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Global Manifestos for the Twenty First Century Rethinking Culture Common Struggles and Future Change 1 Edition
Nicol A Barria Asenjo Brian Willems Slavoj Zizek
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Bringing together forty original short essays, some academic, others more creative in nature, this collection responds to the political, historical, social, and economic situation in which we find ourselves today.
The editors argue that we are living in a repetition that must be stopped – if our goal is that the signifier “humanity” remains in the following centuries, the time has come to work in the present. The objective is not to deliver precise or quick answers, but to gather varied voices from different continents, bringing together different languages, ideas, practices, theories, thoughts, and desires. In the words of Yanis Varoufakis, “urging us to become agents of a future that ends unnecessary mass suffering and inspires humanity to realise its potential for authentic freedom.” To leave the concept of a manifesto open, the contradictory aspects of the chapters are a subject of the manifesto itself. This is a manifesto of contradictions that reflects our reality as well as our struggles and our aspirations.
This unique anthology will appeal to students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences interested in critical theory and social change.
NicolA.Barria-Asenjo is the author of columns, essays, and academic articles, including Žižek: Cómo Pensar con Claridad en un Mundo al Réves? (2023) and Psychoanalysis Between Philosophy and Politics, co-edited with Slavoj Žižek (2023).
Brian Willems is associate professor of literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, Croatia. He is most recently the author of Sham Ruins: A User’ s Guide (Routledge, 2022).
Slavoj Žižek is director of the International Humanities Centre, Birkbeck College, University of London, and senior research fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana. He is a lecturer at numerous universities in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, and South Korea.
GLOBAL MANIFESTOS
FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Rethinking Culture, Common Struggles, and Future Change
Edited by Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo, Brian Willems, and Slavoj Žižek
Designed cover image: JakeOlimb / Getty Images
First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge
The right of Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo, Brian Willems, and Slavoj Žižekto be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-58431-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-58419-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-45004-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003450047
Typeset in Sabon by Taylor & Francis Books
Rengifo-Castañeda, Alexander Muriel Restrepo, Diana-Carolina CañaveralLondoño, Francisco Yusty and Conrado Giraldo Zuluaga
29 Lapulapu’ s Kris and Panglima Awang’ s First Circumnavigation of the World
Ramon Guillermo
or Difference: Letting Go of Confrontation and Starting Co-Construction
30 Where the Individual Was, the Self Must Come!
Jairo Gallo Acosta and Jennifer Andrea Moya Castano
31 The Patipolitical Body
Isabel Millar
32 “This Is a Shitty Government, but It Is My Government” : Love, Power, War, in Times of “Collapsed Horizons” and History’ s Limitation
“Willka” Álvaro Rodrigo Zarate Huayta
33 The Cosmopolitan Left Against Neoliberalism, Liberfascism, and Cyberalism in the Twenty-First Century: A Latin American Approach to the Current Global Political Situation Since Post-Communism
Jesús Ayala-Colqui
34 Reflections from the Theory of the Encryption of Power: Energeia and the Manifestation of the Non-Being
Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo
35 The Formation of a Necro-State: The Biopolitical Effects of Neoliberal Capitalism in Contemporary Ecuador
Martín Aulestia Calero
36 Real Subsumption, a Problem Rendered
Interiority and Exteriority in the Space of Capital
Arturo Romero Contreras
38 Epilogue: Contradictions Between Irreconcilable Manifestos
David Pavón-Cuéllar
CONTRIBUTORS
Jairo Gallo Acosta is a psychologist and holds a Master in Psychoanalysis and PhD in Social and Human Sciences. Postdoctoral stay at the Michoacan University of San Nicolás of Hidalgo. Professor at the Cooperative University of Colombia, and The National University of Colombia. Jairo is the author of several books including For a Mottled Psychoanalysis (2021) and Psychoanalysis and Subalternity: Popular Culture Art and Subversion (2020), among others. Practitioner of psychoanalysis. Member of the Caribbean Psychoanalytic Circle.
J. Félix Angulo Rasco is Professor of Education at University of Cádiz. Member of the UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship, and Transformative Education. Ex-senior researcher in the Center for Research in Inclusive Education CIE 160009.
Timothy Appleton is Professor at Camilo José Cela University, Madrid. Coordinator of Contemporary Thought at CRUCE ARTE Y PENSAMIENTO, Madrid. Author of Escupir en la Iglesia and La Política que Viene .
Martín Aulestia Calero is a philosopher and sociologist, and Professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the Universidad Central del Ecuador.
Jesús Ayala-Colqui is Professor at the Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Perú and at the Universidad Tecnológica del Perú in Lima.
Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo is the author of columns, essays and academic articles, including Žižek: Cómo Pensar con Claridad en un Mundo al Réves? (2023) and Psychoanalysis Between Philosophy and Politics, co-edited with Slavoj Žižek (2023).
Esteban Beltrán Ulate is a university professor and political activist. He is a member of the Costa Rican Association of Philosophy, and his area of interest is messianic political thought and the philosophy of Latin American Liberation.
Isabela Boada Guglielmi is a feminist who thinks from the South. Licensed in International Studies (Universidad Central de Venezuela), master’ s in public policy and gender (FLACSO), specialist in international migration (Colegio de la Frontera Norte-México).
Diana-Carolina Cañaveral-Londoño holds a Master in Public Law and is a lawyer at the Universidad La Gran Colombia, Armenia. Editor-in-Chief of the scienti fic journal Inciso. Research professor and leader of the State and Citizenship Law Research Group of the Faculty of Law and Political and Social Sciences of the Universidad La Gran Colombia Armenia.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun is Associate Professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.
Bidisha Chakraborty is a pedagogic research student currently pursuing her degree in Methodology of Teaching from the School of Education, Adamas University. She completed her graduation and majored in English Language and Literature from the University of Calcutta. She worked as a research assistant in YES Intercultural, Michigan and under Dr. Akrur Sardar of Presidency University. Apart from being an academic, Bidisha’ s areas of interest are classical literature verses, Italian language, and literature and epistemology.
Timo Dorsch is something and somewhere between politics, academia, and journalism with a special focus on global violence. He co-edited the book Geographie der Gewalt: Macht und Gegenmacht in Lateinamerika.
Jeremy Fernando reads, writes, and makes things. He works in the intersections of literature, philosophy, and art; has written more than 30 books; curates the thematic magazine One Imperative ; is the Jean Baudrillard Fellow at The European Graduate School; and the writer-in-residence at Appetite, the sensorial-laboratory exploring food, music, and art.
Imanol Galfarsoro is based in Liverpool, UK. He obtained his PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from the University of Leeds, UK. He teaches Social Aesthetics and Research Methods in the School of Design – University of Leeds. He is the author of Multiculturalist Controversies: Political Struggles, Cultural Consumerism, and State Management and editor of International Journal of Zizek Studies.
José E. García is a psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of Asunción (Paraguay). His main area of research is the history of psychology in Paraguay and Latin America.
Celia Irina González (lives and works in Mexico City) is a visual artist and an anthropologist. She is a PhD student at the Department of Social Anthropology at Iberoamericana University, Mexico City. She holds a master’ s degree in visual anthropology from FLACSO, Quito. She has exhibited at “Sin Authorización: Contemporary Cuban Art” ; Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, NY, 2022 “Esok ” Jakarta Biennale, Indonesia, 2021; Kochi-Muziris Biennale,” Kerala, India, 2018. She has been participating in the Botín Foundation Grant for Visual Arts, Spain, 2017–2019, Grants and Commissions Program of The Cisnero Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, 2017.
Ramon “ Bomen ” Guillermo is the director of the Center of International Studies (CIS), University of the Philippines Diliman. His current research is on the dissemination, reception, and translation of radical ideas and texts in Southeast Asia using methods in translation studies and digital humanities. He is the author of several books, including Translation and Revolution (2009) and the novel AngMakinaniMang Turing ( Mister Turing ’ s Machine) (2013).
Anna-Maria Imholz works as a jurist. Active in the anti-militarist movement.
Tomás Imholz is a student of History and Latin America Studies and Philosophy. He is a child of the anti-globalization movement and as a leftist radical on the search for the (new) radical left.
