What strikes me most of this book is that it tries to bring political aspect to post-structuralist thinking. The kind of politicization proposed by Yurchak is clearly different from those of Foucault or Butler. While Foucault's focus is on knowledge and power; Butler's focus is on performative as identity, Yurchak takes a even more ambiguous stand (for ambiguous, no moral judgment necessary). He sees that the collapse of soviet authoritarian state is neither a result of power conflict (oppression vs. resistance) nor a result of reality conflict (truth vs. false), but a structural conflict, which he quotes Lefort's paradox.
By doing so, Yurchak is taking a great risk of being political ambilvance, as we can see how Derrida was being attacked by his structuaral ambilvance on politics. But Yurchak repeatedly points out that the structuaral conflict of late soviet only created "new meanings", and those new meanings were not necessarily resistant power. To turn it into extreme, most of the "younger generation" of the late soviet, which is the concern of this book, is conformist. As conformists, they just followed the rules, but they pushed the rules to its extremity, and thus new (unknown) meanings are created. This is not unlikely Chaplin's figure in Modern Times and his other great works. It is the (unknown) strategy of the conformist. Then this structural analysis basically turns the idea of conformist upside down.
What I find most useful of Yurchak’s analytical tools is his use of performative speech/acts. It relates to a broader question regarding agency and subjectivity. This discussion resonated with me because it confronts an issue I’ve thought a lot about regarding feminism, women and development. In Politics of Piety Mahmood engages a critical analysis of women involved in a piety movement in Egypt. How could one understand these women’s participation in a broader social institution that was understood to oppress and control them? Instead of suggesting the women suffered from ‘false consciousness’ (in that they didn’t realize they were being oppressed), or that they lacked agency to resist, she questions (as inspired by Foucault and Butler’s work regarding ‘the paradox of subjectivication’) the notion of agency itself and suggests (as quoted in Yurchak) “the possibility of resistance to norms [is located] within the structure of power itself rather than in the consciousness of an autonomous individual” (28).
I find the idea of agentival capacity, and with Yurchak’s further broadening of the concept (suggesting such acts can neither be about change or continuity, but rather about ‘introducing minute internal displacements and mutations into the discursive regime in which they are articulated’ (28)) a very useful endeavor. I agree with Jason in that he uses post-structural analysis of a political phenomenon, which is a complicated (as those who have pointed out he purposefully does not offer a political historical contextualization), but allows for nuances another approach would not allow.
Yurchak analyzes shifts in discourse, language, ideology and ethics in late socialism to illustrate how paradoxes were mutually constitutive rather than mutually exclusive. He asserts that paradoxes enabled this particular generation to create new meanings and communities as well as pursue new interests. I enjoyed this book on several levels, though particularly for complicating my own stereotypes regarding what life was like in this particular time and place. I think he succeeds in his efforts to “rehumanize Soviet socialist life” (10). That said, I have questions about the way his argument proceeds.
I’m unable to see some of the connections he posits, particularly regarding the paradox discussed in Chapter 1 -- while the collapse of the Soviet Union was unexpected/unimaginable it was also completely unsurprising. His argument on this point proceeds differently than I expected. Yurchak notes a central paradox upon which he builds the rest of his argument, that is, the particular Soviet version of Lefort’s paradox. In short, it’s the idea that full state control yields full liberation. He’s able to move from this central paradox to the paradox he notes in the conclusion, observing that “the paradox of late socialism turned out to be this: the more meticulously and unanimously the system’s authoritative forms were reproduced…the more its constative meanings became disconnected from form and thus allowed to shift in diverse and increasingly unanticipated directions” (295). I think he’s able to move from Lefort’s paradox to this final paradox through his analysis of the disappearance of the “external editor”. He discusses the final years of Stalin’s rule as being the end of “that external position vis-à-vis discourse and knowledge” and notes that things were then reorganized into a system characterized by the normalization of authoritative discourse, w/o an external editor (13). But how well do these relate to the paradox noted in the book’s title? While the above paradoxes attend (quite well in my opinion) to the notion of “everything was forever,” I'm not quite able to make the leap to “until it was no more”. I think this results from his almost exclusive focus on the period of late socialism. While he does discuss perestroika briefly in the conclusion, further analysis of this period may have helped me bridge the gap between the two.
