I’m about half way finished with my article on politics, queer theory, onticology, body, and affect for the journal Identities. There’s a lot here from Luhmann, Ranciere, and Badiou. Basically I conceive the political as an event that emerges as a relation between elements belonging to larger scale objects and parts or smaller-scale objects that are included in these larger scale objects without being members of these larger-scale objects. I argue that things are not in and of themselves political– though they can be social –but rather that politics is an event that takes place with the appearance of the in-apparent (parts) that discloses the anarchy bubbling beneath the organization of any larger scale object. This allows me to draw a distinction between governance and politics. Governance consists of those operations that strive to regulate and reproduce elements constituting a larger scale object. Politics is that event and the activist procedures that follow from it that reveal the contingency of these organizations and that set about producing and inventing a new form of organization. Much of what we call “politics” (for example, the “incrementalism” and “pragmatic realism” of ardent Obama supporters), is not politics at all but regulatory governance designed to manage the entropic parts of systems, reducing them to elements that have a “proper” and non-disruptive place. For example, we might think of the “eco-activists” that nonetheless sides with state based strategies (i.e., ardent Obama supporters) for dealing with climate change, arguing that there are no alternatives, thereby placing all the burden on workers and refusing to recognize the manner in which capitalism and the ecological crisis are intertwined. Such a person fails to recognize that parts are distinct from elements, or that objects and their possible relations cannot be reduced to their status as elements for a particular system. In Badiou-ese, these subjects are what are called “reactive subjects”. The work on behalf of governance that refuses to recognize the volcanic anarchic possibilities that result from the withdrawal of objects from one another or the fact that parts (objects in their own right and withdrawn from the larger scale objects within which they’re erased) are always in excess of elements.
This framework allows me to do two things. On the one hand, I am able to develop an onticological account of the subject. Subject is the appearance of the in-apparent or that which is not counted as an element within the system in which it appears. Subject thus simultaneously reveals the contingency of that higher order object (that other relations are possible, and that there are always entities uncounted as elements within any particular system or object) and is the procedure that sets about either 1) destroying a particular higher-order object, 2) de-suturing itself from this higher order object and forming a new collective object, or 3) reorganizing the endo-consistency or organization of the higher order object. Many of us, of course, dream of the absolute annihilation of certain higher order objects or systems like global capitalism. This is possible precisely because 1) parts are never identical to elements, 2) objects are withdrawn from one another, and 3) every object is a struggle against entropy or the possibility of extinction. Revolutionary politics dreams of extinction or an introduction of entropy into certain objects so profound that it brings about the extinction of that object.
Second, because politics is an event that marks the appearance of the in-apparent or parts within an object, I argue that it follows that all politics is queer politics. Here I return to the original etymology of the term “queer”, extending its signification beyond the domain of the politics of sexual orientation and gender. Queer refers to the strange, the odd, that which twists, and is out of place. Insofar as politics only occurs in those sites where parts contest their status of elements, revealing the volcanic anarchy beneath every system of counting, disclosing the contingency of every object or system’s way of counting or producing elements, it follows that all politics is essentially queer. If queer theory initially stumbled upon questions of sexual orientation, gender, etc., then this is because these are mechanisms by which larger-scale objects govern parts and constitute elements for themselves (thereby erasing the bubbling chaos upon which they stand). It matters little whether the politics is what we ordinarily refer to as “queer politics”, whether it is Marxist insurrections of the proletariat as universal motor of history, whether it be women, people of color, or whether it be genuine eco-activists asserting the truth of spotted owls, in all cases the political moment is the moment where the queer or odd as in-apparent appears and challenges systems of constituting elements, governance, and the erasure of parts. This is my first foray into the arguments of The Domestication of Humans. If anyone is interested in reading an advance copy of this article once it’s completed, please email me. I’d love your feedback.
August 23, 2011 at 3:43 am
“Revolutionary politics dreams of extinction or an introduction of entropy into certain objects so profound that it brings about the extinction of that object.” I like this way of putting it.
August 23, 2011 at 1:26 pm
looking forward to reading this new work of yours, I’m not as interested in extinction in this context as in adaptation/sublimation.
http://deleuze.tausendplateaus.de/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/political-normativity-deleuze.pdf
August 23, 2011 at 5:18 pm
So which type of contingency do you submit to Levi? Is it a contingency of necessity ( a la Badiou) – a commitment to the necessity of a cause no matter what contingencies come it’s way? Or Meillassoux’s necessity of contingency – which entails that there should be no necessity to political endeavour, and anything is possible?
I realise that’s a forced choice, kind of question – but seeing as you place an awful lot of emphasis on the contingency of relations, its worth answering.
August 23, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Despite my ‘fascistic’ hostility to Ranciere (I still stand my ground on asserting inegalitarianism given the suspension of the fixed human object via your Inhuman Ethics post in conjunction with Ranciere’s own paradoxical encounters with Pareto, Hobbes, etc.) I am fascinated by the prospects of how the Domestication of Humans fits into the scheme of things. I would suspect that these large scale objects of governance, which attempt to always cover-up or control/dominate true political engagement (Ranciere’s concept of democracy) to always be in perpetual war and trade with each other. For instance, humans may utilize bovines for the procurement of meat and milk (in the one-way animal-rights narrative this is exploitation and murder of cows), yet domesticated bovines utilize humans for their own evolutionary reproductive fitness and have turned the narrative tables and reciprocally enslaved us. This can be a simultaneous reactionary attack from above (in which cows are complicit with Statism and capitalism) and a revolution from below (in which cows colonize and control humans by a coup from the ground up). I think you could consider a non-human reading of the elite theorists that Ranciere criticizes in order to perhaps draw out an ‘oligarchial’ interpretation of non-humans.
August 23, 2011 at 11:17 pm
On further meditation, is it possible to think a non-human capitalism/feudalism? Is it possible that some non-human objects have privatized us and utilized us as property while we simultaneously proclaim land, means of production, slaves, etc? For instance, domesticated dogs have often been described as ‘social parasites’ in so far as they mimic the behavior and facial expressions of human children to extract labor from humans. In return, the human gets only a small share (the joy of dogs I guess) while the dog is given more than enough to flourish. Even worse, the dog often takes the place of the raising of human children considering the ways in which humans often speak of their pets as their ‘children’. Just some strange things to ponder.
August 24, 2011 at 10:01 am
an articulation of rhizomatic reality? I’d be very keen to read your article and give what feedback I could. You have a really interesting way of putting things.
August 26, 2011 at 10:57 am
I’m not sure I would be able to offer much in the way of feedback, but I would love to read this article. I am fascinated with the way you are taking your onticology.