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6th International Critical Management Studies Conference, University of Warwick, UK, July 13-15, 2009

Stream 10- What’s critical about information systems?

Michel Henry and Critical Theory, an Introductory Standpoint The case of virtual organization

Eric Faÿ Sandra Le Guyader

OCE Research Centre EMLYON Business School 23 av. Guy de Collongue

69130 Ecully Cedex France

Tel: 33 4 78 33 77 38 Fax: 33 4 78 33 79 28

fay@em-lyon.com

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Michel Henry and Critical Theory, an Introductory Standpoint The case of virtual organization

Eric Faÿ Sandra Le Guyader

OCE Research Centre EMLYON Business School 23 av. Guy de Collongue

69130 Ecully Cedex France

Tel: 33 4 78 33 77 38 Fax: 33 4 78 33 79 28

fay@em-lyon.com The question we wish to deal with in this paper is: how can Henry’s phenomenology, based

on a totally renewed way of understanding human being, a Self finding its dynamic in the

immanence of its affective life, help us introduce a renewed critical approach toward modern

‘e-conomy’ and the virtual organizations of human labour it structures? Relying on Michel

Henry, the difficulties will in fact not only appear as difficulties to relate to the life-world, to

interpret, to socialize, to exercise power, to face abstraction,… but they will appear as the

hindrance of one’s praxis, its real, active, individual, subjective and intersubjective life. To

support this argument we shall be studying those of Henry’s works which will enable us to

ground our critical analysis. This enables a critical and phenomenological perspective on IT

reference paradigms whereby exchanges are reduced to ‘information’ (Simon) and

‘communication’ (Wiener) such as they operate in the ‘virtual organisations’ of Davidow,

Malone, Davenport, Handy, etc. Written by one of us who has been a participant observer

during six months in a global company, a reflexive narrative is the starting point for

introducing several insights related to the experienced hindrance of one’s life dynamism and

energy. This critical approach leads to a political theory of potentialization and capacitation

which is close to Hilary Putnam’s intuitions.

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Michel Henry and Critical Theory, an Introductory Standpoint The case of virtual organization

Introduction

Since Taylor, the theories of the scientific organization of human labour have continuously

developed, based on calculating technologies, an abstract modelling of activity, information

processing and communication technologies. H. Simon and J. G. March (1958) saw the

organization as a co-ordinated group of information processing systems (human,

organizational or computer). For many reasons, one of which being the identification with the

system they develop, many researchers end up identifying human beings with an Information

or Communication System. The most notorious illustrations of this are Norbert’s Wiener view

of the equivalence between human beings and cybernetic devices in terms of communication,

and Herbert Simon’s claim of knowing the “Information System called Man”. Since Dreyfus,

Winograd, Gabriel (1999), to quote but a few, it has been argued that such an “Information

System called Man”, a purposeful rational actor, is disembodied, has no affect, and lives in no

context.

The tragedy of this is that this extremely limited way of conceiving human beings has become

a widespread way of organizing work, reducing it to mere information processing or

communication. A striking example of this is given in the organizational concept of “virtual

organization” where remote information processing is emphasized, to the detriment of

embodiment. Etighoffer (1992), Davidow and Malone (1992), Handy (1995), Davenport and

Pearlson (1998) to name but a few, argued that with the Internet, organizations can be

reconfigured, that the virtual organization, with its heavy reliance on information technology, is

conducive to “collaborative remote working” and can reduce “transaction costs” and “red tape”

for companies by outsourcing many of their activities. This is all part of the globalization

movement that brings with is a new set of rules for the global economy. Some fifteen years

after it was launched, this idea has become an actual form of organization in a number of

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companies. Yet despite the well-known and well-documented difficulties of people’s

experiences of virtual organization, the concept shows no signs of being phased out. We now

hear of virtual teams, virtual worlds, virtual learning environments, and so on and so forth.

Nonetheless, several researches have seen the virtual organization in accordance with the

tradition of critical theory. Let us first address the questions of power and politics. Jackson,

Gharavi and Klobas (2006), from a Foucaldian perspective, found that the totality of the

modes of power relations operating upon virtual knowledge workers comprises a complex,

sophisticated web of integrated and overlapping control and constraints emanating from the

external and internal panopticon. Kim Thorne (2005, 2007) drawing on Gerlaach and

Hamilton, (2000) unravels the utopia of virtuality which masks a collusion between neo-liberal

and post-modern thought. Nevertheless, Sioufi and Greenhill (2007) suggested, from a

Marxist perspective, that utilizing ICT to enable cross-boundary work may subsequently bring

with it heightened levels of contested power and elements of disrupted context. Moreover,

they argue, it may also enable or even perpetuate existing discriminatory barriers between

workers. Pursiainen, (2008) referring to the work of Foucault and Merleau-Ponty, underlines

that such power over our body or from our body informs our ‘cyborg style’.

Another way of developing a critical perspective is to point out the primacy of abstraction in

the modern world. This raises the question of sense-making in contexts shaped by

abstraction. Going back to lived experience, Zuboff (1988) points out the epistemological

crisis generated by large-scale computerization whereby clerks are plunged into a world

where “bodily and spatial intelligence are reduced or sometimes eliminated” in favor of

“logical competency” (2008: 194). Boland (1991) argues in favour of face-to-face encounters

in order to grasp the meaning of information by placing it in a wider context of experience.

Dejours (2000) points out the suffering resulting from the growing discrepancy between

abstract prescriptions and the reality of work. Kagand and Chumer (2007) suggest drawing

on pragmatist philosophy, symbolic interactionism and phenomenology to illustrate how

human beings make sense and derive their identities, through interactions with others and

objects, in a life-world pervaded by technology. Isomäki (2008) studies how the designers of

information systems or infrastructures view the human beings for whom they are designing

as non-human phenomena or in terms of functional ‘software’. This points us to the ways

work may be ‘moulded’ by software or by technological networks in such a context.

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Disconnection from the life-world is also a theme of critical approaches. Carsten Stahl (2008)

asks what the ‘becoming future of rationality’ is in today’s technological world. Drawing on

Habermas, he provides valuable insights which prompts one to ask the following crucial

question: do these technologies expand a collective and shared life-world; or alternatively, do

they lead to confusion by creating diverging life-worlds? Besson (2008), drawing on Schutz

and Luckman’s “structures of the life-world” asks similar questions but in a different direction.

He very helpfully raises the practical and moral issues of working through ‘over-extended

zones of operation’ and points to Borgmann’s notion of ‘focal practices’. Jin & Robey (2008)

applied Giddens' concept of time-space distanciation to a case study of a virtual company.

Their paper explores the tensions between disembedded abstractions and lived

organizational experience

Disembodiment and isolation are underlined from several critical perspectives which raise the

key question of collaboration and cooperation. Referring to lived experience, Zuboff (1988)

identifies the huge suffering generated by large-scale computerization in which workers are

“exiled from the interpersonal world of office routines… expelled from the managerial world of

acting-with” (1988: 125). Referring to Merleau-Ponty and his focus on the body as the very

locus and power to enact a shared world, Mingers (2001) argues in favor of the necessity of

embodying information systems, that is to say, organizing face to face encounters to get co-

operation and collaboration when organizing and deciding. I Introna and Brigham, (2008)

referring to Levinas, indicate the difficulty of creating communities in the age of virtuality. Kim

Thorne (2005, 2007) describes a virtual consciousness afraid of physical relationships

The iron cage of the rational, hierarchical, authoritarian organization, representative of the

previous physicalized era of industrial capitalism, is replaced by the new, benign, boundary-

less, flexible, networked, information and communication technology-driven, empowering,

virtual organization… This virtual consciousness involves an on-going fear of physical

relationships and an exaltation of technology as a replacement for human involvement in the

world (2007: 1-2)

Thorne criticizes the fiction of trust in virtual organizations and thus highlights, after Sennett

(1998), the adverse implications for “cyborg employees” facing perpetual organizational re-

design: the difficulty to build mutual loyalties and ultimately to reach the sustainable self.

