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New Reflections on the "Revolutionary"Politics of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe

Benjamin Bertram In the course of the "public" debate on the NorthAmerican Free in 1993, the Clinton TradeAgreement(NAFTA) as as well administration, economists, business leaders, and other politicians, repeatedlyused the worddislocation to describethe "temporary" effects (i.e., unemployment) is manyworkerswouldencounterfromthe tradeagreement.Dislocation in to workers the United the ever flow States; hardlyunique shifting global of capitalconstitutesand undermines the survival and sense of stability (or of vast numbersof peoplearoundthe world.Andunemployment location) is only one aspect of dislocation.Formany,dislocation is the disjunction betweenthe desire formeaningful, work and the maximizalife-sustaining tionof profit, the transnational flowof moneyoftenaccompanied byviolent shiftsof manufacturing space. Whendislocation was bandied aboutduring the debateon NAFTA, it meantmorethanthe displacement of workers; it resonated withmanypostI thankthe followingpeople for offeringcomments and criticismon this paper at various stages: EricCazdyn,Leo Ching,CarolynHaynes,Fredric Jameson, Masao Miyoshi, LouisMontrose, Greg Sholette, and Don Wayne. Press.CCC0190-3659/95/$1.50. 22:3, 1995.Copyright boundary2 ? 1995byDukeUniversity

82 boundary 2 / Fall 1995 moderncelebrationsof the "dislocated In 1985, ErnestoLaclau subject." and ChantalMouffepublishedHegemonyand Socialist Strategy,which remainsone of the most sophisticatedand important of the explications theoreticallinkbetween poststructuralist theoryand postmodern political The bookemphasizesthe new political thathave bepractice. possibilities come availablesince World WarII,when the "'commodification' of social lifedestroyedprevious social relations, themwithcommodity rereplacing lationsthroughwhichthe logic of capitalist accumulation penetratedinto numerous Thisnewsocial lifeshouldbe viewedwith spheres."1 increasingly as Laclau since, optimism, they argue, puts it in his recentbook,New Reflectionson the Revolution of OurTime(1990),the "dislocatory of rhythm has created new antagonismsin political life.2 and capitalism" Capitalism for modern rapidtechnological change, he argues, are the preconditions and historicist views. Radicalpolitics anti-essentialist, pragmatic, political shouldno longerbe understood as a collective struggleagainsta dominant butpotentially linkable nodes system, then, butas a series of disconnected of resistance,or intertextuality. This kindof resistance,whichthrivesoff of negation(without the of the if creates numerous Hegeliannegation negation), paradoxical, not about statements and Laclau incoherent, metaphysics identity. arguesthat
"the location of the subject is that of dislocation. .
.

. This is only pos-

sible if there is somethingin contemporary whichreallytends capitalism to multiply dislocationsand thus creates a plurality of new antagonisms" fetish(New Reflections, 41). I wouldliketo arguethatLaclauand Mouffe ize "dislocation." LikeNAFTA, the anti-essentialist celebration of pluralism thatplaysa prominent and difference roleinthe workof Laclau and Mouffe (as well as that of manyothertheoristsof postmodern politics)has as its of workers "traumatic kernel" the subjugation andconsumersundercurrent The dislocatory marketconditions.3 effects of highlyadvancedmodes of
1. ErnestoLaclauand ChantalMouffe, Verso, Hegemonyand SocialistStrategy(London: as Hegemony. 1985), 161.Thisworkis hereaftercited parenthetically of OurTime(London: 2. ErnestoLaclau,New Reflectionson the Revolution Verso,1990), dislocation is centralto Laclauand Mouffe's 39. Although Hegemony,Laclaudevelopsthe to the firstpartof New idea morefullyin this work.On manyoccasions, Iwillbe referring in I willcite this workparenthetically written. Hereafter, Reflections,whichwas not jointly my text as New Reflections. in social of radicalnegativity" 3. Slavoj2iek uses this term to describe the "dimension kernel"is a conditionthat "definesthe radicalcontinand politicallife. The "traumatic See The SublimeObjectof Ideology(London: Verso,1989), 5. gency of humanidentity." as Sublime. This workis hereaftercited parenthetically

Bertram / NewReflections 83 inthe post-coldwarglobalization maximization of profit (corporate mobility dissolvedthe hope,definedinthe greatproject of the capital)havevirtually intervention the Left,fora revolutionary designedto change fundamentally and labor and of to new and demoorganization meaning public generate craticpowerin economiclife.WhileLaclauand Mouffe are uniquein that theirMarxist stillcompelsthemto offera historical for training explanation the economicunderpinnings of anti-essentialism and subjectivity--someof poststructuralist criticslack--nevertheless, their thingthe vast majority of Derridean and Lacanian notions of difference and lack, appropriation whichare crucialto theiridea of fragmented social movements and identiremainstrappedin the notorious web of negationthat ties, or dislocation, characterizes these discourses.Laclauand Mouffe dismiss any notionof determinate motionof historical negationand the dialectical change. As a are in uninterested alternative to consumerism and repreresult,they any sentative(liberal) Notionssuch as "public which democracy. spiritedness," have littlepolitical the basis forfragmented social organizabite, provide tions.Under the yokeof thisglobal"system," dislocation is inevitable. Butit is not inevitable thatwe attribute this to new social condimagicalqualities tion of postmodernity. a historical sense of the trauma of this By retaining condition and an a priori aboutdemocratic pessimism-of-strength political of late capitalism, we can maintain a healthy powerunderthe conditions desireforan alternative. Laclauand Mouffe's argumentfor new social movementsis now well known,at least in many academic circles. In 1987, NormanGeras a scathingcritique of Hegemonyand SocialistStrategyin New published LeftReview.The article(entitled comes close to brand"Post-Marxism?") Laclau and Mouffe as heretics. the ad hominem natureof his ing Despite Geras makes astute comments. In he attack, many particular, notes that and Mouffe Laclau reduceall of Marxism to a crudeeconomismand failto of notionssuch as "relative that acknowledgethe importance autonomy" have enrichedMarxist theoriesof base and superstructure. Although many of Geras'scriticisms are powerful, the articleis marred byhis unwillingness to grantany validity to Laclau whatsoever and Mouffe's to theorize attempt new social movementsof a non-Marxist nature.Mycritique of dislocation focuses on particular weaknesses in Laclauand Mouffe's of appropriation
this "antagocase, the traumais not partof "laconditionhumaine"; Inthis particular nism"is at the heartof globalcapitalismin the late twentieth Anti-essentialism is century. not new in the philosophical but its social and political tradition, meaningtodaygenerally relatesto the economic and ontologicalcondition of rootlessness and markethybridity.

2 / Fall 84 boundary 1995 The continuity and powerof notions and hermeneutics. poststructuralism in such as "dislocation" or "multiple subjectpositions" recentdebates over criticism and may be useful. postmodernism politicssuggest that further a key element of poststructuralist Laclaushows how dislocation, theory, of the late twentieth But has its rootsin the economicdislocations century. inare neverpreciselylocatedon the mapof the world; these dislocations claim for the a are stead, they philosophical grounds grand,universalizing, or multiple for fragmentedsubjectivities, subject positions.In this essay, workas it of this claim in Laclauand Mouffe's I analyze the importance is developedthrougha hermeneutic theory of discursivepractices.The I argue in the final formof hermeneutics, political dangerof this particular for how we achieve what SlavojZiek section, is that it cannot account of consistencyto our being-in-the-world" calls "a minimum 75). (Sublime, Icompareand contrast Ziek's hermeneutical, psychophenomenological, Inthe theoryof Laclauand Mouffe. analytictheoryto the poststructuralist called "acolforwhatGramsci lattertheory,there is little,if any,potential of negation,there Inthe absence of any dialectical lectivewill." conception forpositiveidentities to emerge.The dislocatedsubjectis is no possibility that does not allowfor a left in a perspectival position,one "nodalpoint" This whole. of the view theory,I argue,is symptomatic perspectival larger describedby Laclau consumersociety" of the "democratic of the reification of Ziek's hermeneutic and Mouffe.4 theory ideologysuggests that there and social life. in contemporary forintersubjectivity are possibilities politics is usuallyassociated withJirgen Habermas's The word intersubjectivity are hostileto reason. Ziek, Laclau,and Mouffe workon communicative in political and and transparency model of rationality this Enlightenment efforts follows Lacan's Ziek and Mouffe, Laclau Unlike social interactions. as the necessarycounterparts andthe "I" of the "we" to valuethe positivity to theirrespectivenegations. In Hegemonyand Socialist Strategy,Laclauand Mouffereferto thesis that ClaudeLefort's whichsupposes a proas a new terrain the democratic revolution, at the symboliclevel, impliesa new formof institufoundmutation
as "unstable social agencies, with 4. ErnestoLaclaurefersto Gramsci's"collective wills" impreciseand constantlyredefinedboundaries,and constitutedthroughthe contingent Iwilllatercommenton this odd of social identitiesand relations." of a plurality articulation and See ErnestoLaclau,"Power of Gramsciinto a postmodernpluralist. transformation ed. MarkPoster (New in Politics, Theory,and Contemporary Culture, Representation," York: Columbia Press, 1993), 283. University