. Evren Inançog ˘ lu has a master’ s degree in Behavioral Sciences from Marmara University, İstanbul. He currently lives in Nicosia, Cyprus. He writes essays and reviews. He is interested in cinema, literature, philosophy, and psychoanalysis.
Bradley Kaye is a Lecturer in the Sociocultural and Justice Sciences Department at SUNY Fredonia. His recent publications include Marx after the Kyoto School: Utopia and the Pure Land, published in 2022. He has authored numerous articles in scholarly journals, and he is currently working on a book entitled Zizek and Freedom: Utopia and the Parallax View.
Bara Kolenc is a Slovenian philosopher and artist. She is a researcher at the Philosophy Department at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, and a member of the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis. She is a current president of the International Hegelian Association Aufhebung: barakolenc.com.
Veronica León-Ron is a child psychologist and psychotherapist, and professor at Universidad Técnica del Norte, Ecuador.
Hung-chiung Li is Associate Professor at National Taiwan University, Taiwan. He specializes in critical theory and East Asian cultures and thoughts. He is also Co-Coordinator of the Asia Theories Network and founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of Critical Asia Archives: Events and Theories
Ricardo Espinoza Lolas is a Chilean academic, writer, critical theorist, and philosopher. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the UAM and is Professor of History of Contemporary Philosophy at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. He is the author and co-editor of numerous books, including Sade Reloaded (London: Routledge, 2023).
Ignacio López-Calvo is Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture and Presidential Endowed Chair in the Humanities at the University of California, Merced. He is the author of nine books, including The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, Performance (2022) and Saudades of Japan and Brazil: Contested Modernities in Lusophone Nikkei Cultural Production (2019).
Alex Mangold is a scholar, translator, and activist based in Wales, UK. He currently lectures in the Department of Modern Languages at Aberystwyth University. He is co-editor (with Broderick Chow) of Žižek and Performance and has published on Sarah Kane, the New Tragic, and on Howard Barker. His most recent research project is a British Academy funded open access online hub titled “Creative Modern Languages” (www.creativemodernlanguages.uk).
Isabel Millar is a philosopher and cultural critic. Her work focuses on AI, sex, culture, film, and the future. Her first book, The Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence, was published in 2021. As well as extensive international academic speaking and publishing, Isabel has made numerous TV, documentary, and podcast appearances. She is currently Associate Researcher at Newcastle University, Department of Philosophy, and Affiliate Faculty of the Global Centre for Advanced Studies. Her next book is entitled Patipolitics
Jennifer Andrea Moya Castano is a social psychologist who graduated from the Manuela Beltran University in Bogotá, Colombia. Moya received her master’ s degree in Con flict Resolution from the University of Massachusetts Boston. Moya is currently working as a community engagement specialist at San Francisco CASA in California. Her research focuses on peace and conflict studies, refugee studies, migration studies, and human security.
Alexander Muriel Restrepo is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the Ponti fical Bolivarian University of Medellín and research professor at the Interdisciplinary Center for Humanistic Studies of the University of San Buenaventura, Cali.
Mia Neuhaus is a psychologist in training as a psychoanalyst. She studied critical theory in Frankfurt/M. and is currently doing research at SFU Berlin on the experience of conflict and belonging in the post-reuni fication generation. She is co-editing the book Solidarität – eine reale Utopie.
Mario Neumann works in Frankfurt and lives in Berlin. He was involved in the Blockupy-movement and in several anti-racist collectives.
Silvia Redon Pantoja is Professor of Education at the School of Pedagogy, Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile. Member of the UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship, and Transformative Education.
David Pavón-Cuéllar is a Mexican Marxist philosopher and critical psychologist. He is Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, in Morelia, Mexico. He is the author of several books, including Marxism and Psychoanalysis: In or Against Psychology? (London: Routledge, 2017).
Massimo Perinelli is a historian, activist, and podcaster as well as author and editor of numerous books and articles on anti-racism and migrant struggle. Currently he is co-editing the book Solidarität – eine reale Utopie. He works as a consultant for political education in the field of migration for the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation in Berlin. He is a long-standing member of Kanak Attak and co-initiated the people’ s tribunal “NSU-Komplex auflösen.”
Andrea Perunovic ´ is a research fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. He started his PhD studies in the Philosophy, Art and Critical Thought division of the European Graduate School (Saas-Fee, Switzerland) and obtained his doctoral degree in Philosophy from the University Paris 8 (Saint-Denis, France). His current research focuses on intersectional spaces between philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, and contemporary francophone thought.
Michael Ramminger is an activist and publicist. His last publication was Kapitalismus, Kult einer Tödlichen Verschuldung: Walter Benjamins Prophetisches Erbe.
Francesca R. Recchia Luciani is based at University of Bari Aldo Moro – Italy.
Carlos-Adolfo Rengifo-Castañeda gained a Post Doctorate from the Università Degli Studi Dell Insubria, Varese – Italy. He is a research professor at Universidad San Buenaventura – Cali and Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Guillermo de Ockham in category B in Publindex. Researcher of the Education and Human Development Research Group.
List of contributors
Jordi Riba is Professor of Philosophy at the UAB and Visiting Professor at the University Paris 8, where he is an associate member of its laboratory Logiques Contemporaines de la Philosophie. His current research focuses on the study of the role of the individual in emerging democratic forms. Previously, in addition to his work on Jean-Marie Guyau, he has developed the theme of permanent crises as an interpretative tool of modernity, embodied in his latest book Crisis Permanente.
Arturo Romero Contreras holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the École des Hates Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. Currently he is a full-time professor and researcher in the philosophy department at the BUAP, in Mexico.
Thomas Rudhof-Seibert is a philosopher who works for the human rights organization medico international with numerous books and book contributions on philosophy and politics.
Ricardo Sanín-Restrepo is a Colombian writer and academic.
Esha Sen is currently working as an independent researcher. She completed her graduation and majors with a first in English Literature and Folk Studies. Apart from that, Esha has worked as translator in major projects of Bengali Literature. Her areas of interests are folk studies, literary theories, and criticism. Esha is also preparing for her doctorate in Folk Literature.
Anita Starosta is an activist in the radical left movement.
Jorge Torres Vinueza obtained a PhD in Humanistic Studies from the Rovira i Virgili University of Spain and is Research Professor at the Universidad Técnica del Norte.
Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist, politician, and former Greek Minister of Finance. Most recently he is the author of Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present.
Olga Vinogradova is of Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Russia and the Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Switzerland.
Brian Willems is Associate Professor of Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, Croatia. He is most recently the author of Sham Ruins: A User’ s Guide (Routledge, 2022).
Fernando A.T. Ximenes is a Member of Komite Esperansa, East Timor, Peace Researcher at Peace Center, National University of Timor-Leste, History
researcher at Timoriana Association and Comite Orientador 25. He is a researcher of political economy of communicative capitalism at Timorese Association for Progressive Media and Technology, Chair of the Drafting Committee of ASEAN People ’ s Forum 2023 – 2024, member of the Facilitating Committee of Asia Pacific Social Forum, and member of Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism. His essay s appear in Monthly Review, Dialetika, Delinking, Midwester nMarx, andJanataWeekly.
Francisco Yusty holds a BA in Foreign Languages English-French and a Master in Education: Human Development. Head of Foreign Language Center Universidad Libre Sectional Cali (CLEUL) and researcher and educational consultant.
Álvaro Rodrigo Zarate Huayta is a Doctor in Anthropology and Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, writer, academic, and researcher. He is a communist and an indianist-revolutionary katarist, and he reconciles the indianist theory with Marxism seeking to generate a revoluti onary-community praxis. He is a militant of the Communist Party and the Front Revolutionary COMMUNE (FREC), is a member of the Latin American Critical Anthropology group and the Latin American Critical Thought Collective, and is currently Director of the Indigenous Library.
Conrado Giraldo Zuluaga holds a PhD in Philosophy and is a research professor at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana of Medellín.