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We now reach the core ontological critical standpoint arguing that the self is itself in danger in

such virtual organization of human work. Following Heidegger, Faÿ has shown (1999) that

purposeful information processing could be a serious obstacle to the very power of what

Heidegger calls ‘Difference’: the move that puts in a novel and intimate way, the being, a

world and an object. Basden (2003) argued that if we follow Habermas I.T. should be

developed and used only on a small-scale basis, in and for the lifeworld. But he suggests a

novel approach following the philosopher Dooyeweerd. According to this perspective, IT

development and use should be treated as lifeworld, and norms should be grounded on a

broader concept than lifeworld, modal aspect which is the very possibility of being, becoming,

acting, ruling. Mutch (2002) advocates through critical realism the necessity to reintroduce

the body, its affects and beyond those, the ontological emergent properties which arise.

The aim of this paper is to introduce the subjective experience of life as described in Henry’s

phenomenology of life as a foundational standpoint for a critical theory. Similar to Basden

and Mutch’s attempts, the question we wish to deal with in this paper is: how can Henry’s

phenomenology, based on a totally renewed way of understanding human being, a Self

finding its dynamic in the immanence of its affective life, help us introduce a novel critical

approach toward modern ‘e-conomy’ and the virtual organizations of human labour it

structures? The difficulties will in fact not only appear as lived difficulties to enact a world, to

interpret, to socialize, to exercise power, to face abstraction, but they will appear as the

hindrance of one’s real subjective life, its energy, dynamic and praxis . Our argument will

begin by pointing out the key advantages of virtual organizations according to mainstream

management theories. We shall then show how those modern theories of organization are

the legacy of European science as analysed by Husserl in The Crisis of European Sciences

and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936). We will then illustrate the difficulties created by

virtual organisation through a reflexive narrative written by one of the authors being a

participant observer during six months in a MNC. In the second part, we shall then attempt to

show, with Cartesian Meditations (1931) how such a form of organization that combines a co-

presence in real time, via the Internet, the telephone, and remote or electronic encounters

paradoxically only serves to reinforce an experience of absence. We will then ask the

following questions: what is the scope of this “just like” world, from a Husserlian point of

view? To what extent is the life of consciousness jeopardized? We shall then explore this

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idea further by referring to the works of Michel Henry, and in particular, his discovery of

pathic phenomenality. To do so we shall be studying those of Henry’s works which will

enable us to ground our critical analysis of virtual organisations and in particular his Marx. A

Philosophy of Human Being (1983), the original title of which, in French - Marx I. Une

philosophie de la réalité (1976), illustrates an essential question: to what extent is virtuality

the opposite of reality? How does it obstruct subjective life? By drawing upon Henry’s La

Barbarie (1987) we will show how the virtual organisation hinders the essential subjective

energy and dynamic of living and living together. To conclude, we shall explain the

pathogenic nature of this type of organization by situating it in the broader context of

globalization and then advocate for a political theory of potentialisation and capacitation of

subjective life close to Hilary Putnam’s intuitions and similar to some Marcusian views.

I Fist approach of virtual organization, genealogy and phenomenological perspective

Virtual organisation: a genealogical critique From a managerial perspective, the concept of the virtual company enables companies to be

present across the globe and reduce costs by replacing physical premises with virtual offices.

Communication networks and control technologies increase both the interdependence and

the independence of the various far-flung companies. The company thereby becomes – if the

advocates of such a system are to be believed – more flexible, more agile, and able to keep

up with changing technologies and markets (Nagel, Preiss, Goldman, 1995). This in turn

results in a change in capitalism whereby income is optimised through information

technology, by creating a more disparate structure, increasing the flows of information, and

by moving from a pyramid-type organisation to a network organisation. The unity of time and

place is replaced by synchronous or asynchronous work carried out at disparate locations.

Members of virtual teams communicate via electronic networks and often never meet face-to-

face.

Moreover, according to the advocates of virtual work, real value-added is not only a result of

production within the company, but of the deployment of the resources outside the company

and co-ordinated via an electronic network. They claim that what we are witnessing is a

transition from an organisational form of capitalism based on the accumulation of capital to a

network capitalism based on the control of information flows (Lash and Urry, 1987). Such a

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form of organisation is designed to give the disparate teams and individual workers greater

autonomy: this transition, we are told, brings with it another change, that of “freeing” the

worker from the constraints of traditional subordinate-superior hierarchy and affording instead

an autonomous, entrepreneurial status, consisting merely of a contractual relationship with

the company. In many ways, this seems to fulfil the aspirations of today’s professional

(Sennett, 1998). However, the worker has to contend with the pressure of deadlines, and

monitoring processes made all the more rigorous by technology. He spends most of his time

either behind a computer screen dealing with imitations of reality or on the telephone. In the

paradigm of virtual organisation, face-to-face contact is reduced to a bare minimum.

Yet this development is not merely the result of technological and economic logic; we suggest

that it is considered acceptable and desirable because it is the height of Western rationality

as analysed and criticised by Husserl in 1936 in The Crisis of European Sciences and

Transcendental Phenomenology. Husserl traces, back to Galileo, the emergence of a

“theoretical logical praxis” disconnected from the feeling body, disconnected from “our bodily

(leiblich - literally living body: leib is related to leben, life) way of living” (1936: 59, parenthesis

added). Let us clarify these terms and their implications. According to Husserl, “Immediately

with Galileo, then, begins the surreptitious substitution of idealized nature for pre-scientifically

intuited nature.” (1936: 58). Knowledge is no longer bound to the uniqueness of situations,

but sees the world through a prism of idealised forms and geometric models. The real world,

the everyday life-world which we perceive subjectively through the senses is substituted by a

geometric and mathematical world which is perceived as the life-world. Now, the world of real

life is ‘dressed up’ in a “garb of symbols of the symbolic mathematical theories” (1936: 60).

Consequently, the act of knowledge is no longer aimed at the world of real life but at the

pursuit of geometric shapes and mathematical formulae; thus the development of knowledge

is effectively the pursuit of perfection embodied in pure geometric shapes (or Limit-shapes).

This theory of knowledge consequently gives rise to a theory of action. Instead of the real

praxis – one concerned with empirical reality, we are now faced with an ideal praxis, “of ‘pure

thinking’ which remains exclusively within the realm of pure Limit-shapes” (1936: 30-31).

Knowing the mathematical equation of these limit-shapes and models allows us to calculate,

and thus to predict: “if one has the formulae, one already possesses, in advance, the

practically desired prediction” (1936: 50). Thanks to this anticipation, the action can be carried

into real life. Here, the perfection of the action is justified by the exactness of the calculation.

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Thus, as Husserl points out, with this new praxis we attain “what is denied us in empirical

praxis: ‘exactness’” (1936: 31).

