Comments on this
paper most welcome on my blog:
http://davi=
dpalestine.wordpress.com/
r=
eturn
to davidword
Hegel, Mao, Bad=
iou
and the subject as outsider
David
Morgan, University of Newcastle
Abstract:
Badiou’s
project in Theory of the Subject can
be read as an appraisal of Hegel’s dialectics in the light of MaoR=
17;s
quite different dialectical approach as laid out in On Practice, On Contrad=
iction
and as further developed in the Cultural Revolution. But Badiou makes key
changes in Mao’s terminology and uses this new terminology to develop=
a
distinct revision of classical Marxism and a misreading of Mao. In Theory of the Subject, the contrad=
iction
between the forces of production and the relations of production is treated=
as
essentially passive and structural, and the role of driving force in histor=
y is
assigned to the proletariat in their confrontation with the bourgeoisie.
However, when this confrontation is not understood as grounded in the
creativity and initiative unleashed in productive activity, there are two
consequences for Badiou’s theory of the subject, consequences that are
carried over into his later work in Being
and Event, and Logics of Worlds=
:
a)
The
subject is located outside the structure of the situation. In Theory of the Subject, this is des=
cribed
as the contradiction between the splace and the outplace.
b)
The
subject is essentially passive, reacting to oppression and exploitation, ra=
ther
than driven by its own creative impulses.
Thus
Badiou is unable to give an account of structural change that arises out of
empirically identifiable internal forces and that places the subject at cen=
tre
of this process.
Hegel,
Mao, Badiou and the subject as outsider
In the early pages of Theory of the Subject, Badiou make=
s a
distinction (which he ascribes to Mao’s On Contradiction) between two different types of contradiction =
that
define capitalism: the fundamental contradiction and the principal
contradiction. He defines the fundamental contradiction as that between the
forces of production and the relations of production. He defines the princi=
pal
contradiction as that between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
|
Fundamental contradict=
ion |
Principal contradictio=
n |
|
FORCES of production |
PROLETARIAT=
|
|
vs.
|
vs.
|
|
RELATIONS of productio=
n |
BOURGEOISIE=
|
But this distinction is =
not
supported by the text. Mao uses these two terms more or less interchangeabl=
y,
although in different contexts and with different connotations.
Mao uses the term
“fundamental contradiction” when discussing the fact that a len=
gthy
process may go through various stages of development. He describes the
fundamental contradiction as determining the essence of a process. He refers
specifically to the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeois=
ie
in this context, as defining the essential contradiction of capitalism.
The fundamental contradiction in the process =
of
development of a thing and the essence of the process determined by this
fundamental contradiction will not disappear until the process is
completed…For instance, when the capitalism of the era of free compet=
ition
developed into imperialism, there was no change in the class nature of the =
two
classes in fundamental contradiction, namely, the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie.[1]
Mao uses the term princi=
pal
contradiction when describing the play of forces in a complex process invol=
ving
many contradictions. He describes the principal contradiction as that which
determines or influences the existence and development of other contradicti=
ons.
In this context also, he refers specifically to the contradiction between t=
he
proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
There are many contradictions in the process =
of
development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal
contradiction, whose existence and development determine or influence the
existence and development of the other contradictions.. For instance, in
capitalist society the two forces in contradiction, the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie, form the principal contradiction. [2]
There are two points at
issue here. The first is the relationship between the terms, fundamental and
principal contradiction. Mao’s use of the terms is at least a little
ambiguous, since he uses them in different contexts with different connotat=
ions
but referring to the same pair of opposites. Some Maoists have treated the
terms as interchangeable. Some have separated them – although not usu=
ally
in the way Badiou has.[3] However, this first po=
int
is purely formal: how to configure the terms in a way that is the most
analytically useful.
