The Question of Ideology in Light of Perspectival Knowledge: The Truths of Marx and Nietzsche

Introduction

The reflections that follow are an attempt to consider the potential character of political practices in light of Marx’s and Nietzsche’s approaches to truth and illusion. Marx and Nietzsche are read in relation to one another in order to suggest a partial overlap between Nietzsche’s perspectival approach to truth and illusion and Marx’s analysis of ideology and class struggle. What is at stake in this article is the possibility of performing political critique and engaging in political action absent foundationally secure general or universal truths. ¹ I first examine the potential limitations, including the unintentional reemergence of ideological illusions, facing political projects grounded in assumptions of general or universal truths. I then turn to a consideration of the potentially liberatory power of particular and partial truths. I conclude by considering whether the pursuit of universal freedom may be better served by taking seriously a perspectival approach to truth that hinges on particular perspectives rather than on the presumption of a set of stable general truths.

In his critiques of ideology, Marx (1990, 1992a, 1992b; Marx and Engels, 2004) demonstrates how particular historical social relations condition consciousness. Ideas, beliefs, and values are often ideological inversions that can be – and should be – righted in the interest of human flourishing. The challenge of ideological critique resides in bringing to light the real and true character of social relations in order to transcend distorted forms of consciousness for the sake of making possible transformations in practical social relations. In his critiques of the desire to ground truth in a secure or universal sense, Nietzsche (1974, 1979, 1989, 1997, 1998) demonstrates that particular historical social relations and locations necessarily result in non-universal ideas, beliefs, and values. Consciousness and the social relations that condition consciousness do not – and cannot – attain a universally secure status. Our perception and understanding is necessarily perspectival in character. This essay argues that Marx’s critiques of ideology can be understood in such a fashion that we need not rely upon a search for universal truths and interests in order to undertake political critique and action. In particular, becoming aware of and contributing to the overcoming of capitalist social relations need not necessarily require the development of a generally or universally-held form of consciousness rooted in an objectively general social interest. Likewise, Nietzsche’s critique of the repeated attempts to ground truth in a stable, secure, and universal fashion can be read in such a way that we need not reject compelling justifications for political and ethical critiques or struggles motivated by diverse imaginations of what Marx (1991: 959) designates ‘the realm of freedom.’ It may be possible, in other words, to marshal Nietzsche’s critiques of universal truth in the service of a Marxist-inspired drive for universal freedom. ²

Consideration of the relative strengths gained from using a Marxist or a Nietzschean lens to view epistemological and political questions has a long and well-rehearsed history in social and political theory. ³ Across such understandings is a shared acknowledgment that Marx’s and Nietzsche’s analyses remain in some degree of contradiction, their respective political assumptions and motivations serving as a central source of tension. These political tensions are real and to bypass or dismiss them occurs at the peril of serious scholarship. In an effort to avoid simplifying either Marx’s or Nietzsche’s insights, I resist the temptation of construing any easy reconciliation or seamless compatibility between the authors. It is unlikely that Marx’s analysis of ideology and class struggle welcomes any simple connection to a perspectival approach to knowledge. It is even more certain that Nietzsche’s epistemological critiques were not written with the intent of advancing the struggles of the working classes. Nietzsche’s critiques of socialism, equality, and democracy (1989: 53–55, 115–118, 1990: 186–189, 1997: 69, 72–77, etc.) and his suggestions that a laboring class is a necessary condition of possibility for aristocratic freedom (1974: 338–340, 1989: 169, 201–237, 1997: 77, etc.) inform the work of many theorists. ⁴ Nevertheless, even as their assumptions and motivations diverge there are moments of thought between Marx and Nietzsche that might yet be read in relation to one another in the interest of reconsidering radical political imaginations and practices. ⁵ The following analysis makes an interpretive intervention by walking the tightrope between Marx’s critiques of ideology and capitalist social relations and Nietzsche’s critiques of the compulsive series of attempts to ground and authoritatively justify universal claims to truth in order to consider the possibility of political critique and action absent the guarantee of stable, secure, or universal epistemic foundations.

