serves as a mirror into which the truly condemned men can look.
When Burgess' Alex has undergone Ludvico's technique he is subjected to a humiliating spectacle. Representatives of the government and penal system are gathered. Alex is offered various temptations to commit acts of violence. Not only are his acts external to the observers but also to himself. His personality is placed in opposition to itself: unable to act in accordance with his desires Alex perceives himself through a mirror. Deliberately or not, Burgess is representing the condition of "alienation". Lukacs asserts that the personality of the worker is reduced to a powerless spectator, an atom, by the conditions of capitalism (HCC).
`"Smith!" yelled the voice from the telescreen. "6079 Smith W.! Uncover your face. No faces covered in the cells."' (1984.202). Winston Smith is also subjected to the mirror technique.
This occurs first at the start of Book Three, Winston shares the cell in the Ministry of Love, where he awaits interrogation, with the starving, hollow faced, man who is terrified of room 101. Smith also meets several associates here. Solzhenitsyn notes that anticipation of torture is worse than the actual physical pain, this explains why new internees are mixed with the "veteran".
There are various explanations for the presence of his former colleagues. They are intended to remind Winston of the magnitude of his guilt and, as in Russia, purges occur in waves? O'Brien's promises Winston, `"Nothing will remain of you, not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You will never have existed."' (1984.219) Winston's colleagues are there because they are expendable registers of his existence: `Arrests rolled through the streets and apartment houses like an epidemic. Just as people transmit an epidemic infection from one to another without knowing it...if today I shake hands with you on the street, that means I, too, am doomed', Solzhenitsyn writes (GA.75). Whatever the reason, the effect, of a mirror, is the same.
`He had stopped because he was frightened. A bowed, grey-coloured, skeleton-like thing was coming towards him. Its actual appearance was frightening, and not merely the fact that he knew it to be himself. He moved closer to the glass. The creature's face seemed to be protruded, because of its bent carriage. A forlorn, jailbird's face with a nobby forehead running back into a bald scalp, a crooked nose, and battered-looking cheekbones above which his eyes were fierce and watchful. The cheeks were seamed, the mouth had a drawn-in look. Certainly it was his own face, but it had changed inside. The emotions it registered would be different from the ones he felt. He had gone partially bald. For the first moment he had thought that he had gone grey as well, but it was only the scalp that was grey. Except for his hands and a circle of his face, his body was grey all over with ancient, ingrained dirt. Here and there under the dirt there were red scars and wounds, and near the ankle the varicose ulcer was an inflamed mass with flakes of skin peeling off it. But the truly frightening thing was the emaciation of his body. The barrel of his ribs was as narrow as that of a skeleton: the legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker than the thighs. He saw now what O'Brien had meant about seeing the side view. The curvature of the spine was astonishing. The thin shoulders were hunched forward so as to make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck seemed to be bending double under the weight of the skull. At a guess he would have said it was the body of a man of sixty, suffering from some malignant disease.' (1984.233-4)
In this image Orwell is depicting a universal experience of those unfortunate enough to transgress the rules upheld by structural nihilists. The inmates of asylums, gulags, mental hospitals, prisons and concentration camps are forced to observe their own pitiful circumstances in the bodies of others. In the concentration camps this experience is at its harshest, because of the nature of Nazi policies family members could be confronted with a mirror depicting their suffering through the image of a loved one. Genealogies assertion that all power is power over the body seems to me to be established as truthful by these images alone.
(iii) Perpetual Judgement
`By this play of mirrors, as by silence, madness is ceaselessly called upon to judge itself. But beyond this, it is at every moment judged from without; judged not by moral or scientific conscience, but by a sort of invisible tribunal in permanent session. (FR.154-5) In Josef K.'s world the regime is continually assessing and harassing the beleaguered defendant with semi-theatrical methods. Ludvico's Technique sets Alex's personality up as a perpetual-judge. In Orwell's world, as in Stalinism, the Party subjects all its people to perpetual judgement.
Another example of the use of creeping psychology employed in the Gulag is provided by Kozyrev. Kozyrev was forced to look into the mirror of his sole cell mate, who was insane, for over a year. Like his cell mate, Kozyrev was placed in a punishment cell. One stretch was for five days, `a provocation: they were waiting for him to say that his five days were over and that it was time to let him out. That would have constituted unruliness, for which his stay in the punishment cell would have been prolonged.' (GA.482)
Foucault gives us an example of an inmate who believes in excessive fasting, the keepers threaten him with force if he does not consume his soup before nightfall, the faster thus enters the equation `Patience and more patience - the patience of a well-fed person vis-a-vis one who is starving.' (GA.470) We are told that Arnold Rappaport declared a hunger strike in the Archangel NKVD Prison, when they told him he had to get ready for transport he refused, citing his hunger strike, and was thrown into a bath. The bath itself is another shared torment with the asylum but what of forced feeding itself? `Artificial feeding has much in common with rape...four big men hurl themselves on one weak being and deprive it of its one interdiction... The element of rape inheres in the victim's will...The sensation is one of being morally defiled, of sweetness in the mouth, and a jubilant stomach gratified to the point of delight.' (GA.470) The rape is akin to one which, to the victim's horror, produces an orgasm.
