The Black Circle

by Jeff Love

  Before taking the account of desire a bit further, I should like to pause on this point, because there seems to be a tension between Kojève’s insistence on the importance of our biological reality and the hostility to this biological reality revealed by the concept of desire we are developing. To put the issue somewhat differently, there seems to be a tension in Kojève between reconciliation with nature, a recognition of ourselves in the natural world, and the suppression of nature in a project of negation that does not seek harmony or reconciliation but conquest. As we will see, this same tension emerges in Kojève’s account of recognition, in the sense that there are at least two possible ways of interpreting Kojève’s programmatic assertion that human desire is the desire of desire.

  On the one hand, this assertion may entail that one negates the desire of the other in a radical and absolute fashion, such that I only guarantee my I at the cost of all others, who must conform their desires to my own. We all become one as imitations of my I, through the pure, undifferentiated imposition of one identity on all others, a task that must end in failure, for the elimination of the other, just like the elimination of our biological reality, involves my own elimination. On the other hand, the further possible outcome of this “assimilation” of desire is a universal and homogeneous identity in which we all freely accept the same identity.40 While these questions get far ahead of the present task of interpretation, I hope they help clarify the significance of understanding exactly what Kojève means by identifying desire with disquiet and dissatisfaction, not only in terms of the relation to nature that is implied by dissatisfaction but also by the relation to other human beings as desiring beings, which is superimposed upon this first relation as its necessary double.

  To return to the initial question: Is the inference that human desire originates in dissatisfaction with natural desire, and thus with natural ends, an inference that one must make? Do restlessness and disquiet reveal dissatisfaction that in turn reveals to us an essential enmity with nature? I think that we may grant the first inference without having to grant the second, or at least without having to grant the second unqualifiedly. As I have noted, what is at stake here is something very important: whether negation is after reconciliation or conquest or, more precisely, a dialectical combination of the two whereby reconciliation and conquest are one and the same or mutually opposed. In this sense, the identification of negation with the action of an agent, a human agent, is a provocative move that may well undermine the notion of reconciliation and shows again Kojève’s hostility to considering nature as a proper object of philosophy.41

  Let us now proceed to the next steps in Kojève’s opening commentary. Kojève makes the crucial statement that “the Desire that relates to a natural object is not human unless it is ‘mediated’ by the Desire of another relating to the same object: it is human to desire what others desire because they desire it.”42 Here we have perhaps a clearer reason for the emergence of dissatisfaction, for Kojève notes that the precondition for the competition of desires, for the rise of distinctively human desire, is that there is a plurality of natural or animal desires. The unspoken assumption is that this plurality in itself gives rise to conflict because it reveals the fragility of natural desire as arising from the absence of a single natural desire. But difference itself is not enough. The possibility of different “natural” desires is indeed merely harmless or undifferentiated until these desires come into conflict with each other. Conflict of desires raises the question of the naturalness of nature and, thus, of identity. We come to ourselves as selves when we confront others who are markedly different from us—the negation of our own identity implied by other manifestations of desire, by other “natures,” compels a breakdown in our identity. We either acquiesce in this breakdown or aggressively seek to overcome it by transforming the natural desire of the other so that it conforms to ours. We desire the desire of the other in order to assure ourselves of our own identity or, more precisely, to eliminate the challenge to our own identity presented by that of the other.

  We may say, then, that the enmity against nature as such has its ground in the disharmony revealed by different “natures,” by the plurality of natural desire itself. The “wound” revealed by desire has to do with the radical incommensurability of different arrangements of desire; that is, in Nietzsche’s fateful words, “Man is the unfinished animal” (der Mensch ist das noch nicht festgestellte Tier).43 Or, as we might say, man is the radically imperfect animal, ugly and needy, the erotic animal. Beasts and gods are perfect because they know no difference, no defect, no absence.

  Our imperfection leads to community, of which beasts and gods, as perfect beings, have no need. Community presupposes plurality and conflict. Thus, it presupposes human desire and a dawning consciousness of self. Human desire attempts to overcome its dissatisfaction or disharmony with nature in the formation of community; the city or state is the completion of nature—or its overcoming.

  RECOGNITION

  This narrative, pioneered by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Hegel, is the heart of the celebrated “recognition thesis” that completes Kojève’s opening interpretation of Hegel.44 In fairness to Kojève—and as a counter to those who argue that Kojève takes a fanciful approach to Hegel—he seems fully justified in granting primary significance to this portion of chapter 4 in the Phenomenology, which, in the words of the eminently sensible and careful Hegel scholar Robert Pippin, is “the most important chapter in all of Hegel.”45 The key point of this chapter is that my identity as a self-conscious being, as human, relies on another self-conscious being. My desire relates to the desire of an other; there is no formation of human identity that is not thoroughly social. Radically individual human identity is madness or incoherence. Thus, Kojève’s notion of madness, the argument he sets out in “Tyranny and Wisdom,” finds its proper origins in the Hegelian insistence on the primacy of sociality as the origin of any human identity. In this respect, Kojève strikes a decisive blow to the Dostoevskian heroes we examined earlier, insofar as their attempt to escape limitation, to be like gods in some fashion, confines them to defeat in paradox. They seek personal salvation, whereas—and this is the crucial distinction that aligns Kojève with Vladimir Soloviev and Nikolai Fedorov—Kojève seeks collective salvation, which, indeed, is the only form of salvation that is not tinged with madness.

