getfiscal
getfiscal
Mike Nelson here.
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Zizek's response to identity politics is to suggest that class has an anchoring role through repetition. That is, yes, race, gender, sexuality, class are all important, but class is repeated in each former element in ways that exhibits truth through repetition. Zizek suggests an imaginary centered on class struggle: Identity concerns are ultimately about fights to eliminate structured class differences in society. This is directly opposed to the Laclau and Mouffe formulation of an imaginary centered on radical democratic pluralism, which is supposed to be the ultimate expression of the fight for liberty and equality. Much of Zizek's project since this divergence has been to recuperate the thought of people like Lenin, and others largely discarded by the poststructuralists, based on Zizek's appeal to class struggle. Laclau and Mouffe focus on undoing hierarchy, while Zizek is less worried about hierarchy (which he says is not intrinsically proto-fascist) as he is the effects of class society. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that Zizek does not think that "class" in terms of the industrial proletariat is central, but rather a mix of concerns such as radical ecologism, global apartheid (the dehumanized excluded), biogenetic fears and so on.
Since I found out about this divide a few months ago, I've been struggling between thinking that Zizek is wrong about material class having some privileged role in terms of structuring identity at a metaphysical level, but also an unease at the essentially parliamentarist politics that follows from Laclau and Mouffe. Also, I've been thinking about how Mouffe focuses on the fragility of democracy, as a precious thing to be cultivated, while Zizek thinks that class struggle is such that the focus should be on affirming equality in less liberal ways.
What I've been thinking, though, is perhaps material class struggle in the Marxist sense is still incorrect, but that class struggle as imaginary is correct. That is, subordination matters less in an individualist sense as it does in a structural sense. Material class struggle is not a primary contradiction in a metaphysical sense, it simply is one that I might personally prioritize given my personal situation (I "notice" class the most and think that the biggest gains are through socialism rather than focusing on other aspects of identity). Here it gets a bit tricky but what I think is that maybe once you've accepted class struggle as imaginary, and material class being important (though not privileged), you can say that there is a "unique likely solution" to material class society.
The "unique likely solution" flows from the logic of class struggle combined with the balance of class forces and their distribution around the world. This "solution" is that of radical democracy, but where socialism is privileged in a strategic sense, so that the focus is on creating the conditions of workers' control over the direction of industry (both as producers and consumers). This includes accepting that the institutions workers tend to create for themselves are things like workers' councils, neighbourhood assemblies and so on. So you could say that the move from parliament to workers' councils or something like that is an advance in democracy, even if it forecloses some options. But because you aren't constrained by the essentially liberal imaginary of Laclau and Mouffe, you can accept class struggle as limiting some options to people, although as a matter of intuition.
Now I think that might be Zizek's point too in some sense, although I think he wants to elevate things to a metaphysical certainty by finding a way to re-privilege class. And I'm aware that I might be re-privileging class. But I think that as long as there are institutional ways for addressing other aspects of identity, to allow for chains of equivalence and such, then maybe that's enough? That these differences and equivalences can be expressed in coalitions throughout society and not just in liberal-democratic institutions?
Since I found out about this divide a few months ago, I've been struggling between thinking that Zizek is wrong about material class having some privileged role in terms of structuring identity at a metaphysical level, but also an unease at the essentially parliamentarist politics that follows from Laclau and Mouffe. Also, I've been thinking about how Mouffe focuses on the fragility of democracy, as a precious thing to be cultivated, while Zizek thinks that class struggle is such that the focus should be on affirming equality in less liberal ways.
What I've been thinking, though, is perhaps material class struggle in the Marxist sense is still incorrect, but that class struggle as imaginary is correct. That is, subordination matters less in an individualist sense as it does in a structural sense. Material class struggle is not a primary contradiction in a metaphysical sense, it simply is one that I might personally prioritize given my personal situation (I "notice" class the most and think that the biggest gains are through socialism rather than focusing on other aspects of identity). Here it gets a bit tricky but what I think is that maybe once you've accepted class struggle as imaginary, and material class being important (though not privileged), you can say that there is a "unique likely solution" to material class society.
The "unique likely solution" flows from the logic of class struggle combined with the balance of class forces and their distribution around the world. This "solution" is that of radical democracy, but where socialism is privileged in a strategic sense, so that the focus is on creating the conditions of workers' control over the direction of industry (both as producers and consumers). This includes accepting that the institutions workers tend to create for themselves are things like workers' councils, neighbourhood assemblies and so on. So you could say that the move from parliament to workers' councils or something like that is an advance in democracy, even if it forecloses some options. But because you aren't constrained by the essentially liberal imaginary of Laclau and Mouffe, you can accept class struggle as limiting some options to people, although as a matter of intuition.
