From Section 354 of The Gay Science, Kaufmann translation:
…it seems to me as if the subtlety and strength of consciousness always were proportionate to a man’s (or animal’s) capacity for communication, and as if this capacity in turn were proportionate to the need for communication. But that last point is not to be understood as if the individual human being who happens to be a master in communicating and making understandable his needs must also be dependent on others in his needs. But it does seem to me as if it were that way when we consider whole races and chains of generations: Where need and distress have forced men for a long time to communicate and to understand each other quickly and subtly, the ultimate result is an excess of this strength and art of communication….
….Consciousness is really only a net of communications between human beings; it is only as such that it had to develop; a solitary human being who lived like a beast of prey would not have needed it. That our actions, thoughts, feelings, and movements enter our own consciousness—at least a part of them—that is the result of a “must” that for a terribly long time lorded it over a man. As the most endangered animal, he needed help and protection, he needed his peers, he had to learn to express his distress and to make himself understood; and for all of this he needed “consciousness” first of all, he needed to “know” himself what distressed him, he needed to “know” how he felt, he needed to “know” what he thought. For, to say it once more: Man, like every living being, thinks continually without knowing it; the thinking that rises to consciousness is only the smallest part of all this—the most superficial and worst part—for only this conscious thinking takes the form of words, which is to say signs of communication…..
…Add to this that not only language serves as a bridge between human beings but also a mien, a pressure, a gesture. The emergence of our sense impressions into our own consciousness, the ability to fix them and, as it were, exhibit them externally, increased proportionately with the need to communicate them to others by means of signs—
—this, I call Performativity.
What is most important to take away from the passage is the foundation Nietzsche gives for performativity although he did not use that term and only hinted at the idea in this passage. Namely, to borrow from Pascal, “Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.” Beyond the early human being’s ability to reason about the non-human environment and to exploit that environment intelligently, the early human required an ability to communicate his needs, desires, fears, and so forth, to his companions, in order to ensure his survival. This required, first, an ability to hold one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions in the world within one’s mind—self-consciousness—and, second, the ability to communicate these things to other human beings and to know when other human beings were doing the same thing. This might be said to be the basis of human society: co-operation for survival, founded upon the ability to communicate through signs one’s own self-consciousness or, to put it a little more crudely, one’s own awareness of the environment.
Crucially, however, mere communication of the environment one has witnessed, for the benefit of others who have not witnessed it, was not enough. Individual humans had to ensure their own personal survival and the satisfaction of their own personal desires. Self-conscious understandings pertaining to needs and desires required expression. “The ability to fix them and, as it were, exhibit them externally” became the norm, indeed the foundation, through which and upon which individual humans established society for their own personal benefit.
With the development of society came an enhancement of the environment. Two ways of looking at this: (1) The actual non-human physical environment changed, with everything from huts to farms to aqueducts to the Internet arising from the fulfillment of needs and desires expressed sufficiently well among humans; and (2) Other humans became a part of the physical environment, potentially as dangerous as wild beasts and severe weather or as beneficial as clean flowing water and ripe apples hanging from the branch. Both #1 and #2 required enhanced strategies of communication, for the basic fact that a society of humans expressing their personal needs and personal desires—with the goal of finding fulfillment of these through the co-operation of other humans—created conflict between those needs and desires, or at least between the fulfillments of them. These changes to the environment, which altered one’s personal self-consciousness of how one is affected by the environment, had human origins; thus, these effects could be altered if humans could be influenced. (One supposes, having for some time delved into Nietzsche’s work, that he would say this is the origin of prayer: The translation of performativity into an attempt to alter non-human events such as earthquakes, etc., the way humans instinctively use performativity amongst and upon themselves. That is, real performativity came first; prayer, after.)
A distillation of various strategies of performativity, taken together, might run something like this, from Section 13 of The Gay Science:
On the doctrine of the feeling of power. — Benefiting and hurting others are ways of exercising one’s power upon others; that is all one desires in such cases. One hurts those whom one wants to feel one’s power, for pain is a much more efficient means to that end than pleasure; pain always raises the question about its origin while pleasure is inclined to stop with itself without looking back. We benefit and show benevolence to those who are already dependent on us in some way (which means that they are used to thinking of us as causes); we want to increase their power because in that way we increase ours, or we want to show them how advantageous it is to be in our power; that way they will become more satisfied with their condition and more hostile to and willing to fight against the enemies of our power.