  Human desire is mediated by otherness. As we have noted, this mediation is precisely the desire of another in relation to a certain thing. If similarity is presupposed—the thing is recognized as desirable from two perspectives—the difference of perspective is decisive because it must involve conflict if it is to lead to the formation of identity, a particular consciousness of self. Kojève moves this argument along by indicating that perspective involves valuation: “All desire is desire of a value.”46 This is, again, an estranging move: What exactly does “desire of a value” mean? We may be justified in our surprise. Kojève has defined desire as desire of desire of an other and has indicated that this desire is truly human because its object is not to be found in the natural world. If we grant the latter point, we come to a new equation: human desire as nonnatural is the desire of a value; the concept of value distinguishes what is human from what is not. To ascribe value is human because this value is ascribed merely on the basis that some common X is desired differently by different subjects. That is, conflict or competition about a natural object supplies the raw material for a valuation, and valuation is little more than a way of recording the relation of the different desires, the one to the other.47

  The crucial distinction here is that all animal desire comes down to one overwhelming “value,” self-preservation. A question of value as such can never come up because the ultimate value is always the same. Human beings are different. They ascribe value to things merely because others desire them, no matter what their utility for survival is. This disregard for utility, for subsuming all things under a regime of self-preservation, is the sign of a distinctively human rea
lity.48 It follows, then, that the most purely human reality involves the most complete disregard for self-preservation. To deviate from the regime of self-preservation is the clearest expression of distinctively human desire.

  Differently put, man “proves himself” human only if he risks his life (animal) as a function of his human Desire. It is in and by this risk that human reality creates and reveals itself as reality; it is in and by this risk that human reality “proves itself,” that is, shows, demonstrates, verifies itself and gives evidence of itself as essentially different from animal, natural reality. And this is why to speak of an “origin” of Self-consciousness is necessarily to speak of risking one’s life (toward an end that is essentially nonvital).49

  Human desire is the desire of the desire of an other (le désir du désir d’un autre).50 Merely to desire the desire of an other, though a necessary condition, is evidently not a sufficient one. More is needed. One not only must desire the desire of an other to be human but also must be prepared to risk one’s life to “win” that desire. If, as Kojève argues, human desire is still analogous with animal desire, to win the desire of another can only mean that the desired “object” must be negated or otherwise ingested or assimilated, analogies whose precise meaning is not so clear when the object is the non-object, human desire itself.

  To begin to grasp what Kojève is after, we must look at what negation is, namely, action. Kojève is not talking about moves in some conceptual game that never escapes the realm of theory; he is clearly talking about action in the world—this is another way of appreciating his insistence on the importance of our biological reality. For Kojève, it evidently makes no sense to talk about desire if the analogy between human and animal is completely severed—the animal remains. In this respect, Kojève is genuinely Hegelian in suggesting that the overcoming of a given reality does not entail its eradication but rather its inclusion in a new reality that assumes it in decisively moving beyond it.51

  So, if desire is action, then the acquisition or assimilation of this action can only take the form of orienting that action to harmonize with my own actions. In terms of the notion of value, Kojève notes that the desire of the desire of an other is, in the final account, a desire fulfilled by substituting my value for that of the other. The relevant passage from the text is very curious. Rather than saying that I desire to substitute my “values” for those of an other, the text says that I desire to substitute my value, that “value that I am or that I represent,” for the value of the other.52 I want the other to recognize my value in place of his or her value—recognition is in this sense conquest.

  This conquest involves a struggle to the death. My value may only prevail if I am unafraid of negating the desire of the other by risking my life to do so. In this competition over value, there is no middle range, no peaceful agreement not to disagree, no reconciliation that leaves both sides as they were before they came into conflict. There is only one outcome to the conflict, and that outcome can be assured only if the struggle is to the death. Kojève holds that, without conflict, there would never have been any humans on earth.

  This kind of notion offends the democratic sensibility whereby disagreements may be resolved not by death but by careful discussion. But we must be very careful here. Kojève is talking about origins, and his account of these origins will ultimately imply a proper place for democratic discussion.

  Struggles to the death are of three kinds: both parties die or one lives or both live. There is only an origin in the third case. This is important, because it emphasizes the social imperative: a lone victor does not create a society because the lone victor is alone. A consciousness fully alone cannot come to full self-consciousness because there is no other, and without the other, there is no self—the mutual implication here is fundamental. The third case, then, is the proper case for the origin or foundation of society. In this case, the two parties survive only because one chooses not to fight or, at least, not to fight to the death.