The second point at issu=
e in
Badiou's distinction is more substantial. In fact, it goes to the heart of
Badiou’s approach to the nature of subjectivity and agency. Badiou ar=
gues
that every dialectical process is made up of two different types of
contradiction, the structural and the historic. A structural contradiction
expresses an invariant asymmetry. The relationship is fixed. The difference
between the opposed terms is one of place, rather than qualitative heteroge=
neity.
A historical contradiction, on the other hand, is dynamic and antagonistic.=
The
asymmetry is reversible.
|
|
|
|
weak
(difference of place) |
strong
(qualitative heterogeneity) |
|
weak
(scission) |
strong
(struggle) |
|
invariant
asymmetry |
reversible
asymetry |
According
to Badiou, the contradiction between the social forces of production and the
private relations of production is a structural contradiction, whereas the
contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is an historical
contradiction. The proletariat forms a knot that links the two contradictio=
ns:
The class plays=
an
active part both in the first definition, where it is the principal product=
ive
force, and in the second, where, in the guise of its political unity and un=
der
the name thus conquered of the proletariat, it confronts the bourgeoisie.=
<=
![if !supportFootnotes]>[4]
Thus the working class i=
s split
into two. The first is the part that is indexed, that fits into capitalist
relations of production. Badiou identifies this with trade unionism and
revisionism. The second part is the excess that cannot be defined in terms =
of
the capitalist structure. Badiou identifies this part with mass uprising, w=
ith
insurrection, with what will become in later books “the event”.=
However, Badiou doesn't
examine the relationship between the productive forces and the relations of
production beyond labelling the former social and the latter private. In fa=
ct,
the productive forces tend to drop out of sight entirely, and the relations=
of
production are conflated with three distinct concepts of “the
state”: the state as an instrument of class rule, the state as the
socio-economic status quo and – later in this book and subsequently i=
n Being and Event and Logics of Worlds – the state as the set of all subsets of=
a
situation. For example, in his table comparing objective and subjective
dialectic as expressed by the contradiction proletariat/bourgeoisie, the
“relations of exploitation and control of the state” feature
prominently. The forces of production play no role at all.[5]
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image002.gif")
While the productive for=
ces
disappear entirely in Badiou’s analysis, the bourgeoisie is both there
and not there:
The famous contradiction of
bourgeoisie/proletariat is a limited, structural scheme that loses track of=
the
torsion of the Whole … the project of the proletariat, its internal
being, is not to contradict the bourgeoisie, or to cut its feet from under =
it.
This project is communism, and nothing else. =
[6]
That is, the abolition of any place in which something like a proletariat c=
an
be installed.[7]
So the “real” contradic=
tion
turns out to be between the proletariat and the structural relations that it
exceeds. This conforms to the formal template that Badiou has already
established in his critique of Hegel's dialectic. Hegel's thing-in-itself v=
s.
thing-for-others becomes Heidegger's ontological being vs. ontic being, or =
as
Badiou describes it, “the effect on A of the contradiction between its
pure identity and the structured space to which it belongs.”=
<=
![if !supportFootnotes]>[8]
Badiou uses the term “splace” to refer to this structured place=
and
“outplace” to refer to that part of the term that does not conf=
orm
to the rule of the splace.
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image004.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image006.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image008.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image010.gif")
According to Badiou, all
contradiction takes the form of the splace, which is the structural base, v=
s.
the outplace, which is the motor. In the case of capitalism, the structural
contradiction is the base and the proletariat is the motor.[9]
The effect of the motor on the base is twofold. On the one hand, it must re=
sult
in the destruction of the splace. On the other, this destruction must culmi=
nate
in the formation of a new splace.[10]
The process is essential=
ly
Hegel's negation of the negation. Each new splace generates an outplace tha=
t is
the motor for destruction of the old order and creation of the new. The mot=
or
for change constantly reappears in a new form.