We may do well to note the experience of Smelov's hunger-strike: `"Why are you torturing yourself?"
And Smelov replied: "Justice is more precious to me than life."
This phrase so astonished the prosecutor with its irrelevance that the very next day Smelov was taken to the Lenningrad Special Hospital (i.e. the insane asylum) for prisoners. And the doctor there told him: "We suspect you may be schizophrenic."' (GA.473) The point is that prison is never just a concrete enclosure, and need not even be that, but an ideological space within which thought and language metamorphose (delineate) - the individual is deprived of self-definition. In much the same way that Smith realises his face will no longer register its true feelings the astute inmate must realise that their words may no longer register their true meanings. This is the play of nihilism's `excess', the reverse of rebellion's `moderation' (REB) the structural nihilist seeks to impose nihilism, as meaninglessness, upon their victim.
(iv) Perpetual Judgement as Panopticism
Minson writes that `Foucault does not believe that all non-coercive power-relations operate through ideology...Bentham's "Panopticon" is a significant exception to this general lack of explicit articulation (but one which proves the rule). Every cell in the circular structure has two windows. The function of the back window is to produce a backstage lighting effect making visible the silhouette of every prisoner (schoolchild, factory worker, patient) through the front aperture to whoever mans the central observation tower. This central panoptic tower, on the other hand is so designed as to render the occupant invisible to the inhabitants of the cells. Thus a "political" geometry and architecture makes a one-way axial surveillance possible.' (MIN.55) The Panopticon is the epitome of Foucault's principle: `Let us say that discipline is the unitary technique by which the body is reduced as a "political" force at the least cost and maximised as a useful force.' (FR.211). The Panopticon is also the ideal environment to study human behaviour scientifically.
The prisoners will be quartered in small groups with the intention that there is an exclusive either/or of inform or be judged an accomplice. This either/or operates in all disciplinary arenas by degrees. Foucault asserts that the panopticon is not a punitive utopia but the abstract formula of a real technology. Minson writes [of Bentham's plan to] `reform the private management system of prisons by making the corrupt turnkeys see their charges as a potential set of fines for ill-management. The Panopticon could thus be a more various figure than the origin from Vincennes suggests.' (MIN.99) Turning once again to Stalinism; Solzhenitsyn informs us that on one occasion he was anonymously travelling in a "special convoy" and met an MVD man: `My fellow kept on whining and complaining of his fate. And at that point, I decided to enter a somewhat mystifying demurrer. "And what about the ones you're guarding, the ones who got ten years for nothing - is it any easier for them?" He immediately subsided and remained silent until morning: earlier, in the semi-darkness, he had noticed that I was was wearing some kind of semi-military overcoat and field shirt. And he had thought I was simply a soldier boy, but now the devil only knew what I might be: Maybe I was a police agent? Maybe I was out to catch escapees? Why was I in this particular car? And he had criticised the camps there in my presence.' (GA.593). Solzhenitsyn insists men such as these are spiritual inhabitants of the gulag. The warders of Kafka's world are hostages of their prisoners, in that when Josef K. complains about them he is treated to the spectacle of `The Whipper'. In `A Clockwork Orange' the roles are inverted - Alex has to face his former associates, now "millicents" the either/or of inform or be judged an accomplice, in effect. They have tricked and betrayed him, which is what has bought about his fate - now they, as millicents, are mirrors too.
The Panopticon is thus a concrete metaphor for discipline, it's logical conclusion. On Foucault's interpretation: `The minute disciplines, the panopticisms of everyday, may well be below the level of emergence of the great apparatuses and the great political struggles. But, in the genealogy of modern society, they have been, with the class domination that traverses it, the political counterpart of the juridical norms according to which power was redistributed.' (FR.212-3). In Stalinism, we find an argument which is simply beautiful in its poignancy (the architecture of this room is so panoptic!). `This murderer of millions simply could not imagine that his superior Murderer, up top, would not, at the last moment, stand up for him. Just as though Stalin had been sitting right there in the hall, Yagoda confidently and insistently begged him directly for mercy: "I appeal to you! For you I built two great canals!" And a witness reports that at just that moment a match flared in the shadows behind a window on the second floor of the hall, apparently behind a muslin curtain, and, while it lasted, the outline of a pipe could be seen. Whoever has been in Bakhchisari may remember that Oriental trick. The second-floor windows in the Hall of Sessions of the State Council are covered with iron sheets pierced with small holes, and behind them is an unlit gallery. It is never possible to guess down in the hall itself whether someone is up there or not. The Khan remained invisible, and the Council always met as if in his presence.' (GA.411)
Minson asserts that the Panopticon is itself a transitory stage and subject to modification. Stalinism can be understood as a central tower looking out upon an inner circle which, in turn, looks out upon a people riddled with informers. Stalinism is like a lake's ripples.
In the society of `1984' the viewscreen simultaneously lights the room in which it is placed and observes it. In Kafka's world the legal apparatus uses people as actors to try the defendant in staged theatre. Thus these societies keep people in a state of panopticism. The relevance of literature to this work is that literature can represent punishment with a greater immanence and accessibility than philosophy and can transport the reader to the inside of that inaccessible watchtower.
