My interest is in the applications, and limits, of Slavoj Zizek’s work for anti-capitalist political theorist. Zizek’s central political value is lies in his notion of ideology and in ideological critique as a form of political intervention. Zizek’s concept of ideology is based on the split movement between the founding negative ontology of the social and the imaginary ‘want-to-be’ for universality qua full identity. Zizek uses ideology to theorise the economies of enjoyment that are incited by this paradoxical process. It is enjoyment via ideology that pushes the subject to identify with ‘abstract/imaginary’ universality rather than coming to grips with negativity. The latter identification causes the potential for radical change. Thus, via ideological critique, Zizek’s analysis of the social is highly productive for negative politics and potentially for inducing radical social change. On the other hand, there are two major problems with his theoretical edifice that I seek to examine;
Firstly, whilst Zizek persists in calling for a repoliticisation of the capitalist economy, through the sustained and concrete application of ideological critique, he himself does not fully accomplish this task. I seek to investigate whether this is a contingent oversight, or reveals a certain (necessary) failure in Zizek’s work. Secondly Zizek’s work, following a (post)modern rejection of normatively, allows for no inherent basis to an alternative order.
We must ask then;
- What is the value of Zizek for anti-capitalist political theory?
- Can these failures be avoided with the addition of another signifier/extension of Zizek’s work?
- Or, by applying Zizek’s theory to himself should we consider these failures his own concrete universal, the exception to his work which acts as its positive condition?
- If this is the case, should Zizek’s work be abandoned by the anti-capitalist cause, or short-circuit to go beyond its own boundaries?
To establish the value of Zizek’s work for anti-capitalist political theory, we must first examine his conception of ideology and ideological critique. As a philosopher of what exists (and, correspondingly, that what is non-existent – the Real) Zizek is exceptional. His work utilises Lacanian psychoanalysis, combined with Hegelian dialectics, to produce notions of ideology and universality which are highly productive for political analysis. The operation of ideology is what maintains the capitalist system, despite its apparent contradictions/exceptions (extreme poverty, environmental degradation etc…). Thus any form of critique which seeks to destabilise capitalism must consider the functioning of ideology within capital.
Ideology operates because of the negative ontology which modulates the operation of the symbolic order. The symbolic is negativity charged because symbolisation always fails; it is never completely able to represent the ‘thing’. The failure of symbolisation produces a lack in the subject; the failure of the symbolic produces the Real, that which the symbolic has been unable to signify. Yet the subject is constituted by an imaginary ‘want-to-be’ which attempts to revoke the affect of the Real. This desire means that the lack of the Real is experienced by the subject as a positive condition, pushing the subject to find that one additional signifier that will fully suture the social.
Desire qua identification operates through ideological fantasy; fantasy teaches the subject how to desire, supporting their desire. Ideological fantasy attempts to produce a universal identification by grouping signifiers together around a master signifier, otherwise known in Lacanian terms as objet petit a, the object of the subject’s desire. The illusion is that by obtaining the missing object/signifier the subject can be whole – universal. In order to produce this affect of wholeness, those signifiers which do not fit with the master signifier must be excluded; these exclusions are an affect of the Real.
The existence of non-identity within identity takes two predominant forms. The most commonly identified form of non-identity is the constitutive outside, which operates as an external antagonism. The constitutive outside establishes the identity of the inside. The standard ideological operation is to produce a false dichotomy of us/them. ‘They’ being responsible for the failure of the universalising imaginary. The displacement of lack through ideology dilutes the ontological anxiety caused by non-identity. This is not to suggest that a constitutive outside is an ideological illusion. All systems require an exterior to define the boundaries of the system. What is ideological is the use of the exterior to give cause to the dislocatory affect of the Real.
The affect of the Real within the symbolic is given form by symptoms, which are epiphenomena of the concrete universal. The operation of universality is split in a parallax between abstract universality and concrete universality. Abstract universality is the systematic performance which facilitates the subjects ‘want-to-be’ in terms of identification. As noted, the central mechanism of abstract universality is ideological fantasy. What ideological fantasy has to deal with is the ontological anxiety produced by the split in universality. The other side of the parallax within universality is the concrete universal. The concrete universal is the necessary exception to the abstract imaginary, the element which is strictly not of the genus, but yet is necessary for its continued functioning. Thus, for the abstract universal to function, it must repression the concrete universal. The effect is an ontological parallax; one cannot hold the split forms of universality together. The gap within universality is the Real; it is the materialist Truth of the symbolic system – the concrete universal is the concrete representation of existence.
A symptom is the evidence of the concrete universal within the universal imaginary. As such, the symptom produces much anxiety. It is this anxiety which ideological fantasy seeks to nullify. The operation of ideology is particularly complex, functioning according to the concrete circumstances of the situation. We can, however, seek to understand (as Zizek does) the formal operation of ideology, given the overall direction of its functioning; servicing the subjects want-to-be in the face of the lack in the Other. In the social, this lack is expressed as exclusions; the role of ideology is to nullify these exclusions in order to maintain the hegemonic horizon. The most common ideological operation is to reproduce exclusion in a more palpable form, either as a contingent and temporal blimp, or as the result of external elements. The latter operation is particularly powerful, based as it is on the postulated of a ‘constitutive outside’ that maintains the status of identity.