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image012.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image014.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image016.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image018.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image020.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image022.gif")
The obvious question is:
what drives the motor? The question gives rise to two philosophical problems
relating to agency:
·=
; =
Agency as motor of change
·=
; =
Agency as free choice
For Hegel, the force that
generates each new contradiction and forces its resolution is Reason and its
drive towards Totality. Consequently, the motor of change is teleological, =
and Reason
is both the goal and the Absolute Subject.[11]
Badiou, strongly influen=
ced
by the Cultural Revolution’s summation of “one divides into
two” as the fundamental principle of dialectics,[12]
rejects any concept of Totality. But he also rejects the Althusserian conce=
pt
of “history as a process without a subject”, because it resolves
the question of the motor at the expense of agency as free choice.
Badiou’s solution =
to
the problem of agency as free choice is essentially Kantian: freedom as hum=
an
agency is located in the suspension of causality. In Kant, this suspension
occurs in the noumenal world. In Badiou, the suspension takes place in key
moments of human history, in times of insurrection or mass uprising.
When the popular
insurrection breaks out, it is never because the calculable moment of this
insurrection has arrived... It is the interruption of an algorithm, and not=
its
execution that has a subjectivizing effect… As for the subjective
process, it exists only in the recomposition of consequences in light of the
interruption. It is never the pursuit of the algorithm, since the entrance =
of
force onto the stage breaks with the law to which it owes the fact that it
exists in its place.[13]
Thus, the development of=
the
forces of production as the driver of social change disappears – and =
with
it, any form of economic determinism. But since the subjective “exists
only in the recomposition of consequences” after the fact, the role of
consciousness as a cause of change must also disappear. The problem of free=
dom of
choice is resolved at the expense of leaving the problem of agency as motor=
of
change unresolved – or, resolved only in a supernatural manner.
This is the site, I beli=
eve,
of one of Badiou's greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses as a philosop=
her.
Badiou has a clear sense of the often cataclysmic and unpredictable nature =
of
profound change, and his philosophy is an attempt to grapple with this. But=
I
would argue that Badiou steps over a line here – and it is a choice t=
hat
is adhered to and further developed in Being
and Event. An insurrection is an extreme and very clear example of
qualitative leap arising out of quantitative change. Dramatic changes in
complex situations can, as Lenin said, appear
miraculous, that is to say, the complexity can baffle prediction,=
[14]
but this is very different from maintaining a claim of absolute contingency=
for
“the event”. One could say – although I’m sure Badi=
ou
would emphatically reject this – that for Badiou “the eventR=
21;
is the unknowable Kantian thing-in-=
itself.
Badiou’s example o=
f The Oresteia as a prototype of
revolutionary change is perhaps more revealing than he intends. Orestes, as=
the
outsider, forces the destruction of the splace. The new order replaces the =
old.
But this is only accomplished through the agency of Athena as a dea ex machina.
However, Badiou argues t=
hat
his solution is not irrationalist.[15]
To explain this, he draws a comparison with the atomic theory of the ancient
Greek materialists. If the universe is composed of nothing but atoms and vo=
id,
what causes the appearance of determinate forms? The Greek answer was that =
the
void caused the atoms to swerve. This initial impulse was called the clinam=
en.
To give the void as the source of movement in the context of Greek atomism =
is
essentially irrationalist, a suspension of the logic of the scission:
atoms/nothing. But the irrationalism is negated by the fact that the clinam=
en
appears nowhere.
…It is of the utmost importance that the clinam=
en
in turn be abolished…
no particular explanation of any particular thing whatsoever should require=
the
clinamen, even though the existence of a thing in general is unthinkable
without it. It means that no atom should ever be mappable as deviant, in any
combination of atoms whatsoever, even though the existence of deviation
conditions the very existence of a combinatory.
Badiou argues that for
Marxists, the masses – in their insurrectionary moments – are t=
he
clinamen. The insurrectionary moment founds a new order but disappears in t=
he
founding. It is the essential nature of an insurrection that it is a
singularity, an interruption of the rules. It is absolutely incompatible wi=
th
any order, including the new order, even though it creates it.