(v) Perpetual Judgement As Knowledge - The "Doctor"-"Patient" Couple.
'We must add a fourth structure peculiar to the world of the asylum as it was constituted at the end of the eighteenth century: this is the apotheosis of the medical personage. Of them all it is doubtless the most important, since it would authorise not only new contacts between doctor and patient, but a new relation between insanity and medical thought, and ultimately command the whole modern experience of madness.' (FR.158) The only portion of this observation I wish to take issue with is that this couple is peculiar to the asylum. The doctor described, as follows, is not unique: `Father and Judge, Family and Law' (FR.160) who `became the almost magic perpetrator of the cure, and assumed the aspect of a thaumatage' (FR.161).
To substantiate this argument I offer Solzhenitsyn's history: `People will protest that this is a universal approach, that even out in freedom every little chief declares himself to be the Soviet government and just try to argue with him about it. But for those who are panicky, who have just been sentenced for anti-Soviet propaganda, the threat is more frightening.' (GA.509) This argument will be substantiated further when I proceed to discuss the nature of "delineated discourse" in relation to punishment.
I also wish to focus on the work of Adorno and Horkheimer - they argue that Enlightenment is founded on myth and they provide a detailed analysis of the relation of magic and positivism. They describe how `The magician imitates demons in order to frighten them or appease them' (CON.9) is this not the same as the way a keeper imitates rage and violence in order to frighten a madman? The important point is that they are not writing about the asylums, per se, but Enlightenment in general. Although the keeper may imitate rage he `[The magician] never interprets himself as the image of the invisible power; yet this is the very image in which man attains to the identity of the self that cannot disappear through identification with another, but takes possession of itself once and for all as an impenetrable mask. It is the identity of spirit and its correlate, the unity of nature, to which the multiplicity of concepts falls victim. Disqualified nature becomes the chaotic matter of mere classification, and the all-powerful self becomes mere possession - abstract identity.' (CON.10). I believe that here I have an argument that explains the patient - doctor combination as a mythic formation of Enlightenment. Foucault believes that the doctor does not know of the patient's complicity in the pairing; but in the eyes of the patient the doctor becomes an object of terror - the `invisible power' of insanity - in this image he attains the doctor's self. This perception of doctor (or `every little chief') is embroidered with ideology and thus forms an impenetrable mask. The correlate of the unity of nature in the case of doctor is science and in the case of the chief it is Stalinism. The unity of concepts fall victim to the ideologies which promote the doctor and chief. The disqualified nature is the maniac or zek, the chaotic matter is their individual world view (as evidenced by their bodies). The doctor and the chief are entitled to smash this individual because it is mere possession, an abstract identity, to be reeducated or killed in the name of the systems they serve. This goes back to nihilism's excess as the reversal of rebel moderation.
Adorno and Horkheimer believe, `Sickness becomes a symptom of recovery' (CON.113) and that `The individual is to the nodal point of the conventional responses and modes of operation expected of him' (CON.28) they are driving at this interpretation of the discourse of the doctor, the chief and their "victim". This is also the point which Foucault seems to be making with his insistence that the analysis of prison should not begin with correction - it seems to me that prison is much more about conforming the deviant to the role of the inmate and the criminal - to concepts society can understand.
Lukacs, deals with the related problems of `irrational content' and `systemisation' with relation to Kant (HCC) these accusations apply equally well to all theories which try and reduce the abundance of human meaning. Lukacs' `limit-idea' is the elusive human spirit with its refusal to be quantified. `Theory of The Novel', with its emphasis on human meaning, in many ways begins themes which are continued in `History And Class Consciousness'. De Man has also noted a continuity between the "romantic" and later Lukacs (B&I). As Camus puts this `Marx had, in the ideological material of his time, the elements for a study of the peasant problem. But his desire to systemize made him oversimplify everything. This particular simplification was to prove expensive for the Kulaks who constituted more than five million historic exceptions to be bought, by death and deportation, within the Marxist pattern.' (REB.213) It is argueable that Stalinists are not Marxists - when they introduced the derogatory term "prodkulachnik" this included anyone who had hired an employee for any agricultural purpose, i.e., to mend a chicken shed. Camus is continually stressing the relationship between epistemology and nihilism and I will further demonstrate this with an analysis of the relationship of nihilism and language.
*
The Implications of Genealogical Analysis of Confinements Interpreted Within The Framework of A Postmodern Social Theory: "Delineated Discourse".
(i) Discourse's "Two Modes".
In this section I do not wish to get too involved in the philosophy of language but to raise some positive and (more) negative ideas about the possibility of moving beyond nihilism. I wish to take the position that discourse is not identical with written or spoken language. Discourse with the structural nihilists can consist of acts - or for that matter even thoughts. Solzhenitsyn relates the story of an obscure meeting where a tribute to Stalin was called. The stormy applause continued for over ten minutes but nobody dared to stop clapping first. People began to faint with exhaustion. Eventually the director of a factory, who was on the podium, sat down and stopped applauding. Spontaneously everyone else stopped clapping too. He was arrested that night and told, `"Don't ever be the first to stop applauding."' (GA.70). Solzhenitsyn thinks that this trial by applause was but one way independent thinkers were weeded out. The obvious parallel of this is the inmates of the concentration camps being forced to run for SS doctors. This was a test of fitness to work but is also a discourse without a spoken language This discourse uses body language - speed of running, expressions of fatigue and breathlessness.