Two other mechanisms operate within capitalist identity, that of super-ego and cynical reason/fetishism. Super-ego demand operates in the apparent face of the failure of capital, acting a suturing device and a point of enjoyment for the subject. Super-ego demand can only produce a limited suturing, as we see with the operation of charities – after a while the subject says enough – before reverting back to an ideological position. The ultimate effect of super-ego is that it forestalls the anxiety of the symptom, providing a temporary suture by helping the subject see the structural necessity of exclusion.
In contrast, cynical reason has the structure of a fetish. Rather than Marx’s ‘They don’t know that they are doing it, but they are’, Zizek suggests that the structure of late capitalist subjectivity is such that “They know very well what they are doing, but they are still doing it”. Thus the subject may well know that capitalism is a flawed system, causing misery that they themselves find unacceptable, yet they still operate as if this is not the cause. Such reasoning is built on a fetish, generally a commodity fetish, which provides objects of affective investment for the subject, such that the dislocating power of the exception can be ignored. Additionally, there is a fetish of a false dichotomy; communism has failed, capitalism has proved successful, therefore the failures of capitalism can only be dealt with by capitalism itself. Such an argument relies on a formalist logic, rejected by Zizek’s ideological critique.
Zizek’s notion of ideological critique employs a dialectical materialist logic. The central premise of ideological critique, states Zizek, is not to reveal something new, but rather to unveil a disturbing underside to that which is already known. As an illustration, the presence of absolute and horrific poverty is well acknowledged in the western world. The various ideological mechanisms documented in this article are employed to pacified the anxiety which stems from this element of non-identity (poverty in a system designed for wealth production). The role of ideological critique is to break down the functioning of ideology, thus loosening the effectiveness of its stabilising mechanisms. In doing so that which is hidden by ideology (in form, not content) is revealed – that poverty is constitutive of capitalism.
As a result, Zizek’s work on ideological critique functions as a mode of political intervention. Zizek’s ideological critique seeks to identify those symptomatic elements within ideology that can be loosened from its grasp. These symptoms are evidence of the concrete universal – the necessary exclusion within an abstract universal imaginary – which offer the prospect of the radical overturning of the current order. Through ideological critique, Zizek seeks to produce an ontological anxiety which cannot be sutured via another signifier.
There appears, on the surface at least, little reason why such a political method cannot be applied to an analysis of capitalism. Certainly Zizek attends to this task in a typically eclectic fashion. What his work lacks is the applied analysis of capitalism, identifying those symptomatic elements which, in their incomplete relationship with ideology, may hold possibility for political transformation. Additionally, I may find it beneficial to use Marxist economic analysis to accomplish this task.
It is the addition of Marxism, however, which has proven controversial in Zizek’s work. Many critics, such as otherwise ally Ernesto Laclau have argued that Zizek’s work is made up of sophisticated Lacanian theory and unrefined Marxist-Leninism. Perhaps here we need to distinguish between Zizek’s use of the latter for economic analysis and political prescription[i]. It is Zizek’s politics, in terms of Zizek’s positing of positive alternative political compositions, which has proved more controversial.
Zizek rejects any political change within the existing capitalist formation. Instead, he argues, a whole new matrix of ideological understanding is required. The socio-political form of this conceptual matrix, however, is a manner on which Zizek is noticeable silent. This silence contains both the production of structural alternatives to the current hegemony – alternative systems for the production and reproduction of shared social life - or the normative values which could underlay that system. Indeed, one is not even certain if Zizek truly believes that an alternative system is possible in the sense that what is to come will not be recognised as a system at all by our current co-ordinates. Again, in this formulation, Zizek cannot get past purely negative politics, a form of politics which seeks to destruct the present within the possibility of a future.
If Zizek does produce normative/alternative statements, these appear to have a ‘journalistic quality’ or to be a matter of person opinion. In both cases there appears to be little link with has theoretical edifice. Certainly the theoretical depth which is evident in his work on universality and ideology is absent. My question is whether this discrepancy is purely contingent, or is it necessary, taking on the concrete universal of Zizek’s work. If the latter is the case, then must Zizek’s work be dismissed as a political alternative? (Or used for what it is; a brilliantly insightful form of ideological critique, but nothing more?). Alternatively, in a Zizekian twist, can this lack be seen as a positive condition for Zizek’s work? Still further, can we short-circuit Zizek, say through the use of a Marxist analysis of political economy in order to take Zizek beyond his own inherent confinement?
