Final, Culp, Escape
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Escape Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Andrew Curtis Culp Graduate Program in Comparative Studies The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Eugene W. Holland, Advisor Philip Armstrong Mathew Coleman Copyright by Andrew Curtis Culp 2013 Abstract This work reimagines autonomy in the age of spatial enclosure. Rather than proposing a new version of the escapist running to the hills, “Escape” aligns the desire for disappearance, invisibility, and evasion with the contemporary politics of refusal, which poses no demands, resists representation, and refuses participation in already-existing politics. Such escape promises to break life out of a stifling perpetual present. The argument brings together culture, crisis, and conflict to outline the political potential of escape. It begins by reintroducing culture to theories of state power by highlighting complementary mixtures of authoritarian and liberal rule. The result is a typology of states that embody various aspects of conquest and contract: the Archaic State, the Priestly State, the Modern State, and the Social State. The argument then looks to the present, a time when the state exists in a permanent crisis provoked by global capitalist forces. Politics today is controlled by the incorporeal power of Empire and its lived reality, the Metropolis, which emerged as embodiments of this crisis and continue to further deepen exploitation and alienation through the dual power of Biopower and the Spectacle. Completing the argument, two examples are presented as crucial sites of political conflict. Negative affects and the urban guerrilla dramatize the conflicts over life and strategy that characterize daily existence in the Metropolis. ii Following a transdisciplinary concern for intensity, the work draws from a variety of historical, literary, cinematic, and philosophical examples that emphasize the cultural dimension of politics. The wide breadth of sources, which range from historical documents on the origins of the police, feminist literature on the politics of emotion, experimental punk film, and Deleuze and Guattari’s nomadology, thus emulates the importance of force over appearance found in contemporary radical politics. Departing from many of the accounts of political change given by political theory or sociology, “Escape” shows how the recent politics of autonomy is essential to understanding the struggle against Empire. iii Acknowledgments Innumerable people shaped this dissertation. Let me begin by thanking Comparative Studies for the freedom to study, discuss, and teach material that shakes the foundation of our contemporary world, and The Ohio State University Graduate School for the opportunity to clear away the distractions for a year and focus on my dissertation. The dissertation also benefited from the considerable feedback that I received at conferences; in particular, I’d like to thank Jeff Bell, Ian Buchanan, and James Williams from Deleuze Camp in New Orleans, Matt Applegate and his colleagues at Binghamton University, Jason Read and others at Historical Materialism in Toronto, and the tough room at the North American Anarchist Studies Network conference in New Orleans. It would have been impossible to finish without the companionship of my writing partner, Michael Murphy, whose dedication and kind words kept me thoughtfully on task. Early feedback from writing groups, the first convened by Allison Fish, Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, Kate Dean-Haidet, Wamae Muriuki, and Ilana Maymind and the second organized by Tahseen Kazi, josh kurz, and Ricky Crano, was essential for getting the project off the ground and sustaining me through its most difficult hours. I am forever indebted to the many friends and colleagues who helped to hone the political message in digital and analog, most notably Gabriel Piser, Fulvia Carnevale, Matt Applegate, josh kurz, Alex iv McDougal-Weber, Brett Zehner, Greta Stokes, Darwin Bond-Graham, Ricky Crano, Aragorn!, Brian Murphy, Jedidjah DeVries, Adrian Drummond-Cole, Cricket Keating, Jason Smith, Nick Crane, Josh, Eric Beck, Robert Hurley, Jason D, Kai Bosworth, Hilary Malatino, and my many online accomplices. Marty Wood, Brennan Baker, Eric Beck, and John Parman were gracious enough to help put the final touches on it. I am incredibly grateful for my committee and their guidance. Franco Barchiesi left a deep and fiery influence despite his short stead. In our markedly longer time together, Mat Coleman has been the model of feverish curiosity matched by scholarly care. Philip Armstrong has been far too generous with his intense patience, but it has shown me how to strike smarter rather than quicker. And my deepest gratitude goes to Gene Holland, whose generosity is exceeded only by the clarity of his thought. My thinking and writing blossomed under his guidance. I would also like to thank my parents, Wayne and Camille, for their unwavering support, which gave me the chance to dream. The dissertation would have been far less provocative without the continuing friendship and intellectual incitements of Oded Nir, whose advice is the quickest way to cut through bullshit. And lastly, I would have been lost without the fighting spirit of my partner, Eva Della Lana. v Vita June 2002 ...............................Millard North High School (Omaha, NE) June 2006 ...............................B.A. with Honors in Philosophy and Economics, University of Missouri (Kansas City, MO) 2007-2012 ..............................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University June 2009 ...............................M.A. in Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH) 2012-2013 ..............................Presidential Fellow, The Ohio State University Publications 2013, “The Savage Fruit of Alienation.” Review of Savage Messiah by Laura Oldfield Ford (2011), The Anvil Review, February. 2012, “Giving Shape to Painful Things: An Interview with Claire Fontaine.” Radical Philosophy, 175, September/October. 2012, “Ghost Stories and Nightmares.” Three Word Chant, 1, Summer. Fields of Study Major Field: Comparative Studies Specializations: Cultural Politics, Social Theory, Continental Philosophy vi Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ iv Vita .................................................................................................................................... vi Prelude ............................................................................................................................... 1 Empire and the Metropolis .......................................................................................... 4 The Emergence of the Metropolis ............................................................................... 8 Lenin’s Shadow ......................................................................................................... 15 The Alchemy of the Example .................................................................................... 21 The Ambivalence of Escape ...................................................................................... 30 PART 1 – CULTURE ..................................................................................................... 34 Escape ........................................................................................................................ 35 A Typology of State-forms ........................................................................................ 35 Chapter 1 – The Archaic State & The Priestly State ................................................... 37 The Archaic State of Conquest .................................................................................. 37 Raiding and Trading .................................................................................................. 39 The Cruelties of Anti-Production .............................................................................. 41 vii The Terrifying Magician King .................................................................................. 46 Fleeing the Codes ...................................................................................................... 49 The Priestly State of Contract .................................................................................... 52 Faith and Debt ........................................................................................................... 53 The Violence of Equivalence and Law ...................................................................... 56 The Law As Shared Means for Private Appropriation .............................................. 58 Peace Outside the State .............................................................................................. 61 Chapter 2 – The Modern State & The Social State ..................................................... 66 The Modern State ........................................................................................................ 66 Forging a Strange Complementarity .......................................................................... 67 The Four Operations of the Modern State ................................................................