`They didn't have their own genuine ideology of opposition, on the strength of which they could step aside and on which they could take their stand. Before they became an opposition, Stalin declared them to be one, and by this move he rendered them powerless. And all their efforts were directed toward staying in the Party. And toward not harming harming the Party at the same time! These added up to too many different obligations for them to be independent.' (GA.414) Solzhenitsyn is remarking on a common aspect of repressive regimes, there is an aspect of their discourse which defines the relationship of the inmate to their environment, and their ability to perceive that environment correctly. Rereading that passage I think of the scene in `The Trial' where the defence counsel humiliates the merchant Block. The ascription of insanity is akin to arrest, the inmate wants to possess the elusive quality of reason and therefore cannot be seen to harm reason in any form of discursive counter-attack. I call this delineated discourse in order to acknowledge the debt I owe to Martin (M&L) in first making me aware of it. Martin concludes that a postmodern social theory must allow the other to speak. I argue that structural nihilists engage in silencing the other, the marginal subject.
I have found Martin's ideas to be compatible, to at least a fair degree, with Foucault's genealogical method. Foucault writes: `These powers, by their nature, were of a moral and social order; they took root in the madman's minority status, in the insanity of his person, not of his mind. If the medical personage could isolate madness, it was not because he knew it, but because he mastered it' (FR.160). Solzhenitsyn sums this up `A convenient world outlook gives rise to a convenient juridical term: social prophlaxis. It was introduced and accepted, and it was immediately understood by all.' (GA.42) This is not a singular example, the gulag had its specialised language which evolved with new developments, i.e., `podkulachnik' (GA.57). The gulag also has a specialist logic, in `extended dialectical interpretation' (GA.60) of the criminal code. Section 10 of that code covered subversion existing only in the mind. (GA.65) Section 12 also covered failure to make a denunciation - gulag's panopticism (GA.66). The notions of guilt and innocence are defined as rightist terms (GA.76-7). The psychiatrist is allowed to infer a patient's mindset from the smallest actions and chance remarks, is this the root of the slang term "shrink"?
I am trying to make Foucault's point that `The carceral system combines in a single figure discourses and architectures, coercive regulations and scientific propositions, real social effects and invincible utopias, programmes for correcting delinquents and methods that reinforce delinquency.' (MIN.124q) Solzhenitsyn devotes a lot of space to the relationship of Article 58's and the blatnye - habitual thieves - who robbed and beat them. Soviet genealogy had a discourse of this violent relationship, the blatnye were "socially friendly" while the zeks were "socially hostile". The battle was uneven and the blatnye were encouraged in their deviance by everyone from the convoy escorts right up to Stalin and Yogoda.
Foucault, according to Minson, separates discourse from actual language, this approach seems valid, the milieu in which a communication occurs has a decisive impact upon what can be said. The reason that Martin follows Derrida in the assertion that we must allow the other to speak reflects his own understanding that power relations impinge on discourse. The inmate suffers their marginal status, as outlined by Solzhenitsyn, `young people hadn't the slightest idea that SR's and Mensheviks were still alive somewhere. And in the sequence of Chimkent and Cherdyn exile, and the Verkhe-Uralsk and Vladamir isolators - how could they not tremble in their dark solitary confinement cells, cells with "muzzles" by this time, and feel that perhaps their program and their leaders had been mistaken, that perhaps their tactics and actions had been mistaken too? And all their actions began to seem nothing but inaction - and their lives devoted only to suffering, a fatal delusion.' (GA.475)
Minson examines Foucault's idea of dispersion and remarks that it `could be useful. But we have already encountered the lure of dispersion in Nietzsche's conception of the decentred subject.' (MIN.121) It seems appropriate, to me, to link the decentred subject and this idea of dispersion. The SR or Menshevik in freedom is not necessarily the same person as the inmate they become. Martin asserts that, for Derrida, there is always something political in fixing the context of statements (M&L.104) and explicitly links Nietzsche's perspectivism to discourse, through positionality. Nietzsche's perspectivism is closely related to his idea of a concordant subject. It is probably best to remain flexible and consider the subject as a position, in the matrix, rather than a constant. A decentred subject is a subject that is not static - one that can accrue meaning in their life and attains complete meaningfulness at the termination of it, by virtue of their narrative history ("text").
In support of his concept of the marginal subject Martin also refers to Rawls' discourse of rights, there can be no discourse of rights where there is no conception of having rights or there is no way to speak of them. This obviously applies to Soviet society (also that of `1984') but it equally applies to the ascription of mental illness - a violent sign which robs its victim of the position from which they may argue their rights.