It is according to the modality of
the stable splacement that the masses are history, whereas it is in their
appearing-disappearing that they make history… However, this being of
history is a result, whose possibility invariably arises from the disappear=
ing
fury of the deviating masses, t=
hat is
to say, the masses who in the unpredictable storm of their confident revolt,
stood up against the figure of the State that first served as their founding
principle[16]
But this still leaves the
motor of history as the essentially irrationalist eruption of disappearing
fury, a reaction against oppression and exploitation. Without some positive
content, where does the ability to form a new splace and create order out of
chaos come from? Badiou understands problem and states it clearly:
Yet the philosophy behind all this comes up short, bec=
ause
it denies at bottom any active autonomy, any real independence, any affirma=
tive
political virtuality, to what rises up in the guise of the enraged rebel of
good faith… How, in the echo of the great antirepressive vituperation,
will I be able to establish my capacity to repress
the repression?
However,
Badiou’s solution is to describe a process that seems logically
necessary, given the nature of the contradiction as he has laid it out, but
that is still not rooted in any substantial material base. He proposes a
process of purification.
The proletar=
iat,
as noted earlier, is a class divided. It appears in the splace as a product=
ive
force, but outside the splace as the force that cannot be contained. The
proletariat must, through the agency of the party, keep itself “maxim=
ally
out of place” and destroy in itself “all that is not destructio=
n of
the splace: the party is
purification.”
But this begs the questi=
on
that Badiou himself has just raised: purification of what? What force drives
the insurrectionary moment?
The classical Marxist
position is that the driving force in human history is the application of h=
uman
intelligence, creativity and social organisation to the problem of survival=
and
reproduction. Human society develops increasingly more productive technology
and forms of organisation. This development drives social organisation and
culture in general. Science, technology and the arts take on a life of their
own and react back on the development of production,[17] but
they all have their genesis in this struggle for material survival and the
consequent development of the productive forces. When the relations of
production become obstacles to the further development of the productive
forces, “an era of social revolution begins.”[18]
When Marx wrote about the
contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, it was not about=
a
different contradiction than that between the productive forces and the
relations of production. Rather, he was writing about the human agents who =
act
out this contradiction. Steam engines do not take up arms against the court
house.<=
![if !supportFootnotes]>[19]
Class struggle is not something separate, something over and above the stru=
ggle
for material survival – it is clearly not just a question of how you =
dig
up the potatoes, but who gets to eat them.
The struggle for better
wages, better working conditions, political freedom and social justice all
arise out of the same ultimately biological impulses that fuelled the inven=
tion
of the plough and the exploration of the oceans and continents. This is not=
to
say that there is a straightforward correlation: proletariat =3D forces of
production; bourgeoisie =3D relations of production. Rather, it is principa=
lly
these two classes that are drawn into battle in the resolution of the
contradiction. The key point is that the contradiction between the forces a=
nd
relations of production is not structural in the sense of something fixed a=
nd
repetitive; it is the source of revolutionary change.
But then the question
arises: if the productive forces drive forward social development, if the
working classes are no more than “agents” of this development, =
what
is the role of the subjective in human history, of freedom and conscious
choice? This passage from Capital <=
/i>shows
the problem starkly:
We have =
seen
that the capitalist process of production is a historically determined form=
of
the social process of production in general. The latter is as much a produc=
tion
process of material conditions of human life as a process taking place under
specific historical and economic production relations, producing and
reproducing these production relations themselves, and thereby also the bea=
rers
of this process, their material conditions of existence and their mutual re=
lations,
i.e. their particular socio-economic form.[20]
In other words, the
producers are themselves produced. How then can they be free?
Here a distinction has t=
o be
made between freedom as “free will” and freedom as “consc=
ious
choice”. Free will is essentially a judicial concept, whether the jud=
ge
is a deity or a magistrate. If there is no break in the chain of causality,
there can be no determination of guilt.[21]
But freedom as conscious
choice requires causality – not its suspension – because that is
what gives agency its power to affect the future. This position was first
clearly articulated by Hegel as a critique of the Kant.
