Kasama

Over this week, we have been  publishing a new series of Kasama essays by five writers — touching on interrelated themes: The London Conference on Communism, the theories of Alain Badiou, the reclaiming of communism, the revolution in Nepal, and the polemical engagement with exhausted forms of dogmatic Marxism. We urge our readers to set aside the time for  them.

The following contribution was written as commentary on an interview philosopher Alain Badiou did with the BBC. The interview is a relatively accessible statement of his views on reclaiming communism — made for the broad television audience.

We are reposting the video, and then below that, J.’s remarks.

HardTalk with Alain Badiou:
Some Thoughts on the Contradictions of Representing to the People a Truth-Process in the Making

“Grateful as we may be—I certainly am—for the “space for thought” that Badiou’s philosophy seeks to make, and for the legitimacy his voice may lend to discussions of communism and rebellion (in academic circles, and perhaps beyond them), we must not turn into mere fellow-travelling “fans” of his philosophy… Chief among these concerns is the way in which Badiou seems to me to concede too much in assenting to the idea (here articulated by the BBC host) that 20th century experiences with Communism amounted, basically, to “nothing but failure” and ‘authoritarianism.’ ”

“Nicholas Brown writes: ‘Despite every protestation to the contrary, Badiou’s system cannot address the question ‘What is to be done?’ because the only thing to do is to wait for the Event. What happens when the precipitation of the Event is precisely what needs to be done?’”

By J. Ramsey

Watching a major radical intellectual appear on TV may raise high our hopes. So rarely are progressive, not to speak of radical—let alone communist!—perspectives acknowledged—let alone invited to speak at length—within bourgeois mass media; a radical gets excited upon learning that one of “ours” has broken through to center stage. It’s easy to invest heavily in such a figure’s performance.

On the other hand, it is all too easy for the radical philosopher once out on that stage to disappoint. Unschooled in the art of the sound-byte and tending towards long-windedness, the “professor” is likely to meander onto “enemy terrain,” spending those precious, quick-ticking public minutes bogged down in concocted “controversies,”—allegations of anti-Semitism vs. Sarkozy for instance—or else trailing off into a discourse on the details of some half-obscure concept, losing the forest for the trees…The essence of the matter too often goes unmarked; the call to action which we long to hear proclaimed through the captured bourgeois bullhorn goes unsounded.

Truly though, no matter how well one performs in the three or five or twenty minute segment, there always remains so much more to say…so much more that ought to have, that must be said—an entire system to expose and to overthrow, in thought (not to speak of action)! Eventually, even on the BBC, they cut, if not to commercial, then to the regularly scheduled programming. The system remains in place, as the professor and host shake hands. And the lights go out.

One finishes viewing the above interview with the sense that Alain Badiou, has much more to say to us, that he is just, at the end, warming up…And yet that said, one can, from this HardTalk interview catch at least a glimpse of why Badiou is an important thinker today, why he is relevant to the project of grasping the radical possibilities of our present moment, and why he is someone that those of us interested in communism and revolution should be “keeping our eye on.” He is someone whom we should be engaging openly and actively, on a number of levels, with care, but also, I would argue, critically.

What is Dominant is Not Therefore Legitimate

To my thinking, Badiou’s work as a critic of his immediate situation (and of contemporary discourse) is of more clear and immediate value than his more ponderous theorizing. Badiou has done brilliant work exposing the contradictions, limitations, and hypocrisies that are embedded in dominant modes of contemporary thought, (including electoralism, liberal multiculturalism, and humanitarianism, including the discourse of human rights). In numerous realms he has challenged—often eviscerated – reigning “common sense,” in a way that is informed by a global, egalitarian, anti-imperialist, and more recently, a communist perspective.

We see his critical challenge to reigning practice in a few places here on HardTalk. His argument that the role of philosophers and philosophy is not to accept the ways of the world precisely because of the way the world now is, for example, is refreshing and admirable…and, it seems to me, all to rare in philosophical circles.