Slavoj Žižek is Director of the International Humanities Centre, Birkbeck College, University of London, and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana. He is a lecturer at numerous universities in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, and South Korea.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The editors would like to thank Natalie Foster, Kelly O’Brien, Elizaveta Friesem, and everyone else at Routledge for their support. In addition, we thank all the authors who participated in this book, contributing texts to rethink the challenges of our time. Last but not least, we thank the authors who accompanied us in the final stage by providing “blurbs” for our project.
1 INTRODUCTION
Why Global Manifestos for the Twenty-First Century?
Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo
Many questions and even criticisms may arise regarding the usefulness and duty of a title such as the one chosen: How to avoid falling into the dramatism of the views that focus exclusively on the present, the past, or the future? From what perspective should we position ourselves to analyze the future and the nuances that surround us? Why do we need a wide range of contributions on the crises of our century? What are the chosen themes and what to do with the challenges of our time that have not been addressed?
It is very common to turn to the legacies of the past, to the writings of thinkers from other eras, to sanctify the archive of intellectuals who managed to capture the spirit of their time and are therefore transferred to ours as a sacred key under which we can decipher the mysteries of our current situation. It is also common to be focused on what has been missing, what is pending, what was not achieved, what returns as an empty point that brings us closer to the impotence of our positions and actions.
Our political moment is undeniably ideological. We are inserted in ideologizing processes that force and drive us to idealize, flee, deny, pathologize, normalize, and rationalize our panorama. We live in a complex quagmire where the most tender and the most horrifying affections implode. We are in times of desperate hope and romantic hopelessness; how to deny the impending duality of our world?
During the complex pandemic year of 2021, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek published an interesting text in Le Monde Diplomatique: “Mon Manifeste Européen, ” a text that caught international attention and raised a wave of both positive and negative comments. This is the confusing origin of this book, how could a book focused on global struggles emerge from such a text? Precisely because we sought to broaden the particular gaze that was there. We set out to critique from the collaborative.
In retrospect, I would say that it is even comical that it was Slavoj Ž iž ek who came to the defense of the European legacy. An intellectual who has been historically excluded and attacked by the European academy. An intellectual who has been criticized by his country of origin. From exclusion, from his external position of being excluded and on the margins, he came out in defense of that which time and again has thrown him into a corner.
Perhaps, it is precisely Žižek’ s advantage, from which he manages to observe the political situation. Perhaps we also need to move to the act from the marginality in which our particularities, our cultures, have remained, and yet, despite the negative elements that our own exclusion has left us, we must defend what is ours, our own, and by sharing a place with other struggles for what is ours generate an encounter with what is our own, which is at the same time shared.
This same year, in the light of Žižek’ s publication, we proposed, as a vindicating gesture towards the political struggles of today, to bring together various thinkers of our time. The intellectuals again had the duty to arrive at the right moment. We summoned authors from different disciplines, from different cultures, with different interests, strangers with whom we would meet in the process of constructing the document, friends on the political path we were tracing.
Where did this document come from? From the impulse and the genuine desire to meet with others, both Žižek and I started this path alone, with doubts, without certainties, and even with a kind of hope that in the midst of the uncertainty of our desire, we could leave a different mark.
The book emerged from the encounter of a common desire that both Žižek and I had: To contribute to the political struggles of our time, to raise our voices once again.
This time we would not do it from our trenches, I was not going in defense of my region, of the value of my land, nor Žižek of his, but we sought to give a cry together, with all those authors who meet here with whom we shared the desire that things reach another point, to build from the common a new path.
The political struggle within the same ideals is not exempt from confrontations, hatreds, differences, and ruptures. Žižek and I know this well. Our project took two years to be completed and published. But differences, distinctions, and ruptures are part of politics. But above all it is an inseparable part of what it is to be human and what it means to live in our time.
That’ s why Brian Willems came along for the ride. In the difficult and obscure part of the construction of this book, Willems took the role of mediator. He is in good measure the one who showed us that the political battle involves endurance and the humility to face and yield to our personal struggles.
The very configuration of the path of this book is a beautiful metaphor for the difficulties of our political moment. How to continue to maintain political commitment when the storm is sweeping us away? How to move forward with a solid political and human objective when everything is fading around us? How to use pain, horror, difference, and hatred in politics?
With this desire and the confrontation of it, with assuming this desire, we realized that our attempt to give an answer to the current political, historical, social, and economic situation, required a non-answer, a space to expand the questions.
Only silence, distance, pause, and reflection led me to understand that politics is in itself a struggle of re-invention of the love that we deny in ourselves. Politics requires a loving dialogue, politics advances when it is able to let go of precisely that which threatens the beauty of love. Affections are political, and they show us that there are elements that we still have to work on in ourselves in order to be able to approach others.
How to deal with the loneliness that the political machinery imposes on us? How to deal with the contemporary maxim of becoming entrepreneurs of ourselves, of competing and self-alienating? If everything is possible, then we fall into the impotence that nothing is possible and thus, we continue in a vicious circle of anguish, frustrations, melancholy, envy, and sadness that do nothing but feed the accumulation of capital from the indoctrination and numbness of the masses.
How to confront the vertigo that living in the 21st century implies? For this reason, our initial objective was not to deliver precise answers, nor quick solutions, it is likely that any idea or current political proposal is inevitably in permanent debt with any group; the singularities, particularities, subjectivities, and interculturalities, cannot be condensed or grouped. Therefore, we proposed to bring together varied voices from different continents so that the pending is also a political gesture.
It was a lot of work; nothing was simple in the construction of this book. The process of the book, the complexity of the process, is perfectly extrapolatable to the complexity of international work. Even from the most genuine interest in contributing to our moment, we will be thrown into oblivion, into the obscurity of criticism, into competition and obstacles will emerge. What will we do with these difficulties we must face? That is one of the lessons that this book will leave, a book that comes out in a complex political moment and that hopes to be the starting point for the long road ahead, full of obstacles for the left, our left in its eternal debt to history, to society, and to the political struggles it maintains.
2 FOREWORD
Urgently Needed: A New Manifesto for Fun and Freedom
Yanis Varoufakis
Yes, we need a new Manifesto. One that sums up the system we live in and outlines an alternative system that its readers find inspiring enough to want to risk every small mercy the present system grants them so as to see this alternative system materialise against the wishes of the world’ s great powers.
Today, as we watch the growing contempt in which the vast majority in every country hold their governments, an inverted Darwinist process seems to be at play: The greater a ruler ’ s (e.g., Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden) failure to inspire the lower the probability of an insurrection against the system that produced the uninspiring ruler. It is as if our politics, in contrast to Nature, bestows the greatest evolutionary fi tness to the greatest failures.
This is not a paradox. Whenever a scandal erupts or a hugely unpopular policy causes an outcry, the hegemony of established political forces grows. The reason is, of course, that, to the vast majority, the system does not appear as a system. To them, it appears as a perpetual racket where one corrupt politician competes against another. Thus, every time their hopes for something better are crushed by a politician, they privatise their hopes and fears. And so it is that the system is strengthened by events causing its legitimacy further to wither.
This is why we need a Manifesto that does three things. First, to de fi ne the enemy as the unseen but all-determini ng system that it is. Secondly, to summarise an alternative system that is at once radically di ff erent, realistic, and desirable. And thirdly, to tell us what we must do to bring it on, while also convincing us that merely mitigating the worst aspects of the current system is a step back, not a step in the right direction.
For any Manifesto to succeed, it must speak to our hearts like a poem while infecting the mind with images and ideas that are dazzlingly new. It needs to
DOI: 10.4324/9781003450047-2
open our eyes to the true causes of the bewildering, disturbing, exciting changes occurring around us, exposing the possibilities our current reality is pregnant with. It should make us feel hopelessly inadequate for not having recognised these truths ourselves and it must lift the curtain on the unsettling realisation that we have been acting as petty accomplices, reproducing a dead-end past. Las tly, it needs to have the power of a Beethoven symphony, urging us to become agents of a future that ends unnecessary mass su ff ering and inspires humanity to realise its potential for authentic freedom.