This idea in the Krisis illustrates very clearly the dynamic of the modern way of seeing,

thinking and acting that drove the minds behind the scientific organisation of work and of

virtual organisations. Their intentional consciousness is based on “pure Limit-shapes”,

through the reproduction and the exactness of their calculations they can prescribe the

“optimal” organisational forms. These types of organisation are accepted when they promise,

backed up by abstract economic models, the best economic and social performance.

A few of the characteristics of working in a virtual organisation The concept of the virtual company is the product of the praxis of people who have organised

human labour according to an ideal pattern of disparate organisation, and is objectified in the

work of teams who experience a tension between an abstract idea of work and their actual

experience of he reality of their work. Valued for the contribution of his neurones, his grey

matter, real man at work is caught up in an idealist model of the organisation. To illustrate

this idea, we shall now describe a few characteristics of the virtual organisation as one of us

researched doing a six months participatory observation in a company with branches in

several different countries: the head office was in France, and sites in the USA and Canada.

Weekly conference calls were held to discuss the various difficulties that could arise in a

project for harmonising rules and procedures in relation with the implementation of an ERP.

Throughout the project managed by this “virtual” team, in order to keep down travel

expenses, most contact was made via email or over the telephone. The participant observer

was trained at Henry’s phenomenology and Lacanian anthropology when she wrote down.

“Most of the time, these telephone conferences were difficult, in a very insidious way,

both for the project leader and for the local teams. In the analysis of these difficulties,

I will take my own point of view, as a managed person in the team and observer of

the situation, and the point of view of the managed team members in the US and

Canada. I spent some time in Canada with the teams, which helped me understand

their “side” of the project.

It’s very difficult to express the reality of a situation or a relationship with tools. It was

as if we were working whilst wearing blinkers, without taking into account the context

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of what was said or communicated. It was very, often impossible to understand

exactly what was happening: There was communication – in that information was

passed on– but no real speech. These difficulties were further compounded by the

language barrier, which was particularly evident in humour. I used to say to myself:

why are they laughing are they laughing at us? And they must have been wondering

why we weren’t laughing?

My manager and I found it difficult to listen to what others were feeling; we tended to

objectify the other team members who were ‘on the other end of the phone’. This

inevitably raised an insidious aggressiveness between the head office and the

subsidiaries. And yet, nothing was actually said, everything was felt and supposed

and the people concerned didn’t know how to talk about this situation. As a result, I

came to dread these weekly conference calls. I didn’t even dare ask any questions

when I didn’t understand for fear of looking stupid or incompetent. The frustration

grew. The “we” never emerged. No unity was found, but differences were opposed.

No link of confidence was formed, which made cooperation in the daily tasks of the

project very difficult, and costly emotionally speaking.

We got the impression the North American teams thought we didn’t listen to their

point of view. Yet when the project co-ordinator asked their opinion, they weren’t

forthcoming and said that she was the project manager, that it was her decision and

they’d go along with whatever she decided. Instead of setting deadlines, she asked

them what they could manage. It was a vicious circle. The Americans must have

thought that we were only pretending to be open-minded, and remained defensive

and then made out we didn’t listen to them. It was very difficult for everyone…

Throughout the project the team was “virtual” ”.

This narrative shows a possible way of thinking reflexively about virtual organization for

someone trained at Henry’s phenomenology and Lacanian anthropology. It also shows us

what an insidious ordeal working in a “virtual team” can be. In the “just like”, fake presence,

people are faced with incomprehension and a withdrawal of the other, almost to the point of

absence. Husserl and Michel Henry’s phenomenology will give us a better understanding of

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the problems this absence of the other insidiously creates when technology creates a virtual

“just like” presence.

II Phenomenological analysis and critique

Transcendence and the virtual organisation With the help of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations we will conduct an initial analysis of working

in such a virtual organisation. In the virtual organisation subjects talk to each other and

discuss objects or situations that they imagine in their world. But given the distance and the

fact that all communication takes place over the telephone or the Internet, it is not possible to

take into account the context or experience of the other teams. Thus, in the virtual

organisation, there can be no real sharing of experience, no opening of horizons. Because

distant situations are only perceived through figures or representations, because people

communicate with people who have no face and no history, intentionality cannot fulfil its

intuitions of the perception of the other and its situations. Despite the fact that a single

language – workplace English – is used, paradoxically, these people cannot see what these

representations represent. Consequently, what emerges from the virtual organisation is a

sense of inability to associate the representations and information exchanged with realities:

“It was very, often impossible to understand exactly what was happening.” And yet Husserl

says in Cartesian Meditations: « Only an uncovering of the horizon of experience ultimately

clarifies the « actuality » and the « transcendency” of the world” (1931: 62). The novelty of

the virtual organisation is the uncertainty about the horizon which makes intelligible the

representations exchanged and, consequently, the ‘intentional consciousness’ inability to be

freed from doubt. It is now the phenomenological representation of the reality of experience

that requires confirmation and verification that is lacking « But we do know also,…, that we

can be sure something is actual only by virtue of a synthesis of evident verification, which

presents rightful or true actuality itself” (1931: 59-60).

"With these tools it is very difficult to grasp the reality of a situation" reports the participant

observer. This reality, which comes from the synthesis of evident verifications achieved by

conscious perception, this reality is lacking in the virtual organisation. As Husserl writes « it is

evidence alone by virtue of which an « actually » existing, true, rightly object or whatever

form or kind has sense for us » (1931: 60). More because “it is the fact that it is conscious

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life alone, wherein everything transcendent becomes constituted” (1931: 62), the Husserlian

épochè enables us to notice that the virtual organisation, by no longer allowing it to realise its

intuitions that lend meaning, attacks the life of consciousness. This is because the principle

of manifestation, the principle of appearing, is failing that reality is lacking. By attacking the

life of consciousness, the virtual organisation attacks the very essence of appearance that

we can call the real (by distinguishing the real from the realities of which it is made up). But

what is disturbing about the virtual organisation is that this undermining of the real, this

stifling of the life of consciousness occurs, paradoxically, in the “real time” of the presence

published by communication networks. The virtual organisation stops realities from being

created, and creates an absence whilst the “just like” of presence is organised. Encounter is

thus derisory (Faÿ, 2009). But why is it that this is perceived as such an ordeal? There must

be, inside the phenomenality we have just seen fail another phenomenality that allows

people to experience it as an ordeal. So what is this phenomenality?

Grounding the critical approach in the immanence of life In order to answer this question, we must extend our phenomenological thinking where

virtuality and reality are concerned. We will therefore look to Michel Henry’s Marx. A

Philosophy of Human Being (1963, tr. 1973) which centres on the theme of reality. With the

help of Michel Henry we will show that the virtual organisation undermines more than the

objective substance of reality and the life of consciousness. Indeed, Michel Henry reverses

the very notion of transcendence into one of immanence. In Marx, A Philosophy of Human

Being, Henry displays this reversal through a rather original interpretation of Marx based in

particular on the German Ideology, a posthumously published work of Marx ignored by the

Marxist tradition. In the German Ideology Marx defines the real as the real, living individual:

“The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises

from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals,

their activity and the material conditions under which they live”. This idea is, for Marx, not

arbitrary or incidental but central and fundamental. Henry stresses that Marx tried incessantly

to define reality by revealing its essence: “Defining reality is central to Marx’ thinking: it is his

one only preoccupation, in other words, his great obsession.” (1976: 280).

