[27] First cross-talk Short lecture by Bertolt Wildermuth with interjections by Ottilie and Helmut Maria Wildermuth Dr Johnson the picture toad and Eduard — Heissenbuttel

Nothing is beyond the necessities of life. Jewellery, art or luxury are not essentials, because without them you neither starve nor die of thirst. If society is that which protects against hunger and thirst, society is explained by the production of the necessities of life. The explanation of society from the production of the necessities of life determines the place of the individual in society. The necessities of life can only be produced if everyone works together. (One alone is not a problem. The problem is that one is not alone. Several can agree. Many have to stick together. Whoever cannot get along with all of them must be able to rely on getting through alone. Only alone can he get through against all. If he gets through alone, he only gets through if everyone agrees). Friction and differences can arise between individuals and individuals, individuals and groups, groups and groups. Frictions and differences between individuals and individuals, individuals and groups, groups and groups are settled so that society, which is explained by the production of the necessities of life, is preserved. Can groups then be tolerated that produce what is not essential to life: jewellery, art or luxury? Who derive their livelihood from the production of non-essentials? As critics, advocates, distributors? (For the civilised society, the problem arises for each individual of his or her position between intelligence and capital. This problem of individual self-perception and self-assertion between intelligence and capital is of crucial importance, as it reveals the fatal role of power in the non-transcendent, self-perpetuating system of today’s civilisation). Aren’t groups that produce what is not necessary for life only able to form when they have accumulated a supply that goes beyond the necessities of life? Can groups be tolerated in the society that is declared to be based on the production of the necessities of life, groups that rely on the fact that supplies have accumulated? They consume the necessities of life without producing them. (Perhaps one day we will remember this time as a time of intellectuals who sought to pursue error to its last nooks and crannies; as a time when philosophers wrote no books, but turned every book into a political issue and mercilessly sliced the world of art, literature and philosophy into blocks of class difference). The explanation of society from the production of the necessities of life was not the beginning. Rather, the beginning seems to have consisted in that which simultaneously explains the world and determines the production of the necessities of life. The explanation of the world was religion. The disruption of the explanation of the world could disrupt the production of the necessities of life. If society is explained solely in terms of the production of the necessities of life, this explanation also takes over the explanation of the world, i.e. religion. (The gradual growth of socialism into communism seems to be an objective law. The classless society, in which the means of production will be the people’s property and all members of society will be socially equal, will steadily expand the productive forces on the basis of constantly advancing science and technology and allow all sources of social wealth to flow. The great principle will prevail: each according to his abilities to each according to his needs). Science will take the place of religion. But while religion explains the world to the end (as a mystery), science must leave the unexplained remainder, into which it only penetrates infinitely, without knowing whether it will reach its end, indeed knowing that it will not. Superstition and prejudice are dissolved at the price of the unexplained remainder. The re-transformation of the remainder into new prejudice and new superstition is prevented solely by the rational explanation of the remainder of the unexplained. (We may one day remember this time as a time of intellectuals who sought to pursue error to its last nooks and crannies; as a time when philosophers wrote no books, but turned every book into a political issue and mercilessly sliced up the world of art, literature and philosophy into blocks of class difference). The explanation of society from the production of the necessities of life is the same as the explanation of the world through science. The scientific explanation of social practice is the explanation of the world. In this identity it is presupposed that the necessities of life are produced. One possible form of this society is the collective farm and the collective farm of collective farms. (But those who have more money than the others can also do something else more easily than the others. Doesn’t socialism mean that you do nothing different from the others? Yet everyone strives to do what only those who have much more money than everyone else can do). The identity of scientific explanation of social practice and explanation of the world is kept open by what is above it. The identity is kept open, for example, by art that explains the world differently. Language already explains the world differently. It explains the world from the stock that has accumulated in it. Language is beyond. Language lives from the stock. (Everything presented means abbreviation. You have to be sure of the measure by which you abbreviate. Where does the certainty come from?) The open identity between the explanation of society from the necessities of life and the scientific explanation of the world remains open as long as there is overher. The groups that rely on what is beyond explain society from what they have beyond the necessities of life. In extreme cases, the negation of the production of the necessities of life becomes the programme. (One alone is not a problem. The problem is that one is not alone. Several can agree. Many must stick together. Whoever does not get along with all of them must be able to rely on getting through alone. Only alone can he prevail against all. But if he gets through, he will only get through if everyone agrees). Whoever sets up the explanation of society from the production of the necessities of life as a programme, declares everything that is not necessary for life to be not necessary for life. The question must be posed in this way: whether that which is superimposed on the production of the necessities of life can be counted among the necessities of life. If it can be counted as such, then that which until then stood above the necessities of life as ideal is transposed into the material of the necessities of life. It becomes a part, it becomes an appearance of the essential. That which is necessary for life shows itself in the form of that which is above it. Art would be nothing but the form of the vital. Art would be nothing but the form of the scientific explanation of the world. (Are we the real parasites? Who sit on the functioning whole? Or is what we do what is necessary?) The difficulty, then, is to explain the vital necessity of what is above. Not as a mere supply. Is it not merely the parasite? It is a question of eradicating the idea of the parasite. (Everything presented means abbreviation. One must be sure of the measure by which one abbreviates. Where does the certainty come from?) At a limit that the old explanations, ideas, patterns only just reach, groups suddenly appear that rely on what is above. They appear as the image of what is beyond. Does the image show the form that the explanation will take from what is necessary for life? (One alone is not a problem. The problem is that one is not alone. Several can agree. Many must stick together. Whoever cannot get along with all of them must be able to rely on the fact that he can get through alone. Only alone can he get through against all. But if he gets through alone, he only gets through if everyone agrees). When I use an image, I explain the world differently. When I speak, I explain the world 31I differently. If I derive the terminology of science from the terminology of philosophy, I explain the world differently. If I trace Hegel’s retraction through Marx back to Hegel, I explain the world differently. It is important to see through this. It is important to see through it as a process. It is important to recognise it as a warning. Is it a matter of simply walking away from it?

(Heissenbuttel, Machine Translation of [Erstes Quergespräch Kleiner Vortrag Bertolt Wildermuths mit Zwischenreden von Ottilie und Helmut Maria Wildermuth Dr. Johnson der Scbildkröte und Eduard ])