Radical Everydayness
This is the first weekly dispatch from the (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project.
This week’s dispatch is a short philosophical essay that frames an important aspect of the project. Future dispatches will include guest essays, interview transcripts, and documentation of works-in-progress.
Please contact me with any thoughts and questions that you would like to share in response to this dispatch, as I hope to feature your responses in future dispatches.
My favorite Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has long been “A Case of Identity”, published as the third story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1892. Curious as it may seem, the titular case of identity upon which the story turns is not what makes it my favorite Sherlock Holmes story. Rather, what makes the story my favorite is the brief philosophical dialogue between Holmes and Watson that frames the titular case. This extremely brief philosophical dialogue is, in my humble and idiosyncratic opinion, one of the most profound philosophical dialogues ever written.
The main part of the dialogue runs as follows:
Holmes: My dear fellow, life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outrè results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.
Watson: And yet I am not convinced of it, the cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.
Holmes: A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect. This is wanting in the police report, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.
So, you ask me, “What profound insight is to be gained from this dialogue?”
Well, as I have come to read it, Holmes is reproaching Watson for believing that what is “common sense” is coterminous with what is “commonplace” when, and this is the proud insight, what is “commonplace” tends to defy “common sense”.
Readers of my books will note that I have used the term “common” quite often in my writings and, more often than not, I have used the term negatively. This is because I almost always use the term “common” to refer to the “conventionalities” and “foreseen conclusions” that constitute “common sense”. I have only very rarely used the term “common” to refer to the “wonderful chains of events” and “outrè results” that are “commonplace”. That being said, however, I must admit that I have, like Watson, too often mistaken the common sense for the commonplace.
A major part of the (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project, as I have conceived of it, will be about taking care not to mistake the common sense for the commonplace. For while the project aims to forsake what is common sense, the project also aims to embrace what is commonplace. To put it differently — reserving the term “common” for that which is common sense, as I have in previous writings, and employing the term “everyday” to refer to that which is commonplace — I say that the (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project aims to forsake the common in order to embrace the everyday.
I wouldn’t want to introduce notions that would constitute a “school,” I’d want to introduce notions or concepts that would make it to the everyday arena. I don’t mean these would become something ordinary, but that they would become concepts for everyday use, namely concepts that one could handle in different ways.
— Gilles Deleuze, from "R as in Resistance" in L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze, avec Claire Parnet
The (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds project is about (de-/re-)constructing statements, implements, and environments so as to make everyday sense — this as opposed to making common sense and as opposed to appealing to higher senses and reasons. Which is to say, in other words, that the project is both opposed to the populisms of common sense and opposed to the elitisms of higher senses and reasons.
Indeed, as I see it, the populisms of common sense and the elitisms of higher senses and reasons are two sides of the same coin. Aristocratic and meritocratic elites impose a common sense upon everyday words, things, and places in order to claim that singularity and spontaneity of expression are the scarce possessions of those who have cultivated higher senses and reasons. In turn, the populists who celebrate common sense and disparage higher senses and reasons are doing little more than expressing their ressentiment towards elites who have robbed people of everyday sense and who have claimed higher senses and reasons as the means and the ends of privilege.
Radical resistance to common sense, as I would practice it, is resistance to the conventionalities and foreseen conclusions that aristocratic and meritocratic elites impose upon everyday words, things, and places in their bid to claim singularity and spontaneity of expression as aristocratic and meritocratic privileges. What’s more, going further, radical resistance to common sense is about making everyday sense, which means making sense of the fact that singularity and spontaneity of expression are commonplaces as opposed to privileges.
So, you now ask me, “What makes everyday sense?”
Well, I say that statements, implements, and environments that make everyday sense are those that stand the test of everyday use and repair. In this I follow Soetsu Yanagi, the Japanese philosopher and aesthete, who writes in an essay translated as “The Beauty of Miscellaneous Things”:
[Everyday statements, implements, and environments] cannot be fragile, lavishly decorated, or intricately made; such will not do. Thick, strong, and durable, that is what is needed. [Statements, implements, and environments] for everyday use are not averse to rough handling [...] They cannot be flimsy or frail of nature; neither can they be overly refined. They must be true and steadfast to their use. They must be ready for any type of handling, for use by any individual. Pretentious ornamentation is not permitted; dishonesty of any type is rejected. They must bear every trial and test.
