Jodi Dean, over at I Cite, raises the question of what political movements are liable to produce change in their subject’s lives. After a brief discussion of identity politics and its attachment to procedural democratic politics, she concludes with the following:
These days, the only source for transformation seems to be religion. The right gets its energy from its fundamentalist base and religious overtones, but avoids going the extra mile to fascism. The left can’t escape from its envelopment in communicative capitalism–cultural politics is a lot more fun!–and thus abjures any program of political transformation. Besides, cultural revolution seems a bit too scary, the dark underside of left utopian projects–better to accept the liberal framework and advocate half-measures and resistances.
Is it possible to conceptualize, to advocate, a non-democratic program of political transformation with emancipatory and utopian energies today? What would look like? Could it make any promises, hold out any aspirations? Zizek’s emphasis on subjective destitution seems like an important step in this direction–it breaks the binds of identity politics and consumerism in one move. But, how might this sort of destitution figure in a larger kind of solidarity? how might it become a component of a new kind of social link? And what is the next step in conceiving this?
Repeating a comment made over there, I have increasingly found myself skeptical of Zizek and Badiou as accurately theorizing how significant political change takes place. Simply put, I am coming to feel that their understanding of political change is too abstract. Zizek seems to believe that ideology critique will produce a significant transformation of subjectivity such that social subjects become political subjects that can then set about producing significant change in how the social is organized. Badiou seems to wait about for a rupture, an event that cannot be counted within situations, as an impetus for producing “non-interpellated” subjects.
Read on
I do not doubt that there is a great deal to both of these theoretical orientations, but is it enough? What seems to be missing in these accounts is any discussion of concrete social conditions. Zizek appears to put all his emphasis on symbolic interventions. We can think of him as thoroughly Hegelian in the sense that he takes Hegel’s dictum that “all things contain contradictions” seriously and attempts to use this as a way of dislodging stale political deadlocks or oppositions, unfolding their contradictions, and thereby creating a sort of “free space” where another sort of subject might emerge that is no longer locked within the co-ordinates of a situation. Badiou proudly and defiantly departs from Marx, arguing that the event can neither be deduced from a situation nor can what he calls subjects be understood within the context of situations. Rather, the political here is understood to sustain itself through the fidelity of a subject to this undemonstrable event as the subject unfolds all the implications or consequences of this event, reconfiguring the coordinates of the situation. I do not doubt that both of these theories have merit and refer to real dimensions of political engagement, but I worry that they cut off other crucial dimensions of political engagement.
Yet if we look at instances of actual political change, whether on a small scale or on a revolutionary scale, do these forms of analysis hold up? The groups that Dean mentions all find themselves existing in the midsts of significant social contradictions. In the case of identity politics the subjects involved perpetually face physical, economic, and psychological challenges that motivate them to take significant action. Of course, we can and should ask why identity politics has emerged in the way that it has emerged at precisely this juncture and time. I don’t have an answer to this question, though I would like one. The case is not dissimilar with regard to conservative Christian fundamentalism in the United States. If we listen carefully to the fundamentalist, the red thread that runs throughout their discourse is the belief that their way of life is under assault, that their children are being abused and corrupted by contemporary American popular culture and social life, and that they must act if they are to preserve their way of life.
Similar contradictions can be found when we examine other political movements throughout history. The great labor movements, women’s suffrage, civil rights, and the great revolutions all occured in the shadow of tremendous economic upheavals, changes, and wars that seemed to spur these subjects to action; or, at least, act as a catalyst for the emergence and unfolding of new subjectivities.
All of this seems to be ignored in Zizek and Badiou. It is extremely difficult to get people to act and organize if they aren’t significantly uncomfortable. Give people minimum economic security and idle distractions such as really great and really bad films or American Idol, and it seems that while there might be generalized dissatisfaction, a wonder as to whether something better and other might be possible, there is no real impulse to act or form new subjectivities. This inertia is well known, I think, to anyone who has worked to organize people so as to produce change. It’s hard work. The more playful among us have even come up with an expression to describe this work: “herding cats”. It’s one thing to organize a protest or a rally, but to organize people to engage in the ongoing sort of work required for real political change is a daunting task that often falls apart when there aren’t pressing social conditions that give those people little option but to organize. Perhaps this is what Dean is getting at with her reference to subjective destitution: that some transformation of subjectivity is necessary so as to shift one’s fantasy frame from seeing their situation as tolerable and desirable to seeing it as intolerable. But I have my doubts. Increasingly I cannot help but feel that these forms of political theory represent the yearnings of those who harbor visions of revolution filled with discontent at apathy producing prosperity found in first tier countries. Is not the way in which concrete social conditions are ignored and those who would focus on these conditions symptomatic of a sort of disavowal? But perhaps the value of these theories lies not so much in providing genuine and “actionable” political programs, but rather in preserving the dream of revolution and qualitative transformations of the social in times where the conditions for such transformations are far from being ripe. These are melancholy meditations, but I do feel theory needs to become far more concrete.
Larval Subjects . 
