At 08:00 PM 19-11-98 +0000, you wrote:
>In laclau latter works ( New reflections on the Revoltiuon of Our
>time) there is a clear Lacanian shift in the conception of the
>subject as a lack. The lack in the subject is a correlate for the
>lack in the Other. I know that Michel-Gilles following the old
>Friederick would be in the side of the "abundance of being", of
>Energy, elan vital, excess of life over knowledge. And Derrida, Lacan
>would be ontologizing the lackness in every structure/order. But I
>think it is pssible to use both "sides" -whatever yopu want- in order
>to ground radical criticism and critical politics. At the end, both
>are two sides of the same coin.
>laclau's idea that "society is impossible" it is not thatcherite.
>Furthermore, may be thatcher "did not know abot what she was speaking
>about".
I quite agree that Laclau's idea is decidedly *not* Thatcherite, and I am
myself convinced that a concept of "society" or of an essentialist/adequate
"totality" is impossible, just as I am convinced that a notion of an
"articulated discursive totality" is indispensible, at least for a leftist
analysis or socio-political theory.
Come to think of it though, I am piqued by the fact that Thatcher's
statement, the whole awful rise of New Right hegemony in the U.S/UK, and L
& M's *H&SS*, were all contemporaneous. I don't mean to imply some kind of
guilt by association, however. Rather, it just strikes me how far we've
come from the modern era of Johnson's "great society" in the U.S., and from
an older modern era (i.e., the long 19th Century) analyzed by Karl Polyani
years ago now. (Polyani's *The Great Transformation,* I mean, and his
historical analysis of the dialectic b/w "market" and "society").
Anyway, let me just respond to two points you raised. First, I am not sure
what you (or Laclau) mean by saying "Hegemony is the name of the way any
political identity is
>constituted." I realize Laclau had already moved away from his work on
"suture" and the "ruptures" of popular discourse, to a more
psychoanalysis-inflected perspective on subject constitution. But still I
thought that "hegemony" still referred to a larger, social-process "thing,"
and that vis a vis subject-constitution Laclau was thinking in terms of
Lacan/Althusser/Zizek (i.e., "interpellation" thru ideology)? Why use the
term "hegemony" instead of "subjectivation" or, alternatively,
"interpellation"?
(Of course, I ought to just sit down and finally read that long
intro-chapter in the *New Reflections* book....)
>I want to proposse to follow on with the question of the "critique"
>in Foucault's work. Is Taylor's Foucault a "taylor-made" Foucault?.
>How to understand a "politcs of resistance"?.
>I have my own opinion which is the non-necessity to ground anything
>about resistance. It is simply done. "Politics of oneself". I would
>say, Foucault ethical stance, ethical tint, it is "beyond" (here,
>yes, in the sense of "superation") eros and tanathos (Philosophy
>Today 32-2, see article, I reccomend it)death and life.
>
I am not familiar with Charles Taylor's work on Foucault, and can hardly
remember reading his essay in the Critical Reader (ed. by D. Hoy) on
Foucault -- but do tell me which stuff of Taylor's to dig up on this. I am
sure though that other people on this list must have more familiarity with
Taylor, and the debates around Foucault's politics vis a vis freedom,
truth, etc (which I assume is what Taylor gets into).
But perhaps another thing to put on the table for discussion here would be:
Foucauldian accounts of subject-constitution (and the "politics" thereof)
vs. Lacanian or neo-Gramscian ones. (I am sure this opposition leaves a
lot of work out, but it seem to me to work nonetheless, esp if you put
Deleuzian- or Derridean- inspired work in the former and latter camps,
respectively). As you noted, one place of divergence here would be that of
thinking the subject in terms of "lack" or in terms of a more monist,
"positive" way. I agree that both accounts can effectively ground
critique, but you also say they are in effect two sides of the same coin,
and I am just curious why you think that. It is at any rate interesting to
consider the different types of analyses, of "politics," and of "world
views" that subtend each of these ways of seeing the subject.....
Finally, you noted that:
>Later works differ a bit. Mainly Laclau's ones. Hegemony is precisely
>a logic to artuculate between the particular and the universal.