/ NewReflections 85 Bertram tionof the social. Inearliersocieties, organizedin accordancewith a theological-political in the person logic, powerwas incorporated of the prince,who was a representative of God-that is to say, of sovereignjusticeand sovereignreason. Society was thoughtas a of whose membersrested uponthe principle of body,the hierarchy unconditional order.(Hegemony, 186) fromLefort's L'invention Democratique, theyarguethatin modern Drawing with democratic societies,thereis no longer any"transcendental guarantor" of is ontothe powerto establisha totally unified This end the unity society. of the social. definition basis for Laclauand Mouffe's logicaland political to be human social relations The breakdown of unconditional orderallows Laclau andMouffe as unfixed andcontingent. suggest thatanyatregarded suturethe socialspace resultsintotalitarianism. Yet,we temptto definitively mustwonderwhetherLefort's of the end of unconditional order celebration in the modernera, to whichLaclauand Mouffe is subscribe, premature. Dislocation has been important to Marxists as a means of understanding the shift in Europefromfeudalism to capitalism. The emergenceof wage laborin early market societies createda new formof oppressionthrough enclosuresandthe generation of "free" butsimultaneously laborers opened for an alternative to boththe oppressionof up new, long-term possibilities workers (locatedon the land)andthatof wage laborers agrarian (dislocated and brought intofactories).ForLaclauand Mouffe, there is no alternative to the dislocatory effectsof capitalism. Theirworkattemptsto continue the of liberal while some of its traditional project capitalism assumpaltering tionsaboutthe subject(i.e., the bourgeoisego). Postmodern dislocation is an intensified formof the interpellation of the subjectunderlate capitalism. The consumermust have multiple subjectpositionsin orderto maximize his or her accumulation of economicgoods and social services. The new as Laclau and Mouffemake clear, are best suited for the antagonisms, in to a dominant postindustrial society whichthereis no opposition system. One of the most radical aspects of Laclauand Mouffe's conception of the social is its deconstruction of the public/private dualityand of the notionof "citizenship," whichhas been one of the centraltenets of modern "democratic" societies. The deconstruction of this binary allows opposition Laclau and Mouffe to "politicize social relations" Thecon181). (Hegemony, cept of citizenship, they tell us, was based on a modelof the subjectas a unifiedand unifying essence. Theirconceptionof hegemony, then, allows formultiple thatcan form inorder an axis of equivalence to subjectpositions a plethora further of democratic ambitions. The logicof equivalence political

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"certain relieson the forceof negativity: discursive forms,through equivaof the objectandgivea realexistenceto negativity lence, annulallpositivity of the real--negativity--has attaineda formof as such. This impossibility exists for 128)."Presence," them, onlyparadoxically presence" (Hegemony, and difference. Therecan be no positivity of antagonisms at the junctures disinbutonlythe continual of beingandnot-being, of being,and no polarity identities as fullyarticulated Articulation of all objective positions. tegration unstable.There can be no underis radicalonly insofaras it is radically of Truth. lend it the status This destabilization of that essence might lying the basis of the classic Aristotelian the subjectundermines separationof realm and oikia,since there is no longerany privileged the bios politikos of the social occurs of political activity(as in the polis).The politicization as privatematters(housewhen we no longerview consumer"lifestyles" it is battlingagainst a believe can no The Left, then, longer keeping). in all social since ideologyis implicit few dominant formations, ideological This strategyhas the advantageof practices,fromshoppingto sexuality. hitherto dichotomy, repressed bythe public/private struggles foregrounding it such as feminism,gay/lesbianrights,and environmentalism. However, matter a to of has the often disputes disadvantage levelingmajorpolitical in the age of late capitalism.5 of "lifestyles" the decentering of the subjectis a key moForLaclauand Mouffe, of Thedeathof "Man" mentinthe greatmodern (which expansion pluralism. not entail does the centered the death of subject),however, accompanies envision want to In and Mouffe values. fact, Laclau the end of humanist a "realhumanism" 245). humanism) (New Reflections, (i.e., a historicized The numerouswritings by Laclauand Mouffeprovidesome of the most of the and political sustainedand comprehensive arguments philosophical so much academicLeftinthe lasttwodecades. Yet,since theyappropriate to agentheirworkhas been linked of disparate froma widearray thinkers, thinkers fromtheirown. Unlikemany hermeneutic different das radically do not have a separatist,antiLaclauand Mouffe of the post-1968variety, and or postliberal humanist, agenda.Theybelievethatonce we historicize of forequalityand the "rights movements localizethe great emancipatory will more become these movements Man," meaningful. have and Mouffe in 1985,Laclau of Hegemony Since the publication
and socially rooted this historical 5. Ina dialoguewith Laclau,RobinBlackburn asks, "If is abandoned,is there not a riskof openingthe way to validating perspective[Marxism] constructed,and even quite fancifulidentitiessuch as mightbe proposed by arbitrarily See Laclau,New Reflections,242. religiousfundamentalists?"

87 Bertram / NewReflections establisheda new series forVersoBookscalled Phronesis,whichcomes witha mini-manifesto thatreads,in part: and There are those for whom the currentcritiqueof rationalism universalism puts into jeopardythe very basis of the democratic of essentialism-a pointof project.Othersargue that the critique in contemporary trends of the most theory: important convergence of languageafterthe laterWittgenphilosophy post-structuralism, the necessarycondition stein, post-Heideggerian hermeneutics--is the widening of the fieldof socialstrugglescharacforunderstanding teristicof the presentstage of democratic politics.Phronesisclearly locates itselfamongthe latter.6 andmoretraditional Theshiftfromrationalism assumptions epistemological has important to hermeneutics consequences.By "hermeneutics," political I willbe referring views that utilizea of theoretical generallyto a number the process Derrida says was firstimplemented by Nietzsche:"Radicalizing and "libthe evaluation, difference," conceptsof interpretation, perspective, withrespectto the eration of the signifier fromits dependenceof derivation in whatever truth and the related of or the concept primary signified, logos sense that is understood."7 Derrida is certainly one of the most important here cannotbe overhermeneutic thinkers. The "post" post-Heideggerian in Western One of motives emphasized. critiquing metaphysics Heidegger's for (especiallythe Cartesian ego) was to finda new home,a new location, andMouffe celebratealienated modern subjectivity, Being.WhereasLaclau the "conservative declaredthat "the revolutionary," mournfully Heidegger, essence of the modernage can be seen in the fact thatmanfrees himself fromthe middle to himself."8 ForHeidegger, modern ages infreeinghimself individualism andthe ideaof "man" as the measure of all (man things)have few redeeming is moreinthe progressive Laclau of Marxism qualities. spirit
6. Phronesisis a termborrowed fromAristotle's divisionof science intotheoretitripartite forms of knowledge.Phronesismeans "practical reason." cal, practical,and productive ForAristotle,theoriais the highest formof knowledge,but it, nevertheless, is only possible with the use of practicalknowledge. Laclau and Mouffeuse phronesis in strict is antitheoretical oppositionto theoria,however.Phronesis, in theirpoliticalphilosophy, in that it resists any larger,metaphysical and pragmatic, claims for its own conditionsof possibility. 7. Jacques Derrida,Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Johns Hopkins Spivak(Baltimore: Press, 1976), 19. University 8. MartinHeidegger, The Question ConcerningTechnologyand Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt Torchbooks, (New York: Harper 1977), 127.