Burgess' Alex is marginal in his decision-making process because he has no conception of the technique to which he will be subjected as a "cure", only a naive concept of freedom. Again, once victimised by the manipulation of the two feuding parties, Alex's lack of political astuteness leaves him to decide his course of action based solely on his ill-informed conception of what's best for his short-term interest. In `The Trial' Josef K. is able to express himself fluently in his defence, at times, but, as in Soviet society, is hindered by ignorance of the details of the "code" he has offended (at least until his meeting with the Chaplin).
From Foucault we can learn that discourse is not only a powerful weapon "in the hands" of a nihilist but that an inmate can also damage their own situation through speaking: `Power, far from operating in the mode of repressive censorship, is most typical when it produces a multiplicity of things to say, when the one who is silent is more powerful. This is also power in its typically relational or symbiotic form, as holding between confessor and confessee.' (MIN.95). Solzhenitsyn would seem to agree with this idea when he writes `it is much smarter to play the role of someone so improbably imbecile that he can't remember one single day of his life even at the risk of being beaten.' (GA.120) Solzhenitsyn also refers to Dostoyevsky's `Crime And Punishement', to the scene where Raskolnikov is confronting Profiri Petrovich; the latter claims that intellectuals bring the case, completed, to his door. The pitfall is that philosophy will become utterly meaningless in confronting structural nihilism and that the idiot savant will emerge as our banner bearer!
Martin's writing on discourse points to an alternative to that of the nihilists: Deluze's Nomad Thought which is contrasted with nihilism's Imperial Thought. Nomad thought consists of careful appraisal of each situation and the effective deployment of resources where the possibility of a victory exists. It is important to be very cautious about the power of Nomad Thought and also not to underestimate the adaptability of Imperial Thought. Stalin was astute enough to choose weaklings for his trials (GA.410-12) and we are reminded that although the stage is frail it is not as frail as the actors (GA.419).
There is a common thread, too, in the ideas of Martin and Camus. Martin's ideas about discourse and positionality prompt a move to solidarity and away from fraternity, sisterhood and autonomy. Camus believes that `servitude gives sway to the most terrible of silences...' And that `If injustice is bad for the rebel, it is not because it contradicts an eternal idea of justice, but because it perpetuates the silent hostility that separates the oppressor from the oppressed...The mutual understanding and communication discovered by rebellion can survive only in the free exchange of conversation. Every ambiguity, every misunderstanding, leads to death; clear language and simple words are the only salvation from this death.' (REB.283) I will examine one such discourse in the next section.
(ii) Concepts of A Person Behind Modes of Discourse.
'he [the condemned man] calls forth a whole theoretical discourse' (FR.176).
Solzhenitsyn relates Krylenko's theory of the subject: `People are not people, but "carriers of specific ideas." "No matter what the individual qualities [of the defendant], only one method of evaluating him is to be applied: evaluation from the point of view of class expediency."' (GA.308). And: `"In proportion to the development of society, individual life is going to become more circumscribed... Collective will is the highest form."' (GA.390) Berlin sums up Turgenev's, and philosophy's, quandary - `the modern rebels believe, as Barazov and Pisarev and Bakunin believed, that the first requirement is the clean sweep, the total destruction of the present system; the rest is not their business. The future must look after itself. Better anarchy then prison; there is nothing in between. This violent cry meets with a similar response in the breasts of Turgenev's liberals...the small hesitant, self-critical, not always very brave, band of men who occupy a position somewhere to the left of centre, and are morally repelled both by the hard faces to their right and the hysteria and mindless violence and demagoguery on their left. Like their forefathers and biographer Turgenev, they are at once horrified and fascinated. They are shocked by the violent irrationalism of the dervishes on the Left, yet they are not prepared to reject wholesale the position of those who represent the young and the disinherited, the indignant champions of the poor and the socially deprived or repressed. This is the notoriously unsatisfactory, at times agonizing, position of the modern heirs of the liberal tradition.' (FS.55)
I believe Berlin is truly describing Martin's character and the liberal dilemma, which lead him to the position, "People aren't people but positions with specific ideas." This work aims at a move beyond nihilism, through meaning, so while Martin's idea of discourse has some value I am not satisfied with his lack of a theory of the subject, though the Derridean idea of "text" is useful.
*
The Individual In Conflict With Structural Nihilism, or, The Supreme Measure And The Death Cell.
`"Tell me", he said, "how soon will you shoot me?"
"It might be a long time," said O'Brien. "You are a difficult case. But don't give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you."' (1984.236)
`Does hope lend strength or does it weaken a man?...wasn't everything foredoomed anyway from the moment of arrest? Yet all the arrested crawled along the path of hope on their knees as if their legs had been amputated.' (GA.449) This is a poignant question, as Josef K. watches the humiliation of Block at the hands of his defence, I think it is this idea that strengthens his resolve to dismiss his advocate. In doing so I believe he seals his fate.