Following the identification of problems here, I need to undertake a literature review of the various critiques of Zizek. This will enable me to see what is out there and do it better, or at least differently. At this stage I am envisioning that my thesis is still a Zizekian thesis (that is, pro-Zizek). I do not want to reject Zizek, but rather to move beyond him. The question is how to do this; to go back to his original sources (as Wendy suggests) and find different interpretations, or is to use differing discourses to short-circuit his work. Perhaps a discussion on theoretical/research method would be valuable. Can a critique of Zizek be achieved in Zizekian manner?$
[i] Nonetheless, there do remain several issues with the fusion of Lacan and Marx
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Friday, July 06, 2007
On Badiou
Alain Badiou is a theorist of change. His primary philosophical focus is the analysis of the possibility and existence of the new in any given situation. Novelty does not, however, appear from some previously unknown exteriority, but rather emerges from within the situated circumstances of the existing. What Badiou is most interested in is new ‘events’ that emerge with such destructive force that they alter the structuring co-ordinates of the present. Badiou’s notion of the event has much in common with the Lacanian Act. Indeed, his whole theoretical edifice is, for the most part, consistent with Lacanian psychoanalysis. As such, whilst Badiou focuses on the possibility of radical political change, like Lacanian psychoanalysis, his work is accussed of being politically conservative or impotent. This paper seeks to review this accusation through an analysis of Badiou’s position on change. It is found that in comparison to the most prominent contemporary advocate of the Lacanian Act- Slavoj Zizek- Badiou’s work places too much emphasis on the event and too little on the political ground work- what Zizek labels ideological critique- that goes into producing an event/Act.
Badiou makes a sharp distinction between repetition (the realm of knowledge, the existing ideological parameters of the social) and disruption in the form of events (Johnston, 2007, p.2). Badiou contends that nothing new can come from knowledge and as such it is not worth the interest of the philosopher, nor the politician, or at least the radical political analyst. Instead Badiou proposes a politics focused on the prospects of rupture or discontinuity within knowledge, as caused by an event.
Much of Badiou’s philosophy is based on developing the distinction between these two categories, although, as we shall later develop it is the link/gap between the two which holds more political interest. The social world is considered to be a state of constant flux, but this movement comes in different categories and degrees. As such Badiou proposes the general category of becoming the signify the movement of the social realm. Elements do not just exist, they enter into the realm of being and ‘become’. Becoming is divided into modification (becoming without any real change) and site, a place with the potential give rise to real change. Speaking in Zizekian terms, site can be considered to be the area where the symptom and concrete universal come to match up, either through the strength of the excluded concrete universal or the failure of ideological shock absorbers to deal with its symptomatic excess.
Site itself is sub-divided into deed/occurrence- a site which, while not strictly a modification (it is outside of the ideological realm) lacks the affective performative element that would produce a strong situational effect - and singularity, a site with possibility of producing intense and far-ranging structural change. In this division, a deed or occurrence may be a change which operates under the radar of the structuring ideology and as such may exist in structural contradiction to that ideology, without posing a threat. A non-profit community group could be an example here; their activities maybe in contradiction to capitalism, but their scale is such that little movement is detected. In contrast, a singularity is structurally located in a position that positing more of a threat to the central ideological fantasy. Some elements of climate change discourse are an example of a singularity.
Additionally Badiou divides singularity into 'weak singularity' as a dormant singularity which does not produce change. This (symptomatic) element does not cause radical transformation, but retains the possibility of doing so. Opposed to weak singularity is event, whose consequences are maximal; an event changes the co-ordinates of being (p.3-4). The difference between these elements is one of a minimal difference. The difference does not lie in content, but rather form; at any stage an element can move from a deed to an event, depending on its relationship with the hegemonic universal ideology. Again, climate change is the paradigmatic example. Initially, climate change was little more than an occurrence, a symptom at the margins of capitalist ideology. Recently though, it has produced far greater anxiety, suggesting that it had moved to becoming a site of singularity with the possibility of provoking an event. Such has been the effect of capital, however, that climate change has been integrated into the official ideology; it has become a mere modification.
What Badiou desires, both philosophically and politically, is for an element like climate change to become an evental site. Badiou defines an evental site as;
“an entirely abnormal multiple, that is, a multiple such that none of its elements are presented in the situation. The site, itself, is presented, but 'beneath' it nothing from which it is composed is presented. As such, the site is not part of the situation. I will also say of such a multiple that it is on the edge of the void..." (Badiou, 2005, p.175).
