blog > Flying Blind

In a fit of deep procrastination the other day, I started on the one Baudrillard I own, 'the agony of power'. I've owned this for literally a decade, and bounced off it every time - I think I brought it in central park on a school trip? It's his last book but the first one I'm reading, so it's all new and unfamiliar, and I'm sure I'm butchering it, but I'm really loving it. Take this, for example, on proponents of capital admitting the cynicism of the profit motive:-

Technocratic cynicism is not scandalous per se, but by the way it breaks a fundamental rule of our social and political game. [...it] takes away the only power we have left. It steals our denunciation. Instead of denouncing evil from the position of good, it expresses evil from the position of evil. Only evil can speak evil now - evil is a ventriloquist. Critical intelligence is left to jump over its own shadow - even in radicalness, it remains pious and denunciatory.

The language he uses around 'evil' is weirdly polemic (again, unless I'm missing context), but the contents feel prescient, considering its from for 2005! How else can we explain the 'left' online, which is not constituted as 'left' by itself, but is defined as the 'woke' by its opponents? Which consists of endless, weightless denunciation - as if denunciation was the only content of a moral life, and the only tool to achieve it? Denunciation that once spoken only reveals its powerlessness.

I'm not exempt from this, here. The other day, on tumblr, as Israel was bombing Iran, I posted 'Boots on the ground in Tel Aviv now!'. Ok, I'm right, and it was a pretty simple expression of frustration. But what does it do?

Why does it feel like a denunciation from the left, no matter its validity or truthfulness or source or strategy, feel inevitably inconsequential, while a denunciation from the right leads to action?
  • Reactionary denunciations of fictitious trans women sex pests lead to direct state action against trans women as a social group.
  • Kneecaps denunciation of a genocide has no impact, whereas a confected columnist scandal about them waving a hezbollah flag could lead to jail time. (To say nothing - for legal reasons - of Palestine Action).
  • Confected panic about small boats ushers reform to local power, and could still take them into downing street.
  • Schumer's too-smart-by-half insistence that any negative action trump takes is a 'distraction' from another thing he's doing, rather than simply evil in itself, that takes joy in that evil. (This specifically is a tendency mimicked by hordes of liberals, and a few people who should know better).
And it's not just flaccid denunciation when in opposition. Even in power, the left seems confused and paralysed. Like, what is the matter with Labour? It's enraging, but it is also genuinely confusing. Who actually are these people? What does Starmer think about when he closes his eyes?1

It's tempting to throw your hands up and say that all this is because our enemies are in power - but I don't find that satisfying. Morality from the left feels shackled to this failure to land.

And what about the 'Agony' of power itself? Baudrillard says:-

Power itself must be abolished - and not solely because of a refusal to be dominated, which is at the heart of all traditional struggles, but also, just as violently, in the refusal to dominate. Intelligence cannot, can never, be in power, because intelligence consists of this double refusal.2

Perhaps this is just because I'm dealing with Equality Impact Assessments at work right now - but this rings true. To keep impotent denunciation company, we have impotent assessment, and re-assessment, and self-assessment, and self-criticism. Any progressive ends I've worked towards in my career have been coached in endless evidence gathering, assessing social benefit, weighing up potential harms, consulting, 'engaging', and so on, and so on.3

In a lot of cases (especially in local government, where I work, for my sins), this reflective carousel simply obscures a lack of resources to fix the problem. If you're extending the target timescales for responding to serious cases, for budgetary reasons, based on orders from on high, and you've got to put together a consultation on that. Well. What the fuck do you put in it?

But in a lot of cases, I think this is sincere. On the left, particularly the wonkish progressive left that sometimes ends up making these decisions, there is a reflex for to gather more evidence, make sure there'll be no adverse consequences, or at least that they'll be anticipated and mitigated, make sure that the right people have been spoken to. But you can't get away from the fact that the state, at the end of the day, is an imposition - as much as you might want to! As nice and progressive as you are, your progressive gains will be won through some form of imposition, because that's what the state, the leviathan, is. That's what I take from this book - evidence, and consultation, and assessment, (and lobbying, and discourse, &c) is often a way that progressive, well meaning people within the state refuse to dominate.

And sometimes there's a place for that! But it doesn't capture the real negative impact that'll fucking get you - the impact of delaying action you know you need to take. Wealth redistribution, infrastructure investment, nationalisation. These things are opposed by the usual suspects, but the Left in power hedges their bets as well, for fear of complexity and unintended consequence.

The state exists fully within the status quo (in a lot of ways, the two are synonymous), and progressive policy change is placed on the ledger of positive and negative impact against the status quo. What the state can't do is conceive of the status quo as intolerable (even when it's intolerable to the continued existence of the state most of all). But individuals can, and the social fabric can.