Henry thus shows rather shrewdly that Marx’s notion of reality evolves from the idea of an

ideal genre or universality (in line with Hegel) to a sensitive object (according to Feuerbach),

to action (in his theory on Feuerbarch). Marx then divides the concept of action as on the one

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hand, the production of an objectivity, the intuition of real action, and actual real action “which

acts not as a seeing but a doing and the immanent, radically subjective experience of this

doing.” (1976: 369). This radical change from the transcendence of the genre or sensitive

object to the immanence of acting subjectivity, occurred when Marx, in his quest for reality,

refuted Hegel’s position regarding action. With Hegel, the essence of action is producing the

object that objectifies subjectivity and, by objectifying it, manifests it (1976: 335). Marx

maintains that there is another way in which subjectivity can manifest itself to itself by pointing

that the praxis “is subjective, and wears itself out in its inner experience of itself, in the

radically immanent feeling of effort with which it confuses itself.” (1976: 347-348). This

means, contrary to what Hegel believed, that subjectivity does not need to be perceived by

consciousness, through the process of objectification, to be so; that, on the contrary, it lies in

the immanent experience of its own effort. This experience of subjectivity precedes activity of

representing itself: “Posing does not make the subject, but the subjectivity of objective

essential forces.” (1976: 350).

The essence of reality lies not in the intuition of consciousness, in objectivity - as an obvious

composition of the objects of the world – but in the ordeal of subjectivity acting by itself,

without any discrepancy between doing and subjectivity “Action is real insofar as it is

subjective,” (1976: 370). What is deemed real is that which has this capacity to feel its praxis

in the immediateness of a presence of oneself to oneself. This reversal of the notion of reality

leads to an identical reversal to the notion of material and substantial that is quite distinct from

materialistic and idealistic philosophies: “material is linked to the praxis, that is to say the

actual life of individuals, their activity and needs, the originary subjectivity which makes up

their substantial existence.”(1976: 408). It is therefore in this other phenomenality, in the

appearance of a real, immanent, material, living and acting Self that is grounded the critical

standpoint, and that the difficulty of not understanding others in a virtual working organisation

manifests itself. And therefore that appears, through the experience of hindered living Self,

the metaphor of “wearing blinkers” the feeling described as not grasping reality, not

understanding.

Phenomenality of subjectivity and intersubjectivity

Henry therefore concurred with and rediscovered Marx who thus defined reality after

establishing a phenomenality that was different from that in which subjects perceive objects

remotely from themselves. This other phenomenality is that which comes from experience: in

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this phenomenality there is no distance between the subject and the object, the subject

experiences its praxis in the immediateness of a presence of oneself to oneself. It cannot

escape from what it experiences and what is the very object of its perception. In 1963 Henry,

in The Essence of Manifestation, exposed the duplicity of appearance. One dimension of

appearance, in relation to distant objects – the visible – comes through intentionality, as

Husserl says, or through a difference from a horizon, as described by Heidegger. Yet Henry,

by highlighting the duplicity of appearance, showed that based on affectivity, (which becomes

a transcendental Affectivity), there is another type of phenomenality that precedes the

phenomenality of the world and makes it possible: self-affection, the experience of the self by

the self. “I” is thus the permanence of the affection of subjectivity itself. This self-affection,

which is subjective life, owes nothing to society or the world: it is life or, more precisely, the

experience of a singular life by itself. This very self-affection, in which the subject experiences

itself, experiences its “ipseity”, is what enables it to say “I experience myself, I live, I am, I

can.” Here, stresses Henry, the pathos is substantial, material “Pathos […] refers to the

phenomenological matter […] in which experiencing everything oneself finds its concrete,

phenomenological realisation (2004).”In Incarnation, une philosophie de la chair -

Embodiment, a philosophy of the flesh- (2000), Henry further explored the material dimension

of this pathos by calling it “flesh,” and by drawing a clear distinction between it and the

organic body. Our flesh is affective, pathic. Henry later precised the link between life,

affectivity and Self:

In the immanence of its own pathos, this reality of life is then not any life whatsoever. It is

everything except what contemporary thought will turn it into, that is, some impersonal,

anonymous, blind, mute essence. In itself, the reality of life bears necessarily this Self

generated in its pathetic self-generation, this Self which reveals itself only in Life as the

proper self-revelation of this Life – that is, as its Logos (1999: 353)

It is thus possible, by turning transcendence into immanence, to highlight another version of

the violence inherent in the virtual organisation. When the “just like” presence is organised, at

the key moment of the joint organisation of action, due to the distance, the technological-

assisted nature of the communication, and the language barrier, the worker can not only no

longer understand what is happening, but, more importantly, can no longer be affected, in his

flesh, by the Other who is affected being on the receiving end of his action. Is the lack of face-

to-face contact the reason for this loss? According to Lévinas, seeing the other’s face calls for

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responsibility towards the other, who is perceived as vulnerable : On the contrary in this type

of organisation, where there is no face-to-face encounter, there is no means to avoid

treating others like objects, human relations are in danger to be destroyed. Yet this

interpretation does not emphasise strongly enough the basis of a human organisation which

is lost in the virtual organisation.

The face-to-face contact so desperately missing is indeed a fundamental aspect of any

encounter. It is not merely a case of seeing the other person’s face: it is not just about having

an objectivising image, in the light of day: beautiful ugly, etc of the other’s organic body. It’s

about – as the popular saying goes – “putting a face to a name”, literally. For the name is the

image of nothing in the world, it indicates the singularity of an acting subjectivity. Without a

name, the other can be reduced to merely a representative of a category: man, woman or

child, an unknown being. But the other’s face, not in its mere form but through the affectivity

of flesh that brings it to life, its expressions allow one to experience, through the

manifestations of the affective life of the person encountered (joy, sadness, anger, etc), the

manifestation of life itself. It is therefore not seeing that gives access to intersubjectivity, but

the ability to experience, based on the self-affection of life as a transcendental affectivity: “It is

not a type of noematic presentation, nor a noetic that is the basic foundation for access to the

other; it’s a donation consisting in transcendental affectivity” writes Michel Henry (1990 a:

155).

This is why, as far as Henry is concerned, an intersubjectivity that is not born of a sharing of

the same world is part of a sharing by acting subjectivities. By sharing, with effort (this sharing

is a co-pathos, or suffering with), the affects of acting subjectivity, we share our common

condition of living: “The Being –with is a “doing together” and relies on it. Just like the

intersubjective being finds its essence in the praxis” (1976, II: 119). Here we experience the

originary community of living beings. It is for this reason that, by obstructing encounters, the

virtual organisation of human labour not only prevents one from grasping the objective reality

of situations in the life of an intentional consciousness, as we saw with Husserl, but also

prevents the affective life and cuts off the affective, pathic link with other living and acting

subjectivities; in other words, it cuts one off from the ties of affective life, which are the ties

where the originary community of livings is manifested. Thus isolated, the acting subjectivities

close in on their selfishness, as Marx and later Henry have shown us. The subject is not

16

aware of this loss yet it feels it in the suffering of difficult relationships. No longer able to

experience the ties of intersubjectivity, he withdraws into himself and treats other people like

objects. Thus, on the one hand, the participant observer and her manager found it difficult to

sympathise with the problems experienced by others, whilst on the other hand, they: tended

to “objectify the other team members who were ‘on the other end of the phone”’.

Paradoxically, the “virtual organisation” obstructs even the essence of any organisation, that

is to say, the emergence of an order based on the unity of differences. It is necessary to point

out here that all this occurs in the “just like” of a presence, which lends such encounters an

element of violence which, paradoxically, attacks subjective and affective life and its

dynamism: the manifestation of the originary community of livings and consequently the

development of intersubjectivity.