Yurchak carefully states his argument at the outset of the text, in which he delineates between performative and constitutive discourses, and describes how the repetition of these constitutive forms in fact, allowed for a movement away from the symbolic meanings intended by such constative forms. According to his reasoning, this movement away from the intended meanings ultimately prepared the last Soviet Generation for the drastic changes that were to come. He illustrates his argument carefully and colorfully throughout the text, using examples that range from Pink Floyd, to youth meetings of the Komosomol, Stalinist language manipulation, to hippie style youths creatively living and employed in boiler rooms. Now, while I understand the discursive shifts that he describes in that, the repetition of constative forms, the symbolic meanings get lost, but what I do not understand is how this prepared the society for the reconstruction. For even though Western influences found ways to enter into the society (music, jeans, pepsi logos, etc.) Yurchak demonstrates that Soviet youth incorporated such influences into preexisting systems of meaning. This was exemplified several times, especially in the letters exchanged between the two young men in chapter 6. In the conclusion Yurchak cites a 1985 speech by Gorbechev, in which he inadvertently suggested a move away from authoritative discourse in order to address the problems of the current administration. However, I am unclear as to why he suggests that this was such a turning point (and a pivotal point within his argument), if the authoritative discourse had already been rendered devoid of its meaning. Furthermore, how do we know that these changes prepared the Soviet peoples for change, when he doesn’t quite bring us to the moments after reconstruction?
Several comments mention that: Why dissidents are not included? I think one of the answers is that it is the not really the point, not really the concern of the argument. Because dissidents have a clearly binary opposition against, say, the state. The identity, or even the existential meaning, of dissidents is that they are (NOT-the state). Yurchak does not imply that dissidents are pointless, but it is not his concern. Then, what is his concern?
Perhaps we can understand the whole argument by the word "implosion". The author deliberately uses the verb implode to describe the collapse of Soviet Union. It is IMPLODE, not explode. Why? Because it collapsed TO within, not FROM within. It means that it was not so much about the force of the dissidents made the USSR collapse, but the very structure of the Soviet Union made it collapse. For this case, the author then investigates this very strange demise by implosion through a more apparent social question: The paradox of the collapse of USSR was so unexpected but people were also so pepared for it AT THE SAME TIME.
Therefore, there is even not a question whether the ethnographic materials are "too thin". Because the very core object of study here, is not people, but the structure, or to be specific, the social structure of particular time in USSR. Of course, no social structure is meaningful without the participation of people (You can see that here I'm trying to going from functional-structuralism to what Giddens calls "structuraction"). Then the people, Yurchak finds most correspond to this whole structural paradox in USSR is those young, educated students / pretend-to-be students / fake students / seem-to-be students. That is the reason why the whole book is about those people.
I think Katia's response further confirms Yurchak's observation and theory-formation. And I think one more important point is that rather than saying this book is trying to "rehumanize the societ life" (paraphased from the book, I don't bother to check the page number. After all showing a page number here carries more a PERFORMATIVE MEANING as if I'm a studious and serious student, than carries its CONSTATIVE MEANING of showing the page reference!) Perhaps it is better to say it is a "RE-humanize the soviet life". The "RE" here means reproduce / remember / recreate (in both senses!). So the title of this book has a full insight in explaining this, "Everything was forever, until it was no more." It is such a description of the soviet life. The meaning can only be there when it is no longer there, always in a tone of loss. That may also explain why, when the author now looks back to the soviet life, it is so much like a bourgeouise / intellectual life we hope to have (No matter we admit we are bourgeousie or not, we are anyway!)
5 Comments:
At 4:19 PM,
Jason Lau said…
Jason Lau
I'm going to keep this response short.