Inverting Ideological Illusion

Marx (1990, 1992a, 1992b; Marx and Engels, 2004) demonstrates the conditions under which ideology emerges as the dominant form of historical consciousness, under what conditions ideological consciousness is reproduced, and under what conditions ideological consciousness may yet be made transparent and so transcended. As Marx understands it, ideology is the inversion of consciousness conditioned by contradictory social relations, and so ideology can in principle be dissolved. ⁶ The material relations – including scarcity and the alienated social relations resulting from a fragmented division of labor wedded to the production of commodities for profit – which give rise historically to ideological consciousness are not necessary or inescapable facts of the human condition (Marx, 1973: 690–712, 1991: 957–59). Nevertheless, the forms of consciousness that these relations have conditioned now in their turn condition the presumptions of social actors (Althusser, 2001). Material conditions continue to appear necessary, and this apparent necessity reinforces ideological consciousness. Still, for Marx, the potential exists for a non-ideological consciousness to develop. The knot lies in achieving widespread recognition of the contingency of our present social formations and of transforming this recognition into widespread concrete demands and action for social change. Three central paths by which ideology emerges and is reproduced include the rise of a complex division of labor conducive to abstraction and alienated social relations, the transformation of production from use towards commodity production, and the conflation of particular class interests with a general or universal social interest. Of course, Marx understands these components as interrelated moments in a larger series of historical processes of changing modes of production. They are briefly disentangled below in order to suggest that parts of the whole may be reconceptualized in light of Nietzsche’s epistemological concerns while retaining Marx’s critical scope and stakes.

A first way in which Marx (Marx and Engels, 2004) understands the emergence and reproduction of ideology, is through an analysis of the historical intensification of abstract and alienated social relations that result from past and present organizations of the division of labor. Physical necessity, material dependency, and class struggles have historically woven together, fostering the conditions for increasingly complex divisions of labor to attend to the needs, desires, and interests of various social groups. One consequence of the increase in the complexity of the division of labor is the potential for partially disconnecting the performance of sensuous activity from conscious contemplation – a split between manual and mental labor (Marx and Engels, 2004: 51–52). A division of labor that generates the potential for such an ‘emancipation’ of consciousness from the immediate world ‘implies the possibility, nay the fact that intellectual and material activity … devolve on different individuals’ and so explains the different avenues through which forms of consciousness are abstracted from a sense of the social world in general (Marx and Engels, 2004: 52). As the division of labor grows increasingly complex, individuals are consigned to relatively narrow tasks disconnected from larger productive, social, and political understandings, effectively atomizing individuals both in terms of production and in terms of their social and political imaginations (Marx, 1992b: 324–34). Other social actors become relatively disconnected from the process of material production (Marx and Engels, 2004: 51–52). In both instances, consciousness is mediated by more or less abstract mythological and religious beliefs, political philosophies, and legal statutes. ⁷

A second way in which Marx (1990) understands the emergence and reproduction of ideology is through an analysis of the emergence of a series of capitalist social formations where social activity pivots around the production of commodities. The logic of the capitalist mode of production is such that social life revolves around the relentless production of commodities with goods and services produced for their ability to be exchanged at a profit for the owner of capital regardless of their actual or potential social use or desirability. In the process of subsuming productive relations into relations of commodity production and exchange, social relations transform into relations between things while the material products of labor-power transform into social relations (Marx, 1990: 165–66). Simply put, social relations of production are inverted. To the extent that social production is equivalent to the production of commodities, production as an activity remains mediated via wages and ‘the market.’ The consciousness that emerges in relation to this alienated, mediated activity becomes and remains an alienated, ideologically inverted consciousness.