He adds;
“It becomes clearer why an evental site can be said to be one the edge of the void when we remember that from the perspective of the situation this multiple is made up exclusively of non-presented multiples. Just beneath this multiple, if we consider the multiples from which it is composed- there is nothing, because none of its are themselves counted as one. A site is therefore the minimal effect of structure which can be conceived; it is such that it belongs to the situation, whilst what belongs to it in turn does not. The border effect in which this multiple touches upon the void originates in its consistency (its one multiple) being composed solely from what, with respect to the situation, in-consists. Within the situation, this multiple is, but that of which it is the multiple is not" (p.175)
Thus, an event raises what had been previously unseen, unknowable within the hegemonic co-ordinates of the order, to a position of power (Johnston, 2007, p.20). This position of power is not an initially constructive force, rather it forces a re-scrabble of the ideological matrix; that which has been excluded holds no greater truth than what already existed. Rather, its presence unveils the gap between what Zizek labels the abstract universal imaginary (the existing ideology) and its necessary exclusion- the concrete universal. The eruption of this gap, the materialist Truth of these circumstances, causes us to reconsider the manner in which we previously held the axiomatic truths which found our society. Thus, although Truth causes a radical reconsideration of what is, the positive form of the excluded truth- the concrete universal- holds no more Truth in itself than the abstract universal. As Zizek states; "one should be clear here in rejecting the dangerous motto "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" which leads us to discover "progressive" anti-imperialist potential in fundamentalist Islamist movements" (Zizek, 2007, p.3).Perhaps the key point is that the gap/void between is not just nothingness, there is a philosophical and political importance to what is on the edge of void and that which reveals the void; the concrete universal (p.21).
As can be seen, Badiou’s focus is on the possibility of change and the various forms of non-identity (established as a minimal difference in form) that operate within being. In doing so, however, Badiou stands accused of insufficiently focusing on the relationship between being/modification and site/event. Whilst similarly orientated theorists such as Zizek place much of their emphasis on ideological critique, Badiou remains focused on the event in itself. The focus on events (with its associated dismissal of knowledge) leads some to charge Badiou of depoliticising politics. Additionally, some, such as Levi Bryant (Bryant, 2007), suggest that Badiou does not pay enough attention to the structure of situations and the manner in which human ‘animals’ are attached to them. His focus is predominately events/truth-procedures as opposed to why human’s seldom recognise these elements/events. Essentially, Bryant is argues that Badiou has placed too little emphasis on knowledge/multiplicity and too much on the event, thus underplaying the attachment subjects have to the situations to which they belong.
Such an analysis is based on the Lacanian conception of the subject. The Lacanian subject, whilst structured around a lack, a fundamental negativity, is also characterised by an excess, a ‘want-to-be’. As Bryant states;“From the moment that the signifier appears it becomes possible to refer to the thing in the absence of that thing. Thus the signifier imbues the thing with absence, with its own death, with the possibility of its own non-being”(p.16). Thus, one has to consider as part of a signifier its own absence- the signifier differs not only from another signifier, but from itself.
Because the signifier (which represents the subject) cannot signify itself, it perpetually requires another signifier to signify it; we always desire another signifier which we believe to be the ‘final’ signifier . The logic of the signifier produces a lack of closure which acts as a positive condition for the subject. The lack in the symbolic produces an excessive over-determinism such that subject (according to Zizek, as opposed to Badiou[1]) has the capacity to formulate their own desire.
Desire, the ‘want-to-be’ which characterises the subject, prevents events from readily occurring. An event would reveal the constitutive lack in the Other which would prevent the discovery of the final signifier, thus as Bryant states;
"Consequently, there is a tendency within the subject to attribute substantiality and completeness to the Other- even when faced with vast bodies of evidence to the contrary, as an article of faith that the final signifier does exist…when faced with evidence to the contrary, the analysand does not revise or discard these beliefs, but instead holds all the more vigorously to his beliefs " (p18-19).
As a consequence of the desire for a final signifier, and the fantasy which supports desire, the subject/system has little interest in an exposure to Truth or an event. We must therefore ask under what conditions a subject/system may be open to an event and what kind of political intervention could produce these circumstances.
Traditional continental thought has tended to focus on the ideological structuration of the subject. Within Badiou’s work, however, the discussion of these mechanisms is generally unsatisfactory. As Bryant contends, for Badiou; “the world of language, ideology, power and custom is little more than simple opinion, standing in stark contrast to truth” (Bryant, 2007, p.5). Yet, despite this easy dismissal, the realm of opinion and axiomatic truth operates as the ideological adhesive of being. It is opinion, where the subject believes they are committed to truth (and the associated perfomative affect) that prevents the subject from entering into Badiou’s truth procedure and causing an event.
Badiou himself is not ignorant of this affect. Bryant (p.10-11) states that, for Badiou, situations are always doubly structured through presentation and representation. That is, elements both exist and structurally exist; they are not mutually exclusive in terms of their division into sets. We see this affect with the structuration of climate change discourse; climate change concern can range from the ‘eco-chic’ which features in everything from woman’s’ fashion magazines to eco-Marxism discourse.
Badiou also contends that every situation has a meta-structure/state of the situation that is responsible for ‘counting’ elements within a situation. Essentially the meta-structure creates the ideological conditions of universality. Badiou states;
“The void, which is the name of inconsistency in the situation (under the law of the count-as-one) cannot, in itself, be presented or fixed...it is necessary to prohibit that catastrophe of presentation which would be its encounter with its own void, the presentational occurrence of inconsistency as such, or the ruin of the One...In order for the void to be prohibited from presentation, it is necessary that structure be structured, that the ‘there is Oneness,’ be valid for the count-as-one. The consistence of presentation thus requires that all structure be doubled by a metastructure which secures the former against any fixation of the void” (Badiou, 2005, p.93-94).
