Michael Hardt. About Love. 2007 6/6

http://www.egs.edu/ Michael Hardt, the author of Multitude and Empire talks about love, how can love function as a political concept, why love, the proper and improper ways love has functioned politically, love as activism, and evil and its relationship to love. Public open video philosophy lecture for the faculty and students of the European Graduate School, Media and Communication Studies Department Program, EGS, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe, 2007. Michael Hardt. Michael Hardt, born 1960 is an American literary theorist and political philosopher based at Duke University. Perhaps his most famous work is Empire written with Antonio Negri. The sequel to Empire, called Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, was released in August, 2004, and details the idea of the multitude (which Hardt and Negri initially elaborated in Empire) as the potential site of a global democratic movement.

Sometimes referred to as the "Communist Manifesto of the 21st Century", Empire proposes that the forces of current class oppression, namely - corporate globalization and commodification of services (or "production of affects") have the potential to fuel social change of unprecedented dimensions.

Born in Washington DC, Hardt attended Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland. He studied engineering at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania from 1978 to 1983. In college during the 1970s energy crisis, he began to take an interest in alternative energy sources. Talking about his college politics, he said, "I thought that doing alternative energy engineering for third world countries would be a way of doing politics that would get out of all this campus political posing that I hated."

After college, he worked for various solar energy companies. Hardt also worked with NGOs in Central America, doing tasks like bringing donated computers from the U.S. and putting them together for the University of El Salvador. Yet, he says that this political activity did more for him than it did for the El Salvadoreans. In 1983 he moved to Seattle to study comparative literature. From there he went to Paris where he would meet Negri and write his dissertation under Negri's guidance. Michael Hardt speaks fluent French and Italian, and is Professor of Literature and Italian at Duke University. In 2006, he was a member of the group of 88 Duke professors who signed a statement supporting the accuser in the Duke rape case.

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[sasiwanmuspratt]

i think the concept of love is really important. if you want a society of equality that values quality (not excessive quantity of stuff) of life over constant search of profits. Love encompasses a very opposite logic to profit, greed, and self-seeking interest. I think its bold to try to discuss love in a political context, love can be a very subversive concept.

[suvoomrini]

So according to professor Hardt and his reliance of Spinoza the political use of love can be defined as--love is some kind of a training ground for the creation of subjectivity of 'joy' that is capable of recognizing an external cause which can increase our capacity to think and act so that we can live a free and singular life!?

[soulwhiteman]

Another thing, he admitted earlier on that he wasn't putting forward an argument just yet, it was more comparative literature, annotated bibliography. I think you need to give him a little latitude. see Aiwah Ong (anthro) :"Neoliberalism as exception" and "Flexible Citizenship" brilliant insights how certain individuals are awarded "flexible" governmentality because of their economic ability, while others are excluded...Takes H&N's lead, and blends it with ethnography

[soulwhiteman]

Also, the "trancendental" force of capital, through globalization obscures class relations H&N stress this, thats why there are shopping malls in Bali, with genuine Ralph Lauren shirts, from China, while tailors make knock offs in the boutiques for example. The force of capital itself creates exploitation; not the relations between classes... it USED to, but with the "postmodern" era, those "class forces" are not as prevalent - but exploitation is. I think that is his point.

[soulwhiteman]

I think you're taking his reference to Lenin earlier in the lecture WAAAY to far. The proletariat, if suddenly enshrined with autonomy would not be able to handle it. I think that is a "fair enough" (I'm Australian) comment.

[solidaritynow]

soul: yes, H&N can reshape our thinking. This is precisely why I respond here. Hardt's "love vs. solidarity" is the liberal response to class and the most dangerous response of all. I think one eventually realizes that such "brilliant insights" obscure class relations and maintain the status quo.

[soulwhiteman]

I've read both; i think they make some brilliant insights, breaking down the first world/third world dichotomy, and thinking of globalization as a process and not an event.

There's "the first world in the third world, and third world in the first world"

again, they're only political philosophers and admit themselves that they don't have all the answers, but rather can reshape our thinking - and a change of thinking brings a change of situation???? i suppose? one can only hope.

[solidaritynow]

soul: I suppose I'm upset because it is exactly that, a "political project." Hardt's love-filled "gap" directs our focus away from real social change. Hardt's project is the stuff of poetry and privilege. Read Empire and Multitude. Then go work on a factory floor in southern Guangdong. Enjoy.

[soulwhiteman]

"one talks about love when people starve" are you upset that Hardt is not putting forward a political project? Religion still categorises individuals, like the nation. Until we reach homo-homo; human as human love, then we will still have a long way to go.

[solidaritynow]

soul: What is the difference between Hardt's poetry here and religion: "Love, rather than solidarity, extends beyond our standard conceptions of rationality, beyond the rational calculus of interests." The dribble. This is what happens with Duke tenure--one talks of love when people starve.