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when he announcesthe importance in this case the exisof contingency, tentialrecognition thatall meaningis a humanconstruct.He has nothing in commonwithHeidegger's of the gods, despairover the disappearance whichHeideggerbelievedhad led humanity toward totalnihilism. Hermein the Derridean definition moves neutics, givenabove, entirely awayfrom its older religiouscontext;it emphasizesthe radicalinstability of all interThe logos, or primary pretation. signified, disappearswithout any beliefin a transcendental or in fixedessences. authority Inaddition to Derrida's and Mouffe recruit a largenumwork,Laclau ber of twentieth-century thinkersunderthe bannerof anti-essentialism. Freud,Heidegger, Lacan,and othershave shownhowthe subjectlacksa consciousness (as inthe Cartesiancogito).Itis alwaysformed transparent calls"pre-understanding"; the "fore-structures Gadamer, bywhatHeidegger of knowledge"; the unconscious. Thesubject,in Laclau and Mouffe's Freud, thus cannot conceive of as either. Boththe account, society transparent, status;they are constructeddiscursubjectand society lackany a priori sively. In Hermeneutics as Politics(1987),StanleyRosen argues thathermeneutics(inits postmodern form)amountsto a bourgeois quietism.Hermeneutics, which he understandsas a move towardhistoricity, always of the individual stresses the private, artistic affairs (as exemplified byNietzof interpretation and sche and Heidegger). the glorification Hermeneutics, of is both a continuation the perspectivism, project(the libEnlightenment and the deeral defense of humanrightsand the rightsof the individual) of the Enlightenment struction concernforreasonand truth. Thus, Rosen is the Enlightenment us informing gone mad," argues that"postmodernism it is merelya that postmodernism has not surpassed the Enlightenment, of totalizing disformof it.9Forhim,the postmodern "decadent" critique This is not unfamiliar. courses is a symptomof political fatigue. argument or apolitical us thatthere is no inherent Butjustas Laclaureminds political we might of hermeaddthatthereis no politics agendaof poststructuralism, to the stance is preferable neutics,either.Nevertheless,Rosen'spolemical of political conclusionsof StanleyFish,who is the embodiment fatiguepar Fishand Rosen, makea similar excellence.These twothinkers, argument the of "negative" about the political possibilities theory (deconstruction): Leftis seriouslydeludedin its beliefthat hermeneutic theory(Heidegger,
OxfordUniversityPress, 9. See Stanley Rosen, Hermeneuticsas Politics (New York: 4. 1987), especiallychap.

/ NewReflections Bertram 89 Gadamer, Derrida, etc.) has consequences outside of parWittgenstein, This ticular communities. beliefis whatFishcalls "theory-hope," interpretive the misguided of academicswho believethatafterdismantling all practice truthdiscourses (anything withthe suspect pretense of objectivity, ratioor ethicalclaimsof theirownthat nality, etc.), they can then makepolitical the Lefthave importance institutions fromwhichthey originated. beyond of badfaithby undermining the possibility of making ists, then,createa kind or enlightenedclaims about the worldoutside theirinterpretive informed communities. of Laclau These arguments are vitalto myreading and Mouffe, since theirworkwouldseem to provide the greatestdefense of the political possibilitiesof hermeneutics. They reach the opposite conclusionsof these thatthe resultof thisshiftto hermeneutics allowsus to open critics,namely, of political Thisnew,supposedexpansion upa vast newterrain possibilities. of political lifethriveson negationand, unlike the traditional Left,abandons the desire fora transparent True to their society. post-1968nature,Laclau linkutopianism to Stalinism. and Mouffe Farfromoffering a critique of liberal, bourgeoisvalues, Laclauand Mouffeoften celebratethem. The new social movements,as they make of the "commodification of social life," which"destroyed clear,are products social relations, themwithcommodity relations" previous replacing (Hegeis predicated on an optimistic view of mony,161).Theirentirephilosophy an emerging"democratic in whichsubjectsare "interconsumerculture," in as their as consumers" pellated equals capacities 164).Still, (Hegemony, Laclauand Mouffeinsist they are not economic liberalsbut ratherpolitical liberals.They oppose the traditional liberalfaithin the "freemarket" and believethat the proliferation of antagonismsin the era of late industrialcapitalism includesthe possibility of certainsocialiststruggles.Laclau is without doubttruethatthe phenomenon of commodification is writes,"It at the heartof the multiple dislocationsof traditional social relations.But this does not mean thatthe only prospectthrown up by such dislocations is the growingpassive conformity of all aspects of lifeto the laws of the
market"(New Reflections, 51). The "deep pessimism" (New Reflections, 51)

of the Frankfurt school (and it wouldseem all those who resist this faith in the political of consumerorganizations) relies on a Marxist possibilities view of capitalism as a total system, a notionLaclauand Mouffe believe theiranti-essentialist, hermeneutic they have undermined through theory. This newfaithin "theliberating effect" (New Reflections, 53) of bureaucratizationand commodification, they suggest, is not completelyantithetical

2 / Fall 1995 90 boundary since it sees capitalism as the important to Marxism, basis of otherpolitiThe difference, cal opportunities. in of course, is thatthey are notthinking terms of "totalizing" notionssuch as the dialecticof historical materialism of socialism). (the imminence the allure Whatever of thissophisticated hermeneutic of social theory and political effect-that is, its life,its poweris dependenton its conversion to convinceus notonlythatthe rationalism anduniversalism of Marxability butalso thatolderhumanist ism is invalid concernsaboutalienation need to be discarded with the vital antimodern views deeplyantibourgeois, along to other postmodern or such as Foucault As we shall theorists, Lyotard. withthe social, inspired of the political see, the conflation by the move to runsthe dangerof becoming another versionof pragmatism: hermeneutics, "conversation." The glorification of politicsbecomes simplyanothercultural in the a and creates the hermeneutiaporia pluralism particular startling of liberalism. fromone cal appropriation One can onlyadvocatedifference one nodalpoint.Yet,by advocating a universal perspectivism, perspective, thinker the pluralistic takes a nonperspectival view.Thisaporiais appropriand homogenizing ate forthe post-cold warera, when the universalizing became increasingly maskedbythe insistenceon freetrendsof capitalism Inmanyrespects,Hegemony or the end of ideology. and market pluralism, sharethe complacency and bons sens of Richard Reflections work, Rorty's to a greatcosmopolitan amount celebrawhereopenness andcontingency tion of the free market.10 Laclautries to justifythe dismissalof the "deep workon "disorganized of Adorno Laschand Urry's by utilizing pessimism" of nation-state and the The decline the (New Reflections, 58). capitalism" in global and transnational corporations increasingpowerof multinational the powerof the nation-state shouldnotbe viewedwithgreatanxiety: affairs in toto" to these corporations has not been "transferred (New Reflections, liberal both of to the older tries Laclau capidispel "myth" unregulated 59). "limitless and that of the talism (there never was any "pure" capitalism) of corporations undermonopoly capitalism capacityfor decision-making" or not this assessment is accurate 59). Whether today (New Reflections,
ChantalMouffe 10. Inher recentbook, TheReturnof the Political, supportsRorty's praghis failureto distinguishbetween economic liberalism and politimatismwhilecriticizing She recognizes the failureof moderncapitalistsocieties to generate the cal liberalism. butalso wants to rejectany kindof comforsome kindof "civicrepublicanism" condition munitarian or Marxist Thus,she insistswe need to maintain democracy." theoryof a "true and a "liberal a tension between a "democratic logic of difference." logic of equivalence" See ChantalMouffe,The Returnof the Political Verso,1993). (London:

Bertram / NewReflections91 thatthese "dislocated" cannotbe discussed here. Itis clear,however, conneed to sumers,whose desires are at the heartof new social movements, be locatedon the globalmap.The decline of the nation-state, as Masao end The comnot an to colonialism. has has put Miyoshi recentlyargued, economicand political of multiand transnational corporate activity plexity the newmowhobenefitsfrom shouldnotdeterus from to understand trying of capital."1 lives in a "democratic consumersociety"; Who,precisely, bility who benefitsfrombeing"interpellated as consumers" 164)?It (Hegemony, which he the word wouldappearthatLaclau has no problem using society, when it fits his own assessment of contempohas declared"impossible," rarylife. With these questionsinmind, we might addanother to Laclau's myth list:the mythof the democratic for the dislocated possibilities subjectsof Inthe absence of a totalizing viewof capitalism, late capitalism. Laclau and or political Mouffe failto offerany historical as to whatexactly explanation is democratic of capitalist aboutthe experienceof the "dislocating rhythm In transformation" their vision of the expanfact, Reflections, (New 119). sion of pluralism undertransnational relies on the of fetishism capitalism the dislocation andfragmentation of the subject.Theyseem to be suggestlies inthe death of "unconditional order" ingthatthe essence of modernity and the birthof a new pluralistic universe(Hegemony,186).12 They have not traveledbeyondthe romantic desire for wholeness or plenitude-the for a sense of premodern nostalgia Being. Instead,they have merelyinvertedthis nostalgiaby dismembering the social. Whyshouldwe attribute the historyof the dislocatedsubjectto the FrenchRevolution? Whatare the systems of power/knowledge behindthe formation of multiple subject has made the positions? Jean-Frangois Lyotard compelling suggestionthat the Frenchnotionof 6criture is crucial to Laclau and Mouffe's work (which
"ABorderlessWorld? FromColonialism to Transnationalism and 11.See Masao Miyoshi, the Declineof the Nation-State," Critical 19, no. 4 (summer1993):726-51. Inquiry 12. This view of the liberatory seems naive qualityof modernand postmodernpluralism when comparedto less optimistic genealogies of the modernsubject. Foucault's theory of localized resistance, for example, has no interestin democracyand socialism. The confusionof Laclauand Mouffe's nodal pointsand Foucault's theory of subjugateddiscourses is common. Foucaultargues that the giant machinery of powerin the modern can only be resisted in small pockets on the micro-level. In Surage (i.e., panopticism) veilleretpunir,the authority of the Kingis directly contrastedto the panopticmachinery of ForLaclauand Mouffe, we oughtto celebratethe end of monarchical however, modernity. forms of governmentand what Lefortcalls the "dissolution of the markersof certainty." See Mouffe,The Returnof the Political, 122.