No Manifesto has better succeeded in doing all this than the one published in February 1848 at 46 Liverpool Street, London. It brilliantly de fi ned the enemy system (capitalism), alluded to the alternative (communism), demonstrated sophisticated thinking (celebrating the machines, castigating the private property rights over them) and explained who the agents of change would be (the proletariat). By claiming the spectre of communism as its own, it dispelled the two spectres ruling Europe at the time: The Newtonian spectre, which depicted capitalism as a natural system akin to the solar system. And the Philanthropic Spectre which, with slogans like All Men Are Brothers, blunted any serious opposition to the system.
Today, a fi t-for-purpose Manifesto must put out of their misery two lethal spectres. The fi rst is the Reformist Spectre which invites us to join it in a bid to civilise capitalism, to smoothen its jagged edges, to moderate its ill-e ff ects, to avoid grand visions, to b ecome more able managers of the existing system, to signal to the powerful that they, too, can bene fi tfromits reforming oeuvre.
The second spectre is the one preventing us from recognising that the Left ’ s permanent defeat has allowed capitalism to evolve into something worse – not into a new, more lethal vari antofthe same virusbut into a wholly new, utterly lethal, virus – a form of techno-feudalism, as I see it. If this is so, the new Manifesto needs to dispel the fallacy that if the system we live in today is not communism then it must be capitalism (No, it is something much, much worse!) – and, in so doing, to allow us both properly to understand the current syst em and to imagine a successor system worth fi ghting for.
Like Hamlet confronted by the spectre of his slain father, the reader of our new Manifesto must be compelled to wonder:
Should I conform to the prevailing order, suff ering the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortune bestowed upon me by history ’ s irresistible forces? Or should I join these forces, taking up arms against the status quo and, by opposing it, usher in a brave new world?
This is not an academic dilemma, to be debated amongst radical academics. Our Manifesto must be a call to action to discontented millennials who need to understand their epoch’sde fining dilemma:
Conform to an established order that is crumbling and incapable of reproducing itself? Or oppose it, at considerable personal cost, in search of new ways of working, playing, and living together?
“But why do we need politics to deal with this?” they will ask. Here we must answer them like Marx and Engels did: “Because you cannot end the idiocy ruining your lives individually. Collective, democratic political action is your only chance for freedom and enjoyment.”
PART I
Towards a Historical View Without Retrospective Romanticism or Future Idealization
3 SUBLIMATION AND DISLOCATION
A False Choice
Slavoj Žižek
Bernard Herrmann’ s clarinet quintet “ Souvenirs de voyage ” (1967) opens up with thesamemelodic line that heused a decade earlier in the beginning of the most famous piece (scene d ’amour) from his score of Hitchcock ’sVertigo (1958). We are dealing here with a nice case of dislocation, of tearing an element (a melodic line, in this case) out from its context and placing it into a di ff erent context in which it is subordinated to a space regulated by a di ff erent logic. In our case, the same melodic line is fi rst (in Vertigo) the opening moment of a movement that inexorably l eads towards a Romantic crescendo, heavily relying on Wagner’ s Tristan, while its reprisal in the quintet remains firmly within the pre-Wagnerian space of a them eand itsvariations. Thesurprising element here is the regressive direction of this shift: fi rst a Romantic push towards a climactic crescendo, then the step back to a more classical space in which such crescendos are excluded.
Such a notion of dislocation is a key dialectical concept whose proper use enables to dispel some key misunderstandings that haunt Hegel’ s notion of Aufhebung (sublation). Let’ s take a different case from the sphere of decolonization. Rejecting the idea of the Haitian Revolution as the true consummation of the ideals of French Revolution, Jean Casimir argues in his The Haitians: A Decolonial History that “Haiti dislocates rather than consummates the project of modernity. ”1 Casimir’ s critique is directed at all those (me including) who see in the Haitian Revolution the universalization and radicalization of the French Revolution: only through its repetition in Haiti does French Revolution really become a world-historical event with universal meaning. In this sense, Haitian Revolution is the Aufhebung of the French Revolution: the full actualization of its potentials, its repetition at a higher level. From the standpoint of the predominant post-colonial thought, such a view is all too “Eurocentric”:if Haitian Revolution is reduced to the deployment of the immanent potentials of
DOI: 10.4324/9781003450047-4
the French Revolution, then – to put it in Hegelese – French Revolution, a European phenomenon, is the over-reaching notion, and Haitian Revolution remains a subordinate moment of its self-deployment. Even if Haitians were “more French than the French themselves,” even if they went further and were more consequent than the French, they were part of the European dynamic process.
Dislocation, on the contrary, means that elements are thoroughly re-contextualized, integrated into a new symbolic and social space which confers on them a new meaning unrelated to the original meaning one can in no way “deduce” this new meaning from the original one. Let’ s take equality, a notion which originates in modern European thought. Although many advocates of equality worked to expand this notion also to women, other races, etc., such an expansion remains within the scope of the Western notion of equality. When a true other (Black slaves, exemplarily) appropriates equality, this notion is not just expanded but transposed in a different domain which radically affects its functioning – the unease with Black Lives Matter proves this abundantly. Furthermore, is the entire history of Marxism and Communist revolutions not a history of dislocations? In spite of Lenin’ s abundant quotes from Marx, Lenin effectively transposes Marx into a radically different historical situation in which the revolution was executed by a narrow party of professionals and won by addressing non-proletarian issues (land and peace). Mao Zedong did something even more radical: against Marx and Engels vision, he moved from workers to farmers in the countryside as the revolutionary force – something unimaginable for Marx and Engels. Again, in each of these two cases, we are not talking about a continuous expansion but about a radical dislocation – no wonder that in both cases, orthodox Marxist opposed the reorientation (the basic reproach of Mensheviks to Lenin was that, in a non-Marxist way, he wants a revolution before the circumstances for it are ripe).
We should also bear in mind that capitalism as such involves a process of continuous dislocation. Capitalism originated in Europe but then gradually expanded into a global economic order, and this expansion was not continuous, it involved radical dislocations. Not only capitalism from the very beginning linked to colonization and the new rise of slavery, but it also changed with the emergence of strong non-European capitalist countries like Japan, India and now China. Incidentally, it is interesting to note how the same post-colonial Leftists who decry every expansion of equality and democracy as a dislocation and not a continuous development always insist that capitalist is “Eurocentric,” attributed to Europe: even if it appears in China, India, etc., capitalism remains European. The underlying premise is clear: when a progressive idea like equality and democracy is expanded into a Third World, it involves a radical dislocation and is no longer European, but the “bad” capitalism remains a foreign (European) intruder … This mistake is serious because it misses the key fact that capitalism is actually universal, trans-cultural, indi fferent towards particular cultures: it is not dislocated from one culture and then appropriated by another, it rather stands for a universal dislocation from cultural space as such.
At this point, we can return to the relationship between the Hegelian sublation and dislocation: the approach which opposes the two (as we have seen with Casimir apropos Haiti) misses a key feature of the Hegelian dialectical process, it reduces Subject to a dynamized Substance. The critics dismiss the Hegelian notion of democracy-and-equality as an all-encompassing substantial entity which gradually actualizes its immanent potentials, passing from one to another particular figure but remaining the same ground of the entire process. Say, the state goes through the stages of Asiatic despotic state, Ancient slave-owning democracies, feudal monarchies, modern authoritarian state, etc., but all these are particular formations which emerge as the immanent deployment of the same notion of state. But is this the case? If we remain at this abstract level, we have to add at least two points. First, for Hegel, the full consummation of an idea (when reality fits its idea) always implies the self-negation of this idea itself; say, the reality of states never fully fit the idea of state – when this happens, we no longer have a state, but we pass into a religious community.