Transitions of acting subjectivity and virtual organisation We saw with Husserl that the virtual organisation hampered the life of consciousness. We

then explored this theme further with Henry and discovered that the virtual organisation

obstructed, in quite another way, the dynamism of acting, affective subjectivities. Indeed, for

Henry, there is an affective life that is totally separate from the life of consciousness. It was,

after all, Henry who, in The Essence of Manifestation established that living means

experiencing oneself, and, going against the majority of Western philosophy, focused on the

central presence of the theme of subjective immanent life in Marx: “Marx called the radical

immanence of this subjectivity which now represents reality for him, life.” (1976: 370). This

subjective life has a particular power of phenomenalisation that is quite different from

consciousness but is the basis of it, argues Henry, stressing, like Marx, that representation,

seeing are based on the praxis “It is not consciousness that determines life but life that

determines consciousness.” (1976: 401). Should the discontents of forms of civilisation then

be interpreted in the light of life: “There is a discontent in a civilisation whenever the energy

of life is wasted,” (1987: 181). It is therefore in the dynamism of one’s actual life, perceived as

a subjective, affective, acting life, that, primarily, the experienced, and rather trying

pathogenic aspect of the virtual organisation is manifested. Let us now explore certain

inherent aspects of this energy of subjective life so that we may then explain exactly how it is

hindered by the virtual organisation. The synthesis of evident verifications in Husserl’s

intentional phenomenology, eliminate once and for all any traces of doubt about the object.

But what, in Henry’s phenomenology, are the transitions undergone by and in the living,

subjective life?

17

These transitions are linked to the ties between the living and the praxis, between knowledge

and life that is “its very subjectivity, its anxiety, its suffering … which precedes and is the

basis of all ‘knowledge’, all ‘consciousness’ and all ‘thought’" (1976: 413). Having established

the importance of these ties, Marx and later Henry were able to point out the perversion that

arises when “men substitute for real practice effective determinants – in other words, the life

that is within him and his needs, his own consciousness – the ideal relationship they have

with ideal representations.” (1976: 394). Desensitised to the prescriptions of life in their

affective flesh, men withdraw into a transcendental ego enslaved, in the phenomenality of the

visible, by its representations (and images). This leads to barbarity, as the dynamism of living

subjectivity is unused, or becomes lead astray from its own prescriptions. We should

emphasise here that the consequence of the perversion of a living and acting subjectivity

does not lie in the perversion of work but fundamentally affects the ties between the living and

itself. What the Self feels in this malaise is, essentially, a loss of confidence in life and in itself.

For the immanent knowledge of what occurs outside representations is precisely confidence,

assured belief. On the contrary this transition will be the changing from loss of confidence to

confidence regained.

Let us illustrate the extent of such a regenerating act with an example. In order to escape

from the uneasiness created by the virtual organisation, workers find salvation in humour. Yet

this only increases the feeling of uneasiness. How can we show this? Humour, in its wittiest

form, can be seen as the act of a living subjectivity who, when experiencing certain

difficulties, is revived by the energy of life and, moreover, utters a witticism in its

consciousness. Such a regenerating act is on no way an act of will: it simply “comes to him”, it

was beyond his control, all he did was consent to it; he sees it as a gift. At the end of Patrice

Leconte’s film Ridicule, two aristocrats – one French, one English, are walking along the cliffs

of Dover while the Revolution rages on in France. The French aristocrat’s hate is blown out to

sea by a gust of wind. The English aristocrat makes the following witty observation: “Better to

lose your hat than lose your head”. This humour is about the difficulty of the relationship with

objects, or with losing objects. There is nothing aggressive about this kind of humour; there is

none of the violence of derision which is an attack on the subject (Faÿ, 2008). Freud (1905)

notes that humour gives rise to a transformation from an unpleasant affect into a pleasant

affect and illustrates that this « arises » in us.

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In our particular case, humour could be the gesture that saves the living from being

overwhelmed by the difficulties caused by the virtual organisation. But unfortunately, this

attempt failed, as we have seen: because of the various obstacles mentioned earlier,

compounded by the language barrier, it was impossible for the North American and French

teams to share a joke: “I used to say to myself: why are they laughing are they laughing at

us?” Consequently, these separate, distant living beings cannot share humour, one of the

regenerating act of life that could bring then together; thus it is difficult to regain their

confidence in life in such trying working conditions. If anything, the opposite happens: humour

is seen as potential mockery and only aggravates the atmosphere of mistrust between the

teams. Thus the individual is caught up in the system of visible and unreal representations.

As Henry points out, the regenerating act of life is seen as “a division of the concept of

subjectivity” (1976: 409), a division between the subject and the imaginary representations

that invade one’s consciousness and the opening to the praxis of subjective life, to the

“original subjectivity that means the radical immanence of life” (1976: 409). This opening will

enable one to feel differently, see differently, and produce other ideas. We could describe this

as de-centring (of the ego focused on these representations) and re-centring on the living,

acting subjectivity. To illustrate this regenerative dynamic of de-centring-re-centring, let us

examine the example a foreigner’s joy in meeting someone despite the limited exchange of

words. What does this tell us? In such a face-to-face encounter, affective subjectvities are

aware of the difficulties of language and culture barriers, and yet, amid these limited

exchanges of their representations of the world, the people feel, in their flesh, the strength of

this mutual desire to connect, demonstrated by the often considerable effort made by one

party to communicate with the other. Of course, hypocrisy can be used to hide a desire to

deceive, and discernment is required with respect to the desire for a connection. One way of

discerning is by paying attention to de-centring.

De-centring occurs in the encounter with the foreigner when the initial intentions – controlling

the situation, imaginary projects – prove impossible. In a situation where the imaginary

landmarks of consciousness are lost, when words fail one, people still manage somehow to

experience the emergence of an immanent link that transcends all the differences, all the and

barriers of language and culture. Thus two people, who just a moment ago were perfect

19

strangers, come together. In the sense of plenitude of this unity, joy reflects the

accomplishment, in this encounter, of the renewed presence of each person in their own

singular life, and in the other’s. This oneness and the joy it brings are not contrived (unless

they are feigned): people do not create it themselves: unity comes and joy springs forth in a

surge of self-affection of each life. Thus, as with humour, which reflects a regenerated

confidence in their life, people experience in this encounter with “strangers” a gesture within

their life that restores their living beings’ confidence in one another. They feel this connection

that brings together their different lives like a present, a gift. Being welcomed by the other is

conducive to the welcoming of this gift. Thus, for example, in the humour or joy of an

encounter, the living being, experiencing himself, also experiences the very real change that

regenerates him/her and restores his faith in life, as the trusting unity in others shows.