Hegel was the first to state the relation bet=
ween
freedom and necessity correctly. To him, freedom is the
recognition of necessity. "Necessity is blind only in so far=
as
it is not understood.” Freedom does not consist in an imag=
inary
independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws and in t=
he possibility
which is thus given of systematically making them work towards definite end=
s.
This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those
which govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves -- two class=
es
of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but n=
ot
in reality.[22]
The power and grandeur of
subjectivity lies not in the suspension of causality, but in the capacity f=
or
conscious choice. Without causality – without some form of determinat=
ion
and consequence – one choice is as good as another, and no choice has=
any
particular value.
The concept of the clina=
men
that Badiou introduced in Theory of=
the
Subject, combined with set theory – although not as a universal
ontological statement, but as a framing device – can provide a useful
metaphor to describe this dialectical view of human agency. Within the
situation, causality is – or is assumed to be for purposes of scienti=
fic
investigation – absolute.[23]
But it is the nature of consciousness as reflexivity that it stands outside=
the
situation that created it.[24]
Any force that acts on a situation from the outside appears as contingent f=
rom
the inside. But inside and outside are relative terms. Any conscious
understanding of a situation that can be applied as an outside force to that
situation is itself contained in a larger situation. We can step outside of=
any
particular situation, develop an understanding of its causal interconnectio=
ns,
and use that understanding to manipulate, rather than be manipulated –
but we can never step outside of the process. Consciousness is the clinamen,
appearing inside the situation only as effect, but operating as cause from a
position outside the situation –only to disappear as an effect from
inside the larger situation.
The same spatial diagram
used earlier to illustrate the splace/outplace contradiction works equally =
well
here to describe the contradiction between consciousness as determined by t=
he
situation and consciousness as agent for change. But now the driving force =
is
the dialectical relationship between determined material development and
reflexivity of the subject.
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image024.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image026.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image028.gif")
![](3D"hegelmaobadiou_files/image030.gif")
If there were an absolute
limit to this spiral development, it would result in an irresolvable
contradiction between absolute determinism and absolute subject. But as Bad=
iou
has shown with his use of Russell’s paradox as an ontological proof f=
or
the inexistence of God, an absolute limit is inconceivable.
In this paradigm that I'=
ve
outlined, the terms “inside” and “outside” are no l=
ess
problematic than the terms “causality” and
“consciousness”. Badiou's application of set theory to ontology, is a useful way of
conceptualising the fluid and overlapping nature of situations, but it give=
s no
gives no guidelines for determining what should be included or excluded from
this or that particular situation. I would argue that this can only be a
decision based on concrete investigation of actual phenomena in their
contradictory development.
Any decision about the
limits of a situation will have profound implications for the attempt to
understand and change it. To return to the case of the contradiction,
proletariat/bourgeoisie, for example, is the arena France? Paris? The world?
There are sound practical arguments for a nativist working class hostility =
to
immigrants, if the arena is closed off at the national level.
It is the internation=
al
proletariat that Marxism identifies as a revolutionary subject. According to this view, the potent=
ial
for internationalism is a product of the proletariat's objective position as
the main exploited class in world capitalism and of its central role in the
production process. Whether this is still true today – whether it was
ever true – is not a question for philosophy or mathematics. It requi=
res
a scientific analysis of the social forces and relations in modern capitali=
sm.
The phenomena are complex, contradictory and emergent. They are neither
unknowable nor absolutely contingent.
The two pillars of the
communist enterprise are causality and the decisive role of consciousness. =
This
does not make up a logical contradiction, but a dynamic and productive unit=
y of
opposites. Badiou abandons causality at the expense of disempowering the
subject.
Comments on this
paper most welcome on my blog:
http://davi=
dpalestine.wordpress.com/
r=
eturn
to davidword