He states:

“Never accept something as legitimate [just] because it is dominant.”

That Badiou extends this philosophical refusal to the “electoral mandates” recently recorded through “democratic” politics in France puts his refusal some ways ahead of many so-called “radicals” in this country, who often shore up popular belief in the promise of “American democracy” even while mounting radical criticisms of US government and society.

In this clip above, Badiou offers a number of insights that need to be heard on the Left.

For instance, while he argues that the recent crisis signals “the end of a certain sequence” in which the present social system is proclaimed to be “the best of all possible worlds,” he refuses to predict that this crisis will necessarily or easily (on their own) lead to opportunities for radical transformation. He points out quite properly, (as did Mike Davis in the previous interview posted on Kasama) that such moments of crisis have often ushered in great disasters; the unmistakable specter here of course, is that of 1930s fascism. This represents an important cautionary check on knee-jerk leftist “optimism” that too quickly points out—like a disaster capitalist trying to make a score—that a moment of “crisis” translates into a moment of “opportunity.”

In a different vein, Badiou’s smiling, grandfatherly acceptance that much of his radical conviction is at present based in little more than “faith”, but that “faith may be a great thing sometime” poses a healthy challenge to dogmatic “scientistic” Marxisms that clings to a narrow and vulgar secularism.

Evaluating Our “First Attempts”

Moving towards the heart of the matter, Badiou’s pointing out that the mere fact that the “first attempts” to achieve communism “failed” does not in any way amount to a proving of the idea itself to be false or in itself impossible to reach is refreshing to the ear, even as it grants too much to the enemy camp in terms of the actual record of the 20th century with respect to Communism.

But it might as well be said: there are several elements here, elements not attributable to the confines of the interview-form, that leave me unsatisfied, and that, I think, ought to leave us unsatisfied. These dissatisfactions indicate zones of concern not just with Badiou-as-mediated-through-HardTalk, but with Badiou’s thought and his approach to reclaiming Communism (or the “communist hypothesis” as he prefers to call it) more broadly. Grateful as we may be—I certainly am—for the “space for thought” that Badiou’s philosophy seeks to make, and for the legitimacy his voice may lend to discussions of communism and rebellion (in academic circles, and perhaps beyond them), we must not turn into mere fellow-travelling “fans” of his philosophy. Certainly not just because he is the one on TV.

Chief among these concerns is the way in which Badiou seems to me to concede too much in assenting to the idea (here articulated by the BBC host) that 20th century experiences with Communism amounted, basically, to “nothing but failure” and “authoritarianism.”

As if there was only “tragedy,” none but pyrrhic victories, in these long struggles, as if any lessons that 20th century Communists may offer us today are only negative ones, lessons in “exhaustion” and “saturation,” as if the true core of communism is to be reconstructed only by returning to its “primitive” sequence, to the work of Marx and other 19th century thinkers.

Granted, this on-air concession with respect to “actually existing” socialism and Communism (with that frightening capital “C”), may be in part a tactical maneuver. (And also it is worth noting that for Badiou “tragedy” is in some ways a term of respect or even honor, one that places the “tragic” experience of 20th Communism far closer to Badiou’s notion of the “good” than the cowardly, cynical, anemic, and ultimately “nihilist” crusading for “human rights” and “democracy” that characterizes the dominant “politics” our present moment—see his Ethics, for more on this.)

Nonetheless this maneuvering should give us pause. Tactics have a way of becoming strategy. And strategy determines where one is ultimately going.

Of course it is clear to those who are somewhat familiar with Badiou’s work, (including essays published in Positions and in his book Polemics, or even his recent essay in New Left Review ) that he has in fact conducted a rather rich exploration of these twentieth century revolutions—in particular the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Badiou has spilled considerable ink on the struggles and experiments involved with these emancipatory events. Indeed his narrative of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (in the closing chapter of Polemics) is quite a bit more sympathetic and nuanced than he here lets on. But you wouldn’t know it from the interview.