Both the rise of a complex division of labor and the transformation of production from direct use towards commodity production condition the abstraction of particular day-to-day life activities from broader social and political visions and practices. If a social actor’s consciousness is conscious existence of a social actor’s life activities and these life activities are characterized by alienated relations of social production, then the social actor’s consciousness which is conscious existence of these alienated life activities will necessarily be alienated in form and alienating in content. What is crucial is that ideology is not incidental in the sense that it emerges as the necessary effect of particular social conditions. At the same moment, ideology is entirely incidental to the degree that it is only immanent in particular arrangements of social relations.

A third way in which Marx understands the emergence and reproduction of ideological consciousness is through an analysis of the relationship between particular and general interests. The primary examples to consider are the recurring conflation of the particular interests of one or a handful of socially or politically dominant classes with an apparently general social interest (Marx and Engels, 1975: 130–31, 2004: 54). A surface-level analysis might find it remarkable that a budget plan espousing the merits of lower taxes for all can find enthusiastic support among particular individuals who would most stand to benefit from increased social spending. To understand the recurrence of such ideological forms of consciousness requires that we recall the abstract and alienated character of existence. In other words, one has to dig beyond the surface appearance to reach the material root of such ideological consciousness. Atomized individuals whose everyday lives remain relatively restricted in terms of social power come to identify the concept of ‘the general interest’ with those particular interests and groups who appear to wield actual large-scale power in society. Mainstream politicians and political parties, church authorities, reigning legal statutes and sentiments as well as wealthy businesspeople – because of both their apparent and their real social power – come to be equated with the general interest of all social actors. ⁸

If ideological consciousness emerges in part due to increasingly complex divisions of labor and the production of commodities for the profit of the capitalist class, then the overcoming of ideology requires the overcoming of these alienated social formations. Ideological ‘reflections of the real world can … vanish only when the practical relations of everyday life between man [sic] and man and man and nature, generally present themselves to him in a transparent and rational form,’ when social relations of production are transformed and brought ‘under their [social actors’] conscious and planned control’ (Marx, 1990: 173). In other words, the means and the ends of social production require a radical transformation. ⁹ As regards the third moment identified above, if ideological consciousness can be characterized as the conflation of the particular with the general, then the contradiction between the supposed general interest – experienced ideologically as a real general interest – and particular interests must, by Marx’s reckoning, dissolve. To appropriate the logic deployed in On the Jewish Question: ‘As soon as society succeeds in abolishing the empirical essence’ of ideological consciousness, then this ideological consciousness ‘will have become impossible … consciousness will no longer have an object, the subjective basis of [ideology] – practical need – will have become humanized and the conflict between man’s [particular] individual sensuous existence and his [general] species-existence will have been superseded’ (emphasis in original; Marx, 1992a: 241).

It is at this third moment that I propose an interpretive intervention. Recognizing the historical contingency of apparently necessary conditions and marshaling this recognition to abolish practical need and exploitation – to ‘humanize’ social formations of production – is one (no small!) matter. Still, the leap from humanizing production to superseding the difference between particular interests and a general social interest begs pause. The overcoming of material need does not, in itself, suggest that the gap between an individual’s particular existence and interests and the general social existence and interests has been sutured. This approach to overcoming ideological consciousness is based upon the presumption that there are straightforwardly more real and true general or universal interests awaiting realization (Althusser, 2001; Habermas, 1971, 1998, 1999; Harding, 1986; Lukács, 1972; Mannheim, 1985). ¹⁰

Without questioning the real and true merits of a humanized approach to social relations and production, I maintain that the punch line of Marx’s analysis can be interpreted in a manner different from an attempt to square the circle of particular interests with straightforward general objectives. Perhaps what is ideological, regardless of a particular mode of production or social formation, is the conception of a straightforward set of general objective truths and universal social interests. Perhaps we can reinterpret Marx to say that with the humanizing transformation of the social relations of production from abstract to direct expressions of particular interests, comes the actual expression of a general social interest – through and as particular interests. A general transformation of the political economy of capitalism constitutes a series of transformations in particular social relations. Social relations that express particular needs and desires are general social relations. To restate this thesis in a more provocative fashion: general social interests and relations are only ever constellations of particular social interests and relations. ¹¹ After outlining Nietzsche’s perspectival approach to truth and illusion below, I return to this reinterpretation of Marx and ideology as a way of considering the possibility of radical political critique and action absent the assumption of general objective truths and universal social interests.