  In order that human reality come into being as “recognized” reality, both adversaries must remain alive after the fight. Now, this is possible only on the condition that they behave differently in this fight. By irreducible, or better, by unforeseeable or “non-deducible” acts of freedom, they must constitute themselves as unequal in and by this struggle itself. Without being “predestined” to it in any way, the one must fear the other, must give in to the other, must refuse to risk his life for the satisfaction of his desire for “recognition.” He must abandon his desire and satisfy the desire of the other: he must “recognize” the other without being “recognized” by him. Now, “to recognize” him thus is “to recognize” him as his Master and to recognize himself and to be recognized as the Master’s Slave.

  Differently put, in his nascent state, man is never just man. He is always, necessarily and essentially, either Master or Slave. If human reality can only come into being as social reality, society is human—at least in its origin—only on the condition of implying an element of Mastery and an element of Slavery, of “autonomous” existences and “dependent” existences.53

  The two basic propositions here are that there can be no human reality that is not recognized and that the original form of this recognition features a radical asymmetry or disharmony.

  Why does human reality have to be recognized? If we turn again to Kojève’s own madness argument from “Tyranny and Wisdom,” we may perhaps obtain a clearer understanding of what recognition means. Kojève essentially equates madness with the refusal to admit the primacy of the social constitution of reality and, in a sharply ironic gesture, claims that the philosopher who attempts to live “outside” or “above” social reality cannot distinguish his life from that of a madman. But, of course, this madness is madness because it thrives on a basic inconsistency: as madness, it must in some way affirm the very social reality it otherwise denies—its rejection of the social reality presupposes that reality. Whether one likes it or not, the human or social reality is the only reality that we may safely refer to as such. Any other is an inconsistent projection, a kind of madness, a detour, a dream or hallucination, a seeing of devils with Father Ferapont.

  Thus, to argue that human reality is “recognized” reality is merely to argue that it is constituted and mediated by social relations. By “mediated,” I mean to refer to one of Kojève’s most interesting claims, that what one values is a creation of a social reality having no “intrinsic” value of its own, if that value is understood to be in the nature of the thing itself or due to another, similar ascription of value that in effect denies the social constitution of value by suggesting that the value is somehow prior to or outside sociality. There is no such thing for Kojève as a “natural” or “self-evident” value.

  Perhaps the most wide-ranging impact of this view—one that Kojève emphasizes when he claims with dogged persistence that Hegel is radically atheist—is that desire turns out to be wholly horizontal in orientation. The primary form of desire is oriented to another self-consciousness, to another human being, and not to God (as it is in Dostoevsky’s Christian hero, Zosima). The Platonic order whereby eros is directed upwards to the hyperouranian realm is in fact a move in the social, that is, political, struggle for recognition. Put more bluntly, Kojève’s emphasis on the social origin of human reality creates a radically new narrative of origins that subordinates other origin or creation narratives, like those of Plato, which do not claim that the social relation is fundamental. We are not created by a God but rather create that God as a move in the overwhelming social conflict emerging from an initial conflict whose conclusion creates the grounds for more conflict. While this view is decisively different from those of Fedorov and Soloviev insofar as God is placed within the social relation and not as the external guarantor of it, the impetus to create a final society is nonetheless the same. What has been eradicated is the temptation to the eternal, atemporal (and very personal) salvation that always remains when God is creator and not our creat
ion. Kojève affirms his own claim that the “only” mistake of Christianity is resurrection.54

  The conclusion creates these further grounds for conflict because it expresses an essential inequality: the relation of master and slave. Kojève begins his proper commentary on the Hegelian text with this notion as Hegel unfolds it in part A of chapter 4 in the Phenomenology, the celebrated—and very brief—discussion of master and slave.55 This is of course a provocative and intriguing move in itself, for it seems that Kojève has substituted his own account of the origins of desire for that of Hegel.

  Kojève may well be justified in doing so, since Hegel’s introduction of desire at this point in the Phenomenology has occasioned puzzlement among Hegel scholars.56 Two main questions seem to come to the fore. First, what relation does chapter 4 have to the chapters that precede it? And second, how does one fit desire into a rational account of sociality? The second question returns us to the tension between reason and will (or theory and practice) in an extraordinarily complicated way but with the same essential implications. These may be expressed as formulating a question about Kojève’s account of Hegel, in itself, as either establishing the primacy of reason or of will. Here the implications of Kojève’s account of the origins of human reality are momentous, for they suggest that the legislative rules of social reality have no grounding in any other reality. They are not “in” God or Nature or Truth, for all of these are “moves” in social struggle—artifacts or, indeed, weapons of conflict. If that is so, however, what can Kojève’s own account of these origins be? What authority can it exercise? Is it not an artifact or a weapon too?57

  These possibilities emerge from Kojève’s account of the origins of human reality, and the questions they pose are of crucial importance. But we are not in a position to deal with them adequately yet. We still have to complete our account of Kojève’s opening commentary by examining the master-and-slave relation itself.