Convivial Statements
This dispatch begins to introduce an approach to the (de-/re-)construction of statements, marking a transition from the theoretical to the practical in the context of this project.
Statements, implements, and environments together constitute power formations: they form filters and channels that (i) generate determinate elements from otherwise indeterminate flows of stuff and then (ii) prevent these determinate elements from intermingling and rejoining indeterminate flows of stuff.
In this text, I would like to focus on statements and their contributions to the constitution of power formations, leaving aside implements and environments and their relations with statements.
When I use the term “statement” in the context of this project, I am invoking Michel Foucault’s usage of the term. This is to say, in other words, that I do not use the term “statement” to simply refer to sentences like this one. This is an important point for me, as it was for Foucault. Indeed, knowing that I cannot mark the distinction between statement and sentence any better than Foucault, I shall quote Foucault at length on the matter:
When one finds in a Latin grammar a series of words arranged in a column: amo, amas, amat, one is dealing not with a sentence, but with the statement of the different personal inflexions of the present indicative of the verb amare. One may find this example debatable; one may say that it is a mere artifice of presentation, that this statement is an elliptical, abbreviated sentence, spatialized in a relatively unusual mode, that should be read as the sentence 'The present indicative of the verb amare is amo for the first person', etc. Other examples, in any case, are less ambiguous: a classificatory table of the botanical species is made up of statements, not sentences (Linnaeus's Genera Plantaruma is a whole book of statements, in which one can recognize only a small number of sentences); a genealogical tree, an accounts book, the calculations of a trade balance are statements; where are the sentences? One can go further: an equation of the nth degree, or the algebraic formula of the law of refraction must be regarded as statements: and although they possess a highly rigorous grammaticality (since they are made up of symbols whose meaning is determined by rules of usage, and whose succession is governed by laws of construction), this grammaticality cannot be judged by the same criteria that, in a natural language (langue), make it possible to define an acceptable, or interpretable sentence. Lastly, a graph, a growth curve, an age pyramid, a distribution cloud are all statements : any sentences that may accompany them are merely interpretation or commentary; they are in no way an equivalent: this is proved by the fact that, in a great many cases, only an infinite number of sentences could equal all the elements that are explicitly formulated in this sort of statement. It would not appear to be possible, therefore, to define a statement by the grammatical characteristics of the sentence.
So, if it is not a sentence, what is a statement? Again, unable to do him one better, I shall quote Michel Foucault at length on the matter:
[T]he statement is not the same kind of unit as the sentence, the proposition, or the speech act; it cannot be referred therefore to the same criteria; but neither is it the same kind of unit as a material object, with its limits and independence. In its way of being unique (neither entirely linguistic, nor exclusively material), it is indispensable if we want to say whether or not there is a sentence, proposition, or speech act; and whether the sentence is correct (or acceptable, or interpretable), whether the proposition is legitimate and well constructed, whether the speech act fulfills its requirements, and was in fact carried out. We must not seek in the statement a unit that is either long or short, strongly and weakly structured, but one that is caught up, like the others, in a logical, grammatical, locutory nexus. It is not so much one element among others, a division that can be located at a certain level of analysis, as a function that operates vertically in relation to these various units, and which enables one to say of a series of signs whether or not they are present in it. The statement is not therefore a structure (that is, a group of relations between variable elements, thus authorizing a possibly infinite number of concrete models); it is a function of existence that properly belongs to signs and on the basis of which one may then decide, through analysis or intuition, whether or not they 'make sense', according to what rule they follow one another or are juxtaposed, of what they are the sign, and what sort of act is carried out by their formulation (oral or written).
To get at both Foucault’s point and a point of my own in one and the same gesture, I would like to write about two kinds of statements, domineering statements and convivial statements, and I would like to relate these two kinds of statements to the two kinds of communication that they respectively serve to enable, violent communication and nonviolent communication.
Domineering statements are those statements that contribute to the stability of power formations: they are the means by which forms of violent communication come to make sense, to take precedence, to have reference, and to set processes in motion. Domineering statements are, in other words, the conditions of possibility for the effectiveness of violent communication.