The Provocative Potential of Nietzsche’s Perspectivalism

Marx demonstrates how the experience of living in and through alienated social relations leads to the creation and reproduction of ideological forms of consciousness, including the historical processes of abstraction that transform particular interests of particular groups into general interests across social actors. Nietzsche shares Marx’s critique of the continual transformation of life-denying interests and experiences into general concepts, truths, and interests. Still, Nietzsche (1974, 1979, 1989, 1997, 1998) challenges projects aimed at capturing constellations of particular social relations and interests in order to designate as singularly real and true a secure and certain general social perspective. He does this, not in order to preclude transformations in social consciousness or action but in order to stem any conceit that transformations in social consciousness or action do or can reflect a stable series of general objective truths emerging from a universally-interested perspective. Tracing the logic of Nietzsche’s perspectivalism leads to consequences about the character of truth and illusion at partial variance with traditional Marxist interpretations of ideology. Marx’s understanding that consciousness emerges out of material conditions is maintained in Nietzsche’s perspectivalism. In both, critiques of ideology work to unravel the genealogical emergence of specific forms and contents of consciousness as expressions of particular perspectives that are themselves rooted in particular social locations in particular historical moments. ¹² The central difference between traditional Marxist ideological critique and Nietzschean perspectivalism is the deflation, in perspectival approaches, of claims to generally true knowledge and interests derived from a general or universal social standpoint. After Nietzsche, a critique of ideological consciousness is no longer commensurate with the aims of recognizing disjunctions between the particular and the general and of transforming particular perspectives, ideas, and interests into accurate reflections from a general perspective of a general social interest. As go claims to general or universally true knowledge and interests, so go straightforward identifications of particular or partial knowledge and interests being ideological in nature.

Analysis of consciousness and its more and less abstract conceptual components remains critical in the sense that it identifies the historical and social roots from which particular perspectives, ideas, and interests emerge. However, the work of critique in the sense of affirming or rejecting perspectives, ideas, and interests in relation to socio-political or ethical visions or practices occurs beyond the realm of epistemological – which is to say generally ‘accurate’ or ‘inaccurate’ and objectively ‘true’ or ‘false’ – investigation. ¹³ Nevertheless, Nietzsche does not revert to liberal relativism or nihilism. ¹⁴ While there are better and worse ways of being in the world, Nietzsche’s perspectivalism does not afford any certainty or security wrought from the realm of epistemology to translate into and guide the values of life. In other words, it is possible and necessary for social actors to determine what constitute the values and aims of life apart from ‘true’ and ‘false’ and apart from the concept of a perspective held ‘in general’ (Nietzsche, 1967: 52, 1974: 121–122, 130–131, 300–301, 1989: 11–12, 1997: 13, 36). After briefly outlining Nietzsche’s perspectival approach I return to Marx’s analysis of ideology – and the reinterpretation of Marx’s analysis suggested in the previous section – in order to begin addressing the possibility of calling into question particular political and ethical interests without the traditional epistemic support of general perspectives and truths.

Nietzsche (1979: 81) suggests that consciousness is and can only ever be a particularly situated, particularly interested phenomenon. Consciousness emerges from and is conditioned by historical relations, and these relations cannot be grasped as a whole nor can they be transformed in such a way so as to render consciousness less partial or less motivated by particular expressions of particular interests. In other words, human knowledge is fundamentally perspectival and so necessarily partial (Nietzsche, 1979: 86). ¹⁵ Any serious reference to a fixed general social totality constitutes a category mistake. Such a social totality would be an expression of social relations, and such relations would be expressions of particular social actors’ shifting needs and desires, ideas and actions. There is no static foundation outside of the relations of social actors to provide epistemic warrant or meaningful certainty for claims made on behalf of social consciousness or social interests ‘in general.’ ¹⁶