Second and more important, in a dialectical process predicate always passes into Subject: what was at the beginning a subordinate particular moment of the process asserts itself as its Subject and retroactively posits its presuppositions as its own moments (“predicates”). So, again, it is not the same Subject which goes from one to another particular figure, remaining the same agent which pulls the strings and controls the entire movement: what Hegel calls “Absolute” is the very process in which radical reversals happen and a predicate turns into a new Subject. Every dialectical passage is thus a form of dislocation: the previous Substance is dislocated into a new encompassing Universality. It is not the same Universality which passes from one to another particular form – in each passage, Universality itself is dislocated, it is reduced to a subordinate moment of a new Universality. Let’ s take the passage from money to capital described by Marx: in pre-capitalist market exchange, money is a mediator of the exchange between producers which disappears in the final result (when I sell what I produced and buy what I need); with capitalism, however, money becomes capital, the Subject (active agent) of the entire process. Although, from my individual standpoint, I produce (and sell) things so that I will get (other) things that I need (or desire) for my life, with capitalism, the true goal of the entire process is the expanded self-r eproduction of capital itself – my needs and their satisfaction are just subordinated moments of capital ’ s self-reproduction.Inthissense,socialproductioni s radically dislocated, reduced to a subordinate moment of the capital ’ s reproduction.
Back to Haiti, what further complicates the picture is that the tension between imitating Europe and breaking out of European modernity is inscribed into the very heart of the revolutionary process. Toussaint l’Ouverture, the first leader of free Haiti, insisted on the equality of all races and rejected any privileging of the Blacks, plus, although he formally abolished slavery, he simultaneously imposed obligatory work (plantation workers had to remain at their post so that production was going on). The two leaders who came after him, Dessalines and Christophe, enacted the
anti-White turn (all non-Blacks with the exception of Poles who supported the revolution were massacred), but mandatory work remained, so that for ex-slaves things didn’t change a lot. During Christophe’ s reign, Haiti was divided into two states: Christophe ruled as the emperor the northern part and Alexandre Petion the republic in the southern part. While the North turned into a half-feudal authoritarianimitation of aEuropeanmodernstate focusedonboostingproduction and wealth (concentrated in the hands of the ruling Black elite), in the republic in the South land was distributed to small farmers who survived in a self-subsistent economy with low productivity. Although some commentators celebrate the South as an attempt to develop new communal forms of life as an alternate outside to European modernity, the experiment soon failed. A further paradox to be noted here is that the anti-White shift from equality of races to Black domination which occurred with Dessalines coincided with the rise of authoritarian class structure with the emperor at the top which imitated the worst of European authoritarian modernity.
Similar paradoxes are already discernible in the case of Paraguay: before it was destroyed by the Spanish-Portuguese intervention, Paraguay under the domination of the Jesuit order which organized indigenous tribes into reducciones (missions) was not only an early form of Communism but was also much closer to cultural independence than Argentina or Brazil. Jesuits were already printing books in Guaraní language (which is even today spoken by the majority in Paraguay), so if Jesuits were not thrown out, the history of Latin America would take a different turn, with the Aboriginal language becoming one of the offi cial state languages. Throughout modern history, Jesuits w ere as a rule much more progressive than Franciscans, although (or precisely b ecause) Jesuits were organized as dogmatic fanatics while Franciscans emphasized poverty and spiritual inner life. Even today, Jesuits are the bastion of the Catholic Left while many Franciscans are neo-Fascists. Brecht was right to copy ( “ dislocate ” ) Jesuits sacred propaganda theatrical pieces in his Communist “ learning plays. ”
There is an important paradox in the distinction between Guaraní spoken outside of the missions and the Jesuit Guaraní: Jesuits constructed new words in Guaraní to translate European notions while ordinary people simple incorporated hispanicisms:
By and large, the Guaraní of the Jesuits shied away from direct phonological loans from Spanish. Instead, the missionaries relied on the agglutinative nature of the language to formulate calque terms from native morphemes. This process often led the Jesuits to employ complicated, highly synthetic terms to convey Western concepts. By contrast, the Guaraní spoken outside of the missions was characterized by a free, unregulated flow of hispanicisms; frequently, Spanish words and phrases were simply incorporated into Guaraní with minimal phonological adaptation. A good example of that phenomenon is found in the word “communion.” The Jesuits, using their agglutinative strategy, rendered this word “Tupârahava,” a calque based on the word
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and 3400 tons displacement. She has accommodation for fifty firstclass passengers and twenty in the second class, and under these circumstances winter ice-breaking excursions may yet become the vogue among those in search of a new sensation.
T “E .”
T “E G .”
The introduction of steam-propelled vessels was objected to by sailing-yacht owners, but the advantages of auxiliary power in yachts intended for cruising overcame all opposition, and in the course of a few years the number of yachts of all rigs, even cutters, fitted with auxiliary power, steadily increased. Machine-driven yachts are intended as cruisers. A few steam-yachts had paddle-wheels, the latter being specially favoured for all vessels intended for Government or for Royal use, where sea-going qualities were required. One of the most notable of this type was the Victoria and Albert, built to the order of her Majesty the late Queen Victoria, which was, at the time of her launch, one of the finest yachts afloat. Among the earliest of the Royal yachts was the screw steamer Fairy, which was built for the late Queen in 1845 at the Thames Iron Works,
Shipbuilding and Engineering Company’s yard at Blackwall, then owned by Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare. This was the first iron vessel owned by the British Government. Her dimensions were: length 144·8 feet, breadth 21 feet 1¹⁄₂ inches, draught 6 feet, displacement 210 tons, horse-power 416, and speed 13·21 knots.
It is only fitting that the finest Royal yachts afloat intended purely for pleasure purposes should be at the disposal of the monarch of the leading maritime nation, and the latest Royal yachts built for the late King Edward merit this description. They are the present Victoria and Albert and the Alexandra, the latter built in 1908. Other modern Royal yachts of note are the German Emperor’s Hohenzollern, which is heavily armed and can be utilised as a fast cruiser if necessary, and the Russian Pole Star and Standart.
Amongst the celebrated Royal yachts of the past belonging to foreign rulers are the iron paddle-steamer Faid Gihaad, built in 1852 by Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare for Said Pasha, the then Khedive of Egypt. She was a flush-decked barquentine, 285 feet in length between perpendiculars, 318 feet over all, with a breadth of beam of 40 feet and a tonnage of 2200. Her engines were of 800 horsepower and were built by Messrs. Maudslay and Field. She was equipped as a war vessel and carried an armament of two 84pounder pivot guns, twelve 32-pounder broadside guns on the upper deck, and fourteen 32-pounders on the main deck. Like everything else that the Pasha indulged in, the Faid Gihaad illustrated his taste for luxury. Externally the vessel was painted white from the waterline, below which she was copper-coloured. The stern was ornamented with a gold scroll, and each paddle-box had a crescent and star in gold. Three years before the building of the Faid Gihaad there was constructed at Alexandria, by order of Said Pasha, a steam-frigate called the Sharkie, which was sent to this country to be fitted with steam-engines and a screw propeller She was 220 feet in length, was rigged as a second-class frigate, and had engines of 550 horse-power by Miller and Ravenhill. These were capable of driving her nearly 11 knots an hour. Her armament consisted of 36 guns of heavy calibre. The furniture and panelling of the cabins were richly inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, which may have admirably
suited the taste of Said Pasha in these matters, but can hardly have conduced to the efficiency of the vessel as a fighting machine.
T R Y “V A .”
Photo. G. West & Son.
T I Y “H .”
In the days when the Papal States were a power in the land and his Holiness was not a voluntary prisoner in the Vatican, the then occupant of St. Peter’s chair was the possessor of a very fine armed screw steam-yacht, the Immacolata Concezione. She was built by the Thames Iron Works and Shipbuilding Company, with engines by Messrs. J. Seaward and Co. of Millwall. She carried eight brass 18pounder guns, and was a three-masted full-rigged ship of some 627 tons burden. The engines were of 160 nominal horse-power and 300 indicated, and were capable of giving her a speed of 13 knots an hour.