Now I think that might be Zizek's point too in some sense, although I think he wants to elevate things to a metaphysical certainty by finding a way to re-privilege class. And I'm aware that I might be re-privileging class. But I think that as long as there are institutional ways for addressing other aspects of identity, to allow for chains of equivalence and such, then maybe that's enough? That these differences and equivalences can be expressed in coalitions throughout society and not just in liberal-democratic institutions?
babyfinland
babyfinland
tardy on these heaters
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ok so two things come to mind: one is that the success of class as the center via repetition is very kierkegaardian and lends itself to resolve a lot of kantian error re: universalizing so thats good
and the other is that EP Thompson defined class in this sort of way I think:
and the other is that EP Thompson defined class in this sort of way I think:
“Sociologists who have stopped the time machine and, with a good deal of conceptual huffing and puffing, have gone down to the engine room to look, tell us that nowhere at all have they been able to locate and classify a class. They can only find a multitude of people with different occupations, incomes, status-hierarchies, and the rest. Of course, they are right, since class is not this or that part of the machine, but the way the machine works once it is set in motion - not this or that interest, but the friction of interests - the movement itself, the heat, the thundering noise..."
noavbazzer
noavbazzer
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I've always felt that a lot of what Maoists would call secondary contradictions find some of their source in the class relations of modern capitalism. Maybe that makes me something of an economic determinist but I don't posit that class relations are the only cause of racism/sexism/etc. It does, however, seem to follow that secondary contradictions aren't really addressable in their own right so long as we remain within the current capitalist system.
getfiscal
getfiscal
Mike Nelson here.
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To clarify a bit, Laclau responded to Zizek by saying that his idea of "repetition" of class leading to its primary nature was just a way of reworking base-superstructure, and I think that's right in terms of saying that class isn't primary in any metaphysical way. But you can still assert that it is really important to you, and you can do so in such a way that still frames radical democracy around class rather than simple hierarchy. You can then also say that you think material class struggle has a particular narrative to go with it in terms of radical democracy, given a view of history, which is revolutionaries throwing up council structures and trying to create an alternative state system (which you can't really get if you accept as much liberalism as Laclau and Mouffe).
Zizek tends to suggest against workers' council sort of arrangements, which I agree with to a certain extent (you still need central powers, however formed), but I think that's because he wants to emphasize other forms of social power (social movements, bureaucracies, etc.) as important rather than say that the state needs to stay the same or something.
Zizek tends to suggest against workers' council sort of arrangements, which I agree with to a certain extent (you still need central powers, however formed), but I think that's because he wants to emphasize other forms of social power (social movements, bureaucracies, etc.) as important rather than say that the state needs to stay the same or something.
getfiscal
getfiscal
Mike Nelson here.
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noavbazzer posted:
I've always felt that a lot of what Maoists would call secondary contradictions find some of their source in the class relations of modern capitalism. Maybe that makes me something of an economic determinist but I don't posit that class relations are the only cause of racism/sexism/etc. It does, however, seem to follow that secondary contradictions aren't really addressable in their own right so long as we remain within the current capitalist system.
Most socialists agree that capitalism creates a lot of problems for identities like feminism, anti-racism and gay liberation and so on. The problem is more how you determine between different iterations of each position. Marxist parties used to say that you could just use a scientific approach and determine the "correct" subjectivity on an issue, which flowed directly from proletarian class identity, which was privileged as it was seen as historical bringer of revolution. But if you think that that's not true in a fixed sense then you need processes for allowing people to decide what aspects of themselves they put forward in what ways. This is especially true after capitalism has been replaced in the main by some form of socialism - there is no "objectively" true way to organize society that can be determined by a clever central committee.
getfiscal
getfiscal
Mike Nelson here.
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I realize what I'm posting is really schematic, I'm just trying to get at the kernel of possible truth behind revolutionary socialism that seems so appealing to me, without abandoning the basic coordinates of poststructuralism in terms of the gap/indeterminacy between structural positions and subject positions.