In truth, a close reading of his recent and influential article from New Left Review, “The Communist Hypothesis,”  while it demonstrates Badiou’s broader engagement with what he calls the communist “sequences” of both the 19th and 20th centuries, further suggests this communist’s limited use for the 20th century Communist movement.

Consider for example, the end of that article, wherein Badiou sketches the outlines of the coming “3rd sequence” of communist politics, a 21st century project which he argues

“will involve a new relation between the political movement and the level of the ideological.”

Badiou writes that this new sequence must

“still retain the theoretical and historical lessons that issued from the first sequence, and the centrality of victory that issued from the second [emphasis added].”

Perhaps I am about to make too much of one line here. But Badiou seems to me to be implying that while there is much to be learned from studying the 19th century sequence, the essential element to retain from the 20th century sequence is not to be had by studying these revolutions—in their particularities, their successes, innovations, setbacks, defeats, as well as failures—but rather by appreciating the sheer will to victory that they represented (and keeping fidelity to that).

But is this the extent of what this revolutionary record (Lenin and Mao and many others, including, I would argue many American communists and socialists of the 20th century) has to offer us?

Similarly his claim in the same essay that our present situation cannot be addressesed adequately simply by “revising the methods” of the second communist sequence, turns on something of a straw-man argument, once one recognizes that Badiou has not here (or to my knowledge elsewhere) clearly defined what exactly the “methods” of the 20th century communist movements were, in any sort of situated particularity.

Certainly it would be dogmatic foolishness to think that the methods of the Bolsheviks or of the CCP (or of the CPUSA) can simply be dug up, dusted off, gripped tight, and “applied” in some immediate way to our present, unfolding situation.

As John Steele points out in his recent post, our conditions have changed—though they are not I would argue altogether “new”—and hence so too have even those “traditional ideas” changed in relationship to this altered situation, even where they would “stay the same.” Admittedly, in contrast to the stale odor of mechanical MLM(A) Badiou’s openness to the new and the unexpected feels like a breath of fresh air.

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater either.

Until one has engaged in a situated critique of the “method(s)” represented and deployed by the 20th century communist movement, how can one possibly reach a verdict (and a sweeping one at that) as to such “methods” and their “uselessness” today? Badiou’s figure of the “iron discipline” of the Communist Party is barely the beginning of a description, let alone an analysis of “method” here; indeed, one might argue that it is a stock-figure that stands in the way of such a sober critique. In any event, I would like to see more—not less—critical re-examination of “actually existing” Communism of the 20th century, from Badiou and from others. (and again here, let me emphasize that I mean not only developments in the USSR or China, but elsewhere, including here in the USA, and that I mean not only the political lines of these movements but the social and cultural and mass work that they engaged in at all levels).

[Here it is perhaps worth noting that Slavoj Zizek takes a markedly different approach in is recent work, taking the 20th century attempts to construct socialism and Communism somewhat more seriously, albeit often in the mode of a provocateur…But I will leave a critical examination of Zizek’s defensive “reloading” of Communism and other “Lost Causes” for another time!]

A Red by Any Other Name…

When asked in this interview if he is, in fact, a “communist,” and then later, if he is in favor of “overthrowing the current system,” Badiou defers, opting instead to go on about how we need to “reconstruct a new idea” of communism, rather than proclaiming himself to be “one.”

No doubt this deferral can be justified in terms of Badiou’s own philosophical approach, which frames communism as a truth-process in the making, a sequence that does not as yet exist, but will have existed only through and after the (practical and theoretical) labor of bringing it into being, in fidelity to an Event, whose Event-ness is also yet-to-be-established. (Stephen Mauldin discusses this eloquently in his recent Kasama post.)

Still, I want to ask: Can the process of communism unfold (or become itself) without being represented, presumptuously, and indeed somewhat “prematurely” and in advance by those who seek to bring its truth into being? As if it actually existed, so to say?