Although Solzhenitsyn is continually reminding his reader of the frailty of the human being he also recalls some real acts of courage. One Strakhovich has been sentenced to death, he pounds the table and rails at his accusers `it wasn't that he wanted to live but that he was tired of dying, and, more than anything else, the lies made him sick.' (GA442) Here Strakhovich is history's Josef K. or Winston Smith. Winston's panoptic society is a death cell, he begins his ownlife, thoughtcrime and sexcrime because he is sick of his slow death. Weighed against his pain and his subsequent fall his pleasure may seem fleeting but at least Winston had some decent human life before his end. Solzhenitsyn gives another example of a confrontation in a death cell, the sentenced Vlasov spits in his accuser's face, he refuses to appeal against his death sentence. Vlasov is spared execution. Solzhenitsyn asserts that `there is a limit, and beyond it one is no longer willing, one finds it too repulsive, to be a reasonable little rabbit. And that is the limit beyond which rabbits are enlightened by the common understanding that all rabbits are foredoomed to become only meat and pelts, and that at best, therefore, one can gain only a postponement of death and not life in any case. That is when one wants to shout: "Curse you, hurry up and shoot!"' (GA.455)
Solzhenitsyn asks the question of how much literature understands of pre-execution suffering. The answer seems to be that it understands. Josef K. begins with hope but his case eventually wears him down (through the ludicrous nature of the juridical process) and peace comes with resignation.
Winston Smith is an exemplary case. As O'Brien has said, the Party is unique in its doctrine of power and is especially vindictive in the pursuit of the unity of its system. The case of Winston in the Chesnut Tree cafe is a fictional construct. I do not believe that anyone who really went through what Winston did would be so tortured as to win a victory over themselves and love Big Brother. Where Winston is more typical (albeit typical of an extraordinary inmate) is during introspection in The Ministry of Love: `One day they would decide to shoot him. You could not tell when it would happen, but a few seconds beforehand it should be possible to guess...Ten seconds would be enough. In that time the world inside him could turn over. And then suddenly, without a word uttered, without a check in his step, without the changing of a line in his face - suddenly the camouflage would be down and bang! would go the batteries of his hatred. Hatred would fill him like an enormous roaring flame. And almost in the same instant bang! would go the bullet, too late, or too early. They would have blown his brain to pieces before they could reclaim it. The heretical thought would be unpunished, unrepented, out of their reach for ever. They would have blown a hole in their own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom.' (1984.242) Here, in the mind of Winston Smith, we are returning to the relationship of nihilism to knowledge. Winston Smith wants to die a system's "limit-idea".
Primo Levi, in the historical text `The Gates of Auschwitz', tells of the tale of an event during his incarceration. The Nazis offered all the inmates the opportunity to write a letter to whomever they wished. Fresh among the inmates was a Gipsy. He could not write and asked Levi to send a letter, in German, to his girlfriend. In this letter the Gipsy wished to say that he had carved her a doll out of Auschwitz wood and would be reunited with her in the future. Levi was impressed that the Gipsy had smuggled a knife into camp but was aghast at the suggestion that, through the doll and the proposed letter, he should admit possession of a knife and the very existence of Auschwitz (please recall marginal statuses). Levi told the Gipsy he was signing his own death-warrant. The Gipsy was insistent on the letter and offered Levi the knife as a retainer. The outcome was as Levi predicted - the Nazis killed the Gipsy. In this story we have the perfect example of Nomad Thought. There is an admirable resourcefulness in the smuggling of the knife, there is a resolve on the Gipsy's part to die in defiance and the knife is used instrumentally in this regard. The letter serves the function of not only confrontation with the concrete facts of his oppression but also the reorientation of discourse in which the Gipsy speaks on his own terms in the adverse speech situation of the camp. Most powerful of all is the idea that he will see his girlfriend again. Knowing he will die he must mean this in a metaphysical sense. The Gipsy turns to his accusers and says, "You can kill my body but you cannot break my spirit! There is an afterlife in which you will be judged." Beyond all this, Levi swapped the knife for a large amount of food and the Gipsy proved that even in a concentration camp he was powerful enough to return a favour in a tangible way. His act saved a chronicler of the Holocaust and, metaphysical afterlife aside, assured him a place in History. It is my belief that this Gipsy represents Camus' rebel thought in confrontation with Imperial Thought through the abolition of the silence between them.
Solzhenitsyn relates a very amusing story of a Russian paratrooper, which I do not detail here (GA.518-21).
*
The Supreme Measure And A Philosophical Move Beyond Nihilism.
`In the darkest region of the political field, the condemned man represents the symmetrical, inverted figure of the king. We should analyse what might be called..."the last body of the condemned man."' (FR.176) More of excess and moderation.