Among other famous iron vessels which were either specially built or employed as Royal yachts in the middle of the last century may be
Photo. G. West & Son.
mentioned the Jerome Napoleon, constructed by M. A. Normand at Havre for the late Prince Napoleon, afterwards Emperor of the French; the Peterhoff, built by Messrs. Ditchburn and Mare at Blackwall in 1850 for the late Emperor Nicholas of Russia, which was wrecked on her outward voyage to the Baltic; the Falken, built at Deptford in 1858 by Messrs. C. Langley for the late King Frederick VII. of Denmark. She was an iron schooner-rigged vessel 127 feet in length, and could steam at 10 knots an hour. The Miramar was a favourite yacht with the late Empress of Austria. The Russian Imperial Yacht Livadia was circular and shallow, and is the only large turbot-shaped yacht afloat. These yachts, however, have been gradually superseded by vessels of a thoroughly modern type. As a case in point, the Princess Alice, owned by H.S.H. the Prince of Monaco, and constructed by Messrs. R. and H. Green at Blackwall in 1891, is built of steel frames with teak planking, her bottom being covered with copper sheeting. Thus in her general finish she is one of the finest specimens of marine architecture on the composite principle which ever took the water. Unlike most Royal yachts, she is used not merely for pleasure but also for scientific research, for the Prince of Monaco is well known for his contributions to the scientific knowledge of ocean depths and all that pertains thereto. The expeditions which he has organised, and most of which he has conducted in person, are invariably made on this yacht, which is splendidly equipped for the purpose. In order that she may be able to cover a large radius of action, she is fitted with an unusual coal capacity and can store in her bunkers sufficient to carry her 3700 miles. Under steam alone she can make 9 knots an hour, and with steam and sail combined she has been known to attain to nearly 12 knots an hour.
The Safa-el-bahr, designed and constructed in 1894 by Messrs. A. and J. Inglis of Glasgow for his Highness the Khedive of Egypt, is also a steel-built two-decked yacht. She is schooner-rigged, and is fitted with three-stage expansion engines with cylinders 18 inches, 29 inches, and 48 inches in diameter, giving a piston stroke of 36 inches. These are supplied with steam at a pressure of 160 lb. from two boilers having a heating surface of 2300 square feet, and give an indicated horse-power of 1200, with a speed of 14·1 knots per
hour Her tonnage under yacht measurement is 677 tons. She has a length of 221 feet, breadth 27·1 feet, depth 17·3, with a draught of 12 feet.
As private yacht-owning is a pastime in which only the wealthy can indulge, and as almost all private yachts are built to suit the fancy of their owner, a considerable individuality is displayed by them. They range in size from vessels not bigger than a ship’s boat to oceangoing liners. The Winchester, the latest boat of her class yet devised, is a triple-screw turbine yacht, bearing a strong resemblance to a torpedo boat. Her dimensions are: length 165 feet, breadth 15³⁄₄ feet, depth 9³⁄₄ feet, and displacement 180 tons. She was built in 1909 for Mr. W. P. Rouss, a prominent member of the New York Yacht Club, by Messrs. Yarrow and Co. of Scotstoun. The propelling machinery consists of three Parsons marine steam turbines constructed by Messrs. Yarrow. She has two Yarrow water-tube boilers, and her furnaces are fitted to burn oil fuel. The hull is of steel. At her trials at Skelmorlie she easily maintained a speed of 26³⁄₄ knots, which was ³⁄₄ of a knot in excess of the speed stipulated in her building contract; and it was believed that a much higher rate could have been achieved, as 250 lb., the full working pressure of her boilers, was not reached, the high pressure of her high-power turbine being only 160 lb.
The Iolanda, of about 2000 tons yacht measurement, was built for an American owner in 1908, and was then stated to be the second largest privately owned yacht in the world. She was both constructed and engined by Messrs. Ramage and Ferguson, Ltd., Leith. Her length over all is about 305 feet; beam 37 feet 6 inches; depth 23 feet. Her twin-screw machinery is of the triple-expansion four-crank type of 3000 to 4000 indicated horse-power. Her boilers are partly cylindrical marine return tubular and partly water-tube. This combination, the first installed in any yacht, affords the advantage of being able to raise steam and get under way at practically a moment’s notice, or provides additional speed at short notice when required, while the bunker capacity of some 550 tons gives the yacht a very extensive ocean-steaming radius. She is provided with motor and steam launches, quick-firing guns, electric-lighting apparatus,
which is accredited as being the largest ever installed in a private yacht, and includes arrangements for manipulating the Marconi wireless telegraphy.
Among eccentricities of design in steamboats may be mentioned cigar ships, vessels shaped like birds, early submarines, doublehulled boats, and numerous other extravagances. One of the earliest submarines was contrived by a Dutchman named Hollar, about 1653, but whether this wonderful vessel ever got beyond the imaginative or paper stage is unknown. There is a picture of it in the British Museum. This singular craft was to be 72 feet in length, 12 feet high, and 8 feet beam, with a wheel in the centre where it “hath its motion.” The description says it was built at Rotterdam. The inventor undertook in one day to destroy 100 ships. “It can go from London to Rotterdam and back in one day, and in six days can go to the East Indies, and can also run as fast as bird can fly.” “No fire, no storm, no bullets can harm her unless it please God.” There is no further trace of her.
The first submarine which achieved any measure of success was that of David Bushnell, an American, who devised it in the hope of blowing up a British warship and failed egregiously. Bushnell, who was born at Saybrook, Conn., in 1742, devoted a large amount of attention to submarine warfare. His idea was to fix a small powder magazine to the bottom of a vessel and explode it by means of a clockwork apparatus. He constructed a tortoise-shaped diving boat, made of iron, and containing sufficient air to support a man for half an hour. This boat, called the American Turtle, was propelled by a sort of screw or oar worked from inside. It could be immersed by admitting water through a valve in the bottom, and lightened by pumping the water out again. She was tried, without success, against the British warship Eagle in New York harbour, and a later attack on the Cerberus left that frigate unharmed, but blew up an American schooner and some of her crew.
The Gemini twin steamer, invented by Mr Peter Borrie, was a double-hulled boat, launched in the summer of 1850. The keels and stems were not placed in the centre of the hulls but towards the inside of them, thus making the water-lines very fine on the inside. This was intended to diminish the tendency of the water to rise
between the hulls. The inner bilges were much fuller than the outer ones, the idea being to afford a greater degree of buoyancy on the inside, in order to support the weight of the deck. The steamer was 157¹⁄₂ feet long over all, and 26¹⁄₂ feet broad on deck. Each hull was 8¹⁄₂ feet broad, with a space 9¹⁄₂ feet between them. The frames were of angle iron, and the keels were formed by carrying the plates downwards, so as to form channels for the bilge-water inside the hulls. This arrangement was intended for river craft of this type, but for sea-going vessels drawing more water the inventor planned keels of iron bars, with the garboard-strakes riveted upon them in the customary way. The plating was not carried to the top of the frames on the inner side of the hulls, except at the space in the middle for the paddle-wheel, but was carried up to the deck, thus forming an arch between the two hulls, which were bound together with stays. The hulls were divided into water-tight compartments. The vessel was two-ended and could travel in either direction without turning. There was a rudder at each end, placed in the centre of the opening between the two hulls. It was constructed somewhat in the manner of the balanced rudder of later years, as it was affixed, to a vertical shaft in such a way that it was divided into two unequal parts, and when left free would accommodate itself to the vessel’s motion. The steamer was estimated to carry from 800 to 1000 passengers.
Whether in the sailing days or since, the crossing of the Channel between Dover and Calais has been attended with an amount of misery altogether disproportionate to the shortness of the voyage. It is therefore not surprising that inventors have at one time and another attempted to design vessels which should give the maximum of speed and comfort and the minimum of sea-sickness. The English Channel Steamship Company, Limited, was formed in 1872 to adopt the plan of a steam-ship designed by Captain Dicey, and construct the steam-ship Castalia. His idea was that two large hulls should be used, and placed at such a distance apart that each should act as an outrigger to the other, and the whole structure should remain comparatively steady. The Castalia was built by the Thames Iron Works Company. She was 400 feet long, and each hull had a beam of 20 feet, with a depth of hold of 20 feet. The distance between the
two hulls was 35 feet, and they were united by strong girders. The hulls were very sharp at the ends, and flat in the floors, and the draught of water was only 6 feet. The inner sides of the hulls had a freeboard of 14 feet, and the uniting girders were slightly arched, but a difference in the methods of fixing them to the hull was made, compared with previous experience with double-hulled vessels. In former attempts to solve the problem of the navigation of twin steamers, the connecting beams had usually been placed in such a way that their ends extended under the decks of the hulls. This in the case of wood was manifestly a plan which did not permit of a very large vessel or of a certain limit of strength being exceeded. Captain Dicey’s scheme in adopting the arched form of girder was to utilise to the utmost the strength of the iron, and bind with the utmost rigidity the whole structure together. Where the girders entered the hulls the upper part was just under the deck; the girders were carried right across to the outer sides of each hull, additional strength being provided by bolting every girder to a bulkhead. The space between the hulls was decked over, and allowed ample accommodation for passengers. Each hull carried a powerful engine for driving a large paddle-wheel, the wheels being placed with a space between them amidships between the two vessels. The vessel could be steered at either end, thus obviating the necessity of turning, and a navigating bridge extended across the tops of the two paddle-boxes. It was even claimed that the ship would be large enough to carry railway trains across the Channel, but this does not seem to have been tried. As she drew only a trifle over 6 feet of water she could enter the harbours on either side of the Channel at any state of the tide, and though she was steady enough as a sea boat she was too slow, and was withdrawn from service.
