Spirit of Recession Double Dip Edition 2010

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The Spirit of Recession*

PAUL CHAN

OCTOBER 129, Summer 2009, pp. 312. 2009 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1991, I was at once too poor and not poor enough to be caught up in thelast great American recession of the 20th century. Living far from the coastal epi-centers of culture and capital, and being too young and naive to know, much lesscare, about life beyond my meager horizons, the idea of a phenomenon thatthrows entire societies into dire phrases like negative growth and economicdepression was as abstract and remote to me as the actual reasons behind theappearance of a recession are in reality. That summer, a decline in gross domesticproduct for me meant saying no to yet another McDonalds quarter-pounder withcheese. Survival had nothing to do with measuring the rise and fall of economicindicators, but the cunning of living in-between these inhuman quantifications,and finding novel ways to be unmoved and unmoored by their movements, in anydirection. Progress was not chasing profit, but standing firm where you happened

to have found yourself, against the forces that bull or bear either way.But one learns rather quickly that standing firm doesnt guarantee that the

ground one stands on staysfirm. The McDonalds where I went now and thenclosed toward the tail end of the 91 recession; so did other businesses in the area.At the time I didnt think much of it, and if I did, I thought it strange. The placehad a lot of customers because the neighborhood it was in didnt have a real gro-cery store or day care or any semblance of a community or job training center. Soinevitably, that McDonalds became all of themat once. People gathered and satin those obscenely uncomfortable plastic chairs, slowly poisoning themselves withnitrates and chemically flavored meats, waiting for a mother, or a friend, or a pay-check, or the promise of the days only hot meal.

No one mourned the McDonalds closing, but it was missed. And it became aharbinger of other closings and cutbacks. Friends and family of friends lost jobs.And even those who did not lose anything still understood, without comprehend-ing, the turning that was taking place. It was a rare moment when the course of

*This text was delivered on April 30, 2008, in New York as part of the Public Art Fund Talks. I want tothank Marlo Poras, Jennifer Hayashida, and Robert-Hullot Kentor for their insight and advice.


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the world seemingly revealed itself on our streets. History became available as anexperience in the here and now through the uncanny alignment of the local andthe national, both of which expressed this new course in a negative light, that is tosay, as the experience of the way we were being impotently dragged along in its

wake, regardless of our own will and power of resistance.1

That feeling of forces over our heads pushing the course of the world onwardlike blind and unavoidable fate would not feel so blind and unavoidable if not for thefact that these forces also express themselves through us.2 They speak in attitudesand forms of thinking that compel, from within, an elective affinity that not onlyaccepts these forces as right, but more acutely, as natural to the ways of the world. I

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was not directly affected by the 91 recession. But I still manifested the same tenden-cies and drives that made that time so tense. And this was because in the interest ofself-interest, I had to understand the ways in which the social conditions were shift-ing, either to get in or out of their way. Yet the more I understood those conditions,

the more I felt like I was being conditioned bythem, so that over the course of surviv-ing, I reproduced, rather than resisted, the impulses that were aligned with the forcesthrowing an entire epoch into a state of petrified unrest. But what are you supposedto do?3 Self-preservation is the only game, in any town, because even if you dont play,it doesnt mean you cantgetplayed. The urge to join the game is strong, and not nec-essarily because everybody wants to win, but because nobody has the luxury of losing.

The predatory nature of the social forces that work on us from above, and theindividuals instinct that survival through self-interest is the only course available tomeet the demands of the day, are two aspects of the same thing that I have been try-ing to describe in both concrete and abstract ways. This thing, which is hardly athing, and more like a speculative principle, in fact demands the interdependence of

the concrete and abstract to realize itself. In 1991, there was plenty of concreteness togo around. There was, of course, my local McDonalds closing, which was itself theleading edge of a downturn that started in August 1990, in investment, hiring, sales,and production in the private sector and cuts and freezes in social services likehealth care and education in the public sector. In other words, a recession.4 But a

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4. There are other words for what a recession is. Wikipedia tells us, a recession is a decline in acountrys real gross domestic product (GDP), or a negative real economic growth, for two or more suc-cessive quarters of a year. In the US, the judgment of the business-cycle dating committee of theNational Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) regarding the exact dating of recessions is generallyaccepted. The NBER has a more general framwork for judging recessions: A recession is a siginifcantdecline in economic activity spread across the economy lasting more than a few months, normally visiblein real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recessionbegins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough. Arecession may involve simultaneous declines in coincident measures of overall economic acticity such as