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Skylark
Skylark
California
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getfiscal posted:
and so on
Impper
Impper
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if i was rich i'd be a gangsta
sosie
sosie
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The philosophical/notional limitation of Laclau's couple of two logics, that of difference and that of antagonism, is that he treats them as two externally opposed poles. When Laclau elaborates his fundamental opposition between the logic of difference and the logic of equivalence, he asserts the coincidence of the opposites: the two logics are not simply opposed, but each logic, brought to its extreme, converts into its opposite. That is to say, as he repeatedly points out, a system of pure differentiality (a system totally defined by the differential structure of its elements, with no antagonism and/or impossibility traversing it) would lead to a pure equivalence of all its elements - they are all equivalent with regard to the void of their Outside; and, at the other extreme, a system of radical antagonism with no structure at all but just the pure opposition of Us and Them would coincide with a naturalized difference between Us and Them as the positively existing opposed species... However, from a Hegelian standpoint, this logic continues to rely on the two externally opposed poles - the fact that each of the opposites, in the abstraction from the other (i.e., brought to the extreme at which it no longer needs the other as its opposite), falls into this other, merely demonstrates their mutual reliance. What we need to do is to make a step further from this external opposition (or mutual reliance) into direct internalized overlapping, which means: not only does one pole, when abstracted from the other and thus brought to the extreme, coincide with its opposite, but there is no "primordial" duality of poles in the first place, only the inherent gap of the One. Equivalence is primordially not the opposite of difference, equivalence only emerges because no system of differences can ever complete itself, it "is" a structural effect of this incompleteness. The tension between immanence and transcendence is thus also secondary with regard to the gap within immanence itself: "transcendence" is a kind of perspective illusion, the way we (mis)perceive the gap/discord that inheres to immanence itself. In the same way, the tension between the Same and the Other is secondary with regard to the non-coincidence of the Same with itself.
What this means is that the opposition of two logics, that of antagonism and that of difference, is the deployment of a logically preceding term, of the inherent "pure" difference, the minimal difference which marks the non-coincidence of the One with itself. This non-coincidence, this "pure difference," can either unravel into a multitude of entities forming a differential totality, or split into the antagonistic opposition of two terms. And this duality again follows the logic of Lacan's formulas of sexuation - contrary to expectations, the differential multitude is "masculine," while the antagonism is "feminine." The primordial gap is thus not the polar opposition of two principles (masculine and feminine, lightness and darkness, opening and closure...), but the minimal gap between an element and ITSELF, the void of its own PLACE of inscription. It is this gap that Schelling aims at when he distinguishes between Existence and its impenetrable Ground, and this is why he is right in rejecting the accusation of dualism: Schelling remains a monist, there is only One, the gap is inherent to this One itself, not as the gap between its two opposite aspects, but as the gap between One and the Void.
What this means is that the opposition of two logics, that of antagonism and that of difference, is the deployment of a logically preceding term, of the inherent "pure" difference, the minimal difference which marks the non-coincidence of the One with itself. This non-coincidence, this "pure difference," can either unravel into a multitude of entities forming a differential totality, or split into the antagonistic opposition of two terms. And this duality again follows the logic of Lacan's formulas of sexuation - contrary to expectations, the differential multitude is "masculine," while the antagonism is "feminine." The primordial gap is thus not the polar opposition of two principles (masculine and feminine, lightness and darkness, opening and closure...), but the minimal gap between an element and ITSELF, the void of its own PLACE of inscription. It is this gap that Schelling aims at when he distinguishes between Existence and its impenetrable Ground, and this is why he is right in rejecting the accusation of dualism: Schelling remains a monist, there is only One, the gap is inherent to this One itself, not as the gap between its two opposite aspects, but as the gap between One and the Void.
getfiscal
getfiscal
Mike Nelson here.
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it's funny because i just started reading the parallax view yesterday.
i'm trying to put that into terms i understand as a relative theory beginner, which tend to lean towards things like lukacs. is this a return to a sense of totality? as in, the totality is singular, the contradictions within it are constitutive of it. i was sort of fixed on the maoist-badiou claim that two divides into one =edit: uhh i mean one divides into two=, which emphasizes that perpetual antagonism, but obviously this "two" is "really" just a one with a gap inside itself.
i'm trying to put that into terms i understand as a relative theory beginner, which tend to lean towards things like lukacs. is this a return to a sense of totality? as in, the totality is singular, the contradictions within it are constitutive of it. i was sort of fixed on the maoist-badiou claim that two divides into one =edit: uhh i mean one divides into two=, which emphasizes that perpetual antagonism, but obviously this "two" is "really" just a one with a gap inside itself.
Edited by getfiscal ()
khamsek
khamsek
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:)