A double-hulled boat of a somewhat different type, and from which great things were expected, was the Calais-Douvres. Her principal features were to be an increase in speed and stability, and by means of the steadiness of her double hull, the abolition of sea-sickness. She was an enlarged Castalia. The expectation of her owners on these points was not realised and after a few trips she was withdrawn from service and replaced by another and more efficient vessel of the ordinary type.
To the category of magnificent failures there should be added the steam-ship Bessemer, launched at Hull in 1874 and designed by and named after Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Bessemer. The object her designer had in view was to mitigate the horrors of the crossChannel passage, and to accomplish this he fitted his boat with a spacious saloon which, by means of a series of pivots and a gyroscope, would remain in a level position without oscillation, no matter how much the vessel might roll or how rough the weather might be. These arrangements worked perfectly in theory, but immediately the Bessemer went to sea for her trials and the test became a practical one, it was discovered that she must be relegated to a conspicuous place among the successes that might have been. Everything about her was on a lavish scale. A peculiarity was that she had four paddle-wheels, two a side, an experiment that has never been successful. Her form also was against her, and in dirty weather she would have been a wet ship, difficult to steer, and almost helpless.
On her private trial trip the Bessemer attained a speed of eleven knots in crossing from Dover to Calais, but was thirty-five minutes in getting alongside the French pier.
One of the most extraordinary vessels ever designed was that known as the Connector. She was not rigid, but was built of sections which could be joined together, so that she would bend in accord with the motion of the waves. The joints were constructed by giving to the after end of all sections (but the last) a concave form so that it would overlap the convex bow of the adjoining section. These were joined and hinged by massive iron bolts resting in stout wrought-iron sponsons built into the ship’s sides and framework. If necessary one of the sections could be disconnected and the other three joined up. As each section was fitted with a fore and aft rig, like a cutter, it could make its way under sail alone if necessary. The engine was contained in the hindmost section, which really pushed the other three along. She was intended to be used as an iron screw collier in the London and North-East coast coal trade. Each section was to act as a lighter, and could be left where desired, while the others were sent to their respective destinations, to be picked up again in turn when it was desired to reunite the vessel, and send her for another
cargo. The advantage claimed for this peculiar system was that vessels of very light draught, and of length far greater than hitherto and carrying the largest cargoes, might be used without the danger of breaking their backs, or even straining, the yielding of the joints neutralising that liability; also that their great length, light draught, and narrow midship section, permitted unprecedented speed, while the facility for detaching part of the vessel in case of collision, fire, sudden leakage, or grounding with a falling tide, would afford a means of saving life and a portion of hull and cargo, when otherwise all would be lost. A company called the Jointed Ship Company was formed to exploit this novelty in ship construction. Like other experimental schemes it was not a success, the theory of the designers and the practice of Father Neptune not being in accord.
The Winans cigar ship, as her name indicates, was shaped like a huge cigar. Messrs. Winans began experimenting in the ’fifties at Baltimore with a view to ascertaining the amount of water-friction sustained by surfaces of differing smoothness at various speeds, the relative resistance of proportions and speeds, and whether any advantages were to be gained from spindle-shaped vessels as compared with ordinary vessels. These experiments resulted in the launching in October 1858 at Ferry Bay, Baltimore, of a spindle- or cigar-shaped vessel having about its middle a ring bearing flanges set at an angle calculated to strike the water and propel the vessel. She had four powerful engines placed amidships, and rudders at both ends measuring 4 feet by 3 feet. She was 16 feet in diameter at the widest part and 180 feet long, and it was expected she would cross the Atlantic in four days; she belied those expectations. The owners stated that she was designed “to obtain greater safety, despatch, uniformity, certainty of action, as well as economy of exportation by sea.” They believed that “by discarding sails entirely, and all the necessary appendages, and building the vessel of iron, having reference to the use of steam alone, these most desirable ends may be even still more fully attained than by vessels using both sails and steam.” They continue: “The vessel we are now constructing has no keel, no cutwater, no blunt bow standing up above the water-line to receive blows from the heaving sea, no flat deck to hold or bulwark to retain the water; neither masts, spars, nor
rigging.” The plan and position of the propelling wheel were supposed to be such that its minimum hold of the water would be much greater in proportion to tonnage than the maximum hold of the propelling wheel or wheels in ordinary steamers. The engines were high pressure with a cut-off variable from one-sixth to full stroke; combined, they were to exert threefold more power in proportion to displacement of water than those of the most powerful steampackets then built. Her boilers were of the locomotive type, consuming 30 tons of coal in twenty-four hours, the smoke, &c., being carried away by two funnels. She was divided into several water-tight compartments. With 200 tons of coal on board she was to displace about 350 tons of water, and accommodate about twenty first-class passengers and the United States mail, with room to spare for small valuable packages, specie, &c. The same principles and properties which were to adapt the vessel to high average speed were claimed to be also adapted to the cheap, safe and sure transportation of freight as compared with vessels using sails only or sails and steam combined. There was a railed-in space on her upper surface for the deck.
Messrs. Winans’ first cigar ship, though not fulfilling all the hopes formed of her, was, on the whole, sufficiently successful to encourage the continuance of the experiments, for in the two following years she was severely tested both for speed and seaworthiness in all sorts of weather. Another vessel was built at St. Petersburg in 1861 with a submerged screw propeller at the stern, which gave so much more satisfactory results than the revolving belt apparatus that Messrs. Winans were encouraged to order a third spindle ship. This was built by Mr. John Hepworth of the Isle of Dogs, and was named after her inventor, Mr. Ross Winans. This boat was 256 feet in length with a diameter and depth of 16 feet, and was circular in form throughout. The top of the vessel was strengthened for 130 feet amidships by four longitudinal ribs of steel which supported the deck, and also rendered the top as strong to resist tension and other strains as the bottom. Internally there were iron ribs running round the vessel 4 inches deep and 3 feet apart in the engine and boiler room, and 7 inches deep and spaced 6 feet elsewhere. The bottom and side plates were of iron, were thicker
amidships than at the end, while the bottom was further strengthened and protected outside the skin plates by a plate of iron 1 inch thick and 33 inches across at its widest and diminishing to a point at the ends. The skin plates of the top were of toughened steel ³⁄₈ inch thick amidships. The two screw propellers, one at either end, were 22 feet in diameter and were only half immersed in the water, though it is difficult to imagine what advantages were supposed to be gained by incomplete immersion, seeing that the exposed part represented so much dead weight to be carried, to say nothing of the other drawbacks. A space 48 feet 6 inches long amidships was devoted to the engines and boilers. Each of the four boilers had a fire-box, and was surmounted by two vertical cylinders containing vertical tubes; while the centre portions of the boilers were tubeless to allow of more ready cleaning and a better circulation. A fan increased the draught and also the ventilation of the ship. The engines were surface-condensing. The problem of allowing the longest possible stroke was ingeniously solved. Above each of the three jacketed steam cylinders was a shaft, carrying two cranks and working by the sides of the cylinder, the piston-rods passing the shaft and connecting with a cross-head above, which was connected with the cranks by two rods. The three engines were joined by a system of return cranks and a peculiar coupling, which prevented crossstrains from the transmission of power from engine to engine, and from the shafts of the different engines getting out of line. The ship could carry coal for twelve days at normal consumption. On deck it carried two masts and two funnels, all having a considerable rake aft.