Given the apparent structuring of the social, it appears that any political method that seeks change must aim at destabilising the mechanisms which all suturing the social. An intervention which rests its hope on an event occurring in itself appears to be politically optimistic, if not simply naive. In Zizek’s terms, what is required for an event/act to occur is a traversal of ideological fantasy, a process which requires an ideological critique.
In The Sublime Object of Ideology, Zizek presents an ethics that aims at loosening the hold of the symbolic. Here he states;
“we must not obliterate the distance separating the Real from its symbolisation: it is this surplus of the Real over every symbolisation that functions as the object-cause of desire. To come to terms with this surplus (or more precisely, leftover) means to acknowledge a fundamental deadlock (‘antagonism’), a kernel resisting symbolic integration-dissolution” (Zizek, 1989, p.3)
Politically, we must resist desire to suture that which is on the edge of the void, to create yet another positivisation that would cover over and hide the fundamental antagonism within the social (Bryant, 2007,p.21). Badiou himself suggests something similar in his notion of subtractive politics. Badiou contrasts his subtractive politics with the 20th century passion for the real; a modernist desire to strip away illusionary narratives to find the hard kernel ‘x’ beyond narrative. This passion involves an attempt to short-circuit the relationship between the ideal and the real; what is real becomes the ideal. This modernist desire brought with it a politics of destruction (Johnston, 2007, p.15-16).
Badiou revokes the politics of destruction with his formulation of the politics of subtraction. Subtractive politics attempts to examine and utilise the fundamentally negative ontology of the social. This is a move from positive to negative politics. Badiou suggests that this subtractive path involves examining the real not as that which is behind reality, but rather as the minimal difference within reality itself (Johnston, 2007, p.16).
Zizek also evokes the pertinence of the Deleuzian term "minimal difference" –a miniscule (formal) difference that separates an element as a contingent (or rather, externally caused) crisis point within statist ideology, or that very same point as a symptom of the repressed Truth of the state (Zizek, 2007, p.5). This is the art of politics of 'minimal difference';" to be able to employ a parallax view which enables the political analyst to discover which elements have to potential to come loose from ideology, producing an ontological anxiety of truth, caused by the unmediated presence of Truth.
In order to employ such a parallax perspective as a tool of the politics of minimal difference, an ideological critique needs to be performed. Zizek states that the aim of such a critique is not to reveal something new to the reader, but rather something disturbing about what they already knew (Zizek, 2006). This kind of analysis is not readily available within Badiou’s work. Although Badiou utilises the notion of minimal difference in the idea that elements are always doubly inscribed, both presented and represented, the focus is much more on event then the stabilising role of ideology in holding movement to modifications as opposed to singularity and event.
The mistake, as Johnston notes, is that because of the grip of ideological fantasy, one can not readily see the possibility of an event without ideological critique; an event will not just appear, it will always be ‘doubly inscribed’ in ideology. As such, any political intervention that aims at producing an event must also engage in an ideological intervention through a through interpretation of the structure of the situation, including the economies of jouissance in operation. As such, Bryant suggests that;
"rather than looking to Zizek's various texts for a theory of practice or what we should do, we should instead read these texts themselves as a form of practice. That is, we should not ask whether Zizek's interpretations are true or false, but should instead ask what these interpretations do" (Bryant, 2007, p.22).
Zizek himself suggests that the primary task of emancipatory analysis is to reject the represented ideological dualism of axiomatic ‘truths’ and falsity and bring in the third term which maintains this division (Zizek, 2007, p.3);
“The hegemonic ideological field imposes on us a field of ideological visibility with its own principal contradiction (today that opposition is market-freedom-democracy vs. fundamentalist-terrorist-totalitarianism-Islamofascism etc), and the first thing to do is to reject (subtract) from this opposition to perceive it as a false opposition destined to obfuscate the true line of division...The basic operation of hegemonic ideology is to enforce a false point, to oppose a false choice" (p.3)
As Adrian Johnston contends;
“No critical theoretical analysis of ideology is immune from the threat of being appropriated by ideologically duplicitous rationalisations of quietism... not only is it possible to lie in the guise of truth- any truth can be twisted into a tool for engendering an acceptance of the status quo”.
Thus, while there is no fail-safe method for destabilising ideology in the name of change, to have change we must focus on existing stability. That is, given the negative ontological structure of the social, the prospect of change is always a possibility. Yet, through ideological fantasy, this prospect rarely eventuates. In order to thing change of the scale which Badiou seeks, a more focused critique of existing ideology is required. Optimally, this critique will take the form of a parallax view, opening up the space of minimal difference within the social and exposing the possibility of an event. Any political position, such as Badiou’s, which places its main emphasis on event as the expense of ideology is, in my opinion, short-sighted. Yet, this is not to dismiss Badiou’s work. Ontologically, his position is very Lacanian and his concepts of modification and site appear productive. Yet, because of the previously mentioned over-emphasis on change at the expense of stability, it appears that something is missing in his work that may be available in Zizek.