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recession does not simply appear like a perfect stranger. It has friends and lovers tohelp it along. In 1991, there were principally two. First, there was the lingering sav-ings and loans scandal, where members of Congress, including Arizona senator JohnMcCain, received money from lobbyists in exchange for helping investors avoid fed-

eral oversight so they could exploit a sleepy sector of the banking market to lendmoney to themselves with impunity, and engage in profiting from high-risk junkbonds and home loans.5 The second friend was a war, initiated by President GeorgeBush, against Iraq, to punish Iraqs aggression against her neighbors and to bringdemocratic stability to the Middle East.6 So a trinity of events in 1991a bankingscandal, a war, and a recessionrevealed the course of the world in both abstract andconcrete ways, which is to say, above us and through us, at the same time. Theyrevealed that an unforgiving logic was at work that held us in its calculation despiteour volition to do otherwise, and that if there was a way out, it was through. That is tosay, one had to take the course and endure it. This speculative form of revelationthat unveils the seemingly inevitable course and consequence of a society progress-

ing over time by virtue of an unending conflict that pits itself against its ownbestwhich is to say, humaninterests, has an illustrious name in the history ofideas. It is called Spirit.7

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employment, investment, and corporate profits. Recessions may be associated with falling prices (defla-tion), or, alternatively, sharply rising prices (inflation) in a process known as stagflation. A severe or longrecession is referred to as an economic depression. A devastating breakdown of an economy (essentially, asevere depression, or a hyperinflation, depending on the circumstances) is called economic collapse.5. For a comprehensive overview of the entire savings and loans scandal, see Kathleen Days book,S&L Hell: The People and the Politics Behind the $1 Trillion Savings and Loan Scandal, New York: W. W.Norton & Co., 1993.

6. There are many books that deal with the 1991 Gulf War. I suggest Kathy Kellys book, OtherLands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison, (New York and London: AK Press), 2005.7.


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Mark Twain, whom I consider to be Americas greatest philosopher, once wrote, History doesnt repeat, it rhymes. It seems hardly worth mentioning,

because it is in truth so terribly obvious, that despite the turning of a new century,things have not turned around. We still dance, with three similar beats, the sameregressive rhythm: another Iraq war, another banking scandal, another recession.And if it is true that we can discern differences between now and then, in how welive, how we communicate with one another, or whom we elect into office, it istruer still that those differences simply put into sharper relief the lack of freedomwe continue to feel over the course of our own lives above and beyond the courseof the world. In other words, Spirit continues to subject us to it and to each otherunder the law of self-preservation. Survival is another name for the dues paid tothis antediluvian labor union of the living.8

The dues are now higher. The job losses, home foreclosures, and bank collapses

in the coming months that signal the growing recession of 2008 only highlight inspectacular form what has been happening under our feet and in plain sight duringthe night of the world. In spite of an expanding national and global economy afterthe 1991 recession, there has not been, as predicted, a corresponding expansion inwages and benefits for the vast majority of those living and working today. Accordingto the Economic Policy Institute, real take-home wages in America actually fell last year, and this was during the boom times.9 In stark economic terms, growth in the


9. See the Economic Policy Institutes Issue Brief #240, Real Wages Decline in 2007, by JaredBernstein published January 16, 2008.

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economy has been decoupled from a shared social prosperity. Rising productivitysince 1991 has progressivelyimpoverishedthe producers, so much so that life is begin-ning to be decoupled from the living. Two weeks ago, The Washington Postreportedthat for the first time since the Spanish Influenza of 1918, life expectancy for

American women is falling, and is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s.10

This is progress as regression.11 It is no secret and there is no magic. It is merelythe image of reality today, where advancements in ways of living coincide with thediminishment of life as we want it to be. This is not the only course imaginable, butwhat is striking is that it seems to be the only one available. The advent and passing ofevents both major and minor only confirms, in their transience, the fundamentalmarching order that directs the relentless pace of survival from above and fromwithin. Over and again this order states that to see the day through, a ruthless ratio-nality must prevail, and that the more this rationality prevails, the more right andnatural it becomes. It becomes natural to sacrifice the lives and livelihoods of othersin the name of prosperity, which is another word for progress, which is itself a mod-

ern term for the primitive idea of cunning at the service of self-preservation. Sacrificethen becomes as natural to the process of creating value as the sun is to making light.

But this is not natural. It is not even human. It is, in other words, religious.What was once called Capitalism has always harbored a religious dimension. Marxbegan his critique of the commodity fetish by describing the theological niceties thatimbued the commodity with a mystical, transcendent character.12 Sociologist Max

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10. Life Expectancy Drops for Some U.S. Women, by David Brown, published in The WashingtonPost, April 22, 2008.

12. See Karl Marxs Capital: Volume 1, (1897; New York and London: Penguin Classics edition, 1992).

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Webers classic work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (190405) bringsMarxs insight to America, and documents how modern Capitalism grew and flour-ished here in part because specific Protestant faiths, influenced by a Calvinist readingof the New Testament, sought to answer the call of God not through good works,

which are the ethical practices one must follow to lead a religious life, but throughthe sanctification by works, where profitable labor and the pursuit of economic activ-ity were redescribed as a furtherance of divine glory.13 Religious values were createdfor constant and systematic labor in a secular calling, and became a noble asceticpath and at the same time the greatest guarantee of proof for the genuineness offaith. For only through a complete transformation of the meaning of ones entire lifein every hour and every action, in the course of tireless and purposeful labor, couldthis sanctification by works be effective in lifting men and women out of a state ofnature and into a state of grace.

