The Party's Over: Let the Party Begin! (part 2)

The basic thesis I started developing in part is that Zizek's appeal to the Party in his later writings is not inconsistent with his critical assessment of the totalitarian party in his early writings. Why? because the Party is different and this difference rests in its relation to knowledge and truth.

I left off with Zizek's turn to the concept of post-politics as a formation which forecloses the political, that is, which emphatically prevents the universalization/politicization of particulars. This is the situation we face today in the US and Europe, a situation that rejects ideological division in favor of a consensus around the inevitability of capitalism and the need to work through difficulties therapeutically, with managerial techniques of compromise and consensus, with toleration and acceptance of difference. Zizek refers to this post-political formation as 'globalization with particularization'  and as  liberal fundamentalism.  The excluded underpinning or excess of this formation appears in the figure of the immigrant, the homeless wandering extra that seems to have no place, and the eruptions of irrational violence typically targeted at the immigrant as that which would disturbs the whole, that which stains the nation, steals our enjoyment, prevents our economy from working the way it should for us.

How, then, can one escape the closure of post-politics? In Ticklish Subject, Zizek doesn't answer this question. Rather, he argues that the approaches of other political theorists are wrong. The efforts of Laclau, Ranciere, Badiou, and Balibar remain trapped in 'marginalist' politics, that is, politics that ultimately  accept their own defeat: they persist in reaffirming an order or enemy that they must be resisted or countered from the margins. Yet, in so doing, they presume the cooptation of the previously marginalized movement, the continuation of the overall order itself. In short, marginal politics refuses to take responsibility for exercising or holding power.  Radical politics, in other words, continues to rely on the Master to meet their demands, to take responsibility and actually exercise power.

Another way to explain the same identity is in terms of the radical democratic fear of ontologization. There is a wariness toward not only utopian but any positive political project insofar as that project risks presenting itself as a new totality, a new order. Zizek counters with the argument that such closure is impossible; lack or negativity, a gap, is the condition for the possibility of any ontology. The split, in other words, is absolute.

In "Lenin's Choice," Zizek turns to the Party as a political form capable of breaking through the trap of a politics of resistance. Crucial to this move is the differences between the Leninist model of the Party that Zizek advocates and the totalitarian party.  The difference involves the status of knowledge: the knowledge of the Leninist party is formal; the knowledge of the totalitarian party refers to a set of contents.

More specifically, the 'truth' of the totalitarian party is a semblance. It is uttered to legitimize the pragmatic decisions of its rules; its truth stems from S2, from specific neutral contents linked to scientific facts or laws of history. The facts speak for themselves and the totalitarian party serves merely as an instrument to carry them out. To this extent, the Party or Leader fails to accept full political responsibility.

In contrast, the knowledge of the Leninist Party is like the knowledge of the analyst. It is the formal knowledge of a collective political subject, not the objective knowledge of a set of facts. This form of knowledge is necessary because the people (or the working class), like any subject, is necessarily split, unable to know fully its own interests or to act own them. The Party, then, intervenes from the outside. It mediates the working class (people's) relation to itself. Or, we might say that it represents in another space, provides the matrix for, or gives form to the truth of our (the people's activity). To this end, the Party expresses the partisan truth of the situation, the truth of the political antagonism that ruptures the social.

The Party, then, is a form for taking political responsibility. Unlike the totalitarian party that treats itself as an instrument of an objective knowledge, the Party Zizek advocates is a political organization linked to the truth of the antagonism rupturing capitalist society. Its knowledge is always certain and right (it's a version of the subject supposed to know or, put in political theory terms, another version of Rousseu's general will), but not given in advance. Rather, it is the position from which the political truth of the situation can be discerned.

Zizek's turn to the Party should also be distinguished from political approaches that continue to take freedom and democracy as self-evident, non-negotiable reference points. Not only does the failure to question freedom and democracy protect the presumption of private property that underpins them, but the presumed need for democratic legitimation makes radical action impossible: truly radical action is never legitimate within a given order; such an act is not guaranteed in advance but rather retroactively after it has been carried out. Democratic action, then, is one type of political action among many (Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle, 87).

Finally, in Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle, Zizek attaches his analysis of the objective, knowledge-based metapolitics of the totalitarian party to Lacan's account of the discourse of the university: university discourse presents itself in terms of S2, the facts of the matter, occluding the power relations that sustain claims to neutrality and scienticity. Hence the university discourse as the rule of expert knowledge relies on the same sort of obscene underpinning of power as totalitarian metapolitics (144).

....
That's it for now. My goal in these two short pieces has been to try to systematize some of Zizek's thinking on the Party, to demonstrate that there is a consistent line of argumentation throughout his work. And, I'm doing this because there is a sense among some philosophers and political theorists that Zizek isn't serious, that he is an extreme pseudo-theorist. I disagree and so want to trace out the underlying system in a way that might be convincing to his critics. In addition to systematizing some of his other concepts (I have articles on his notions of law and democracy), I will also be working out potential repercussions or extensions of his ideas. That is, I want to argue to political theorists that Zizek is useful in thinking about the present.

Comments

[klaus]

It would be interesting to have this distilled into a form that is understandble to people who have not read Zizek, but who are tyrannized by structurelessness.