Must we wait until communism has clearly “arrived” to call ourselves as such?

What does keeping fidelity to the event mean if not to dare “I am a communist” and yes even “I believe in the expropriation of the expropriators, the overthrow of the oppressive and exploitative social conditions and relations that stem from this system,” even when one has no guarantee at this moment as to what form this specter of communism will (have) taken, or for that matter, whether or not communism will ever in fact find a movement worthy of its name?

Indeed, does not the necessarily “performative” nature of such proclamations (about which Badiou has much to say) and the not-even-here-yet-ness of 21st century communism make this invocation of its name all the more vital? After all there would be no need for faith or fidelity (a key notion for Badiou, as has been pointed out) if communism were “there and ready for the taking”?

Need Revolutionary Theorists

Badiou addresses this paradox, of the name that precedes the thing named, with respect to the French May 1968. Talk of “Revolution” at this moment, he points out, was pervasive, and yet what exactly “revolution” meant in that context—even as the students and workers were in the street—was anything but clear. Certainly the meaning of “Revolution” today would seem all the more unclear. I am tempted to credit Badiou, at least at the level of philosophical truth, for admitting as such.

And yet here I cannot help but recall a recurring joke in Slavoj Zizek’s recent work where he likens this type of philosophical call to re-think revolution to the doctor, who when called to bedside, after examining the patient, proclaims “What you really need is a doctor.”

Conceding that there are—there must be!—important elements of the communist hypothesis yet to be discerned or discovered let alone developed and detailed, is it not still safe to say that part of this unfolding process of reconstruction in theory and in practice necessitates involving the broad masses of people in an active, critical, radical interrogation of the present capitalist-imperialist system in which they now live?

And so then, when asked if he is in favor of overthrowing the current system, mightn’t Badiou and the truth-process that keeps fidelity to his communist hypothesis have been better served by proceeding dialectically, negatively, that is, by giving an account of all those things which he is fact in favor overthrowing or overcoming—even not knowing in advance what the positive form of this overthrowing will (have) take(n)?

One might start with the 1 billion people (predicted to grow to 2 billion as result of the current capitalist crisis) who chronically go hungry in the world; or the looming environmental catastrophe; or the tens of millions of people thrown out of work; or the growing disparities of wealth and power both between and within countries that characterize the present global system.

Badiou of course knows all of this well, and has even written at some length about, most if not all of these developments. The point is not to “teach Badiou” something about the current state of capitalism that he does not already know. The point is rather for us to consider the possibility that the very intrigue and open-ness, the principled refusal to declare one-self and to thereby in advance to potentially delimit the subject and object of the communist project, which is to say perhaps, the thing that makes Badiou’s communist hypothesis perhaps so inviting and refreshing to so many these days, may, at times, or in certain contexts—for instance, when trying to speak with everyday people, whether through mass media or in person—become something of a liability and an obstacle.

I am tempted here to probe deeper, with some help, for a more philosophical explanation for Badiou’s approach to some of these above issues. In contrasting Badiou’s ontological understanding of stasis and transformation (Being end Event) to the Hegelian dialectic, Nicholas Brown writes:

“Despite every protestation to the contrary, Badiou’s system cannot address the question ‘What is to be done?’ because the only thing to do is to wait for the Event. What happens when the precipitation of the Event is precisely what needs to be done?”

“Yes, we can be faithful to a previous event, as Badiou says Lenin was to the Paris Commune. But surely this solution mitigates the power of the Event as the irruption of the void into this situation. The dialectic, on the other hand, conceives the void as immanent contradiction. While both contradiction and void are immanent to the situation, contradiction has the tremendous advantage of having movement built in, as it were: the Event does not appear out of an immanent nowhere, but is already fully present in itself in the situation, which it explodes in the movement to for-itself.”