While no fixed foundation outside of historical social relations exists to provide epistemic security or certainty in general, Nietzsche (1979: 89) nevertheless understands the creation of abstract and relatively static concepts about an ‘out there’ to be a necessary activity of human experience. Individuals deploy concepts in order to fix and so manipulate the material world they navigate. The process of conceptualization draws together the infinitely particular instances of experience and converts these into illusorily similar kinds of entities, in the process making possible the identification and transformation of unlike into like (Nietzsche, 1979: 83). Concepts give rise to the possibility of ‘arbitrarily discarding … individual differences and … forgetting the distinguishing aspects’ of what are actually distinct moments of lived experience in the practical interests of social communication and action:

Every word instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather, a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases – which means, purely and simply, cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal. Every concept arises from the equation of unequal things. (Nietzsche, 1979: 83)

Simply put, conceptualization is the congelation in consciousness of particular experiences in the service of representing them as general for the practical sake of shared meaning and activity. What is significant is that Nietzsche’s account of abstraction at this stage is morally neutral. There is nothing inherently problematic with the process of abstraction, because abstraction is just how social actors navigate and engage with the world. The practical function of concepts is obvious enough. The description of an impression as ‘seashell’ or ‘pillow,’ as ‘cerulean’ or ‘curved,’ works to designate, in general, particular experiences in the world that can be meaningfully understood among groups of people. In order to make sense of shared existence and to communicate meaningfully with each other in the world, humans must make use of abstract and general concepts as practical illusions. There will never not be conceptualization and hence, there will never not be abstractions from the particular to the general. However, abstractions can be said to really and truly reflect a general perspective, fact, or interest only in the sense that particular experience has already been schematized into concepts – concepts which reflect attempts to invest particular moments with universal significance for practical purposes. What is significant here is that the processes for identifying general true knowledge – and distinguishing it from ideological illusion – remain, in the last instance, unstable and uncertain.

There is a double maneuver at play in Nietzsche’s analysis. Abstraction functions to provide a sense of stability and security as actors come to feel relatively efficacious and satisfied with their self-forming and shared practices. In another sense, practical abstraction cannot actually provide sufficient epistemological grounds – and so cannot adequately justify – this stability and security. Read together, these two claims lead to the provocative conclusion that what is epistemologically unjustifiable – generalized abstraction – is socially meaningful and practically necessary. Within a given context abstract general concepts are perfectly useful for describing and so helping to adjudicate truth in an epistemically weak sense. An individual may, for example, be able to determine usefully and meaningfully whether there is food in the cat’s bowl or if current weather conditions invite the wearing of a warm sweater. Or a less pedestrian example: actors may determine usefully and meaningfully whether or not there is evidence that climate change is a real phenomenon worthy of sustained attention and action. Nevertheless, outside of a particular context or perspective, general conceptual abstraction is incapable of providing adjudication in the sense of absolute certainty. ‘Particular context’ is also a concept and so may also shift in meaning. Climate change provides a good illustration. The particular context in which the reality of climate change exists and matters is, literally, a global – which is not to say universal – context, and so the way in which humans approach the set of facts and meanings around this particular context will – at least potentially – be more or less global in character. ¹⁷

In one important sense, Nietzsche demonstrates that the transformation of unlike (particular) into like (general) is not simply a process of ideology but is constitutive of the process of conceptualization as such. However, while not constitutive of the process of abstract conceptualization as such, the transformation of the particular into the general does provide the conditions of possibility for the emergence of ideology. What was a morally neutral process now acquires a normative character:

For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries – a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world … in this conceptual crap game ‘truth’ means using every die in the designated manner, counting its spots accurately, fashioning the right categories, and never violating the order of caste and class rank. (Nietzsche, 1979: 84–85, emphasis added)

Dynamic partial perspectives and experiences come to appear less real and true than abstract generalizations. In addition, what is designated real and true acquires a sense of being higher in value (‘more human’) and of carrying legitimate authority (‘regulative and imperative’). Following a trajectory similar to that traced in Marx’s analysis (1990: 125–77) of use value, exchange value, and commodity fetishism, particular perspectives (unlike) are transformed into general (like) perspectives (concepts) which are transformed into reality, truth, goodness, and authority.