Without being dramatic, I think disgust at this dynamic is one of the forces driving the modern fascist project. (I know this sounds like a rehash of 2017-era arguing about smug democrats and how progressives need to listen to 'working class' people (the 'white' being implied), but bear with me). People see this dynamic - of people who claim to be 'smart' (smug or not) in power, and paralysed by the fear of accidentally dominating in their efforts (where sincere) to do good - and they're disgusted by it. It's partly a moral disgust at perceived complicity, it's partly a practical disgust at politicians not rolling out the pork as promised - but I think it's primarily a libidinal disgust. They're disgusted by the flaccidity of power, and the obvious hesitance to use it.

And this is a problem that the right have overcome, a weakness they've exploited, and a way they've drawn the public in - by speaking (and doing) evil from the position of evil.

There's a quote I saw shared a few times after Trump took office again, as DOGE was ripping through the federal government and looked like they might take down the Bureau of the Fiscal Service4. It's from a journalist called Ron Suskind in 2004, paraphrasing an unnamed Bush staffer:-

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do".

Ok, so that was from a year before Baudrillard wrote The Agony of Power. Fair play. At the risk of dropping Blindsight into every blog post (read Blindsight!), it's that idea again - you can move quicker, do more, act decisively, without the baggage of thought. And I know Ur-Fascism is well trodden ground, but I'm going to quote it anyway:-

[Fascism] depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering’s alleged statement (“When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun”) to the frequent use of such expressions as degenerate intellectuals, eggheads, effete snobs.

What can we possibly do about this? Like, this is a real trap. And I'm not about to suggest some ridiculous nonsense like 'abolishing power', or saying that we just need to sit down and talk with these people.

I do wonder if our golden path is to try to somehow adopt the action - the action without thinking, the maneuver warfare - of the right, working off of axiomatic faith in certain positions - nationalising industry, building social homes, taxing the rich, non-interventionism.

I know this is still close to the Bernie/Corbyn arguments of the late 2010s - but I think it goes a bit further. It's not just a policy slate - it's also a rhetorical approach of bloodymindedness, of aggression and a lack of apology, and to some extent a reduced hangup on the potential of causing unintended harm - or, at least, a willingness to let go of the sheer paralysis at the thought that state intervention might have unintended consequences. On a broad level, we know what the solutions are, and the paralysis of power both forcloses actual action when the left is in power, and feeds the right's cruel, unthinking action. At some point, we have to accept that the price of inaction is higher than the price of acting and risking negative consequences.

Tough sell! I feel a bit gross saying it. But these are really bad times. There are some figures out there who might be moving in this direction - Mamdani seems to have the juice - but things are moving really quickly now. Time will tell.

And here remain with your uncertainty!
Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts!
Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
Fan you into despair! Have the power still
To banish your defenders; till at length
Your ignorance, which finds not till it feels,
Making not reservation of yourselves,
Still your own foes, deliver you as most
Abated captives to some nation
That won you without blows!

Coriolanus, 3.3


  1. As a long winded example - I went to a panel last week on the Renters Rights Bill, where the fantastic Nick Bano was speaking. He laid out pretty clearly that the RRB is genuinely going to change things, and probably significantly for the better! As well as abolishing S21's, the bill will allow any tenant to challenge a rent increase, and take that to the First Tier Tribunal. This will take months every time, and in the worst case scenario just return the same rent increase, without backdating. There's essentially no downside, and the FTT is going to be absolutely paralysed by them.

    What shocked me was his point that the government don't understand this. In Labour's minds, they are solving the housing crisis - but through increasing supply (something that - i'm sorry - only has a marginal effect). They haven't really picked up on this dynamic at all. Like, maybe Rayner isn't quite in the sunken place as she appears, and is keeping this quiet. But the groupthink is genuine! And not just in this micro example - they genuinely believe that they need to chase Reform votes, look tough on immigration, etc.

    2. back ↶

  2. Tbh, the core of this - that 'power should be abolished' - is kinda incomprehensible to me, in a way that makes me sure I've misunderstood something. Surely, so long as you'e got one person with food, and one person without, then there is power? You've got to remember the period he's writing in - hegemony seems a lot more challengable now, for better or worse - but I just don't really understand if it's a purely philosophical point he's making, or some kind of anarchist call to action.

    3. back ↶

  3. Paul Watt's Estate Regeneration and Its Discontents has a really good view on how public consultations are often subtly slanted and pre-figured to get the results they're after.

    4. back ↶

  4. see Notes on the Crises.

    5. back ↶