The lost Energy, self-centred ego and violence The living being thus experiences the surge of an acting, intimate force (which, although it did

not bring about itself, willingly accepts it), a force which Michel Henry, in The Barbarism called

the “Energy of life”: “We call Energy that which occurs in the pathetic relationship to the being

as its phenomenological effectuation, as the irrepressible test of what grows from one and

takes one over to excess”(1987: 174). Rolf Kühn refers to as the silent “life Force”: “The only

true generation lies in this silent, invisible life which grabs us and bowls us over with its Force”

(2003:253). He stresses that “the desire-to-live, … is always a self-desire to live life,” (2006),

and which their precursor Marx had called the “active life-process”:

This method of approach is not devoid of premises. It starts out from the real premises and

does not abandon them for a moment. Its premises are men, not in any fantastic isolation

and rigidity, but in their actual, empirically perceptible process of development under definite

conditions. As soon as this active life-process is described, history ceases to be a collection

of dead facts as it is with the empiricists (themselves still abstract), or an imagined activity of

imagined subjects, as with the idealists. Where speculation ends – in real life – there real,

positive science begins: the representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of

development of men. (Marx, German Ideology)

The Energy of life in, for example, humour or in the joy of an encounter, regenerates one’s

trust in life and in the other. This Energy with a capital ‘E’ means the regenerating force that is

at work within affective life and which subjectivity cannot produce. In humour, Energy affects

a transition from subjectivity that relies on the complacency of pleasant feelings (positive

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hetero-affection) or its distress when these feelings are unpleasant (negative hetero-affection)

to the pure self-feeling (auto-affection), to confidence in oneself. The Energy of life brings

about another transition, that of the isolation, the antagonism experienced by the subject

towards the other, into the sense of unity, a unity which does not erase the differences

between them (Gely, 2007). Manifested by the joy of an encounter, the Energy of life opens

itself up to the subjective movement of life, and to faith in the other.

And yet, as we have seen, the virtual organisation creates, via emails, images of things,

abstract, numbered representations of situations, in an opaque light. If the light of the world is

opaque, what transformations could the Energy of life bring about? In the absence of face-to-

face encounters, or failing to make the parameter of pathic flesh, a structuring element of

means of exchange, in the absence of any means of sharing that which occurs in the light of

the experience of life, the subjective, acting praxis, it is, in the virtual organisation, a stumbling

block (Greek: skandalon), an obstacle that is out in the way of the Energy of life. The living

therefore have immense difficulty in making the transition from doubt to confidence in oneself

and in life , from mistrust to trust, in experiencing the surge of immanent unity (in the

phenomenality of life). In such a situation, the various differences between people soon

produce antagonism, unless careful monitoring and controlling systems are put in place in the

objective light of the world in order to neutralise this antagonism, however fallible such

systems inevitably are.

Forcing people to work under conditions in which, as Philippe Breton says, physical

encounters are taboo and people “meet little and communicate much” (192: 116) means

depriving them of access to the Energy of life, of the essential, inner dynamic of their life at

work (or at least, making this access extremely difficult). This is ignorance, a wilful desire to

shut out this inner dynamic to and force the ego into a situation in which it is difficult to escape

from the bubble of its own representations, and leads to what Michel Henry calls “the

transcendental illusion of the ego, the illusion that allows the ego to think of itself as the

foundation of its being” (1996: 177). Consequently, as the ego can no longer be replenished

by the Energy of life, it needs motivational stimuli from the pulsations of the world; the ego

prey to the transcendental illusion is: “an ego that is only open to the world and given in it and

is thus forgetful of its own essence.” (1996: 320). In this illusion, the subject who forgets that

he does not give life to himself is self-absorbed and completely loses the notion of the alter

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ego “putting himself at the centre of this system; each person only worries about the other

inasmuch as it concerns him.” (1996: 320).

In a working situation in which it is particularly difficult to deploy a perception in the light of life,

of the Energy of life, and which is thus not conducive to uniting people in spite of their

differences, doubt, loss of self-confidence and mistrust take root. This lack of speech driven

by confidence both on oneself and on the other creates a tacit, repressed, insidious conflict.

“This situation was really hard because nothing was said, everything was sensed and

assumed. We sensed a tacit aggressiveness, resistance.” In this vicious circle, insecurity

reigns and any attempt to ask for clarity or explanations, any suggestions, are stifled,

repressed: “In this atmosphere of insecurity, I didn’t even dare ask any questions when I

didn’t understand for fear of looking stupid or incompetent.” These disparate teams cannot

become a real team: “it was a ‘virtual’ team”.

Truth, sense of plenitude and giveness The phenomenology of life leads us to take a different view of action and work. Living

subjectivity is not impassive and motionless: it is open to the Energy of life that regenerates

the confident link of the Self with itself, life and others. And that is not all: all work is the effort

of subjectivity to provide for its needs (those of the biological body) and those of its loved

ones: food, clothing, a roof over ones head, medical treatment. The physical or intellectual

effort that goes into work is also felt in self-affection, in feeling this need, making the effort,

taking pleasure in accomplishment. Work is experienced in the light of life; this work, which is

above all part of objectifying economic representations, must be perceived within its context:

that of living subjectivity.

This is why in work, via effort, there is a transition from need to satisfaction. But the

motivation behind human labour cannot be reduced to the need to satisfy these basic needs

alone. Neither can it be limited to the quest for an image of oneself in the light of the world, or

for what gives an image in all circumstances: money. For work to be lively, another transition

takes place in the self-affection open to the Energy of life. The subject that accepts this

Energy when it is dispersed in images, amid its various worries finds the strength to re-centre

and be at one with the inner dynamic of its life. Thus, any truly subjective work is that of a

person who finds, after a number of errors and distractions, in the invisible dynamic of its life

a tie, that living “I” of an “I can” which can set its physical and intellectual abilities in motion

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and expose it to higher forces to which it can aspire: an accomplishment of the desire of life

when it is combined with the satisfaction of biological needs. Michel Henry calls this meeting

of the need and desire for life a “culture of life”, a culture which is also that of Desire- a Desire

that has nothing on which to model itself in things because it is the “Desire for Life and thus

the Desire for oneself” (1987: 42). It is for this reason that the subjective effort can only be

understood in relation to what creates and increases it:

The movement by which life tirelessly comes to one in the conservation and growth of

oneself– this movement is not an act of own-will, it is not the result of any effort but comes

long before it and makes it possible; it is the totally, radically passive being with oneself in

which the being is given to itself… Thus the movement of life is the effortless effort, in which

all effort and all abandon is given to oneself at the heart of the being given to itself in the

absolute passivity of the radical immanence of life. (1987: 170-171).

Understanding that effort could cohere or not with its subjective foundation, Marx, points out

Henry, changes not only the role of truth but also its nature. And yet since Galileo, the

decisive operation is “mathematising, with the formulae it wishes to develop” (1936: 50-51).

The notion of truth is therefore reduced to the exactness of calculations. By questioning the

“absolute truth” of ideas based on such representations, Marx places truth in life: “The

absolute truth is that which lies in the reality of life, in the praxis” (1976: 470); on other words:

“it is no longer the representation of consciousness but the immanence of life that constitute

the essence of truth” (1976: 478). It is for this reason that, in the light of life, the notion of truth

must be radically revised, and this, against the grain of the majority of Western tradition which

sees truth as the correspondence between representations and the reality, in the light of the

world (notion of exactness).

It is precisely because truth was defined by the philosophical tradition based on ideal

structures and their most obvious characteristics … that the most original truth is in life has

ended up absurdly devalued and discredited compared with this rational truth which never

was and which could only ever be the representation – a simple representation. (1976: 470)

True action, the act of “I can”, is that which is consistent with the Energy of life that moves it

and gives itself to it in its own flesh: “true” is… what we need to assist, to which we need to

donate our own flesh” (1987: 124). The same applies to the act of speech, the “true speech”

is that which originates from the dynamic of a subjective life and is thus the living “I” that

articulates it. When the participant observer wrote “There was communication – in that

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information was passed on– but no real speech,” she meant that, in the virtual organisation,

the action of speaking occurred, or at least attempted to occur in the light of the world, but this

action was disconnected, separate (Greek: diabolon) from the dynamic of life of the

interlocutors; such an effort, disconnected from its source, is “exhausting.”