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on difference and indeterminacy) intermsof French has to be understood the violence the of Revolution. The connection of writhistory, especially or and politicshas a tragicand dangerouspositionin a ing, "literature," place such as France,where,"thequestionof legitimacy maybe posed at each instant"; and Germanshavetrouble understandAmericans, English, because it is linked to "this of dcriture In ing inextricably memory crime."13 the Derridean dcriture is contrasted to and lexicon, phonocentrism logocentrism(thoughnot set in strictopposition). Inhis earlyworkon Husserl, andthroughout hiscareer,Derrida has attempted Speech andPhenomena, to combatthe idea thatspeech has any primacy or special presence that is more authenticor closer to the Being or essence of the speakerthan Allspeech is a formof writing. Derrida's workattempts to erase the writing. the littlevoice thatthe readerbelieves "phonocentric" qualitiesof writing, creates unified or determinate of meanings.Thisemphasison the plurality in and culture the has a vital connection to and meanings language "tragic" within French andformany ongoingpolitical society.ForLyotard, arguments the emphasison writing Frenchintellectuals, contemporary (as in Roland cultural and political contextin a nationwhere Barthes)has an important a socialand historical these philosophical importance disputesare granted in the It is intellectuals to note denied United States. important generally in a been influential workon liberal has thatClaudeLefort's political theory of activism. with and nation traditions political then, powerful diversity Why, inthe connotionssuch as 6criture and diffdrance shouldwe tryto politicize cultureand historythat text of the UnitedStates, whichlacksthe political in the firstplace? to Frenchintellectuals made such theoriescompelling Thetheoryof dislocation is itselfdislocated.The hostility toward organized in the of United States makes smacks that socialism, labor,and anything and SocialistStrategy natureof Hegemony the transcultural, universalizing appearodd indeed.
The Dislocated Subject

ForLaclauand Mouffe, poststructuralist theoryplaysa crucialrole The beliefin a unified in undermining Marxism. class, intheirview, working an essentialistnotion suggests thatthereis such a thingas a "classidentity," or negation.Intheirsurvey theyoppose withtheirownversionof difference
et RichardRorty," "Discussionentre Jean-FrangoisLyotard 13. Jean-FrangoisLyotard, 41 (1985):582-83. Critique

Bertram / NewReflections93 of the Second International, thatcertain theyshowthe dangersof believing can be a that can be locatedin subjects given positiverepresentation, they one position. withthe morefluid"articulation." Theyreplacerepresentation The advantage of thistermis thatit revealshowclass identity is merelyone discursiveconstructamong others;it has no a priori status. "Class," as a does not but is rather seen as one political category, disintegrate pointin a series of democratic this of representastruggles.By eliminating principle tion,the authoritarian impulseof vanguardism disappearsas well. The fact that "identity is never positive" is the basis fortheirview of "antagonisms." There may be a Hegelianargumenthere, but they athim[Hegel],identity is neverpositive temptto movequickly beyondit:"For and closed in itself, but is constitutedas transition, relation,difference" (Hegemony,95). They object, of course, to Hegel's move beyondnegationto a higherformof rationality. Nevertheless,Hegel is vitalto the postof hermeneutics because he opened up the exploproject Enlightenment ration of the historicity of being. does not operatein terms of any particular however, Antagonism, orMarxist Boththeories,theyinsist,depend Hegelian logicof contradiction. on a rationalistic of the endogenousmovementof history. understanding viewof history, Therefore, havingabandoneda teleological they no longer see the historical of class Their of aninevitability antagonisms. principle further than in it of all that,however, that reveals"thelimits tagonismgoes is based neitheron conceptual objectivity" 125).Antagonism (Hegemony, contradictions (as in Hegel)noron concrete,physicalstruggles.Instead,it functions the subject'slackof a fullidentity: "Thepresence of the through 'Other' me from The relation arises notfrom prevents beingtotallymyself. fulltotalities,but fromthe impossibility of theirconstitution" (Hegemony, 125).As we willsee withLacanian (as proposedby Slavoj psychoanalysis the impossibility of society resemblesthe impossibility of the Real. Ziwek), are external to the without Antagonisms always subject havinganypositive existence "out there." Thatis, they are neither subjectivenorobjectivebut are rather discursive constructs. Hermeneutics as politicsrelies uponthe Heideggerian destruktion of traditional Westernontology. ButHeidegger, to is still Derrida, according too concernedwiththe "primordial of languageand Being.14 homeland" The Derridean of the of is to critique "metaphysics presence" important Laclau
14. Jacques Derrida,Speech and Phenomena,trans.DavidB. Allison(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 159.

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forthe following and Mouffe reason:it enables themto arguethat society and the subjectexist only within the infinite that is, to playof diffdrance; fromL'dcriture "inthe absence of a use theirquotation et la diffdrence,
centre or origin, everything became discourse. ... The absence of the

intranscendental extendsthe domain andthe playof signification signified 112).Thisso-calledNietzscheandance is the basis of finitely" (Hegemony, of the social- hegemonicformations conthe indeterminacy are discursive the resultis thatthe activist structs.Intermsof (inter)subjectivity, shouldnot in politicsbutrather a expectto findany kindof completeself-actualization in the continual deferral of meaning,partially stabilized "nodal points,"15 by vortexof differance. This theoryof the subjectadds an intriguing twistto theircritique of traditional for Laclau,is not Freedom, (especiallyeconomic)liberalism. there is no subjectlocatedinthe absence of structural self-determination; structural Instead,freedomis the resultof what he calls a "failed identity. 44). Thesubjectis free notbecause itexists outidentity" (NewReflections, side of institutional control,or externals;it is free because it is dislocated. thereare forthe subThe moreopaquethe social is, the morepossibilities is dislocated to be "Every identity interpellated ject byhegemonicpractices: and proas itdependson an outsidewhichbothdeniesthatidentity insofar at the same time"(NewReflections, of possibility vides its conditions 39).16 thatof mulThe categoryof the subject,whichthey insistis actually or continthroughits historicity tiplesubjectpositions,is only understood in As Derrida world of its a textual and diffdrance. points (dis)location gency whichhas the twohas its Latinroot in differre, out, the worddifference or "todelay"and "toscatter." foldmeaningof "todefer" Thus,the subject to in terms of its lackof presence and its inability can only be understood or self-consciousness.This is the key use languageto obtainfullidentity view of the social is, in effect, idea that any totalizing to the anti-utopian a the desireto create transparent and, hence, totalitarian society.Ina harmonioussociety,we would,in fact, be radically unfree,since we could no
15. Pointsde capiton,or nodal points,are, in Lacanian terms, definedas "privileged signifiersthat fix the meaning of a signifyingchain."Laclauand Mouffeuse this term to describethe way in whicheverydiscourse"isan attemptto arrestthe flowof differences." See Hegemony,112. This is necessary forany hegemonicformation. 16. The discussion of the advantagesof the dislocationsof capitalismoften sounds suspiciouslylike anotherrehearsalof the joys of the mobile,bourgeois,cosmopolitanacademic. AijazAhmad'srecent book, In Theory,offers a scathing critiqueof a numberof theoristson these grounds. post-Marxist contemporary

Bertram / NewReflections95 longerthriveoff of negation.Thisview is oftensaid to have a Nietzschean since it values an agonisticsociety.Since there is no finalclosure, quality, or "suture," of the social,there is a perpetual "trench warinwhichdifferent a greaternumber of social signifiers" political projectsstriveto articulate Reflections, (New 28). Discursive Practices Hegemonyand SocialistStrategyis one of the most coherentatto (usuallypejoratively) as "the tempts to use what has been referred turn" in for a democratic The interest structuralist/ radical, politics. linguistic and Lacanianpsychoanalytic criticismis supposed to poststructuralist to these discourses.The supersede the mandarin qualityoftenattributed end of fixedmeanings,the critique of onto-theo-phallogocentrism is notan act of political The phallus(the symbolicformof the fullnessof castration. the transcendental its very absence, the condition of is, through signified) fora morefree (dislocated) social space. possibility Butitwouldbe a mistake, and Mouffe tellus, to readabsence Laclau or negativity as the new groundreplacing the metaphysicsof presence, since such a movetakes place onlywithin the very bipolarity they are atto The is not the between absolute tempting disrupt. choice,they suggest, The unityof the social (as intotalitarian systems) and absolutedifference. latter carries the dangerofcausingthe "implosion ofthe social," the impossiof political and Mouffe's bility intersubjectivity 188).ButLaclau (Hegemony, of de Lacan's never as a move to succeeds appropriation points capiton avoidthispresence/absencedualism. As PeterDewshas shown,poststructuralism"remains of consciousness, negativelyboundto the philosophy andtherefore lacksany idealof communicative the Yet,unlike reciprocity."17 work of American deconstructionists depoliticized notoriously early (e.g., Paul de Man),Laclauand Mouffeattemptto do more than builda new of negativity. Thecritique of self-consciousnessandthe stableidenground the critique of anytheoryof "society." As we will tityof the subjectparallels foranykind of political ina dismembered see, the possibility intersubjectivity social space relieson the (Lacanian) theoryof nodalpoints. Gramsci's workis crucial to Laclau andMouffe's on thismatthinking since his of notion "historical blocs" moves from the rationalism and ter, universalism of Marx towarda theoryof a less unified social space. The
17. PeterDews, Logicsof Disintegration Verso,1987),236. (London:

2 / Fall 1995 96 boundary workof Gramsciand Althusser, they believe,is a step in the rightdirecsince we to need to sites of contestation tion, begin look at the multiple in any social space. But unlikethese so-called essentialistthinkers, they see Marx,to a great extent, as the Other.Both Gramsciand Althusser help us to see ideologyas operativein manydifferent practices,butthey do not go farenoughin termsof theirbreakwiththe essentialisttheoryof ForLaclauand Mouffe, there is only superstructure, base/superstructure. truth since therecan be no underlying or to ourpolitical or economic reality life.Further, is replacedby "discursive "superstructure" practices." theirneologisticterm nodalpointshas much in common Although it inwithGramsci's notionof "historical of positions," blocs"and the "war of volvesa muchgreater of as a means dispersion subjectpositions avoiding the twoproblems first,itdoes notacceptclass theyassociate withGramsci: forthe "hegemonic as the privileged and,second, itdoes subject"; signifier not envisiona "singlehegemoniccenter"(Hegemony,138). Theirtheory is crucialto our discussion,since it is as close of hegemonicformations likeintersubjectivity. Unlike as they come to describing Gramsci, anything they do not believethat a hegemonicforce necessarilydividesthe social andsuggest that struggles" space intotwocamps.Theycallthese "popular in the Third such strugglesmight in certainsituations,particularly World, move is an be constructed 137).Thistheoretical tendentially (Hegemony, is useful the criticism their work obvious that to counter only in attempt countriesand is consistentwiththeirgeneralbeliefin advancedcapitalist in social systems thatallowforgreater inherent the liberatory possibilities effects of dislocation.We mightsay that they have their own theory of nationshave the advancedindustrial unevenand combineddevelopment: dislocated for subjects. greatercapacity manufacturing betweenthe the interplay are forgedthrough formations Hegemonic and difference: logicsof equivalence Every historicalbloc-or hegemonic formation-is constructed includesa prolifindispersion, andthisdispersion through regularity whichparerationof verydiverseelements:systems of differences which subof chains identities: define relational equivalences tially recoveredinsofar vertthe latterbutwhichcan be transformistically itself.(Hegemony, as the place of opposition 142) the essential forpreventing social signifiers), The nodalpoints(privileged historical blocs of the formation Gramscian of the social, replace implosion formaformations. and allowforgreaterdispersionin political Hegemonic

Bertram / NewReflections97 tions thus can exist only when the social space is characterized by its or openness. (Inter)subjectivity, then, is not formedon the indeterminacy basis of a sharedvisionof a positivelogicof the idealsociety;the condition of whatused to be called"community" is marked by contingency. and Mouffe havetriedto give a defense of this use of discurLaclau sive practicesagainstcharges (particularly of idealism.This by Marxists) is important of objective, since, inthe absence ofthe determination problem material conditions (i.e., class interests),thereappearsto be no basis for political any unified struggle.The alternative they supplyis thathegemonic formations exist on a metonymic chain withoutany ultimately privileged there is no unified in any transcendensignifier; strugglefor"democracy" tal sense ("justice" and "the rightsof Man"are now offeredsecundum between realism quid).They insistthatthey do not accept the dichotomy and idealismthat is the basis of such a criticism of discourseas having characteristics. purely"mental" Theydo not makethe mistake,we might said of the "young who "hadthe idea that men say, that Marx Hegelians," in wateronlybecause theywere possessed withthe idea of were drowned as theydefineit,has a material character. Touse their Discourse, gravity."18 one cannot an or of brick.But the a examples, dispute earthquake falling this does not mean thatwe can understand these occurrencesobjectively the mediation of language). (i.e.,without theoryof languageWittgenstein's games serves ourpurposes,then, because it allowsus to see howdiverse institutional are sociallyconstructed. Relationsof power,in arrangements Laclau and Mouffe's are but not language, contingent necessary. Gramsci's essentialisttheoryof historical blocs has the advantage of salvagingat least some sense of what Marxcalled objectivematerial InHegemony,Laclau conditions.19 and Mouffe do not historicize Gramsci's "ambivalent" class. The fact that he positionwith regardto the working Communist shouldexplainhis essenhelpedstartthe Italian actually Party tialistviewof class. Whiletheyappropriate a greatdeal of Gramsci's work, they wantto give hegemonya deconstructive logic.The subjectcannotbe locatedinanystableposition; itmustbe dispersedthroughout the "unfixity" of any social space. They never make it clear how any socialist project couldbe actualized as merelyone nodalpointamongothers.Thisdeconstructive shifts ourattention almostentirely overto cultural logic problems.
18. KarlMarx,Selected Writings, ed. DavidMcLellan OxfordUniversity Press, (Oxford: 1977), 160. 19. Fora strong Marxist see TerryEagleton'sIdeargumentagainst Laclauand Mouffe, Verso,1991). ology:An Introduction (London:

2 / Fall1995 98 boundary

inGramsci" Chantal Mouffe's and Ideology essay "Hegemony (1979)claims thinkGramsci as the herowho brokefromthe economismof earlyMarxist political, ing. Heressay representsthe important exegeticalworkthat has the term ideologyby linking it to the notionof used Gramscito revitalize Gramsci's use of describe does not false consciousideology "hegemony." ness or merelyclass positionsbutthe complexweb of social activitiesor formation. apparatusesthat define power relationsin any given political but Mouffe suggests thatthis theoryof ideologywas takenup by Althusser fell the less fertile like he into for all since, Marxists, him, proved virtually economism.The finalsentence of the essay, though trap of a reductive withLaclau inthe essay itself,wouldbe the basis of Mouffe's work unproven in the eighties:"It is in factquiteremarkable to see the extraordinary ways in whichsome contemporary or Derresearch-such as that of Foucault ridawhichbringsout a completelynew conceptionof politics--converges withGramsci's Intheirlater,collaborative works,however,it is thought."20 socialist nevermadeclearwhatthe distinction mightbe betweenGramsci's and the anti-Marxist ideas of MichelFoucault and the vehemently thinking workof Derrida. These latter twotheoristsare used to create hermeneutic of all subjectpositionsand the dismissalof the the effectof the dispersion and Laclauwoke up one notionof class. Mouffe essentialist(Gramscian) the absence of a putit inthe late sixties,"in day and foundthat,as Derrida became discourse."21 centeror origin, everything theoriesof discourserevitaland Derridean The blendof Foucaultian of institutional ofwagingcultural battlesina wholearray izes the possibilities since it allowsthe study of the sociallyconstructednatureof structures, But it is also used by Laclauand Mouffe all power/knowledge relations.22 the dislocatednatureof the subject.The to exaggerateand dehistoricize the pretext view of hegemonyseems to provide fromGramsci's departure a collective socialist whatsoever. sense of forabandoning project They any move fromone extreme,the theoryof a collectivewill,to the other,the constructedmultiple total dispersionof subjects intodiscursively virtually
in Gramsciand Marxist and IdeologyinGramsci," 20. Chantal Theory, Mouffe, "Hegemony ed. ChantalMouffe(London: Routledgeand KeganPaul,1979), 201. of and Difference,trans. Alan Bass (Chicago:University 21. Jacques Derrida,Writing 280. ChicagoPress, 1978), of Construction 22. ChantalMouffe's article,"TheSex/GenderSystem andthe Discursive in of this theoreticaltradition is one exampleof the importance Women'sSubordination," L. Paldan Hininen and A ed. S. Marxist feministwork.See Rethinking Debate, Ideology: New York: International General,1983). (Berlin: Argument-Verlag;