What strikes me most of this book is that it tries to bring political aspect to post-structuralist thinking. The kind of politicization proposed by Yurchak is clearly different from those of Foucault or Butler. While Foucault's focus is on knowledge and power; Butler's focus is on performative as identity, Yurchak takes a even more ambiguous stand (for ambiguous, no moral judgment necessary). He sees that the collapse of soviet authoritarian state is neither a result of power conflict (oppression vs. resistance) nor a result of reality conflict (truth vs. false), but a structural conflict, which he quotes Lefort's paradox.
By doing so, Yurchak is taking a great risk of being political ambilvance, as we can see how Derrida was being attacked by his structuaral ambilvance on politics. But Yurchak repeatedly points out that the structuaral conflict of late soviet only created "new meanings", and those new meanings were not necessarily resistant power. To turn it into extreme, most of the "younger generation" of the late soviet, which is the concern of this book, is conformist. As conformists, they just followed the rules, but they pushed the rules to its extremity, and thus new (unknown) meanings are created. This is not unlikely Chaplin's figure in Modern Times and his other great works. It is the (unknown) strategy of the conformist. Then this structural analysis basically turns the idea of conformist upside down.
At 4:55 PM,
rheabonita said…
What I find most useful of Yurchak’s analytical tools is his use of performative speech/acts. It relates to a broader question regarding agency and subjectivity. This discussion resonated with me because it confronts an issue I’ve thought a lot about regarding feminism, women and development. In Politics of Piety Mahmood engages a critical analysis of women involved in a piety movement in Egypt. How could one understand these women’s participation in a broader social institution that was understood to oppress and control them? Instead of suggesting the women suffered from ‘false consciousness’ (in that they didn’t realize they were being oppressed), or that they lacked agency to resist, she questions (as inspired by Foucault and Butler’s work regarding ‘the paradox of subjectivication’) the notion of agency itself and suggests (as quoted in Yurchak) “the possibility of resistance to norms [is located] within the structure of power itself rather than in the consciousness of an autonomous individual” (28).
I find the idea of agentival capacity, and with Yurchak’s further broadening of the concept (suggesting such acts can neither be about change or continuity, but rather about ‘introducing minute internal displacements and mutations into the discursive regime in which they are articulated’ (28)) a very useful endeavor. I agree with Jason in that he uses post-structural analysis of a political phenomenon, which is a complicated (as those who have pointed out he purposefully does not offer a political historical contextualization), but allows for nuances another approach would not allow.
At 6:31 PM,
melinda said…
Yurchak analyzes shifts in discourse, language, ideology and ethics in late socialism to illustrate how paradoxes were mutually constitutive rather than mutually exclusive. He asserts that paradoxes enabled this particular generation to create new meanings and communities as well as pursue new interests. I enjoyed this book on several levels, though particularly for complicating my own stereotypes regarding what life was like in this particular time and place. I think he succeeds in his efforts to “rehumanize Soviet socialist life” (10). That said, I have questions about the way his argument proceeds.
I’m unable to see some of the connections he posits, particularly regarding the paradox discussed in Chapter 1 -- while the collapse of the Soviet Union was unexpected/unimaginable it was also completely unsurprising. His argument on this point proceeds differently than I expected. Yurchak notes a central paradox upon which he builds the rest of his argument, that is, the particular Soviet version of Lefort’s paradox. In short, it’s the idea that full state control yields full liberation. He’s able to move from this central paradox to the paradox he notes in the conclusion, observing that “the paradox of late socialism turned out to be this: the more meticulously and unanimously the system’s authoritative forms were reproduced…the more its constative meanings became disconnected from form and thus allowed to shift in diverse and increasingly unanticipated directions” (295). I think he’s able to move from Lefort’s paradox to this final paradox through his analysis of the disappearance of the “external editor”. He discusses the final years of Stalin’s rule as being the end of “that external position vis-à-vis discourse and knowledge” and notes that things were then reorganized into a system characterized by the normalization of authoritative discourse, w/o an external editor (13). But how well do these relate to the paradox noted in the book’s title? While the above paradoxes attend (quite well in my opinion) to the notion of “everything was forever,” I'm not quite able to make the leap to “until it was no more”. I think this results from his almost exclusive focus on the period of late socialism. While he does discuss perestroika briefly in the conclusion, further analysis of this period may have helped me bridge the gap between the two.