[Jodi]

Klaus,
I agree. That was my goal with these two little posts, but I don't think I've reached it. What isn't clear to me is how much I need to explain, that is, how much needs to be clarified. How much knowledge of political theory or philosophy should I presuppose? I also get bogged down into wanting folks who have read Zizek to assess my take on it as a kind a check. And, what I think happens too often is that I miss both targets.

[klaus]

Yes. I didn't intend my first comment to be pejorative - because it's damn hard to translate this into understandable terms. I spend much time interacting with people who have no college, and I can see how the dynamic is affecting their lives without having a good way to explain it to them or even to myself. The way you translate helps me get closer to be able to do that.

[George W.]

I dont mean to sound pssimistic...but I'm not sure if the requisite Political Theory/Philosophy 101 is condensable into an intro of such an article (or even a good book). Not to say that everyone should not take such a class, they should, all the same, just how much can you simplify to explain to someone without actually needing an intro lesson on all the foundations that explain why even the least bit of Zizek is important.

Or I guess what I am trying to say is that I think there is a separation between the "lay" population and those who read Zizek (or more importantly care about what he says), which is only passable by moving the "lay" part into the caring part, but not by any simplifications of Lacan and Hegel.

And if this is meant for Political Theorists, yes they should know all those foundations, but then their frame of reference is drastically different. They are not talking about the need for change, or even that there is a "problem" with a current state of things - what is, they are not trynig to answer certain questions in their head, so Zizek, even if understood, will seem mute. (aside from being appreciated for a witty film analysis or something)

Or to respond to the very last sentence of your post - do most political theorists (not the x-dem guys) want to think about the present at all, or are they content at just creating better explanations for the past?

[Jodi]

Klaus, I didn't think your comment was pejorative at all. And, even if it were, doesn't matter, you're right. It also sets into relief the way the privileged nature of reading and talking about theory, not that disadvantaged people or people without a college education can't read theory or aren't interested in it, but that the deck is stacked against them. This in turn means that more accessible explanations and interpretations of the world around them are likely to be stickier, more compelling--with religion currently having a big advantage.

[Jodi]

George, good point--if my target is political theorists, then I should establish that there is a problem that Zizek helps us think better about. It could work with a more general audience (undergrads?) of folks considered about democracy and capital. It's not the case that the majority of political theorists in the US are only or primarily interested in the past. There are all sorts of discussion about democracy, freedom, justice, rights, participation, deliberation, governmentality, discipline, constituent power, multitudes, generosity, recognition, identity, distribution, pluralization, micropolitics, space, place, etc.

[Alain]

Jodi

I am not a "professional thinker" but I have read a bit of Zizek and I find him both exciting and frustrating. He has great insight and yet I feel he leaves one in a theoretical no-man's land. That a "true" act is only justified after the fact seems to leave us with nothing but a retrospective justification of revolutionary activity. Does this really bring any insight to the question of "What is to be done?" It seems to me that such a criteria is empty enough to justify almost anything. Doesn't the Baby Bush use this logic when he is asked about his "legacy?" He says he will leave it to the historians to decide. Roughly half the country cannot stand Bush but in twenty years the world will still be suffering/celebrating from the decisions he made. It would seem that he is quite the Zizekian! But perhaps this is precisely the point; the left is afraid to exercise power. True enough, but for what purpose are we to gain power? As much as I love the pyrotechnics, I just do not think Zizek offers much substance. But I hope I am wrong.

[Jodi]

Alain,
Really great points, thanks. I've wondered the same. You are of course right on the point regarding exercising power. And, on the question of substance, I don't have any answers. Sometimes I think that Zizek is primarily a formalist and that this why there isn't any substance. Yet, this opens the door to Bush etc. Another answer may be that answering the question of substance is the new challenge for anything that could be a left since the collapse of real existing socialism, that Z simply can't provide an answer on this one, that this an ongoing project for many.

[Alain]

Jodi

Thanks for the candid response. Given Zizek's blistering critique of "Third Way" liberalism, I wonder what he really thinks we should do. I read his comments the day after the Presidential elections, and I was a bit disappointed. It's almost like he thinks we should let the neocons have their way with the world in order to set up some kind of revolutionary conflagration. But I personally do not think that is a good outcome. Despite the amusing analysis of the "Left Behind" series, I did not get his point.

Any way, I really appreciate your Blog and look forward to your book on Zizeks Politics.

[Jodi]

Thanks, Alain. I share your assessment of his elections piece--it's dreadful. This actually links into another comment made on this blog about the Zizek movie and why someone would be critical of celebrity. Publishing nonsense, especially lots of it, in a kind of media deluge does not generate trust or respect in communities that take argument seriously. So, a problem in reading Zizek is separating out the good and valuable from the drivel. Some think that the drivel determines everything. That's not my view.

On the neocons: my intuition is that he doesn't think the neocons should have their way; rather, he wants to find a way to fight them and he admires their decisiveness. But, I might be wrong, finding what I want to find rather than reading well.

[Alain]

Jodi

I think you are right. I think Zizek admires the ruthlessness of the neocons. But don't they in some sense stand as a counter example to the "end of politics" idea? Are they not the masters of psycho-social manipulation?

[Jodi]

Alain,
I think you are absolutely right. I've only been really focusing on this question adequately in the last week. And, I think that your insight is the correct one. There is politics today--it happens to be right wing, authoritarian politics. And then the question is yet again how to practice and conceive an alternative left politics. But, it is clear that politics is hardly over.