Badiou, A. (2005). Being and Event (O. Feltham, Trans.). London: Continuum.
Bryant, L. R. (2007). Symptomal Knots and Evental Ruptures: Zizek, Badiou, and Discerning the Indiscernible. International Journal of Zizek Studies, 1(1).
Johnston, A. (2007). The Quick and the Dead: Alain Badiou and the Split Speeds of Transformation. International Journal of Zizek Studies, 1(2).
Zizek, S. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
[1] For Badiou the subject only emerges through an event
Badiou makes a sharp distinction between repetition (the realm of knowledge, the existing ideological parameters of the social) and disruption in the form of events (Johnston, 2007, p.2). Badiou contends that nothing new can come from knowledge and as such it is not worth the interest of the philosopher, nor the politician, or at least the radical political analyst. Instead Badiou proposes a politics focused on the prospects of rupture or discontinuity within knowledge, as caused by an event.
Much of Badiou’s philosophy is based on developing the distinction between these two categories, although, as we shall later develop it is the link/gap between the two which holds more political interest. The social world is considered to be a state of constant flux, but this movement comes in different categories and degrees. As such Badiou proposes the general category of becoming the signify the movement of the social realm. Elements do not just exist, they enter into the realm of being and ‘become’. Becoming is divided into modification (becoming without any real change) and site, a place with the potential give rise to real change. Speaking in Zizekian terms, site can be considered to be the area where the symptom and concrete universal come to match up, either through the strength of the excluded concrete universal or the failure of ideological shock absorbers to deal with its symptomatic excess.
Site itself is sub-divided into deed/occurrence- a site which, while not strictly a modification (it is outside of the ideological realm) lacks the affective performative element that would produce a strong situational effect - and singularity, a site with possibility of producing intense and far-ranging structural change. In this division, a deed or occurrence may be a change which operates under the radar of the structuring ideology and as such may exist in structural contradiction to that ideology, without posing a threat. A non-profit community group could be an example here; their activities maybe in contradiction to capitalism, but their scale is such that little movement is detected. In contrast, a singularity is structurally located in a position that positing more of a threat to the central ideological fantasy. Some elements of climate change discourse are an example of a singularity.
Additionally Badiou divides singularity into 'weak singularity' as a dormant singularity which does not produce change. This (symptomatic) element does not cause radical transformation, but retains the possibility of doing so. Opposed to weak singularity is event, whose consequences are maximal; an event changes the co-ordinates of being (p.3-4). The difference between these elements is one of a minimal difference. The difference does not lie in content, but rather form; at any stage an element can move from a deed to an event, depending on its relationship with the hegemonic universal ideology. Again, climate change is the paradigmatic example. Initially, climate change was little more than an occurrence, a symptom at the margins of capitalist ideology. Recently though, it has produced far greater anxiety, suggesting that it had moved to becoming a site of singularity with the possibility of provoking an event. Such has been the effect of capital, however, that climate change has been integrated into the official ideology; it has become a mere modification.
What Badiou desires, both philosophically and politically, is for an element like climate change to become an evental site. Badiou defines an evental site as;
“an entirely abnormal multiple, that is, a multiple such that none of its elements are presented in the situation. The site, itself, is presented, but 'beneath' it nothing from which it is composed is presented. As such, the site is not part of the situation. I will also say of such a multiple that it is on the edge of the void..." (Badiou, 2005, p.175).
He adds;
“It becomes clearer why an evental site can be said to be one the edge of the void when we remember that from the perspective of the situation this multiple is made up exclusively of non-presented multiples. Just beneath this multiple, if we consider the multiples from which it is composed- there is nothing, because none of its are themselves counted as one. A site is therefore the minimal effect of structure which can be conceived; it is such that it belongs to the situation, whilst what belongs to it in turn does not. The border effect in which this multiple touches upon the void originates in its consistency (its one multiple) being composed solely from what, with respect to the situation, in-consists. Within the situation, this multiple is, but that of which it is the multiple is not" (p.175)
Thus, an event raises what had been previously unseen, unknowable within the hegemonic co-ordinates of the order, to a position of power (Johnston, 2007, p.20). This position of power is not an initially constructive force, rather it forces a re-scrabble of the ideological matrix; that which has been excluded holds no greater truth than what already existed. Rather, its presence unveils the gap between what Zizek labels the abstract universal imaginary (the existing ideology) and its necessary exclusion- the concrete universal. The eruption of this gap, the materialist Truth of these circumstances, causes us to reconsider the manner in which we previously held the axiomatic truths which found our society. Thus, although Truth causes a radical reconsideration of what is, the positive form of the excluded truth- the concrete universal- holds no more Truth in itself than the abstract universal. As Zizek states; "one should be clear here in rejecting the dangerous motto "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" which leads us to discover "progressive" anti-imperialist potential in fundamentalist Islamist movements" (Zizek, 2007, p.3).Perhaps the key point is that the gap/void between is not just nothingness, there is a philosophical and political importance to what is on the edge of void and that which reveals the void; the concrete universal (p.21).