Whether in the more mundane pragmatic interest of shared communication or the more explicitly political interest of groups exercising power and authority, the conflation of the particular into the general renders some aspects and understandings of the world real, true, and good at the expense of contingency, dynamism, and particularity. In other words, social actors work to fix relations, perspectives, and concepts in ways advantageous to their particular positions and interests. It is here that Marx and Nietzsche cross paths. In the concluding section that follows, I attempt to tease out the potential of their partial overlap in the service of a radical politics absent assumptions concerning a general social perspective, truth, or interest.

Conclusion: The Question of Ideology in Light of Perspectival Knowledge

Marx and Nietzsche are each committed, in their respective approaches, to understanding the sources out of which historical forms of consciousness emerge and acquire social compulsion. Both critique the creation and reproduction of static universal concepts that work to superficially freeze as real and true a set of general perspectives, ideas, and interests that are fundamentally particular, situated, and historically in flux.

Marx works to uncover the multiple roots of ideological forms of consciousness in order to allow an undistorted recognition of the true nature of alienated social relations to be achieved. This work leads Marx to demonstrate the historical trajectories of social production and their increasingly complex divisions of labor which in turn lead to an examination of the processes of commodity production and the alienated social relations that emerge from inverted social formations. Finally, Marx identifies the conflation of the particular interests of dominant classes into an apparently general social interest as a final moment of ideological consciousness. The dissolution of ideological consciousness requires a radical transformation in social relations of production. Due to its own immanent logic of accumulation, the capitalist mode of production is poised to bring about its own ruin and replacement (Marx, 1990). The decline of capitalism and the emergence of less alienated ways of being in the world would, given Marx’s logic, provide the conditions of possibility for the resolution of our inverted forms of consciousness. The possibility of no longer being tied to narrow material or mental tasks, of no longer remaining at the mercy of wages and the invisible but all-powerful market, and no longer producing commodities for the profit of the few, all gesture towards a decrease in our experience of estrangement from ourselves, from each other, and from the natural world. The question that remains is: what, given this general schema, does Marx’s suggestion that ‘practical need – will have become humanized and the conflict between man’s [particular] individual sensuous existence and his [general] species-existence will have been superseded’ (1992a: 241, emphasis added) signify? Perhaps what is meant is that with basic human needs met, differences in interests between particular individuals and the larger society will dissipate – or at least be rendered relatively inconsequential. Or perhaps this is meant to gesture towards the possibility that, absent structural exploitation and alienation, the satisfaction of the broad human interest in freedom can be realized for each and all.

Such interpretations of the relationship between the particular and the general seem plausible and, for those working in the Marxist tradition at least, innocuous if not inspiring. Nevertheless, it may do well to reconsider the ramifications brought to bear from taking Nietzsche’s perspectivalism seriously. Like Marx, Nietzsche understands the consciousness of social actors relative to their social relations, which are expressions of particular interests. Also like Marx, Nietzsche demonstrates how particular perspectives, ideas, and interests are transformed into relatively ossified, apparently general facts of the matter. Finally, like Marx, Nietzsche illustrates that the force for disrupting old ways of knowing and being and of creating new ways of knowing and being is to be located in power and desire – politics and ethics. Change occurs through active transformations in social relations. However, unlike Marx, Nietzsche’s analysis of consciousness and its transformations throws into question the possibility of a general social interest by which political or ethical practices could be judged, in any ultimate sense, as more or less real, true, good, or authoritative. Whatever interests take pride of place as general social interests would not for that matter be any less perspectival, historical, and particularly-situated in definition, meaning, and substance nor any less open to contestation and transformation. For Nietzsche, a transformation in consciousness constitutes a series of sidereal expressions rather than an uncovering or an arrival. The recognition that relations of power lie behind processes of conceptualization does not lend itself self-evidently to a political project that seeks to overturn exploitative power relations if such an overturning is intended as a strategy for securing transparency between thought and experience. This recognition can serve to motivate action towards particular political projects of overcoming. However, liberation cannot stem from, nor arrive at, a general social transparency and interest if a general social transparency and interest is illusory. From this perspective, liberatory practices, like conscious thought, can only ever be the transformation of particular social relations towards particular interests informed by particular perspectives – which as perspectives of social relations must remain in historical flux.