One might see in this doctrine of the feeling of power the origins of every system of government that has yet existed. Even now in America, one political party has for decades pointed out the nature of the other party’s benevolence: The welfare state is a state that wants to extend its power through benevolence, and the Welfare Party attracts supporters, by being benevolent, who will fight against their opponents come next election. What the Welfare Party fails to express, currently, is the fact that its opponents do the same by promising no government, no taxes, no meddlesome socialism: “People of America, we give you benefit of no intrusion into your lives by the government! See how benevolent we are! Elect us into your government so that we can keep giving this to you; empower our governing powers so that we may free you from governance and thereby empower you!” As for the governed, they express their benevolence through acceptance of taxation, or else through political donations, votes, and so forth, believing that they have extended their power thus.
But one makes a mistake in believing that the so-called Social Contracts being written by political parties and state governments are the only contracts being made; these performative strategies extend to the very lowest and smallest levels of society wherever humans come into contact. Behind every performative act—i.e., every act that is performed, or visible to another for the other to see—behind every performative act is an admission of one’s perception of having a weakness as well as the need to gain from social interaction. One is a “reed, the most feeble thing in nature,” but so are one’s companions. Because we cannot see our companions’ self-consciousness, or experience that for ourselves, but only may see their deeds, we may often come to expect this benefit from them, that they may act in a way beneficial to us, if we can provide the right influence—whether their reaction is to cower in fear or to help us create, or maintain, the world we desire.
The practices of ostracism and excommunication, for example, have been as devastating to the human being’s strategy of performativity as a bullet in the head or sword through the heart, in so far as they shut down any potential for benefiting from influence within and upon a society—but nowadays, another community awaits in a different church, on a different website, around the block or on the other side of the world. As environments change, so too change the performative strategies; but it is important to note, here, that the roots of performativity are not broken. Insofar as one may easily find benefit—life-sustaining and desire-fulfilling benefit—in and from another society of human beings, the target of performative action may easily change to that society and away from the unreceptive or intransigent society, but only insofar as that. It so happens that the current epoch has succeeded in placing many layers between material resources and the human beings who supply and demand those things: A medieval peasant had fewer options, because his bread and butter might not so easily be found apart from his present village society. Yet even the societies we abandon continue to exist, and the individuals they comprise continue their performative strategies, and the effects of this—alterations to the environment—may have consequences for those of us who have abandoned them. The many layers separating supplier and demander may cause confusion for performers who are demanders but have no direct relationship to the suppliers; but the need for performance remains paramount, and we sense that it does—as always.
When now we hear about Splintering in society and broken social contracts, or else about amorality and corruption at the base or pinnacle of society, we are hearing plaintive performances from those who fear that their current understandings of society are inadequate: How else shall they perform, how now ensure their own success, if what was once understood becomes senseless, useless, false? May we not return to the old ways? May we not now create the new ways we always wanted before, on the basis of this new evidence? —There I have stated the position of the two political parties of the world. These parties are now attempting to benefit even within the splintering environment; or, from the idea of the splintering environment. Regardless of the factuality of their claims, true or false, they will continue to try to influence a sufficient number of supporters into building the world they envision, a world which will ensure their personal success. The resulting clamor will remain clamor and may create more confusion as individuals from other parties, or from no parties, or from multiple interconnected societies, feel the need to exert influence on the system—because after all, those clamor-machines, those faceless masses shouting to be heard, those others, are a part of the environment we must influence or change if we are to feel secure in our place.
Nietzsche provided a “new caution” in The Gay Science, Sec. 321:
New caution. — Let us stop thinking so much about punishing, reproaching, and improving others! We rarely change an individual, and if we should succeed for once, something may also have been accomplished, unnoticed: we may have been changed by him. Let us rather see to it that our own influence on all that is yet to come balances and outweighs his influence. Let us not contend in a direct fight—and that is what all reproaching, punishing, and attempts to improve others amount to. Let us rather raise ourselves that much higher. Let us color our own example ever more brilliantly. Let our brilliance make them look dark. No, let us not become darker ourselves on their account, like all those who punish others and feel dissatisfied. Let us sooner step aside. Let us look away.
Look Away—If You Can: The title to this blog post can be taken in this light, the light provided by Nietzsche. Or in can be taken in another.
The former, Nietzsche’s, seems to suggest not an end to performativity or an escape but rather that one should attempt to be the better performer or that one should seek to become more performer than audience. In vulgar parlance, Do your own thing. Yet he also seems to suggest that though one looks away from the audience—lest they become the performer and you the changed or influenced audience—one must nonetheless remain aware that you are setting the example, you are the “brilliance” and thus a superior performer, or influence, in the world, and that an audience indeed exists.
The second possible interpretation of the title of this blog post: “Look away, there’s nothing to see here….” In other words, you may pretend no performativity is occurring, you are not subject to the influence of others, move along and let what will be, be. Ignore the performance.
But is either possible—for you? After all, you have read this blog post to this point. You did not look away.
The future will be negotiated, one way or another.
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