/ NewReflections99 Bertram subject positions.Whetheror not we choose to abandonan essentialist thatthis "newpluralof a unified class, it is unclear working understanding in ism"is the basis of our"liberation." The Gramscian notionof "ideology," this context,is merelya justification forthe levelingof all political projects and the failure to accountforwhyor howa collective willis formed.Laclau likeGramsci, and Mouffe, believein a "pessimism of the intellect," butthey seem to have forgotten the latterpart of Gramsci's well-known line, the of the will." "optimism Points de capiton The vast and complexhistoryof the term ideologywillnot be exploredin anygreatdetailinthisessay. Nevertheless,Iwantto suggest that
this concept is the Achilles' heel of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Since

the termis virtually absent (conspicuously) fromthis text,we need to look


at Laclau's more recent work, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our

to Hegemony. The battlewaged against Time,whichoffersgreaterclarity essentialismgets particularly ferociousin a section entitled"TheImpossiof Society." Likethe search forsociety and the Real, ideologyis the bility searchforthe impossible. then, "Ideology," wouldnot consist of the misrecognition of a positiveessence, but the it of the exactly opposite: wouldconsist of the non-recognition of any positivity, character of the impossibility of any ultiprecarious matesuture.The ideological wouldconsistof those discursive forms which a tries to institute itself as such on the basis of through society of the of fixation of the infithe of closure, meaning, non-recognition niteplayof differences. The ideological wouldbe the willto "totality" of any totalizing discourse.And insofaras the social is impossible without some fixation of meaning,without the discourseof closure, the ideological mustbe seen as constitutive of the social.The social exists as the vain to institute that impossibleobject: only attempt is the essence of anycommunication andsocialpracsociety.Utopia
tice. (New Reflections, 92)

This passage presents a Gordianknot for the would-bepoliticalactivWhatwe have here is not exactlythe "endof ideology," butit ist/theorist. does fallintoa similar itsownperformative contradiction. As we trapthrough saw earlier, the implosion of the social,the destruction of all political intersubjectivity,is supposedly avoided through the possibility of nodal points,

2 / Fall1995 100 boundary

fix meaningin the metonymic whichpartially chain.The social remainsa forcertainlimited formsof then,whileallowing sphereof overdetermination, resistance.Whatremainsenigmatic, is the assertionthat however, political is characterized as bothnon-recognition and as the willto totality, ideology, of the social.Thisis a subtle,if notcasuistic,argument. Onthe constitutive one hand,the ideologueis someone who has not enteredintothe proper as Rortyputs it. Thatis, academicdiscourse,or interesting conversation, he or she has not been properly trainedin the historyof poststructuralist the necessarycondiOnthe otherhand,the ideologueprovides linguistics. Theproblem hereis thatthe activist tionforanytypeof hegemonicpractice. has no choice otherthanto essentialize;thatis, he or she mustaccept the that of a bettersocial orderand the will-to-power possibility metaphysical in any ideological is implicit fantasy.Ineithercase, the desireforutopia,as or social practice." Laclauasserts, is the "essence of any communication for contradiction Is this an ironic assertion?We mightcall it a performative the following reason:it suggests thatwe mustessentializein orderto comsense aboutthisverycommunicative whilemaintaining an ironic municate, the at the same timethathe is undermining is beingideological act. Laclau basis of ideology.The theorist,then, recognizesthat he or she is merely Thisseems remarkwheneverhe or she engages in politics. essentializing false consciousness," calls "enlightened ablyclose to whatPeterSloterdijk whichdescribesthe state of those whose "consciousnessno longerfeels bufits falseness is alreadyreflexively of ideology; affectedby any critique continues In it is not someone this who, through fered."23 case, cynicism, to damagethe livesof otherswithout Instead,it can be any self-deception. deconstructsall truthclaimsfor theoristwho continually the hermeneutic or skeptic.Laclau the sheer jouissanceof actingas the Universal Refuter, labels that of has not escaped the perpetual process unmasking Sloterdijk who do not insists those that form of His reason." ideologiekritik "cynical Zifek As Slajov are unenlightened. playof differences recognizethe infinite ouractions], distance[from "evenif we keep an ironical tells us, however, we are stilldoingthem"(Sublime, 33). The questionremains,once we've we triumphantly declarethe become ironicaboutideology,Whyshouldn't when they say thatsociety ironic end of ideology?Are Laclauand Mouffe and then proceedto use the wordsocietywhen it fits their is "impossible" interests?Welivein a "democratic own ideological society";we are "interto capitalism. we cannotimaginean alternative pellatedas consumers";
Uniof CynicalReason, trans.MichaelEldred(Minneapolis: 23. PeterSloterdijk, Critique versityof MinnesotaPress, 1987), 5.

/ NewReflections 101 Bertram Slavoj Ziek offers a compelling use of meconnaissance and points de capiton and provides an extension of Laclau and Mouffe's move into psychoanalysis, which is where they directed us for this mystery of ideology (or is the mystery itself ideological?). Ziek's Hegelian/psychoanalytic understandingof ideology reveals the possibilities and limitsof hermeneutics as politics. Since he resuscitates ideology from its death throes in Hegemony and New Reflections, the project of Phronesis seems to have new life. Ziwek places a different emphasis on antagonism, a concept he shares with Laclau and Mouffe: Man is-Hegel dixit-"an animalsick unto death,"an animal extorted by an insatiable parasite (reason, logos, language). In this perspecthis dimension of radicalnegativity,cannot be tive, the "deathdrive," reduced to an expression of alienated social conditions, it defines la condition humaine as such: there is no solution, no escape from it; the thing to do is not to "overcome,"to "abolish"it, but to come to terms with it, to learn to recognize it in its terrifyingdimension and then, on the basis of this fundamental recognition,to try to articulate

withit. (Sublime, a modus vivendi 5)


Once again, we are told to view utopianism as the dangerous attempt to with this view is that it suggests we the social sphere. The difficulty "suture" while we have the capacity to be ironic about ideology (the will-to-totality) are being ideological. How does the activist set limitson her or his destructive will-to-powerwithout falling into complacency, or the end of ideology (History-Hegel said-is a slaughterbench)? The decentering of the subject for Stanley Fish or Richard Rorty is the grounds for skepticism, which runs ad infinitum.The openness of the social and the dislocation of the subject creates irony,not the trench warfareof differentpoliticalprojects. As with Laclau and Mouffe,we are trapped in the paradoxicalsituation of thinking in utopian terms about the end of utopia. But that should not stop us fromcontinuing.Just as we cannot abolish antagonism (without being totalitarian),we cannot abolish ideology or the attempt to fix meaning in the social. The idea of a post-ideological society is misguided, Ziek shows, for the followingreason: If our concept of ideology remains the classic one in which the illusion is located in knowledge, then today's society must appear postideological: the prevailing ideology is that of cynicism; people no longer believe in ideological truth;they do not take ideological propo-

2 / Fall1995 102 boundary sitions seriously. The fundamental level of ideology, however, is not of an illusion masking the real state of things but that of an (unconscious) fantasy structuringour social reality itself. And at this level, we are of course far from being a post-ideological society. Cynical distance is just one way-one of many ways-to blind ourselves to the structuringpower of ideological fantasy: even if we do not take things seriously, even if we keep an ironical distance, we are still doing them. (Sublime, 33) Ziek uses the Lacanian meconnaissance to help redefine ideology. We are always distanced (with language as the mediation) from the objects of the Real (understood as the Lack). What Ziek shows is that ideology exists even if we don't grasp exactly what it is. It is embedded in our daily practices. The belief that ideology is an illusion, however, does not necessarily implythat there is any nonideological ground to stand on (i.e., there is no "true" consciousness). Ideology is dialectical. He reworks a line by Sloterto dijk read: "They know very well how things really are, but they still are doing it as if they did not know"(Sublime, 32). The ideologies of daily practices are not transparent and can never be made transparent (the desire An individual's for transparence is "totalitarian"). self-deception, indeed the self-deception of an entire society, is an inescapable datum. Ziek's theory works on the importance of formin all interpretation.Marx,he argues (following Lacan), was the first to invent the symptom in his analysis of the commodity form. Marx set up a vital method of political hermeneutics by showing how the commodity form conceals the materialityof objects of exchange and the labor that is built into the inherent nature of the object. In Ziek's idiosyncraticreading, there is no "hiddenkernel,"no real object that is latent under commodity exchange. The process of understandinglife under capitalism is like that of analyzing a dream. The dream itself cannot be uncovered, but its manifest content, which is itself the form of the dream (displacement, condensation, etc.) can be made accessible through interpretation.The meaning of the symptom is generated through fantasy. It is the dialectical means we have of arrivingat some form of psychic identity. For example, Marxmade feudalism the Other and thus enabled us to recognize our relationto the exchange-value of objects in contradistinctionto the use-value of objects. Ziek's hermeneutic theory is useful because it recuperates a notion of ideology. The fantasy of subjects under capitalist economies is that of commodityfetishism-the misrecognitionof social relationsforthe relations