As can be seen, Badiou’s focus is on the possibility of change and the various forms of non-identity (established as a minimal difference in form) that operate within being. In doing so, however, Badiou stands accused of insufficiently focusing on the relationship between being/modification and site/event. Whilst similarly orientated theorists such as Zizek place much of their emphasis on ideological critique, Badiou remains focused on the event in itself. The focus on events (with its associated dismissal of knowledge) leads some to charge Badiou of depoliticising politics. Additionally, some, such as Levi Bryant (Bryant, 2007), suggest that Badiou does not pay enough attention to the structure of situations and the manner in which human ‘animals’ are attached to them. His focus is predominately events/truth-procedures as opposed to why human’s seldom recognise these elements/events. Essentially, Bryant is argues that Badiou has placed too little emphasis on knowledge/multiplicity and too much on the event, thus underplaying the attachment subjects have to the situations to which they belong.
Such an analysis is based on the Lacanian conception of the subject. The Lacanian subject, whilst structured around a lack, a fundamental negativity, is also characterised by an excess, a ‘want-to-be’. As Bryant states;“From the moment that the signifier appears it becomes possible to refer to the thing in the absence of that thing. Thus the signifier imbues the thing with absence, with its own death, with the possibility of its own non-being”(p.16). Thus, one has to consider as part of a signifier its own absence- the signifier differs not only from another signifier, but from itself.
Because the signifier (which represents the subject) cannot signify itself, it perpetually requires another signifier to signify it; we always desire another signifier which we believe to be the ‘final’ signifier . The logic of the signifier produces a lack of closure which acts as a positive condition for the subject. The lack in the symbolic produces an excessive over-determinism such that subject (according to Zizek, as opposed to Badiou[1]) has the capacity to formulate their own desire.
Desire, the ‘want-to-be’ which characterises the subject, prevents events from readily occurring. An event would reveal the constitutive lack in the Other which would prevent the discovery of the final signifier, thus as Bryant states;
"Consequently, there is a tendency within the subject to attribute substantiality and completeness to the Other- even when faced with vast bodies of evidence to the contrary, as an article of faith that the final signifier does exist…when faced with evidence to the contrary, the analysand does not revise or discard these beliefs, but instead holds all the more vigorously to his beliefs " (p18-19).
As a consequence of the desire for a final signifier, and the fantasy which supports desire, the subject/system has little interest in an exposure to Truth or an event. We must therefore ask under what conditions a subject/system may be open to an event and what kind of political intervention could produce these circumstances.
Traditional continental thought has tended to focus on the ideological structuration of the subject. Within Badiou’s work, however, the discussion of these mechanisms is generally unsatisfactory. As Bryant contends, for Badiou; “the world of language, ideology, power and custom is little more than simple opinion, standing in stark contrast to truth” (Bryant, 2007, p.5). Yet, despite this easy dismissal, the realm of opinion and axiomatic truth operates as the ideological adhesive of being. It is opinion, where the subject believes they are committed to truth (and the associated perfomative affect) that prevents the subject from entering into Badiou’s truth procedure and causing an event.
Badiou himself is not ignorant of this affect. Bryant (p.10-11) states that, for Badiou, situations are always doubly structured through presentation and representation. That is, elements both exist and structurally exist; they are not mutually exclusive in terms of their division into sets. We see this affect with the structuration of climate change discourse; climate change concern can range from the ‘eco-chic’ which features in everything from woman’s’ fashion magazines to eco-Marxism discourse.
Badiou also contends that every situation has a meta-structure/state of the situation that is responsible for ‘counting’ elements within a situation. Essentially the meta-structure creates the ideological conditions of universality. Badiou states;
“The void, which is the name of inconsistency in the situation (under the law of the count-as-one) cannot, in itself, be presented or fixed...it is necessary to prohibit that catastrophe of presentation which would be its encounter with its own void, the presentational occurrence of inconsistency as such, or the ruin of the One...In order for the void to be prohibited from presentation, it is necessary that structure be structured, that the ‘there is Oneness,’ be valid for the count-as-one. The consistence of presentation thus requires that all structure be doubled by a metastructure which secures the former against any fixation of the void” (Badiou, 2005, p.93-94).
Given the apparent structuring of the social, it appears that any political method that seeks change must aim at destabilising the mechanisms which all suturing the social. An intervention which rests its hope on an event occurring in itself appears to be politically optimistic, if not simply naive. In Zizek’s terms, what is required for an event/act to occur is a traversal of ideological fantasy, a process which requires an ideological critique.
