Alexander Ulanov. Gaining a loss

“What humanity considers to be its fully developed form is deceptive: it is only humanity at work, who lives to work, and is unable to freely enjoy the fruits of its labor.” .

Contentment is not at all rest for the sake of further production, but the goal of this production. And the coldness of a calculating thought is only the path to the fire of waste. In 1949 , when it was published in France, Bataille was one of the first theorists of consumer society to eliminate the bias of economics and sociology towards production and production only. Nowadays it is rare that a philosopher in his works does not refer to the potlatch and other ritual expenses. It is all the more interesting to see what Bataille’s readers pay less attention to.

Bataille was not indifferent to how exactly the excess energy was spent. You can build a cathedral - and you can start a war. Bataille does not write much about the North American Indians burning their canoes at a potlatch, but much more about two polar worlds, from his point of view: Muslim and Tibetan. Islam, with its emphasis on community cohesion, on conquest, proved capable of spending only on war.

" Once, through its victories, Islam ceased to be a rigorous dedication of living force to growth, all that remained of it was an empty and rigid frame ."

Bataille draws attention to the fact that many of Europe's borrowings from the Arab East relate to the remnants of pre-Islamic culture. The troubadours of Provence were indeed greatly influenced by Arabic poetry, but the Prophet Muhammad had a negative attitude towards poetic competitions... However, spending the surplus only on monasteries, as in Tibet, where there was one monk for three adult men, made the country unable to defend itself. (It’s a pity that Bataille didn’t touch on such a colossal waste of free time as ancient Rome.)

But who will determine how we spend? Bataille not only mainly considers such variants of society where there is almost no place for the individual. He specifically stipulates that it is more typical for an individual to create a reserve for confidence in the future, that spending is rather a privilege of the general, and anxiety about lack, opposing spending, is personal, isolated, individual. A contradiction arises: to what extent is this commonality capable of detaching itself from considerations of benefit, even imaginary ones? It seems that for the Aztecs, ritual human sacrifice was almost more necessary than working in the fields: sacrifices kept the sun shining. And war was seen in many societies as something useful and profitable. And only European culture, based on Bataille’s questioning of individuality, revised many ideas about benefits and opened the way, in particular, to Bataille’s reasoning.

Profitless consumption, choice without necessity, for pleasure - it seems, despite the costs (" The middle class bourgeois, office workers and small businessmen who own mediocre or insignificant fortunes have finally devalued conspicuous spending, calculating it so thoroughly that there is nothing left but masses of wasted effort, the only result of which is boredom and anger "), the individual still finds more interesting ways for this than burning boats or killing sled dogs or slaves. The individual learns to find a balance - from a capitalist society focused on the accumulation and expansion of human production, from a post-industrial society focused on human consumption - to a person of “sufficiency”, who understands that there is a measure not only for the development of production (which Bataille drew attention to), but also for spending too.

But this happens at the level of the individual, while politics remains necessary for society, and here Bataille sounds unexpectedly modern.

" If the threat of war forces the United States to devote the bulk of its surplus to military production, then it will be useless to talk about any peaceful evolution: then war will surely break out. And only to the extent that the threat of war will force the United States to coolly - and without compensation - devote a significant part of the surplus raising the standard of living on a global scale, the movement of economy will give the increase in energy another outlet besides the military, and humanity will calmly move towards solving its problems ."

It is more correct for a developed country to give away part of its wealth free of charge to a country where poverty is caused by low industrial development and demographic situation. Now we know that a huge part of this aid will not reach the right address and will give rise to corruption and parasitism. But we also know that otherwise we will have to spend much more on war or the fight against terrorism.

Bataille wrote a lot about the monolithic nature of the USSR. " Soviet communism is resolutely closed to the principle of waste ." He did not yet know that the USSR was a huge waste, which also turned out to be quite boring. But gratuitous assistance from the United States under the Marshall Plan (it could only be gratuitous - war-ravaged countries had nothing to pay) saved Europe after World War II . America then understood that to adhere to the profit principle would mean dooming the rest of the world to hate the United States. It didn't take much - the gift to Europe was lower than the cost of alcohol consumed in the United States in 1947 . However, on the other hand, it was help to those who were able to stand on their own feet...

And the basis of everything on Earth is loss. The sun shines for nothing. By spending, people " tried to avoid their own degeneration, at the cost of which they eliminated the burden placed on them by stinginess and the cold calculation of reality ." We need to understand this better - and destroy excess energy in ways that suit us best. And you can bring pleasure to many people. To yourself beloved. To a loved one - who has it. God - who believes in him (the figures of Gothic cathedrals are executed equally carefully at the ground and at the roof, where a mortal cannot see them). The sun is shining on everyone.