And yet there is a possible truth in living work in which life “cultivates” the effort that aims to

satisfy a biological need. This effort is “cultivated”, civilised and civilising because in its

subjective essence, it refers to the prescriptions of ones life, its dynamism of development,

the Energy of life. It is this that, moved by the desire for life, human, living labour leads to the

increase of singular subjective abilities. Effort, thus liberated, contrary to thermodynamic laws,

is not exhausted: on the contrary, it is like a growth, a reinforcing of the living, acting

subjectivity: “freeing energy doesn’t mean being rid of it… The law of life and of

phenomenology is not entropy… Freeing energy means on the contrary, giving it free rein,

deploying its being, allowing it to grow.” (1987: 174-175).

But, in doing this, we are not yet fully aware of the plenitude of this praxis. Because the living

being experience the Energy of life in different forms, and receives it without giving it to

himself, experiences his life and the plenitude of its praxis like a gift (assuming he does not

fall into the transcendental illusion of the ego which consists in thinking, outside of life, of the

source of all ones powers and projects). Thus all living work carries within it the dimension of

a gift. The offerings of the first harvest made by traditional societies are an extremely

revealing example of this. And there are a number of interesting examples of this concept in

everyday language: to give advice, a lesson, a lecture, a concert, etc. A gift, for the living

being, means being at one with the Energy of life, the dynamic of ones own life. And thus, in

its own context, the self-affection of affective flesh, in the light of experienced life, and

nowhere else, that work, the living praxis, recognises itself as ethical or unethical, beneficial

or harmful for life.

III The pathogenic organization and of the sickness of working life

A catastrophic reduction When the organisation of work no longer treats the parameter of flesh as a structural element

of encounter, the employees within an organisation feel cut off from reality, life and its Energy:

there is no self-confidence or faith in others and the work is exhausting. In the light of what we

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have discussed thus far, it is reasonable to suggest that the feeling of loss of meaning so

frequently mentioned indicates that work and effort are not in tune with the Energy of life and

its recommendations. In such a context, the subject is tempted, in order to save its strength,

to withdraw, to cancel the movement of affective life, and adopts an attitude of indifference.

But in withdrawing thus and shutting oneself out from the inner dynamic of life, there is no

longer the living unity of differences. So there is no longer any basis for organisation, and the

ego, ill-assured, identifies itself as being “against”. In negating his feelings in indifference, the

subject becomes resentful and takes his frustration and resentment out on the other (this

theme is explored in Vasse (1999) and Faÿ (2008). Instead of saving his strength, he ends up

being forced to wasting considerable energy and effort on objecting.

We got the impression the North American teams thought we didn’t listen to their point of

view. Yet when the project co-ordinator asked their opinion, they weren’t forthcoming and

said that she was the project manager that it was her decision and they’d go along with

whatever she decided. Instead of setting deadlines, she asked them what they could

manage. It was a vicious circle. The Americans must have thought that we were only

pretending to be open-minded, and remained defensive and then made out we didn’t listen to

them. It was very difficult for everyone.

Thus, in our case, the virtual organisation leads to a dead end: the teams make efforts and

achieve nothing satisfactory, neither in the light of the world nor in that of life. Here in such a

virtual organisation, the world eludes the grasp of the living, embodied subject, and gives rise

to a feeling of apprehension describe by the participant observer and her manager: “we came

to dread these weekly conference call”. Nor was there any understanding, no way of grasping

the situation, of having control over the reality, it is “out of one’s hands”. Let’s notice that the

idea of control, of having a situation literally “in one’s hands,” is at the root of the word

“management”: it comes from the Italian “managgiare”, which in turn comes from the Latin

“manus”.

Because where there is no shared life, there is no world in common, the worlds of work

remains separated, in our situation the three units fail to find ‘unity’. Such a virtual

organisation is disorganised, which not only casts doubt on reality and creates confusion and

makes it difficult – if not impossible – to work together but, by obstructing the Energy of life,

also leads to loss of confidence in oneself, others, and life, and exhausting, fruitless efforts.

This “barbarian” solution causes genuine suffering: the confusion of the builders of the tower

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of Babel takes root. Here, the virtual organisation makes the light of the world and of life

opaque. This type of organisation forces one to undertake actions which, deprived of the

dynamic of life, are “without reason or light, faceless and blind.” (1987: 99).

We saw with Husserl how, by using the paradigm of science pioneered by Galileo, abstraction

allows a “theoretical-logical praxis” develop. Michel Henry points out that the catastrophic

consequences of such reduction are not just the overlooking of the “world of life”, but that, by

eliminating the sensitive aspects of the realities observed – “Red or yellow, rough or smooth,

hot or cold, fragrant or malodorous,” (2000: 142) Galilean science rules out the possibility of

the pathetic self-giving of life in which the senses are felt and experienced, and thereby

eliminates our phenomenological life (2000: 146). Thus, in the scientific organisation as is

used in the Western world – a direct legacy of Galileo’s paradigm – subjective, active life, its

dynamism and Energy, are ignored and kept at a distance. People in such organisations rely

on sophisticated systems for making objective, abstract calculations to structure and regulate

human organisations (controlling and monitoring systems, IT applications). As such, the

virtual organisation is one of the last bastions of this scientific organisation, whose limitations

are all too apparent – as the following story shows.

First notes about emancipation paths When taken to its logical conclusion, this type of organisation inflicts immeasurable suffering

upon the subjects by forcing them to work chained to a computer screen, constantly setting

deadlines, (which prevents them from being able to draw from the Energy of life and the

possibilities this offers), by spreading their efforts over various projects which go against the

dynamic of a living praxis, by subjecting them to assessment processes based purely on

objective criteria. Plunged into the depths of the suffering by having their actions and life

subjected to “hyper-technologisation,” employees’ desire to live risks turning it against itself.

(note the recent spate of suicides in the workplace in highly technological environments).

Others manage to be pulled back from the edge by the Energy of life, and, along with others,

try to hang on and develop emancipator moves by striving for a better organisation which will

be less depriving of subjective and intersubjective life dynamism. After several very difficult

months, the participant observer went to Canada and was pleasantly surprised to receive a

warm welcome and see some of the difficulties ironed out.

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This experience suggests that there is an urgent need to review the organisation of work

based on what we have learned about the living subject. In order to do this Western

organisers should rethink the Galilean principles that form the basis of their scientific model.

This idea, supported by the phenomenology of Husserl and Michel Henry, concurs with the

following observation by Edgar Morin: “I think that the West in general and Europe in

particular have focused on the materialistic, technical aspects of civilisation, and by doing so

have neglected everything to do with the soul, the spirit, the relationship with oneself and with

others.” (Interview in Le Monde, 2 January 2008). It is therefore necessary to bear in mind

that “Life is the most immediate, most substantial form, which makes up the principle of any

cognitive appropriation of the world,” (1976: 468) and, consequently, when organizing, to

think about types of organisation in which the pathetic self-giving of life can manifest itself. In

other words, to make the parameter of flesh a fundamental element of work organisations so

that the affective life can manifest itself.