Philosophy is not silent on the confrontation with death. The finitude of humanity has long been credited as the real driving force behind the idea of the soul. Foucault's `The Body of The Condemned' provides some valuable ideas which, with liberal reinterpretation, might signpost a route beyond nihilism. In Soviet genealogy the "supreme measure" swung to and fro like a guillotine, it was christened as such to refer to its role as a social defence, as opposed to a punishment. As such it was employed prolifically. In 1936 it was then redefined as a punishment. It was employed genealogically in the elimination of the blatnye, Yagoda's power base. Finally, it was abolished in an act of "leniency" upon the introduction of "the quarter" (25 year term). The "quarter" was a result of a genealogical idea of prisoners as useful labour. (GA.436-447) Support for Foucault's assertion that leniency is to be viewed in genealogical terms and also that genealogy should be the tool of opposition and not rule. As "bitches" (article 58's that imitated the blatnye) support the assertion that men `duplicate crime as objects of penal intervention'. (FR.171)
'the soul of the lonely prisoner begins to emit, like the halo of a saint. Torn from the hustle-bustle of everyday life in so absolute a degree that even counting the passing minutes puts him intimately in touch with the Universe, the lonely prisoner has to have been purged of every imperfection, of everything that has stirred and troubled him in his former life, that has prevented his muddied waters from settling into transparency. How gratefully his hands reach out to crumble the lumps of earth in the vegetable garden (but, alas, its all asphalt). How his head rises of itself to the Eternal Heavens (but, alas, this is forbidden). And how much touching attention that little bird on the sill arouses in him (but, alas, there is that "muzzle" there, and the netting as well, and the hinged ventilation pane is locked). And what clear thoughts, what sometimes surprising conclusions, he writes down on the paper issued him (but, alas, only if you buy it in the commissary, and only if you turn it in to the prison when you have used it up - for eternal safe-keeping...)...we no longer know the answer to the question: Is the soul of a person in the New Type Prison (the TON), purified or does it perish once and for all? - If the first thing you see each and every morning is the eyes of your cell-mate who has gone insane, how then shall you save yourself during the coming day? (GA.484-5) Solzhenitsyn proceeds optimistically with a description of the astronomer Kozyrev, elsewhere he discusses the miraculous nature of chance encounters and the accumulation of valid experiences. It is clear that he considers discipline productive. Foucault also asserts that the soul `exists; it has reality; it is produced permanently around, on, within the body by the functioning of a power that is exercised on those punished... The soul is the effect and instrument of a political autonomy; the soul is the prison of the body.' (FR.177) Foucault makes these assertions around the context of discourse. Nomad Thought could only have come into being within this world of hope (but, alas, despair). This soul is not the substance of theology.
With my emphasis on discourse, and the theory of the subject it implies, this "soul" is an entire world. This soul is, rather, a unique perspective on the world and thus an object of moral value and not something to be smoothed out by any grand system.
*
Conclusion: Meaning and Love Contrary to Nihilism, or, A Stick With Two Ends.
In my introduction I insisted that meaning is the opposite of nihilism and that I require a subject as the centre of meaning. Repression (including ideological marginality) provides us with a subject as a base of positionality whose ideal mode is a spiritual Nomad Thought (interpretive praxis/rebel thought) because they seek solidarity with others through Camus' `moderation', they realise they are men not gods.
In his `Theory of The Novel', Lukacs asserts that the novel best typifies art in modernity. We have lost the immanence of meaning possessed by the Ancient's world's poetry and the weaving of prose is best suited to the long journey now necessary. Camus also unfavourably contrasts modernity with the Ancient world. Teleological thinking is in both cases the villain of the piece. It is no accident that the genealogy I have employed is an enemy of teleology (see Minson's text and Foucault's `Nietzsche, Genealogy, History'). Prose is also "unteleological" in nature.
Winston Smith betrays his lover but only within the context of his complete transparency to O'Brien. Orwell has conquered nihilism through the portrayal of its extreme. Kafka likewise, though the figure in the window may represent the ideal of the death cell's hope.
Solzhenitsyn offers a more touching portrait of the resilience of love under torture, after a chance meeting in a ship of the archipelago he hears the following conversation:
`"She and I were imprisoned in the same cell for four months during her interrogation."
"Where is she now?"
"All that time she lived only for you! Her tears weren't for herself but were all for you. First, that they shouldn't arrest you. And later that you should get a lighter sentence."
"But what has happened to her now?"
"She blamed herself for your arrest. Things were so hard for her!"
"Where is she now?"
"Just don't be frightened" - and Repina put her hands on his chest as if he were her own kin. "She simply couldn't endure the strain. They took her away from us. She, you know, became - well, a little confused. You understand?"' (GA.531) Under extreme pressure the ego of the zek, which possesses the wherewithal for betrayal, self-destructs rather than gives in to the demands of the torturer.
Burgess portrays Alex's redemption in the picture of a baby - love without a concrete object. Through the side-effect of Ludvico's technique - Alex's loss of his beloved music, and the attempted suicide which results, Burgess indicates his belief that even a nihilist cannot live without art.
Turgenev's Barazov never admits that love is not an illusion but on his deathbed acknowledges that if it is so then it is an illusion of great power: `"Well, what had I to say to you...That I loved you? That made no sense before, and makes less than ever now. Love is a form, and my particular form is already disintegrating. Better let me say how lovely you are! And now there you stand, so beautiful..."' (FS.288) Outside of Barazov, Turgenev paints the beautiful portrait of nature and his parent's unconditional love. Barazov freed his birds, frogs and insects. Now birds sing over his grave. The grave is the ultimate prison and from it is drawn the idea of a soul: `However passionate, sinful and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep at us serenely with their innocent eyes; they speak to not only of eternal peace, of the vast repose of "indifferent" nature: they tell us, too, of everlasting reconciliation and of life which has no end.' (FS.295)
Raskolnikov eventually finds love for Sonia through glimpsing beyond society's prejudices and his own nihilist doctrine of "the great man". Prison will redeem him and prepare him for his greatest deeds in the future. His love is derived from the nobility of the heroine's sacrifice, the identification of Sonia with his sister. Camus admires Kaliayev, a hero who sacrifices his life. Dimitry Karamazov is advised by Aloysha, `"you are not ready for such a cross...You wanted to regenerate another man by means of suffering; in my opinion, if only you will remember the other man all your life and wherever you may flee to - that will be enough for you."' (BK.879) Dostoyevsky, a former inmate, shares the productive conception of prison with Solzhenitsyn and Foucault.