At 6:54 PM,
Jenny K. said…
Yurchak carefully states his argument at the outset of the text, in which he delineates between performative and constitutive discourses, and describes how the repetition of these constitutive forms in fact, allowed for a movement away from the symbolic meanings intended by such constative forms. According to his reasoning, this movement away from the intended meanings ultimately prepared the last Soviet Generation for the drastic changes that were to come. He illustrates his argument carefully and colorfully throughout the text, using examples that range from Pink Floyd, to youth meetings of the Komosomol, Stalinist language manipulation, to hippie style youths creatively living and employed in boiler rooms. Now, while I understand the discursive shifts that he describes in that, the repetition of constative forms, the symbolic meanings get lost, but what I do not understand is how this prepared the society for the reconstruction. For even though Western influences found ways to enter into the society (music, jeans, pepsi logos, etc.) Yurchak demonstrates that Soviet youth incorporated such influences into preexisting systems of meaning. This was exemplified several times, especially in the letters exchanged between the two young men in chapter 6. In the conclusion Yurchak cites a 1985 speech by Gorbechev, in which he inadvertently suggested a move away from authoritative discourse in order to address the problems of the current administration. However, I am unclear as to why he suggests that this was such a turning point (and a pivotal point within his argument), if the authoritative discourse had already been rendered devoid of its meaning. Furthermore, how do we know that these changes prepared the Soviet peoples for change, when he doesn’t quite bring us to the moments after reconstruction?
At 2:40 PM,
Jason Lau said…
Just some quick responses..
Several comments mention that: Why dissidents are not included? I think one of the answers is that it is the not really the point, not really the concern of the argument. Because dissidents have a clearly binary opposition against, say, the state. The identity, or even the existential meaning, of dissidents is that they are (NOT-the state). Yurchak does not imply that dissidents are pointless, but it is not his concern. Then, what is his concern?
Perhaps we can understand the whole argument by the word "implosion". The author deliberately uses the verb implode to describe the collapse of Soviet Union. It is IMPLODE, not explode. Why? Because it collapsed TO within, not FROM within. It means that it was not so much about the force of the dissidents made the USSR collapse, but the very structure of the Soviet Union made it collapse. For this case, the author then investigates this very strange demise by implosion through a more apparent social question: The paradox of the collapse of USSR was so unexpected but people were also so pepared for it AT THE SAME TIME.
Therefore, there is even not a question whether the ethnographic materials are "too thin". Because the very core object of study here, is not people, but the structure, or to be specific, the social structure of particular time in USSR. Of course, no social structure is meaningful without the participation of people (You can see that here I'm trying to going from functional-structuralism to what Giddens calls "structuraction"). Then the people, Yurchak finds most correspond to this whole structural paradox in USSR is those young, educated students / pretend-to-be students / fake students / seem-to-be students. That is the reason why the whole book is about those people.
I think Katia's response further confirms Yurchak's observation and theory-formation. And I think one more important point is that rather than saying this book is trying to "rehumanize the societ life" (paraphased from the book, I don't bother to check the page number. After all showing a page number here carries more a PERFORMATIVE MEANING as if I'm a studious and serious student, than carries its CONSTATIVE MEANING of showing the page reference!) Perhaps it is better to say it is a "RE-humanize the soviet life". The "RE" here means reproduce / remember / recreate (in both senses!). So the title of this book has a full insight in explaining this, "Everything was forever, until it was no more." It is such a description of the soviet life. The meaning can only be there when it is no longer there, always in a tone of loss. That may also explain why, when the author now looks back to the soviet life, it is so much like a bourgeouise / intellectual life we hope to have (No matter we admit we are bourgeousie or not, we are anyway!)
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