File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2002/lyotard.0212, message 15


Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 20:20:04 -0500
From: shawn wilbur <swilbur-AT-wcnet.org>
Subject: Re: Bad Subjects are Sublime


[this was written simultaneously with some other replies. my apologies for
repetitions. -shawn]

Eric wrote:

> One of the things I think is misleading about the Bad Subjects essay is
> it gives the impression Badiou spends a considerable amount of space in
> his book to critiquing the ethical positions of postmodernism.
> Actually, this is a very short book, less than a hundred pages, and
> Badiou spends most of it simply laying out his own theory of an "ethics
> of truth."  He is critical of Kant and Levinas, but only in the most
> generalized terms.

Actually, i've come to expect critique in "the most generalized terms" when
it comes to "postmodernism." It's a perhaps cynical suspicion of mine that
if more specific critique was engaged in, in many cases "postmodernism" as
a coherent object of criticism would simply not stand up. In a few
well-delineated cases - again, i think Jameson puts the term to good,
coherent use - "postmodernism" is a helpful category. Lyotard's changing
use of the notion seems, perhaps, another example. Best and Kellner's
_Postmodern Theory_ combines a useful definition - close to Jameson's -
with a sense of the diversity of responses, all the while patrolling the
boundaries of a certain Marxism (making the book at once *still* one of the
best general studies of (a) "postmodernism" *and* a kind of partisan
misappropriation of postmodern theory. It's probably only repeating their
gesture of "damning with faint praise" to say that their book, while one of
the best, seems at times wilfully bad.) As i've said before, i've been
involved in these debates for over a decade, often as a sort of unwilling
partisan of "postmodernism" (as when i was associated with the "Postmodern
Culture MOO.") Some time ago i resolved to consider "the postmodern" as a
complex field of cultural, political and rhetorical conflict, with large
numbers of heterogeneous "postmodernist" and "antipostmodernist" forces
struggling largely for the dis/honor of the name. In a move similar to
those of Lyotard (who pits "inhuman" against "inhuman") and Haraway (with
her conflict of "cyborgs"), i find it useful to acknowledge that both the
current crisis and its possible remedies are tied to the same material
conditions. The honor of the name is a matter of pretty complete
indifference to me these days, except to the extent that this old debate
still touches on the vital question of "what is to be done," and any simple
foreclosure on "postmodernism" seems likely to rob us of critical insights.

> His real target is the political use of their philosophies by the
> conservative politics of Neoliberalism in a way that privileges the
> status quo. In this sense Badiou's critique is similar to the kind of
> critique made by other writers as diverse as Antonio Negri and Naomi
> Klein.  It concerns the way postmodern concerns have been co-opted into
> a kind of identity politics that is inherently self-limiting.

Having read Badiou's "Manifesto" this weekend, where the criticism is a bit
less "generalized," it looks to me like he at least intends to a
refutation. The question of "who has surrendered" does appear to be one of
his concerns. And he seems to have a militant's strong sense of what it
means to "not surrender." This can be useful, or it can lead to dogmatism,
needless sectarianism, active injustice, etc. If "postmodernism" is a good
thing that has been put to bad uses, it seems more useful to clarify the
better uses of the tool. One does not "move beyond" tool, even theoretical
ones, until a better one is at hand. "Postmodernism" ought to put an end to
all "identity politics," if one of its chief element is an "attack" on
"identity" as such  - and isn't this the case? On the other hand, we know
that this "postmodern" identity politics does in fact exist - in US
universities if nowhere else - but why isn't the response to denounce it as
"unauthorized" by "postmodernism"?

> In this sense, as far as ethics is concerned, I don't see how Badiou
> 'refutes' Lyotard in this book. If you examine the chapter 'Obligation'
> in "The Differend" it is hard to make the case that Lyotard is really
> vulnerable to the kinds of arguments Badiou is making in "Ethics."
>
> [snip some stuff about Lyotard which seems on the mark to me]
> With regard to the question of Badiou's politics and how libertarian
> they might be, here is what I think. In his book "Deleuze: The Clamour
> of Being" Badiou definitely critiques the desire-anarchism associated
> with the conventional reception of Deleuze's philosophy. Badiou himself
> appears to have evolved from a Maoist background which he has modified,
> but scarcely disavowed. He also considers Althusser as a master and
> tends to read Lennin in a positive way.

I suspect one should critique that "desire-anarchism" (though i'm
suspicious of arguments about "conventional reception," which seems, along
with "uncritical embrace," one of those things you attribute to Other
People - and fairly safely at that). "Anarchism" alone does not designate
much, and can, as Nietzsche charged, designate some fairly simple-minded
positions. But there are critiques and critiques, and the old sectarian
emnity between Maoists and anarchists probably doesn't lead to the most
penetrating of them. I'll have to track down the book and see what's what.