>Furthermore, a universal is an empty place that to more empty is more
>possibility to articulate different positions it have. The very
>activity to fill in this empty place is an hegemonic activity and it
>is done through articulation (which is the oppsoite to mediation).
I think the problematic of "articulation" is indeed important, and is one
place where Laclau (and Mouffe) are indeed gramscian (or rather, with a nod
to Steve Darcy, neo-gramscian) and althusserian. I especially like Stuart
Hall's work in this regard,and esp in relation to his analyses of
Thatcherism. But I also think that in less careful hands, "articulation"
can be too easy -- kind of a constructi-kit for thinking about identities
and social wholes. I mean the point where one assumes - everything is
articulated, and this articualtion is never stable or enduring, but always
freshly made, etc -- is the point where the whole problematic becomes
itself about "the plenitude of social being" which strikes me not only as
profoundly wrong, but as itself sheer ideology. That, I think, is the
term's/problematic's moment of danger.
And I think a healthy dose of "mediation" -- as either simply a logic, or a
whole dialectic -- can be the cure. In short, and against the house of
articulation devotees, I think there are *economic* forces or lines of
determination that cut across *every* portion of social space, or of a
totality. (This is obviously a more Hegelian- than Althusserian- type of
marxism) Obviously I have in mind something like "socialized capital," but
I should think it would be possible to think of other, non-economic ones --
esp around gender or sexuality. That, I think, is in part what Teresa
Brennan is up to in *History After Lacan,* where she argues that the
subject/object split is not only inherent to producing gender (the
masculine/feminine), but that this is only *historically* so, even if it is
imbricated with virtually everything else in western or "postmodern"
societies. So perhaps I want to have my cake and eat it to, but I think
both articulation and mediation are necessary logics.
cheers, and with thanks for helping me think through all this again,
Dan
>Department of Government Tel: 44-1206-874271
>University of Essex Fax: 44-1206-873598
>Wivenhoe Park E-mail: ajgrop@xxxxxxxxxxx
>Colchester C04 3SQ
>England
-------------------------------------------
Daniel Vukovich
English; The Unit for Criticism
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-------------------------------------------
>In laclau latter works ( New reflections on the Revoltiuon of Our
>time) there is a clear Lacanian shift in the conception of the
>subject as a lack. The lack in the subject is a correlate for the
>lack in the Other. I know that Michel-Gilles following the old
>Friederick would be in the side of the "abundance of being", of
>Energy, elan vital, excess of life over knowledge. And Derrida, Lacan
>would be ontologizing the lackness in every structure/order. But I
>think it is pssible to use both "sides" -whatever yopu want- in order
>to ground radical criticism and critical politics. At the end, both
>are two sides of the same coin.
>laclau's idea that "society is impossible" it is not thatcherite.
>Furthermore, may be thatcher "did not know abot what she was speaking
>about".
I quite agree that Laclau's idea is decidedly *not* Thatcherite, and I am
myself convinced that a concept of "society" or of an essentialist/adequate
"totality" is impossible, just as I am convinced that a notion of an
"articulated discursive totality" is indispensible, at least for a leftist
analysis or socio-political theory.
Come to think of it though, I am piqued by the fact that Thatcher's
statement, the whole awful rise of New Right hegemony in the U.S/UK, and L
& M's *H&SS*, were all contemporaneous. I don't mean to imply some kind of
guilt by association, however. Rather, it just strikes me how far we've
come from the modern era of Johnson's "great society" in the U.S., and from
an older modern era (i.e., the long 19th Century) analyzed by Karl Polyani
years ago now. (Polyani's *The Great Transformation,* I mean, and his
historical analysis of the dialectic b/w "market" and "society").
Anyway, let me just respond to two points you raised. First, I am not sure
what you (or Laclau) mean by saying "Hegemony is the name of the way any
political identity is
>constituted." I realize Laclau had already moved away from his work on
"suture" and the "ruptures" of popular discourse, to a more
psychoanalysis-inflected perspective on subject constitution. But still I
thought that "hegemony" still referred to a larger, social-process "thing,"
and that vis a vis subject-constitution Laclau was thinking in terms of
Lacan/Althusser/Zizek (i.e., "interpellation" thru ideology)? Why use the
term "hegemony" instead of "subjectivation" or, alternatively,
"interpellation"?
