I still distinctly remember discovering Badiou’s work during my fourth year of graduate school. He was unlike anything else I’d read. Not only was his style characterized by rigor and clarity, but there was a deep passion that ran throughout all of his work. I couldn’t get enough. The context of Continental thought at that time was deeply depressing. Nearly everything you came across seemed to speak the impossibility of doing anything. Throughout all the work I read, there was a deep pessimism and cynicism. The reigning thesis seemed to be that behind any pronouncement there was some ugly ideological secret. One could say nothing lest it contain something that was unconsciously offensive or lest it unconsciously promoted oppression. Or we were endlessly told that nothing could be pinned down, that it was all constructed, that there was no statement that wasn’t already the result of a language game. No doubt this thesis led to the primacy of “philosophy as interpretation” dominant in Continental thought, for where all truth is interpretation it becomes impossible to make any pronouncements: better to focus on the pronouncements of others in that case. At any rate, the dominant strains of theory seemed to engender a deep sense of paralysis. Moreover, all theory seemed organized around showing that we were passive victims, that we were hurt and harmed. There was no affirmation of anything, no utopian imaginary, only endless inventories of harm.
For other reasons, the phenomenologist– who came to dominate US Continental thought –were the worst. With the possible exception of Sartre (and maybe Merleau-Ponty)– both of whom were largely ignored anyway –one perpetually sensed a deep conservative streak. Despite my fascination with phenomenology (I began philosophy with Heidegger and wrote my master’s thesis on the later work of Husserl), I could never quite shake the feeling that it was deeply reactionary. How could it be otherwise? Focusing on origins and lived experience, it could not but privilege the givenness of the lived lifeworld. And in privileging the lifeworld, it could not but see things like Galileo, mathematics, and revolution– all of which depart from the lifeworld of Black Forest paths and the simple life of peasants –as an aberration and violence doomed to lead to disaster. The lesson of phenomenology seemed to be “lassen sein“, let things be, never question the wisdom of tradition (for tradition was somehow closer to the more authentic origins). Building on McCumber’s thesis in Time in a Ditch— but for Continental thought, not Analytic thought –was it any surprise that phenomenology came to dominate departments devoted to Continental philosophy? There was nothing offensive about phenomenology, it challenged nothing about our reigning order; it’s message was “return to traditional values”.
But with Badiou everything suddenly seemed different. Badiou dared to say Truth. Truth had been the major enemy of the reigning discourses in Continental thought. It was seen as both necessarily naive and oppressive. To state a truth was seen as necessarily oppressing other “language games” where the statement might not obtain. Again, we were all led to paralysis and left feeling as if we were potentially elephants in china shops if we dared affirm anything. But Badiou’s Truth was not the ordinary “correspondence” theory of truth, it was not representational. No, Badiou’s theory of Truth was really a theory of commitment. A truth was, for him, not a representation or correspondence, but an activity that transforms the world. It is not so much the details of his thought that mattered. No, what mattered was the message. What Badiou was daring us to do was commit and commit passionately. Commit passionately to rapturous love even if it leads to your ruin. Commit passionately to scientific discovery, even if it departs from dominant paradigms. Commit passionately to artistic invention, even if it departs from tradition. Commit passionately to political transformation, even if that work seems unrealistic and to desire impossible outcomes. Badiou said commit, live passionately, and continue. Badiou said risk, risk everything for a Truth. Badiou said wager. What dominated Continental thought at the time was a series of meditations on why it is unreasonable to wager, risk, and commit. Badiou said commit and continue. Suddenly the air felt very different.
March 24, 2012 at 11:05 pm
Reblogged this on Minimal ve Maksimal Yazılar.
March 24, 2012 at 11:59 pm
If you’re interested, Domenico Losurdo’s short and easy to read book “Heidegger and the Ideology of War” does a really good job of showing the reactionary ideology that Heidegger subscribed to. Losurdo also discusses a Husserl and others. There is also an untranslated book in German from the Marxist Quarterly Gegenstandpunkt on Heidegger called something like “Heidegger– fascist and most consistent philosopher of the 20th century,” which presents a scathing criticism.
March 25, 2012 at 12:04 am
http://bebereignis.blogspot.com/2012/03/on-badiou-truth-revolution-decision.html
March 25, 2012 at 1:20 am
Reblogged this on Skylight.
March 25, 2012 at 7:09 am
Interesting. I thought Deleuze was writing about the truth – and the truth of the relative…
stengers uses the term ‘wager’ all the time…
It seems strange to credit Badiou with this new freedom to talk of the truth.
But, it takes all sorts
March 25, 2012 at 7:10 am
strange.
March 25, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Useful (and fascinating) read on reception of Heidegger in the US. Depending on who you talk to in the UK/Europe, Heidegger is seen as ‘violent’ in his interpretations of philosophers he wrote about, and the enabler of radical thinkers such as Derrida, Levinas, MacQuarrie and Tillich, as well as Gestalt psychotherapy being re-invented as phenomenological psychology as a counter to neuroscience in places like Paris VIII. Nothing tradtiional or conservative there at all from Heidegger – guess it depends on how he is presented or read?
The Badiou thesis sounds great but a little rhetorical to my ears – I mean, that’s fine and dandy if you are a Marx or an OOP kindda guy/gal – but absolutely not if you are Hitler or a global corp earth raping fiend of a CEO. Don’t know how Badiou handles the inevitability of ethics and morality in the ideology of commitment he proposes – but that’s my ignorance of him more than his problem….
March 26, 2012 at 7:16 pm
is it just me or does this post read like a eulogy? After reading it I thought Badiou had passed away..
March 29, 2012 at 5:16 pm
Thank you for this post. I couldn’t agree more. No less than a shift from empty aporetic relational structures into affirmation. Affirmation not only of the possibility of encounter with something new, but affirmation of holding on to it even as it’s immaterial, an exception. I remember the first few days after picking up Being and Event, just for the hell of it, and feeling like my own experiences finally made sense. Almost like a coming out. Here was a new discourse that could articulate the experiences I’d had, and not only articulate those modes of encounter but move me to think that they could be structural or organizational — could and should. Badiou doesn’t get enough props for this, nor for his passion and his charge to commit. Well put.
March 31, 2012 at 11:27 am
[…] and the concrete architecture of his theory. Thus I have no quarrel with Levi’s recent post on Badiou, with the proviso that here he is expressing his conceptual-affective response to the meta-theory. I […]
April 15, 2012 at 4:32 am
Great post! I feel the same way– Badiou made theory & philosophy interesting and worthwhile once again.
During my undergrad, I was often in the strange position of defending postmodernists & deconstruction at the level of intelligibility– yes, this makes sense, yes something is being said here– against the conservative Bloomean types who said it was all nothing. However, this position was distinct from wholeheartedly agreeing w/ postmodernism, deconstruction, constructivism, etc.
Encountering Badiou, that all changed.