Aloysha Karamazov's greatness lies in his love for the only audience left to which he can preach, the boys. He has realised the significance a child can attach to `a pound of nuts.' (the reverse of Smerdyakov's perception of Dimitry as a stray dog biting at the bread which contains a pin - his framing of Dimitry for Fyodor's murder). I think its likely that in the unfinished continuation of `The Brothers Karamazov' both Kolya and Kartashov are destined for greatness, if so, Aloysha's words are not wasted - `"We shall, we shall remember!", the boys shouted again, "he was brave, he was kind!"' (BK.893). This interpretation is in line with the dedication of the novel: `Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.' This obviously resonates with the loss of Dostoyevsky's son Aloysha Fyodorovich but it must also be borne in mind that, as Berlin informs us, Aloysha is intended to search for the truth and, from his beginings as a monk, become a revolutionary who will be executed for a political crime (FS.60). Is Aloysha the grain? is Ilyushchka? are they both? It is Ilyushchka who accepts the guilt of Smerdyakov and Fyodor Karamazov for cruelty to stray dogs. Wounded children, such as Ivan, Dimitry, Aloysha and Smerdyakov are these stray dogs. And, of course, the dying Ilyushchka remembers "the other boy" the rest of his short life when reunited with the dog, thanks to Kolya. Ilyushchka, the urchin with worn boots, is the stray dog that bites Aloysha's finger. A Karamazov pin that contains the bread of the flesh of his mother. Aloysha and Ilyushchka are the other ends of the stick of Smerdyakov (arguably the novel also offers Ivan and Dimitry this possibility).
lyushchka is the forgotten hero - only boys, Katerina Ivanova, Lize and a poor family remember - but, in a scene reminiscent of Barazov's prison, he is draped in innocent flowers and birds will sing on his grave. Ilyushcha is the truth which Camus reminds us of - the innocent will always suffer. He is also the continuation of the dialogue between Ivan and Aloysha on the suffering of children; a form of resolution of this discourse in that at least Aloysha transcends the meaninglessness that Ivan perceives with an act of interpretative praxis: the speech by the stone.
I conclude that Historical chronicles, Art, and Philosophy offer the means to move beyond nihilism, at least for myself as an individual, through the medium of subjects who are positioned centres of meaning - at least in reaching out into the void of modernity we are all in solidarity. Camus rightly points out that these subjects transcend history, in that they forge it, and not the reverse. Against the nihilists it can be argued that in their violence, be it linguistic or physical, they are assaulting beings as centres of meaning. In destroying a person they are destroying one perspective on the whole world - here perspectivism meets morality - to kill is to destroy a whole world(-view).
*
Top of pageAdorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. `Dialectic of Enlightenment', Verso, 1992. (CON)
Berlin, I. `Fathers And Children' (in `Fathers And Sons') (FS)
Burgess, A. `A Clockwork Orange', Penguin Books, 1972.
Camus, A. `The Rebel: A study of man in revolt', Vintage Books, 1954. (REB)
de Man, P. `Georg Lukacs's Theory of the Novel' in Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism', University of Minnesota Press, 1983. (BI)
Derrida, J. `Spurs Nietzsche's Styles / Eperons Les Styles de Nietzsche', The University of Chicago Press, 1979
Dostoyevsky, F. `The Brothers Karamazov', Penguin Books, 1993. (BK)
Dostoyevsky, F. `Crime And Punishment', Penguin Books, 1974.
Foucault, M. `Neitzsche, Genealogy, History'; `The Great Confinement'; `The Birth of the Asylum'; `The Body of the Condemned'; `Panopticism' in `The Foucault Reader' Penguin Books, 1991. (FR)
Kafka, F. `The Trial', Penguin Books, 1994. (TR)
Levi, P. `The Gates of Auschwitz'
Lukacs, G. `Reification and the Consciousness of The Proletariat' in `History and Class Consciousness', The Merlin Press Ltd, 1985. (HCC)
Lukacs, G. `The Theory of the Novel', The Merlin Press Ltd, 1978.
Martin, B. `Matrix and Line: Derrida and the possibilities of postmodern social theory', State University of New York Press, 1992 (M&L)
Minson, J. Genealogies of Morals: Nietzsche, Foucault, Donzelot and the eccentricity of ethics' Macmillan, 1988. (MIN)
(1984) Orwell, G. `Nineteen Eighty Four', Penguin Books, 1984. (1984)
Solzhenitsyn, A. `The Gulag Archipelago', Collins/Fontana, 1974. (GA)
Turgenev, I. `Fathers And Sons', Penguin Books, 1975. (FS)