In The Sublime Object of Ideology, Zizek presents an ethics that aims at loosening the hold of the symbolic. Here he states;
“we must not obliterate the distance separating the Real from its symbolisation: it is this surplus of the Real over every symbolisation that functions as the object-cause of desire. To come to terms with this surplus (or more precisely, leftover) means to acknowledge a fundamental deadlock (‘antagonism’), a kernel resisting symbolic integration-dissolution” (Zizek, 1989, p.3)
Politically, we must resist desire to suture that which is on the edge of the void, to create yet another positivisation that would cover over and hide the fundamental antagonism within the social (Bryant, 2007,p.21). Badiou himself suggests something similar in his notion of subtractive politics. Badiou contrasts his subtractive politics with the 20th century passion for the real; a modernist desire to strip away illusionary narratives to find the hard kernel ‘x’ beyond narrative. This passion involves an attempt to short-circuit the relationship between the ideal and the real; what is real becomes the ideal. This modernist desire brought with it a politics of destruction (Johnston, 2007, p.15-16).
Badiou revokes the politics of destruction with his formulation of the politics of subtraction. Subtractive politics attempts to examine and utilise the fundamentally negative ontology of the social. This is a move from positive to negative politics. Badiou suggests that this subtractive path involves examining the real not as that which is behind reality, but rather as the minimal difference within reality itself (Johnston, 2007, p.16).
Zizek also evokes the pertinence of the Deleuzian term "minimal difference" –a miniscule (formal) difference that separates an element as a contingent (or rather, externally caused) crisis point within statist ideology, or that very same point as a symptom of the repressed Truth of the state (Zizek, 2007, p.5). This is the art of politics of 'minimal difference';" to be able to employ a parallax view which enables the political analyst to discover which elements have to potential to come loose from ideology, producing an ontological anxiety of truth, caused by the unmediated presence of Truth.
In order to employ such a parallax perspective as a tool of the politics of minimal difference, an ideological critique needs to be performed. Zizek states that the aim of such a critique is not to reveal something new to the reader, but rather something disturbing about what they already knew (Zizek, 2006). This kind of analysis is not readily available within Badiou’s work. Although Badiou utilises the notion of minimal difference in the idea that elements are always doubly inscribed, both presented and represented, the focus is much more on event then the stabilising role of ideology in holding movement to modifications as opposed to singularity and event.
The mistake, as Johnston notes, is that because of the grip of ideological fantasy, one can not readily see the possibility of an event without ideological critique; an event will not just appear, it will always be ‘doubly inscribed’ in ideology. As such, any political intervention that aims at producing an event must also engage in an ideological intervention through a through interpretation of the structure of the situation, including the economies of jouissance in operation. As such, Bryant suggests that;
"rather than looking to Zizek's various texts for a theory of practice or what we should do, we should instead read these texts themselves as a form of practice. That is, we should not ask whether Zizek's interpretations are true or false, but should instead ask what these interpretations do" (Bryant, 2007, p.22).
Zizek himself suggests that the primary task of emancipatory analysis is to reject the represented ideological dualism of axiomatic ‘truths’ and falsity and bring in the third term which maintains this division (Zizek, 2007, p.3);
“The hegemonic ideological field imposes on us a field of ideological visibility with its own principal contradiction (today that opposition is market-freedom-democracy vs. fundamentalist-terrorist-totalitarianism-Islamofascism etc), and the first thing to do is to reject (subtract) from this opposition to perceive it as a false opposition destined to obfuscate the true line of division...The basic operation of hegemonic ideology is to enforce a false point, to oppose a false choice" (p.3)
As Adrian Johnston contends;
“No critical theoretical analysis of ideology is immune from the threat of being appropriated by ideologically duplicitous rationalisations of quietism... not only is it possible to lie in the guise of truth- any truth can be twisted into a tool for engendering an acceptance of the status quo”.
Thus, while there is no fail-safe method for destabilising ideology in the name of change, to have change we must focus on existing stability. That is, given the negative ontological structure of the social, the prospect of change is always a possibility. Yet, through ideological fantasy, this prospect rarely eventuates. In order to thing change of the scale which Badiou seeks, a more focused critique of existing ideology is required. Optimally, this critique will take the form of a parallax view, opening up the space of minimal difference within the social and exposing the possibility of an event. Any political position, such as Badiou’s, which places its main emphasis on event as the expense of ideology is, in my opinion, short-sighted. Yet, this is not to dismiss Badiou’s work. Ontologically, his position is very Lacanian and his concepts of modification and site appear productive. Yet, because of the previously mentioned over-emphasis on change at the expense of stability, it appears that something is missing in his work that may be available in Zizek.
Badiou, A. (2005). Being and Event (O. Feltham, Trans.). London: Continuum.
Bryant, L. R. (2007). Symptomal Knots and Evental Ruptures: Zizek, Badiou, and Discerning the Indiscernible. International Journal of Zizek Studies, 1(1).
Johnston, A. (2007). The Quick and the Dead: Alain Badiou and the Split Speeds of Transformation. International Journal of Zizek Studies, 1(2).
Zizek, S. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
[1] For Badiou the subject only emerges through an event
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