April 3, 2007 at 6:37 am
hi Synth,
Nice post … (and/though/therefore) I’m ambivalent. One the one hand, I agree, especially about the need for case studies. On the other hand, I don’t think that this is Badiou’s project (I can’t speak to Zizek), I think B is more interested in drawing consequences for philosophy of matters outside of philosophy. On the other other hand, I think there is at least one use to Badiou here, though he’s not the only source for this.
The objective conditions you identify in your post wherein revolts occur – crises of capitalism – are primarily identifiable via the existence of the revolts. Let’s say that some revolt happens at time T(x) and objective conditions happen at time T(x minus n) where x and n are quantities such that x>n. That is, objective conditions gather before revolts, even if only infinitessimally. In narrating the occurrences, especially in third person terms, the occurrence at T(x-n), objective conditions, has a sort of primacy. It conditions occurrences at T(x), revolt. But narrating occurrences in the first person plural – especially leading up to and during occurences, which is the point of view of subjective/local organizational activity, rather than retroactively – things look different. In that case, our perspective starts at T(x) and we only find out at T(x+y) if conditions were ‘ripe’ at T(x-n). That’s how I read the Event-Fidelity/Subject stuff in Badiou, and I think it’s a useful point.
The issue as I take it is of voluntarism vs spontaneism, as a practical/subjective/organizational orientation. The former in excess results in quixotic behavior (but a decent nontheoretical power analysis plus some organizing experience is often an effective cure for that) while the latter in excess results in a wait-and-see quietism a la some marxists around the first international.
None of this is an argument as to the use of Badiou in analyzing specific moments. I don’t know if there is one. In my limited experience with that kind of stuff, I’m not convinced capital PT Political Theory adds much to that, certainly no more than reading histories, memoirs, organizing manuals, etc.
take care,
Nate
April 3, 2007 at 2:16 pm
“It is extremely difficult to get people to act and organize if they aren’t significantly uncomfortable. ”
It is simply true. I think it is the key sentence of your post. As a very rough sense, I don’t feel that the identity politics can ever work in the States, while it will be real affective for less developed countries. Though, its affect can be questionable. for instance, being anti-war in my hometown helped people there to become all the more nationalists. I directly feel this contradiction in my heart. Being anti-war, anti-Bush etc., can easily be a way to mask the dirtiness of those regimes in not only Middle Eastern area but also Europe, in particular for France. Hence, the real problem for emancipatory politics today is the non-communication between subjects, which sounds amazing for the so-called our “information age”. (It is needless to say that Habermesian communicative efforts will not help it.) In good old times, if there was some incident or uprising happening in any country, then the other parts were directly being affected, which can be described “international solidarity”.
Now although everything is much more “global”, nobody understands nobody. All our writings, blogs, demonstrations are like some jokes, few of whom understand and feel in it.
I believe ,in particular for the US, the movement should directly target capitalistic and marketing relations, which is the almost only powerful glue that sticks together all these irrational agents. (Like the autonomous disobeyment examples that force the supermarket counters unworkable).
April 3, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I second Tolga’s sentiment about discomfort. Standard models for union and community organizing in the U.S. describe one of the initial goals of interaction between the organizer and someone else as being to agitate the person so they’ll be in a place where they’ll move to action. There’s no guarantee of success on this, of course, and the standard practice is to try to do so by questions rather than statements in attempt to get the person to narrate – and thus at some level to relive – emotional experiences. So, it’s affective not propositional contents that matter.
That said, I don’t see how one can prejudge what people will and won’t get agitated about beyond provisional common sense assumptions. Therefore, I don’t see how one can know if identity politics/appeals to identity will have an agitational quality. I think the christian right does a great job of agitation along the lines of identity, and of establishing/reinforcing identities in order to use them in agitation. Of course I’m not for replicating that, but it does suggest that identity has an agitational force at least in a bad direction. I think it can and does in a good directions as well, depending on the context.
April 3, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Regarding the question of whether Badiou is insufficiently concrete, or whether he is simply drawing consequences for philosophy from matters outside philosophy … I think this is an instance where the difference b/w Badiou and Deleuze is fundamental. I’d agree with the latter account of Badiou, precisely becasue he says that philosophy amounts to thinking the conditions of, and the compossibility of, the truth-event procedures, one of which is of course politics. Now, there’s a great deal of ambivalence about this, because philosophy functions at once both modestly (hey, we’re not telling you what to do, you’re the actors) and imperiously (only we can think what you do).
As for Deleuze, by thinking of philosophy as the _production_ of concepts, he enables a link between the production of thought and the production of politics. Let me be clear: i think a LOT of work needs to be done to go further than this very vague formulation, but at the very least it allows a non-zero/sum relation between ‘abstract’ production and ‘concrete’ production (indeed, surely there’s a somewhat hegelian character to _What is philosophy?_ — he gives modified agreement to this point in an interview).
Also, Deleuze’s critique of “communication” is still quite relevant. As was said above, biopolitical communication actually leads to the destruction of constructive links between movements, places, etc. The division b/w Deleuze and Hardt-Negri couldn’t be stronger here!