Bertram / New Reflections 103 between things. For Ziek, there is no space outside ideological fantasy (as in Althusser's distinction between ideology and science): "Ideologyis a social realitywhose very existence implies the non-knowledge of its participants as to its essence" (Sublime, 21). Nevertheless, there are always ways of interrogatingour ideological thoughts (as there are ways of ana(as in the rationalor lyzing dreams). Ideology is not only in the "knowing" he in the One example reflective model) but gives is that we may "doing." know that money has "nothingmagical about it,"but we continue to use it as if it did (Sublime, 31). Although Laclau tries to borrow from this part of Ziek's work (in the passage cited earlier on ideology), the difference between these two theories is important.For Ziek, ideology is indeed misrecognition, but not merely of the infiniteplay of differences. Misrecognitionis part of the very structure of human (un)consciousness, and ideology has very real consequences in terms of human relations. Fantasy is the path toward a greater understandingof the Real (which has no independent existence), as Freud recognized when he placed so much importance on the dream-workrather than on the dream itself. Ziek's answer to the question "Whyis there something ratherthan nothing at all?" is useful here: "the Symptom."This Lacanian answer may offer a partial solution to the problem I have identified with Laclau and Mouffe. In Ziek's reading, psychoanalysis offers the "necessary counterpoint"to the deconstruction of "substantialidentity"(Sublime, 72). Laclau and Mouffedo not offerthis possibility.Laclau'stheory of the freedom of the subject as "failedstructuralidentity"fails to give an adequate account of what gives us "a minimumof consistency to our being-in-the-world" (Sublime, 75). The formulationof a Symptom does not involve a determination of the essence of the subject, but it is a construction that enables us to avoid madness: If the symptom in this radical dimension is unbound, it means literally "the end of the world"-the only alternative to the symptom is nothing:pure autism, a psychic suicide, surrenderto the death drive even to the total destructionof the symbolic universe. That is why the final Lacanian definitionof the end of the psychoanalytic process is identificationwith the symptom. The analysis achieves its end when the patient is able to recognize, in the Real of his symptom, the only support of his being. That is how we must read Freud's wo es war, soil ich werden:you, the subject, must identifyyourself withthe place

2 / Fall1995 104 boundary where your symptom already was; in its "pathological" particularity you must recognize the element which gives consistency to your being. (Sublime, 75) What was lackingin Laclauand Mouffewas a developed theory of the Lack. Althoughthey preventtheirtheory fromcollapsing into total negativity(contingency only subverts necessity; we cannot have the opposite of necessity, which would be an empty totality), it still fails to answer the question that is crucial to the formationof a theory of ideology: Why is there something ratherthan nothing? Nodal points can only functionas an "ideologicalquilt," a partialstabilizationof the social (the requirementfor any politicalactivity), if we have at least some explanation of the desire for politicalintersubjecof antagonism in Hegelian termstivity.24Ziek sees the intersubjectivity an "insatiable parasite (reason, logos, language)"--as well as Lacanian terms- enjoyment or jouissance (Sublime, 5). These latter terms exist as the surplus in the subject after interpellation.Ziek adds to Althusser'sversion of interpellation,or the internalization,of ideologies by insisting on the importance of "a residue or leftover"after the process of interpellation. The Lacanian and Hegelian aspect to the formationof subjectivityin this book is evident in Ziek's idea of reflexive determination.The subject, as for Lacan, is an S. This is not a vacuous negation but ratherthe path towardthe negation of negation (the symptom), the support for being itself. is generated through the "positivecontent,"or "whatI am Intersubjectivity for others" (Sublime, 46). Positive consistency also arrives throughfantasy. Illusion,fantasy, meconnaissance, misrecognition,and the symptom are all tied to our immediate need for gaining self-definitiondialectically through others. Ziek refers to the poststructuralistarguments of Hegemony as, "to use the good old Stalinist expression-'a dizziness from too much success.' "25 Laclau's notion of the "failedstructuralidentity"of the subject is a reference to the Lacanian objet petit a, but it lacks the more complete,
24. Mypointhere is notthat Lacanian theory(e.g., d6sir)does providean adequatesoluthe subjectof the lack and of indeterminacy tionto this problem.ForLaclauand Mouffe, often functionsas a quicksolutionto problemsin political theory.Ziek's Lacaniannotion is not the answer, but it seems to offera littlemore than Laclauand of the "symptom" endless differentiation and the virtually of identification celebrationof the failure Mouffe's chain. of the metonymic in Laclau,New Reflections,250. 25. SlavojZiek, "Beyond Discourse-Analysis,"

Bertram / NewReflections 105 phenomenological description offered by Ziek.6 Ziek's work deals with Hegel's theory of reflexive determination as a means of offering a larger conception of subjectivation. In addition, his work emphasizes the difficult formationof the Subject and Intersubjectivity, as opposed to multiplesubThe of this makes Hegemony and absence ject positions.27 conspicuous

SocialistStrategyand Reflectionson the Revolution of OurTimeappear


to fetishize the dislocation of the subject. In these two works, the Lacanian "object a" is appropriatedas a crude form of negation or lack. Lacanian theory reveals the complexity of the subject's attempt to find wholeness in the symbolic order, the necessary fantasies and identificationsof the subject with various unconscious objects of desire. Hermeneutictheory, which suggests that the relationbetween the part and the whole is circular,is important to Ziek and Lacan's work on identity and subjectivation.Yet, this circular process forecloses the possibility that negation can ever take on a real presence. Laclau and Mouffe,as we saw earlier, define the "axis of equivalence,"the nodal point at which a collective is formed, as the point at which "certaindiscursive forms, through equivalence, annul all positivityof the object and give a real existence to negativityas such. This impossibility of the real-negativity -has attained a formof presence" (Hegemony, 128). This form of Lacanian and Derridean theory relies on paradox as a form of logic. For Lacan and Ziek, however, negation and presence are not the same; they are dialecticallylinkedas the part to the whole. The whole may be a fantasy, but it is a very real fantasy. The phallus, for example, offers an imaginarysense of the whole and positivity,without which the subject would disappear. There can be no presence as pure negation. The theory of the nodal point relies on total castration. Laclau and Mouffe'soccasional use of the word society to describe the condition of postmodernity marks the returnof the repressed. The desire for an imaginaryphallus, the will-tototality,cannot always be rationally(mis)construed as the misrecognitionof difference and indeterminacy. We should not overestimate the difference between Ziek and Laclau and Mouffe, however, since all three of them ultimatelyinvertthe romantic
26. See also ErnestoLaclauand Lilian the Gap:The Subjectof Politics," Zac, "Minding in TheMaking of Political ed. ErnestoLaclau(London: Identities, Verso,1994). 27. A numberof commentatorsemphasize this differencebetween Lacanand Derrida. For example, Dews notes, "Unlike the other post-structuralist thinkers,Lacan comprehends that the understanding of meaningand of the self is necessarily groundedin a of integrity." See Dews, Logicsof Disintegration, 236. presumption

2 / Fall1995 106 boundary conception of premodern societies and thereby celebrate "atomized individuals."Ziek, for example, repeats Claude Lefort'sthesis in L'invention Democratique: he celebrates elections, the end of the "organic unity"of society, and "atomizedindividuals" (Sublime, 148). (Is the One-Dimensional Man the hero of postmodernity?) This celebration of democracy as a stochastic, or formal, process is premised on Lefort's mythical view of premodern societies. There is no theoretical or historicaljustificationfor this inversionof the romanticvision of the organic natureof these societies. This is an essentialist and reductionistvision of the complex nature of premodern civilizationthat points to a fundamentalflaw in a great deal of post-1968 thinking:the politicalactivist moves from the search for "truedemocracy" or transparentsociety) to the bourgeois glorification of float(the totalitarian and elections. ing signifiers, pluralism,consumerism,

A "RealHumanism"?
Slavoj Ziek sees the paradox of his anti-essentialism in Hegelian terms. In the introductionto Tarryingwith the Negative (1994), he argues that "Lacanaccepts the 'deconstructionist'motifof radicalcontingency but turns this motif against itself, using it to assert his commitmentto Truthas The contingent."Lacan, Ziek insists, is a "transcendentalphilosopher."28 radicalnegativityin Ziek's workcomes froma revamped Hegelian confronin various dimension"of the human animal "driven" tation withthe "terrifying ways for Recognition (Sublime, 5). The commitment to Truthas contingent is quite differentfrom an ironic(or postironic) hermeneutics. Hegel opened the door to our sense that all human understandingis situated withinhistory, and historicalknowledge is thus a perspective constrained by historicalconditions. Yet, the vantage point within history itself always requires a larger that gives it explanatorypower. view (a theory, as well as an interpretation) For Nietzsche, the will-to-poweris the means of overcoming this chaos of historicalbecoming. The chaos of becoming inevitablygives way to a "rank ordering"organized through the special position of an artist-politics.29 As
withthe Negative (Durham: Duke University 28. SlavojZiek, Tarrying Press, 1993), 4. his work to differentiate from a makes neopragmatism postmodern attempt vigorous Ziek and deconstruction. 29. AlthoughI rejectthe esoteric (Straussian)Platonismof Stanley Rosen, I believe his likethat of Hermeneuticsas Politics,is a necesdiscussion of "Nietzsche'sPlatonism," attack on the complacencies of postmodernhermeneuts. Rosen sary, but insufficient, The as a prophetor lawgiver. emphasizes that Nietzsche often defines the philosopher