By examining this from this angle, we therefore raise the question of a humanly sustainable

development of productive activity based on another reason than argumentative reasons

(although this too is necessary). Such a development would be rooted in: “the reason of all

reasons [that] is the reason hidden in the depths of life” (1976: 418). This is why, by

questioning the abstract rationalism of the scientific organisation of work in general, and the

virtual organisation in particular, we suggest the possibility of organizing a sustainable

organisation: one that is favourable, in its form and its mechanisms, to life and living together.

There are simple, solutions to make life easier for remote workers. These mainly involve

visits, setting up “welcoming committees,” go-between roles, and holding regular face-to-face

meetings, including open spaces for lively speech on the basis of lived experience (Faÿ,

2005). Implementing such solutions imply “simply” ceasing to hold up as an ideal utopian

organisations based on the paradigm of the representation and phenomenality of the light of

the world. Makeshift solutions such as are currently implemented (coaching, peer

committees, etc) are half-baked: their short-term benefits are undoubted, but there are no

long-term advantages whilst such types of organisation are held up as an ideal. Another way

of bringing about this “un-idealising” process and challenging the idealist ‘virtualist’ managers

might be to think back to the notions of ‘profession’ and ‘role’ did and to link those notions to

the here developed understanding of immanent and shared living praxis (see Gély, 2007).

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Finally, it could be argued seriously about the risk of destroying value posed by the

technology of virtual work organisations. In 1990, Michel Henry brilliantly illustrated and

anticipated the domination of technological thinking and its undermining of action and value

creation in From Communism to Capitalism: a Theory of Catastrophe:

Let us now project this radical change in technique onto what we have called from the

beginning of our analyses the real process of production […] subjectivity –living work –

becomes progressively removed from the real process of production […] (1990: 160-161).

This progressive elimination of living work from the real process of production means it is

increasingly unable to produce value (1990: 165). See also Mintzberg (2008).

Of course, this destruction of value can be masked by economic calculations which justify the

virtual organisation in a global economy. An idea that is often questioned by the people

directly involved as they have difficulty making themselves understood. This denial illustrates

the strength of the Galilean paradigm of abstraction and its contempt for reality, at the

expense of the economic setbacks that often occur. But, as Michel Henry points out, these

calculations are based on objective equivalents of real work and are the result of random

conventions: “The economic world is a series of objective, unreal, ideal versions of work

which have replaced living work in order to measured and counted, instead of this elusive

force”. (1990: 114).

In such calculations, money is no longer seen as a means for exchanging but as the end.

This reversal occurs when individuals or groups cut themselves off from reality, from acting

subjectivity, and replace it with a double unreality: the representation of any representation,

money. Through global exchanges, this random substitution comes into its own: what gives

the illusion of increasing value is the differential of the terms of exchange between the

different human communities, particularly in the way living work is considered and protected

by laws. This substitution consists of a reversal of the cycle of exchange: in the traditional

economy, this cycle used money as a means of exchange and could be summed up as

Merchandise-Money-Merchandise). But in a financial economy, the exchange is reversed:

money, the value of the exchange, is no longer a means to an end but the end itself. The

cycle is therefore one of Money-Merchandise-Money), money becoming the aim of production

(1990: 141-142). In this reversal, the “real element, living work, is subjected to a double

unreality, to the ideal entity whose sole mission is to allow it to be measured”. (1990: 143).

This is, says Henry, “a kind of madness. Madness is there when a reflection, an appearance,

28

becomes the only principle of an action” (1990: 143). P. Artus and M-P. Virard (2005) a few

years ago pointed out that, by dispersing “teams”, ceasing to invest and demanding big short-

term results, capitalism was destroying itself. Crisis is a good moment to question ready-

made thoughts and suggest novel understandings and perspectives.

In order to minimise the arbitrary nature of abstract calculation on the sole basis of economic

figures, that can be a source of violence, the living desire for sustainable development of

human life must examine the frameworks (legal, organisational, etc) which should regulate

exchanges and favour fair trade. However, the aim of this article is not to develop the

components of a political regulation of international exchanges based on a phenomenology of

life. We can find unexpected allies. Just one example, in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith

argued the need for customs protection:

The second case, in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign

for the encouragement of domestic industry is, when some tax is imposed at home upon the

produce of the latter. In this case, it seems reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed

upon the like produce of the former. (Book IV)

More recently, Putnam (1992) argued in favour of a democracy and democratic institutions

which, we notice, are based on life, its dynamic of growth and its energy. Thus he elaborates

a political theory of potentialisation and capacitation. Marcuse (1969), in his critical theory,

was close to this aim. Although relying on Freud’s life drive he let some ambiguities in the

conceptual approach of such drive (see Henry, ). With Henry, we have argued here that life,

which is each time a subjective and shared life, should be the foundation for a critical and

emancipating approach of organizations and institutions.

Conclusion

Our phenomenological examination of adoption of the concept of “virtual organisation” is

based on Husserl’s critique in Krisis of behaviour that follows pure Limit-shapes. The virtual

organisation is a working organisation which pushes Western metaphysics of representation

to its limit because such a type of organisation only allows for remote exchanges of

representations. One could of course cite a combination of economic, political, technological

and financial reasons to explain the increasing popularity of this type of working organisation.

But through Husserl, we can trace its origin in a way of appearing and identify this in the

idealistic habitus of an avant-garde modernist trying to implement it. By “idealistic”, we mean

29

the confusing of abstract representations with the reality of living affective life and its Energy.

By aligning with Henry, we could argue that modern organisers can no longer see “the

fundamental distinction […] between the relationship between consciousness and its

representations on the one hand, and, on the other hand, that between life and its immanent

determinations” (1976: 393), and have “substituted consciousness for life” (1976: 394).

Critical Studies of the science of organisations have clearly exposed the primacy of

abstraction and the importance of technology for the idealistic theorists of organisations and

those who relate and apply their thoughts (Alvesson and Willmott, Mintzberg (2004),

Bourguignon,(2005) to name but a few). Along with Michel Henry, we wish to stress that this

idealism is based on a refusal of life.

We have seen, with Husserl, that the virtual organisation of work hinders one’s perception of

the world of life and undermines the life of intentional consciousness. It forces its subjects to

inhabit separate worlds, linked only by technology. The subjects therefore have great difficulty

in creating a shared, common world because the means of exchange (i.e. distance, the

absence of face-to-face contact, the language barrier) prevent the worlds from being

phenomenalised. Moreover, by disregarding the living, acting subjectivities and their affective

flesh, one could say, as has Michel Henry – that this type of working organisation disregards

the reality of work: the living, subjective praxis, the effort invested by subjects. Thus the

concepts of truth and reason and their close ties with subjective life are destroyed. Worse still,

in hindering the phenomenalisation of pathic flesh, the virtual organisation hinders the Energy

of life that revives and refreshes one, and prevents the subject from being regenerated by the

silent speech of life, and therefore destroys its faith in life and others. The virtual organisation,

by preventing the Energy of life from manifesting itself, obstructs the transitions brought about

by the essential dynamic of life in work situations: the transition from anxiety to self-

confidence, faith in others and in life; the transition from passive (feeling helpless and

overwhelmed by a situation) to active. The transition from the “self-centred” ego to a

regenerated, generous, ethical ego that is open to truth, to inter-subjective, dynamism. In

doing this, the virtual organisation subjects the human body to the exhausting drive of a

technological life, to the fast-paced world of business. The aim of this article is to point out

how devious such an attack on the life of consciousness and subjective life is because is

occurs in the “just-like” of an encounter: in that very place where living subjects usually find

the path to regeneration.

30

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