In 1860, Captain George Peacock, F.R.G.S., formerly a London merchant, and then residing near Exeter, invented a yacht in the shape of a swan. Her title, the Swan of the Exe, was displayed on a banneret, the brass rod of which was held in the swan’s beak. This mechanical bird was 17 feet 6 inches in length, with a maximum beam of 7 feet 6 inches, and its height from the keel to the top of the back was 7 feet 3 inches. Its neck and head, which were gracefully curved, rose 16 feet above the water. Its long neck had to do duty as a mast for supporting by means of halliards the two wings, each of which consisted of a double lateen sail. The halliards passed through
gilt pendant blocks, attached to a ring, fastened round the neck just below the head. The vessel itself consisted of twin boats beneath the water-line, there being an oblong compartment in the centre, though viewed from the front or side it appeared to consist of one hull only. She had two powerful webbed and feathering feet, constructed of steel, to propel her. These were placed between the keels or hulls, and worked by a lever attached to a contrivance such as is seen on old-fashioned hand fire-engines, operated by two or four persons as required. With two oars which she could also carry, her fishtailshaped rudder, her feet, and her wings, she could get up a speed before the wind of five miles an hour. She was only intended for ornamental waters or inland lakes. Her interior fittings suggested those of a first-class railway carriage, with plate-glass windows at the sides, &c. Her centre table was big enough for ten persons to dine comfortably at, and at night it could accommodate a mattress upon which to sleep. A description of her at the time adds: “In the table are small apertures which open to the water underneath, and thus afford the opportunity of fishing while sitting at table. Any aquatic prey thus obtained may be dressed in a multum-in-parvo cooking apparatus on board, the smoke from which is conveyed through the bird’s neck, and out at its nostrils. In the breast of the bird is a ladies’ cabin fitted up as a boudoir.” The Swan was of about 5 tons register, and when fully stored and carrying 15 persons, only drew 17 inches of water. About the only thing of which the inventor had not thought was to make one eye green and the other red, to represent ship’s lights.
The only ship of her kind ever built with a hot-air engine was the Ericsson, named after her inventor and generally called the Caloric, because of her peculiar engines. These had four immense cylinders which drove paddle-wheels 32 feet in diameter, the energy being transmitted by a contrivance Ericsson invented and termed the “regenerator.” The shape of the furnaces and the small amount of fuel they required, together with the absence of boilers, enabled a greater amount of space to be devoted to the accommodation of merchandise and passengers. The vessel was 250 feet long, 40 feet broad, 31 feet deep, and had a gross tonnage of 1920. She was built in 1852, of wood, and was asserted to have made a speed of 12
knots an hour on her trial trip, but she never came anywhere near this subsequently.
The absence of funnels and the presence of two large paddleboxes made her one of the most extraordinary vessels ever seen. She made one slow journey across the Atlantic to Liverpool and back to America, and after another set of caloric engines had been tried in her with about as much success, in regard to her speed, as the first, she was fitted with engines of the ordinary type.
Three other inventions which have not yet passed the experimental stage are the Hydrocurve, the Hydroplan, and the Hydroplane.
The hydroplan is a motor-boat carrying two enormous propellers, one above the stem and the other above the stern, which revolve in the air and not in the water. The vessel is said to have been invented by a gentleman named Fortanini, and with a 70-horse-power motor is claimed to have attained, on Lake Maggiore, two or three years ago, a speed of 40 miles an hour. For all practical purposes the hydroplan may be described as a “skimming dish” hull gliding on the surface of the water, its draught being a few inches only.
For some time past some attention has been directed to the trials, on the Illinois River, of a curious type of aquatic motor, named the hydrocurve. Instead of ploughing through the water, the hull of the hydrocurve displaces the water, not sideways as with an ordinary type of vessel, but downwards from the surface, each particle of water being moved in one direction only. According to a report published in the Popular Mechanic of Chicago, this curious vessel on her first trial made a speed of 35 miles an hour. In a further test she achieved 1¹⁄₈ mile in 1 minute 30 seconds, or, roughly speaking, 45 miles an hour. She is 40 feet in length and carries an 80-horsepower motor. The bottom of the boat is concave, lengthways and across.
The theory that with an increase in speed the tendency of a ship is to rise, so that when travelling at a fast rate she will draw less water than when going slowly, and consequently will have less resistance and less skin friction, has attracted the attention of naval architects for many years. So far as theory is concerned, there is nothing to prevent a vessel being built on this principle, but when it comes to
considering stability, it is another question altogether The principle is based upon the well-known theory that if the hull of a vessel be made flat in the bottom and inclined slightly, so that it forms an inclined plane, the vessel will rise to an extent governed by the speed at which it travels. The Rev. C. M. Ramus, of Rye, Sussex, in 1872 improved on this theory by making a flat bottom in two inclined planes, one behind the other, so that each should have an equal lifting power. The Admiralty tested several models made by him, but without satisfactory results, probably due to the comparative inefficiency of the screw-propelling machinery of the period. An American engineer, named Fauber, taking advantage of improved propelling machinery, designed a vessel on these lines with hydroplanes attached directly to the bottom, and a year or two ago it carried six persons at a speed of 35 miles per hour. If a vessel of this size can be constructed and retain its stability, there is no reason why one of much greater size should not be built. The development of the principle is that the planes should be placed at some distance below the bottom of the hull, so that when the vessel travels at a considerable speed, it shall rise out of the water and be supported by the planes, which shall skim along the surface. This, however, can only be achieved at present by sacrificing stability to speed. An improvement in construction is to shape the bottom of the hull like a very wide letter V, with a series of planes underneath. It is claimed that an ocean liner can be built on this system, carrying six propellers arranged in three pairs, and that the necessary air would be pumped under the vessel by the action of the propellers as she travelled along.
A steamer on wheels, but intended to travel on the water, was invented a few years since by a Frenchman named Bazin. He constructed a model, which worked well and was on the scale of one-twenty-fifth of the liner he hoped to see built some day. The model consisted of four pairs of hollow wheels or discs, each wheel being in appearance like two immense soup-plates set face to face and set on edge. These wheels were caused to revolve, thereby reducing the friction of the water to a minimum, and the vessel was propelled by a screw. The decks, being built on a framework over the axles, had space for ample accommodation, and in order that the
speed of the ship should not suffer it was intended to carry no cargo. A vessel on this plan was constructed and launched on the Seine. The platform was 126 feet long by about 40 feet wide, and each wheel was about 32 feet in diameter and about 10 feet at its greatest width. The total weight of the boat was about 280 tons. The boat proved her utility when tried. The inventor estimated that an oceangoing liner constructed on this system would easily cross the Atlantic at a rate of thirty knots an hour.
It is impossible to say what the development of the steam-ship will be in the future. The piston engine has probably reached its utmost development, or very nearly so, and much more in that direction is not to be expected. Naval architects are already considering whether the existing lines of the steam-ship are the best for speed, and a design has been brought out for a steamer constructed on what are known as tetrahedral lines. There has recently been described in the Scientific American a vessel, a model of which has been constructed, designed upon this tetrahedral principle. It is contended that this form for ships offers less resistance than any, and that by it alone can the greatest attainable speed at sea be reached. Yarrow boilers with Schultz turbines are recommended for vessels of this type.
A proposal for fast Atlantic travelling, which has not gone beyond the paper stage, is that three long narrow hulls should be built parallel to each other and supporting the main body of the hull. The inventor claims that the method would enable a greater speed to be attained than by any existing liner, and at a less cost; but readers who have followed the development of the steam-ship will recollect that this suggestion provides a curious parallel to the experiments of Patrick Miller with his triple-hulled boats in the eighteenth century.
Few, however, will doubt that, great as have been the changes in shipbuilding and steam-propulsion during the last hundred years, there will be changes as great in the present century.