Bertram / New Reflections 107 I have pointed out, Laclau and Mouffe level politicalstruggles to the point where there can be no rank ordering and certainly no justificationfor the greater legitimacyof one projectover any other. This perspectivism is more endemic to the post-Marxismof Laclau and Mouffethan it is to Ziek, the postmodern Hegelian. Ziek seems to be indicatingthat theory (in addition to interpretation and phronesis) still has a place in politicalthinking.Politics, in other words, is not merely conversation in the pragmatic sense. Or, if politics has been reduced to this status in academic discourse, then surely the essential worth of such post-Marxistperspectival chitchat needs to be called into question. My goal, then, is not to sever Ziek from the project of Phronesis but to emphasize (withZiek) that our historical position may call for a reconsiderationof some of the basic tenets of anti-essentialism or antifoundationalism. As I have suggested, what we need is a genealogy of difference, perhaps even one that "accepts the 'deconstructionist'motifof radicalcontingency, but turns this motif against itself."Genealogy, in the Foucaultian sense, is a hermeneutic historicalpractice. It undermines origins, totalities, and continuities. It is a playfuldance through history that, if not serious in any logocentric sense, deals withserious problems (panopticism,madness, etc.). Nietzsche's "cheerfulness"in the Genealogy of Moralsis only possible with what he calls a "subterraneanseriousness." A genealogy of difference, then, would need to consider new "postmodern"politics in a well-nigh rhizomatous fashion. What we need to take seriously, I have been suggesting, is the mode of dominationthat underlies the postmodern politicalcondition. The hermeneutic play of genealogy needs to be the object of genealogical study. Thus, we need to look at anti-essentialism and its metonymic chain as symptomatic (in Ziek's sense) of particular,contingent social conditions. For our present concerns, this means that we cannot abandon the analysis of capitalism as a system. Ziek's criticism of postmodernism is only one way we can begin to take our playfulness seriously and recognize that anti-essentialism, or liberalpluralism,does not markthe end of history. Hermeneutics as politics is not the final condition for politicallife. The term politics has gone through a huge transformationin Laclau and Mouffe'swork that gives it a pragmatic,as well as hermeneutic, flavor.
philosopherdevelops a perspectiveof all perspectives(a synopticview) and can create new values based on practico-productive concerns.The roleof the philosopher is to overcome chaos (i.e., differance). See The Questionof Being (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1993).

2 / Fall1995 108 boundary a humanism that has They believe they have developed a "realhumanism," The "greatemancipatory goals" are now in the purview been "historicized." of pragmatism (New Reflections, 242-45). An assortment of recent thinkers has elements of pragmatism in their work: Foucault, Derrida, Stanley Fish, JudithButler,and many others share an interest in purgingthe desire for metaphysics, the absolute, Truth,Being, the transcendental signified, presence, ontology, identity, concepts, reason, and Man. Many of these thinkers have been able to carry their suspicion of the above terms into the productivesphere of politicalthinking.Liketheir radical, philosophical predecessors (particularly Marx,Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger), they work with what Paul Ricoeur has called a "hermeneutics of suspicion," the unclaims that have concealed their real motives. A great masking of particular deal of postmodern theory suggests that unmasking is an endless process, since there is ultimatelynothing underneath surface meaning to be exposed (as in class struggle, sexual desire, etc.). A variety of politicalgains have been made through this process by activists who have challenged normative claims for heterosexuality, male dominance, white supremacy, and so forth. Ricoeur refers to this unmasking as a violent process. This "violence" is rarelyacknowledged by poststructuralists,who generally argue that the hermeneutic process always leads toward pleasure or liberaltolerance. It is not only ideology critique that performs a kind of philosophicalviolence on others (as in the rationalisticconception of false consciousness) but all forms of deconstruction. The exposure of metaphysical or logocentric ideas is itself a means of gaining power.This problemof hermeneuticalviothat lence is crucial to Ziek's nonbiologicaldiscussion of the "death-drive," of means Ziek's "radical or "insatiableparasite," negativity"(Sublime, 4). workingout ideology as fantasy (and desire) is not to negate the will (and the violence of hermeneutics) but to come to terms with it by deploying a vital form of nontransparentintersubjectivity. In her recent collection of essays, Mouffe argues that "a radical
democratic interpretation .. . should lead to a common recognition among

of democracy differentgroups strugglingfor an extension and radicalization that they have a common concern. .... [I]tshould construct a common politi30Butcitizenship and a "common cal identityas radicaldemocratic citizens." have been dislocated and dismantled in what are politicalidentity" precisely the of life. Amidst logics disintegration,such modes of idencontemporary at As it stands, Laclau and Mouffe'stheory best. or tenuous tity are unlikely
30. Mouffe,Returnof the Political, 70; my emphases.

Bertram / NewReflections 109 of dislocation cannot account for the positivityof the social, a positivitythey admit is essential to any political formation. And this predicament is not surprising, since their method of unmasking all essences could not exist of consumer withoutthe massive development of reificationin the life-world that one Lukacs has importantfacet of the capitalism. Georg suggested in modern capitalism was the "destructionof "phenomenon of reification" every image of the whole" through specialization, bureaucracy,and ecoThis phenomenon is not only built into nomic and social rationalization.31 the condition of labor in capitalism but also into the condition of consumerism, inwhich individualsare simultaneously homogenized (i.e., interpellated as a particularkind of desiring machine for the same commodities) and atomized. The hermeneutics of Laclau and Mouffe ultimatelyrelies on this fragmentationand atomization as the condition of possibilityfor new social movements. Their brand of pragmatism can only create the vacuous and paradoxicalnotion of unity in dispersal (a phrase taken from Foucault)that accentuates the impossibilityof any concepts of society that might create an alternativeto the technologies of reificationand social division.Anyalternative is merely dismissed as "metaphysics"or "utopian," and a complacent view of the status quo is fixed in place. In a notorious footnote in Consequences of Pragmatism, Rorty admits that the liberal utopia in his vision is only possible for advanced postindustrialsocieties such as the United States.32Laclauand Mouffesay the same thing when they reveal that postWorldWar IIconsumerism is at the heart of new social movements. Like Rorty'sversion, this pragmaticview of politics (the end of ideology) universalizes its own perspectivism while debunking those who do not followthe banner of anti-essentialism. The core of this problem is that the pragmatic nature of this theory leaves the private/publicdualism of postmodern liberal theory intact. Although Laclau and Mouffeclaim they have left open more room for antagonisms than Rorty or Rawls, they merely repeat what Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have called "the politics of avoidance."Rorty'sliberalutopia keeps a strong separation between the smooth operation of the state and the antagonisms of disparate groups. The "thinstate" does not maintain the disciplinarycontrol of older regimes but instead operates as an administered society that avoids the conflicts and politicsof the people. Hardtand
31. See Georg Lukacs,History and Class Consciousness (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1971), 103. 32. See Richard of MinneRorty,Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University sota Press, 1982), 210.

2 / Fall1995 110 boundary Negri emphasize the importance of what Laclauand Mouffecall "newsocial movements" (for example, ACT-UP), but the "critiqueof the state-form" calls for a transformationin the "living labor"of postmodern cyborg-citizens, a radical revaluationof all values to undermine the oppressive condition of the total, postmodern "subsumptionof labor under capital."33 My point here is that consumer society and the modes of social differentiation,or fragmentation,are themselves supported by this administered society, the postmodern Polizeiwissenschaft. Dislocation and difference, then, are part of a historicalconditionand a particularregime of powerthat is by no means fixed for all eternity.A genealogy of difference, then, would trace such conof "living ditions of dominationwhile maintaininga subterranean affirmation labor"and a totalizingcritiqueof the workingconditions of global subjects. Perhaps the most compelling argument in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy is that negative freedom, the belief that "libertyis to be free from restraintand violence from others" (Locke), needs to be replaced by a new sense of positive liberties, a greater sense of participationin democratic struggles. Laclau and Mouffeare, of course, correct in arguingthat the fragof struggles (for feminists, gays and lesbians, mentation and proliferation environmentalists, etc.) cannot be dismissed as merely superstructure or the end of ideology. The politicizationof culture and the social is vital to any radical enterprise today. There is no reason, however, why we have to choose between new social movements and totalizing discourses. This opposition has given rise to an essentialist formof separatism that excludes the potential of larger,collective struggles against dominant ideological formations in the United States. The fetishism of dislocation and the related weakness of a theory of ideology limitthe possibilities for the development of a sense of what positive libertymight mean in the age of late capitalism.

of and AntonioNegri,Laborof Dionysus(Minneapolis: 33. See MichaelHardt University MinnesotaPress, 1994).

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