(Of course, I ought to just sit down and finally read that long
intro-chapter in the *New Reflections* book....)
>I want to proposse to follow on with the question of the "critique"
>in Foucault's work. Is Taylor's Foucault a "taylor-made" Foucault?.
>How to understand a "politcs of resistance"?.
>I have my own opinion which is the non-necessity to ground anything
>about resistance. It is simply done. "Politics of oneself". I would
>say, Foucault ethical stance, ethical tint, it is "beyond" (here,
>yes, in the sense of "superation") eros and tanathos (Philosophy
>Today 32-2, see article, I reccomend it)death and life.
>
I am not familiar with Charles Taylor's work on Foucault, and can hardly
remember reading his essay in the Critical Reader (ed. by D. Hoy) on
Foucault -- but do tell me which stuff of Taylor's to dig up on this. I am
sure though that other people on this list must have more familiarity with
Taylor, and the debates around Foucault's politics vis a vis freedom,
truth, etc (which I assume is what Taylor gets into).
But perhaps another thing to put on the table for discussion here would be:
Foucauldian accounts of subject-constitution (and the "politics" thereof)
vs. Lacanian or neo-Gramscian ones. (I am sure this opposition leaves a
lot of work out, but it seem to me to work nonetheless, esp if you put
Deleuzian- or Derridean- inspired work in the former and latter camps,
respectively). As you noted, one place of divergence here would be that of
thinking the subject in terms of "lack" or in terms of a more monist,
"positive" way. I agree that both accounts can effectively ground
critique, but you also say they are in effect two sides of the same coin,
and I am just curious why you think that. It is at any rate interesting to
consider the different types of analyses, of "politics," and of "world
views" that subtend each of these ways of seeing the subject.....
Finally, you noted that:
>Later works differ a bit. Mainly Laclau's ones. Hegemony is precisely
>a logic to artuculate between the particular and the universal.
>Furthermore, a universal is an empty place that to more empty is more
>possibility to articulate different positions it have. The very
>activity to fill in this empty place is an hegemonic activity and it
>is done through articulation (which is the oppsoite to mediation).
I think the problematic of "articulation" is indeed important, and is one
place where Laclau (and Mouffe) are indeed gramscian (or rather, with a nod
to Steve Darcy, neo-gramscian) and althusserian. I especially like Stuart
Hall's work in this regard,and esp in relation to his analyses of
Thatcherism. But I also think that in less careful hands, "articulation"
can be too easy -- kind of a constructi-kit for thinking about identities
and social wholes. I mean the point where one assumes - everything is
articulated, and this articualtion is never stable or enduring, but always
freshly made, etc -- is the point where the whole problematic becomes
itself about "the plenitude of social being" which strikes me not only as
profoundly wrong, but as itself sheer ideology. That, I think, is the
term's/problematic's moment of danger.
And I think a healthy dose of "mediation" -- as either simply a logic, or a
whole dialectic -- can be the cure. In short, and against the house of
articulation devotees, I think there are *economic* forces or lines of
determination that cut across *every* portion of social space, or of a
totality. (This is obviously a more Hegelian- than Althusserian- type of
marxism) Obviously I have in mind something like "socialized capital," but
I should think it would be possible to think of other, non-economic ones --
esp around gender or sexuality. That, I think, is in part what Teresa
Brennan is up to in *History After Lacan,* where she argues that the
subject/object split is not only inherent to producing gender (the
masculine/feminine), but that this is only *historically* so, even if it is
imbricated with virtually everything else in western or "postmodern"
societies. So perhaps I want to have my cake and eat it to, but I think
both articulation and mediation are necessary logics.
cheers, and with thanks for helping me think through all this again,
Dan
>Department of Government Tel: 44-1206-874271
>University of Essex Fax: 44-1206-873598
>Wivenhoe Park E-mail: ajgrop@xxxxxxxxxxx
>Colchester C04 3SQ
>England
-------------------------------------------
Daniel Vukovich
English; The Unit for Criticism
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-------------------------------------------