The question then becomes: what is to be gained by the deflation of general social interests into particular interests? What is at stake? The move away from designating a set of interests as universally real and true creates spaces for particular truths to exist without the risk of their being shelved under the label of ideology in favor of those claiming possession of a more real or correct consciousness or political practice. Drawing sharp distinctions between real and true general social interests and merely partial interests risks designating a particular – however radical – set of interests, values, and desires as the real and true general social interests, values, and desires. Simply put, it risks resurrecting the ideology meant to be extinguished.

Political imaginations, desires, and projects emerge historically, from multiple particularly-situated positions and perspectives. They are not and do not remain static or univocal. In the short-term, the assumption of a more correct political imagination and practice has the potential to overshadow or exclude critical ideas and actions that may overlap with, challenge, or compete with interests and projects assuming pride of place. One need only consider the debates revolving around the tactics, strategies, and goals of the contemporary American Left. The questions of whether one comprehensive social movement can or should be marshaled for the sake of its strength in numbers, whether distinct groups should focus their demands on particular issues while working in solidarity with different but related groups, or whether different groups require some degree of distance for the sake of concerted focus and against threats of cooptation all demand sustained reflection.

In the long term, political ideas and actions shift in character, scope, and aim. The search for a general social consciousness and political practice denies the necessarily multiple lived positions and perspectives from which ideas, interests, and goals emerge. Paradoxically, it may be in the overall interest of a society to remain open to particularly-positioned, historically-shifting ways of moving forward, however fraught with contention such untidy politics must be. If we follow Marx, for example, in arguing that human flourishing in the realm of freedom is an interest that weaves together and thereby transcends the distinction between the particular individual and the general social totality, we can still pause to ask what exactly is meant by the concept of ‘human flourishing.’ Of what does this consist and does it consist of the same attributes across individuals, groups, or societies? Is the meaning of human flourishing open to challenge and change? Problems that may register as flippant theoretically might nevertheless take on a serious tone in the sphere of lived political practice.

The puzzle that remains is whether Nietzsche’s playfully serious perspectival approach can, in the last instance, be brought into productive collaboration with Marx’s critique of ideological consciousness and with Marx’s larger political visions of human plenty and freedom. Disunity and general ineffectiveness are the concerns to be immediately leveled at a less than general approach to truth and action, especially in relation to struggles such as that of the working classes that are straightforwardly global in consequence. Can political critique and struggle be effective in the absence of a real and true general social interest, without a solid or secure epistemic warrant? Is the political risk of allowing multiple perspectives and interests, along with shifting imaginations and strategies, worth the inclusive but possibly disjointed dynamism? This essay gestures cautiously in the affirmative. Struggles can be understood and championed from numerous perspectives emerging from any number of partial motivations and towards a multitude of short- and long-term goals and desires. Social actors and groups can continue the work of recognizing the alienating character of historical and contemporary social formations and, from these partially overlapping recognitions, seek various but connected ways of struggling for better visions of the good life. The ground and the justification of critique, struggle, and imagination are not ‘out there’ waiting to be revealed but rather always-already exist as a series of social relations. The ground and the justification exist as they shift.