Convivial statements are those that counter power by contributing to the instability of power formations: they are the means by which forms of nonviolent communication come to make sense, to take precedence, to have reference, and to set processes in motion. Convivial statements are, in other words, the conditions of possibility for the effectiveness nonviolent communication.
Nonviolent communication is the considerate, honest, and mutual way that people are able to communicate their abilities and their needs to one another. Nonviolent communication enables people to work with one another and to work in accord with the communistic principle, “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.”
Violent communication, by contrast, is the way in which people in positions of power (or seeking such positions) communicate demands and give orders to those who they compel to work for them. Violent communication disables non-violent communication: it disables the considerate, honest, and mutual communication of abilities and needs amongst people; it enables those in positions of power to disregard others' needs and to demand that others perform more work than they are able. Violent communication is, in other words, the way in which people in positions of power inspire feelings of impoverishment and ineptitude in those who are compelled to work for them.
Let us consider a specific instance of violent communication: a teacher says to one of their pupils, “You are a poor student.” This particular instance of violent communication obscures the needs and abilities of the pupil at whom it is directed while inspiring feelings of ineptitude in that pupil. If you were to ask the teacher, why would you say such a thing, the teacher might say, “It is the truth. Just look at the student’s academic transcript.”
The student’s academic transcript is not a group of sentences, nor is it a group of propositions, nor is it a speech act — the student’s academic transcript is a statement. As a statement, the student’s academic enables us to discern whether certain sentences (e.g., “You are a poor student.”) are correct, whether certain propositions (e.g., “A poor student is one who has a grade point average below 2.5.”) are legitimate, and whether certain speech acts (e.g., “You are hereby expelled for poor academic performance.”) fulfill their requirements.
Now, let us consider a specific instance of nonviolent communication: the pupil in question responds to their teacher, as I wish I’d have done as child, “I got bad grades because I failed all of my homework assignments, and I failed all of my homework assignments because I do not feel safe at home. I am not able to concentrate and do my homework unless I feel safe at home. My parents fight at home, and I feel scared when they fight. At home, I am always wondering what I might do to make them stop.” This instance of non-violent communication enables us to discover a few of the needs and abilities that were obscured by the teacher’s violent remark. But, alas, this instance of nonviolent communication will have little effect as long as the academic transcript is the statement that defines the teacher-pupil relation.
The academic transcript is a domineering statement that primarily serves to enable the teacher to make demands of the pupil, “Do your homework, or else you will fail and be expelled from this school.” The academic transcript is not a statement that enables the teacher to meet their students’ needs and discover the full extent of their students’ abilities. Rather, the academic transcript exists to enable the teacher to filter and channel students who “achieve” as ordered and in a “timely” manner apart from students who “fail to achieve”, without respecting their student’s differing needs and abilities.
The question that follows from all of this is, “How might we deconstruct the domineering statement that is the academic transcript, which primarily enables the demand that pupils perform work for their teachers, and how might we (re-)construct convivial statements that enable teachers to work with their pupils by and through communicating their needs and abilities to one another?”
The academic transcript is but one of the many domineering statements that I am interested in deconstructing in and through this project. To cite other such statements, I am also interested in deconstructing those statements that contribute most to the constitution of capitalist powers — the many different accounting statements that define our economic relations. These include bank statements, credit statements, billing statements, and invoice statements, of course, but they also include statements like our credit reports or credit histories, which are aggregate many different accounting statements in order to determine their normal distributions and optimize their trends. These many different account statements, like the student’s report card, obscure our needs and abilities: they primarily serve to filter and channel apart people who regularly make required deposits and payments in a timely manner from people who are irregular and untimely with their deposits and payments, without respect for whether and how being irregular and untimely can make sense.
We will never have communistic economic relations if domineering accounting statements define our economic relations. So, my question in this regard is, “How do we (re-)construct convivial statements that enable different economic actors to express their needs and abilities to one another, especially when they have needs that make them untimely?” Those of you who are most familiar with my work will know that this question is central to my thinking on “reparative economy”, and you will likely be familiar with the three projects of mine that have probed this question: (i) The Gift and the Ledger, (ii) Probing Economics, and (iii) (Spectral). These three projects have yet to yield any practical answers to this question, of course, but they have lead me to believe that we cannot construct convivial alternatives to domineering accounting statements without considering ways in which we might “free time”.