[It's worth remembering that Althusser's "reign" was one of the reasons
cited by Derrida for his choice to pursue the questions posed by Marx and
socialism in other ways. In the "Positions" (1971) interviews, Derrida
sounds remarkably orthodox, but it's clear that a certain kind of
conformity is being requested of him which he is unwilling to give.
Ultimately, i think that _Specters of Marx_, "Force of Law," _Politics of
Friendship_, and the other recent works that mark the "return to Marx" show
a fairly constant concern with those questions we can hardly help but
inherit from Marx, and from the history of socialism.]

> If an-archy is considered, however, not as the great final stage of
> history, the anarchist miracle of a stateless society, but rather as a
> principled stance against authority, compulsion, and coercion now and
> for always, then it is still possible to regard Badiou as a kind of
> an-archist in this latter sense.  His approach to politics appears to be
> the following. A small group, committed to truth, and acting in a
> principled way, can achieve certain results without the need to
> compromise with parliamentary procedures or political parties.

> In the interview at the end of the book, Badiou is asked about the
> question of immigration in a Global society and he answers as follows:
>
> "I would say of the abolition of frontiers what I said a moment ago
> about the withering away of the state. I'm for it. I'm absolutely for
> it! But to be for something yields no active political principle in the
> situation. In reality, politics must always find its point of departure
> in the concrete situation."

It's hard to argue against this basic, materialist premise. And i,
personally, have no wish to.

> Hugh has spoken of the need for action over theory, but I believe
> mindless political action sometimes can do more harm than good. There is
> something attractive about the principled, directed action that Badiou
> advocates. Of course, the rub is that such an approach to action
> involves the need for theory or what used to be termed praxis. It is
> easy to castigate 'armchair philosophers' but what remains necessary is
> to apply what we know to the immediate situation in order to transform
> it. But that is exactly what Badiou calls an 'ethics of truth.' In its
> absence, action merely becomes reactionary.

This last is, perhaps, questionable. It is customary on the left to think
of actions as "reactionary" or "revolutionary," but generally because one
believes one knows "what is to be done," perhaps because one understands
the critical material relations and such. For many marxists, this is
apparently fairly clear. Even some anarchists rely on the
reformist/revolutionary distinction in instances where it's pretty hard to
say at this stage of the game which is which. As an alternative, the ethics
developing in Derrida's work marries the same materialist emphasis,
situated action, to the problem of undecidability in its various form.
There is no "ethical" choice, according to Derrida, unless it is possible
to choose "the worst." Choice without this risk is mere "technique." This
form of ethics is certainly chastening, but it seems to me to accurately
respond to the high stakes we face.

> I wish Steve would explain to me precisely how this specific
> intervention on behalf of immigrants differs from Foucault's specific
> intervention on behalf of prisoners or how this practice in principle
> casts dispersion on Lyotard's doctrine of petit narratives.
>
> I think my disagreement with Steve in this ongoing discussion remains
> the following. Postmodernism for me is not merely an outmoded ideology,
> but a material practice congruent with new inscribed spatializations
> brought about by Globalism. Therefore, political practices must find a
> way that is commensurate with these encroaching modalities - it must
> move beyond the mass and in the direction of the multitude. Doesn't this
> entail, however, that politics today must be closer to the conditions of
> postmodernism than to that of a popular front?
>
> I also think that global socialism alone remains insufficient. Our
> politics today must transform everyday life, the banal sphere of the
> quotidian. It must release the energies that are currently captive to
> the great work machine.

A great deal depends on what "global socialism" becomes. My interest in the
early history of the socialist movement, in the First International before
Marx managed to bar the mutualists and the Bakuninists, comes out of a
sense that socialist struggle was, in other times and places, defined more
broadly than it is just about anywhere now. The appeal of the Zapatista
encuentro movement is much the same, as it wished to be the network by
which all our individual "ya bastas!" found a common language and program,
built up from close attention to the real conditions of our daily lives. I
have for a long time wanted to do a textual comparison of Derrida and Sup
Marcos, but have not found the time to do it with the care and seriousness
it deserves. Particularly now, with the EZLN silent and comparatively
isolated at home, a trivial or merely academic treatment would not cut it.

> At the same time, it must resist the allure of totalitarianism. In the
> twentieth century, Stalin did more than anyone else to kill the dream of
> the glorious revolution. That is why the left today must also be
> libertarian if it is to have a future. We must fight for positive
> freedoms as we struggle to reduce social control.

Amen. But i've probably said more than enough for today...

-shawn

> eric


   

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