This does not mean, however, that everyday statements, implements, and environments are things that lack beauty. Very much to the contrary, they are beautiful because they are stripped of pretentious artifice and bear the traces of everyday use and repair. Indeed, in lieu of pretentious artifice, the traces of everyday use and repair become baroque decorations and ornamentations, and these traces constitute the beauty of everyday statements, implements, and environments. Yanagi continues:
Since [everyday statements, implements, and environments] have [commonplace tasks] to perform, they are dressed, so to speak, in modest wear and lead quiet lives. In them one can almost feel a sense of satisfaction as they greet each day with a smile. They work thoughtlessly and unselfishly, carrying out effortlessly and inconspicuously whatever duty comes their way. They possess a genuine, unmovable beauty. On the other hand, of course, there is also delicate beauty, beauty that quakes at the slightest perturbation. Yet isn’t beauty that remains unfazed by a hard knock or two all the more amazing?
Moreover, this type of beauty grows with each passing day. [Everyday statements, implements, and environments] become more beautiful the more they are used, and the more beautiful they become, the more they are used. Users and the used have exchanged a vow: the more an [everyday statement implement, or environment] is used the more beautiful it will become, and the more the user uses an [everyday statement implement, or environment], the more that [statement implement, or environment] will be loved.
Statements, implements, and environments that only make common sense (as opposed to making everyday sense) are expendable: they are meant to be used, abused, and thrown away. That which is common sense fails the test of everyday use because it is not meant to be improved upon in and through its everyday use and repair. Rather, what is common sense is meant to be disposed of after falling into disrepair or disrepute. You can be sure that you are dealing with a word, thing, or place that makes common sense whenever you find that the word, thing, or place is easily exchanged for another one just like it when it falls into disrepair or disrepute.
Statements, implements, and environments that appeal to higher senses and reasons (as opposed to making everyday sense) are not meant for everyday use: they are meant to be used by special persons for special purposes at specially appointed places and times. You can be sure that you are dealing with a word, thing, or place that appeals to higher senses and reasons when rules and regulations must be formalized and authorities established to prevent the word, thing, or place from being used by people who do not “deserve” the privilege.
Statements, implements, and environments that make everyday sense bear the traces of their everyday use and repair with beauty and grace: the more they are used and repaired in different ways by different people, the more beautiful and useful they become. You can be sure that you are dealing with a word, thing, or place that makes everyday sense when it begs to be used and repaired again and again by different people and in different ways in order to enhance both its beauty and its usefulness.
The statements, implements, and environments that we have access to are what make us what we are:
Those who are made into slavish commoners are those who only have access to statements, implements, and environments that make common sense. This is to say, in other words, that expendable words, things, and places make for expendable people.
Those who are made into aristocratic and meritocratic masters are those who “earn” special privileges and “deserve” access to statements, implements, and environments that appeal to higher senses and reasons. This is to say, in other words, that words, things, and places that are refined for a “higher purpose” make for people who believe that they have been refined for a “higher purpose” that the common people cannot serve.
Those who are made into everyday people, who become neither masters nor slaves, are those who have access to statements, implements, and environments that make everyday sense. This is to say, in other words, that words, things, and places that become more beautiful and useful in and through everyday use and repair are what make for people who create increasingly beautiful and useful words, things, and places by living their everyday lives.
We live in a world in which the production and proliferation of expendable statements, implements, and environments prevails. This means that we live in a world in which people are being made expendable. Some people submit to being made expendable, while others resist being made expendable. Alas, many who resist being made expendable are desperately grasping for special privileges and for access to statements, implements, and environments that appeal to higher senses and reasons. Those who manage to grasp special privileges for themselves fear the ressentiment of those grasping and coming up empty handed. The privileged fear that the have-nots are resolved to wrest special privileges away from those who have, and they fear that some have-nots are resolved to wreck what they aren’t able to wrest from the haves. It follows that many social struggles in our world are defined by the desperate grasping of those wanting special privileges and by the apprehensive clinging of those holding onto special privileges.
Ay, but there is also a radical resistance to expendability that would neither desperately grasp at nor apprehensively cling to special privileges. This radical resistance to expendability would promote and participate in the production and proliferation of statements, implements, and environments that make everyday sense. I call such radical resistance to expendability a “radical everydayness”, and I have conceived of (De-/Re-)Constructing Worlds as a project in radical everydayness.