April 3, 2007 at 4:22 pm
The groups that Dean mentions all find themselves existing in the midsts of significant social contradictions. In the case of identity politics the subjects involved perpetually face physical, economic, and psychological challenges that motivate them to take significant action. Of course, we can and should ask why identity politics has emerged in the way that it has emerged at precisely this juncture and time.
Dr. Sinthome, when Communism fell apart in the late 1980s, people also faced significant social contradictions, which is what motivated people to take significant action in the form of nationalism (I believe in America you call that ”identity politics”). Since Zizek never shared with you his deep involvement in the championing of Slovenian nationalism, it looks as though his own political preaching is not movitated by concrete politicosocial conditions. This is how he is able to SPIN a ”politics” out of things like subjective destitution. If it worked for him, why shouldn’t it work for you? Now the reason you and Dr. Dean continuously fail to see into that is fairly simple – cultural ignorance! Only this could get you not to see that Comrade Zizek NEVER talks about Slovenian identity politics, or how it was posited against Yugoslav federalism in concrete politicosocial conditions. All the other identity policies, including those of Christian fundemantalism in the States, may be subjected to criticism; but the Slovenian one – NOT. And who is the subject exempt from subjective destitution? COMRADE ZIZEK HIMSELF. But this doesn’t get through because of your own ABSTRACT reading of Zizek!!!
April 3, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Nate, glad to see you here! I think you make excellent points about the nature of revolts. If I’m following you correctly, your thesis seems to be that discontent and contradictions are retroactively identifiable following revolts. Here, I think, is where Badiou becomes illuminating. Events and Acts within the domain of the political are strange things insofar as they occur in such a way that one doesn’t quite know what is happening until afterwards. Someone in a factory, for instance, stands up defiantly against a despotic manager, finally voicing frustrations that a number of employees have griped about during lunch, outside the factory, when no administration is around, etc. He simply reacts. But in a turn of affairs that is almost miraculous, this moment has a polarizing effect on the other employees, causing a unity of identity to occur that wasn’t really there before, and turning the arbitrary happenstance into a genuine political event.
It is only retroactively that all the complained about irritations become politicized and seen as systematic inequities. Prior to that they are the humdrum irritations that make up working life at this particular factory. It can’t be said that the worker that stood up intended this chain of events as a result. In all likelihood he is shaken by his own act, a little terrified by what he’s done. He goes home to his partner, for instance, and apologizes for acting so irresponsibly and risking his job. “I just lost my cool, sorry hon.” Somehow, though, in this moment the situation of the factory is transformed from being seen as composed of ordinary irritations to being seen as a space of political engagement where wrongs have been done.
I am not treating this as a paradigm of how change occurs in all circumstances or as a universal. Nor am I always suggesting that there is always an individual at the center of things. However, following N.Pepperell, the question needs to be raised of what transforms irritants that were hitherto tolerable into the intolerable space of political engagement that can no longer be accepted? What is it that accounts for this fundamental shift? And how is it that a group suddenly comes to recognize itself as having shared concerns and identities (Badiou’s subjects of truth), where before they were disconnected and unrelated? My choice of the term “discomfort” was unfortunate. I wanted to underline that precipitates of action can range from the very mild to people being arbitrarily murdered.
April 3, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Nate says
“Of course I’m not for replicating that, but it does suggest that identity has an agitational force at least in a bad direction. I think it can and does in a good directions as well, depending on the context.”
Of course, but the real act can be (and mostly “is”) based on an “identity”. But if only that identity has the potential of representing the Universal. (I believe that identity politics does not have that potential in the US). I would say if that identity is not negated by that identity political movement itself, if that politics does not have that ability to transform itself, then it does not have any chance to go further.
Perhaps my point is obvious but I wanted to clarify this anyway.
April 5, 2007 at 3:34 pm
hi Sinth, Tolga,
Tolga, thanks for clarifying. The point wasn’t obvious (to me at least). After the clarification, I don’t think we have any strong disagreement. I favor the idiom of talking about the class content of things over representing the universal, but that’s a difference I’m not troubled by.
Sinth, I agree with the account you give of workplace actions, and I agree with you that the processes by which those actions come about are worthy of inquiry – actualyl, that inquiry into them is a pressing need. I find myself really ambivalent about Badiou here as a result. On the one hand, I get a sort of feeling reading him that events just come from nowhere, which could be taken to imply that there’s no need to talk about the histories of events. (Agamben sounds like this in his piece on Tiananmen Square, which is infuriating though I otherwise like much of that piece.) On the other hand, what I like about Badiou here is that his work offers resources against reductive accounts which themselves close off or minimize the need for inquiry into circumstances that led up to events (historical inquiry, in my opinion). One of the most important bits I think, though Badiou’s not the only source for this, is the rejection of claims to prediction a la the inevitability of capitalism’s breakdown etc.
That aside, I think Badiou’s relationship to Althusser is really interesting and is at least somewhat relevant to these issues of inquiry into events. I think Badiou takes up positions that the early Althusser would have criticized – thinking in the future anterior etc – but which later Althusser (in the Philosophy of the Encounter) would be amenable toward. I have the same reservations about Althusser’s encounters as I do about Badiou’s events, and I like the same things about them.
cheers,
Nate