Webers insights become essentialized in a fragment written by Walter Benjaminentitled, Capitalism as Religion.14 Benjamin declares that modern Capitalism was

not merely the secular outgrowth of American Protestantism but is itself a religiousphenomenon. God is not dead, as Nietzsche proclaimed, but lives on in the sacra-ment of exchange relations, where every sale and every purchase is a celebration andwhere every celebration takes the form of labor. In other words, Capitalism is like aholiday work party where the boss refuses to let you leave. Secularization has not sep-arated and freed us from divine authority, but has instead retooled it. It left itsauthority intact and simply moved it from one place to another, displacing a heavenlyhierarchy onto an earthly one. So grace becomes redescribed as progress and sacri-fice is elevated to a divine right. In our modern transfiguration, every exchange is anunwitting prayer for the continuance of the economic miracle.15


13. See Max Webers The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, (190405; New York: RoutledgeClassics edition, 2001).14. See Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 1, 19131926, (New York: Belknap Press, 2004).15.


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The miracle has ended, but the celebration is never-ending. The image ofprogress pushing the recovery and sustaining the prosperity of the Americaneconomy after September 11th has given way to the reality of an impoverishingdownturn in vast sectors of economic and social life. It is a downturn many are a

party to, even though very, very few actually participated in, much less profitedfrom, the brutal and calculating upturn, which caused the turning in the firstplace. Since this January, when the Public Art Fund invited me to give this talkand I decided to talk about something I know virtually nothing about, the num-ber of headlines and stories about this current recession has swelled: foodrationing due to inflation; job cuts; wage freezes; bank collapses; federalbailouts. And even if these headlines have no direct bearing on your life, surelyyou can see that they have nevertheless set a new scene for the social imaginary,one characterized by scarcity, anxiety, and fear. It is neither tragedy nor farce. Itis a re-run. Or better yet, a painful pop song that wont get out of your head. Youmay not know all the words, but you cant help but know the tune. That is the

nature of Spirit.

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A recession is more than an economic and social phenomenon that mustbe endured. It holds within itself a kernel of unreason that promises to release itfrom the constraints of rationality, so that new possibilities can come about, inits use and meaning.16 That unreason is its religiosity. For the otherdefinition ofrecession has to do with the church, namely, the time after church service whenthe clergy departs and the people who make up the congregation are left to

themselves. As the church authorities leave, a hymn is sung. This is called a

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recessional. And it is here, in the act of leaving and singing, that the idea of arecession gains its transformative potential. For a church without authority isblessed indeed. The end of the service announces the beginning of anotherkind of time: no more commands for sacrifice and expressions of faith; no more

sermons from the book of Progress; no more exchange of prayers. Time holdsno more duties and returns to the people a sense of being neither guaranteednor determined, an inner composition unburdened by the anxiety of influence,one which finds its own shape only when power recedes. This is the time whenthoughts turn away from the authority that captures their attention from aboveand from within, and toward the radical demands of life after church.

The recessional marks the moment of this turning. It is the emphaticimage of time shaped by the invisible currents of something both passing andcoming. It acts like a lyrical farewell and charges the entire space with the antici-pation of new tidings that only real endings can bring.17

Strangely, all this reminds me of a dinner. A year ago, in a restaurant not far

from here, I met up with a friend I had not seen for some time. And as we ate, shefilled me in on the details of her latest writing project, how her roommate, whoalso happened to be her ex-boyfriend, is a depressive mess, and this is why shecant work at home, and so on.

I keep eating, and nod, and listen. She begins to tell me about the latest classshe is teaching and the virtues of instilling fear in students when she stops mid-sentence. She goes completely still. Her eyes widen. I ask if everything is okay butshe doesnt answer. I look at her plate where the fish used to be. I panic. It must bea bone, now stuck in her throat. I dont know what to do so I do what I know: I yell, first with a gnarly guttural noise, and then finally managing to spit out the

word waiter. I look back at my friend. She is st ill motionless, but not tense. She is


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perfectly calm. She leans toward me from across the table and with a singularsmile on her face, she says, simply, I love you. And adds, a second later, I wantmy book on nineteenth-century slave narrat ives back.

She was saying goodbye. She didnt end up going, thanks to a clever waiter.

But for a moment that froze in time with as much of eternity as Im likely to knowabout, my friend thought she wasnt going to make it, and wanted to say whatwords mattered most, before she left. I love you. I want my book back. I rememberthese words today not exactly for what they say, but for how they inform the aes-thetic contours of anything worth making; in other words, the urgent play ofshapes and colors and lines and spaces and sounds that matter most when some-thing is stuck in ones throat. The Spirit is a bone, the philosopher Hegel oncedeclared. I see now what he meant. To find the courage to say the very last words,and to make them sing like the recessional to the very last service, this is what Icall art. And then to muster the strength to stand firm, not leave, and endurethrough Spirit, this is what I call the creative act today.

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Spirit of Recession Double Dip Edition 2010