Presumably from a dialectical perspective then—one that Badiou does not hold—it would seem that “merely” describing (and popularizing the understanding of) the immanent dynamics of capitalism and what it is doing to the world today, could help to lay the basis for making the Event or Revolution possible  (helping the global proletariat to move closer from being a class “in itself” to a class “for itself” ).. Thus, that Badiou does not use his precious face-time with the masses on HardTalk to pursue this kind of critical elaboration, may not be just an expression of tactical considerations, let alone a coincidence.

Beyond philosophical justifications, of course, in more narrowly pragmatic (or tactical) sense, to “declare oneself” a communist in this way, especially absent a clearly defined movement with defensible program, party or leadership, runs the risk of provoking one’s audience, and not only in productive ways. As any self-identifying communist knows, to dub oneself a “red,” in “polite company” at least, risks bringing out all the old anti-communist myths, half-truths, accusations, and condemnations, along with here and there a legitimate concern about what became of the 20th century parties, movements, and states that went by that name.

Sometimes the resulting exchange yields more heat than light; often – in more “left” literate company — one will get lodged in debate about particular historical events and persons at the expense of neglecting the big picture of the communist movement in the 20th century, losing the chance to delve more deeply into the question of what communism could look like today. As Badiou points out, after all, we do have a much bigger, much more auspicious project on our hands than “merely” sorting out sectarian squabbles about the true nature of Soviet of Chinese socialism in the 1950s, etc.; we have a full-fledged communist response to the present situation to develop, to be listening for and helping to give voice and form to.

And yet the question arises as to whether deferring (or indeed, evading) such questions about the defeat or failure of socialism/communism in the 20th century in fact allows us to “move on to more important and pressing things” or whether it leads us to suppress crucial issues, bypassing a broad range of lessons that are there to be learned (positively and negatively) from this revolutionary experience. (And I am not just speaking of events in the Soviet Union or in China here.) This deferral threatens to cede the ground of history and practice to the enemy, taking haven in the realm of (pure) primitive theory, and even, as the BBC hosts points out, mere faith. Faith, as Badiou points out quite rightly, “can be a wonderful thing”—a point which many a “scientific” Marxist would do well to contemplate—but it is no substitute for critical historical analysis, (to which, yes, it remains a vital supplement).

Attention to the Situation

What will revolution or communism look like in the 21st century?

Badiou is reluctant to do more than gesture towards the increasingly crucial “ideological” sphere, and to negate (prematurely, I have argued) past “methods” and “saturated” concepts inherited from the previous communist sequence (“party-state” “class struggle” etc.). Beyond this he calls for re-conceptualizing communism, and for paying attention to the new forms of struggle and organization that are now emerging in the world.

This last is a crucial call: the imperative to closely attend to the actual movement of the people out in the world—movements past as well as present. It is a must that is much in keeping with Badiou’s call (in Ethics among other places) to keep fidelity not only to Events, but to situations as well. In fact one of the most powerful criticisms that Badiou levels against the reigning “ethical” discourse of human rights in Ethics is that such discourse tends to abstract from the historical and political singularity of concrete situations, chronicling the injuries of “victims” (posited as “passive”) by violators (understood as “evil”) in such a way as to make true political intervention in actual situations impossible (even while often smuggling neo-imperialist agendas into the mix).

Questions then, to close with: To what extent does Badiou’s work call us—and call others—to attend more and more closely to the situations that we are in? To what extent does it tend to call us away from this work of concrete and critical elaboration and into ungrounded abstraction and a new “ethical” formalism? Despite our changed conditions, does not the work of popularizing an immanent critique of capitalism still have a crucial role to play in bringing about the Event that we are waiting for? And how so does Badiou—in his work and in his spectacular persona—help (or hinder) us in doing this most vital communist work?

Such questions of course cannot be answered in the abstract or in thought alone, but only through a thoughtful engagement with present concrete situations, and with the people who make up those situations. 

Here the “old methods” of the “saturated second sequence,” including most notably mao’s development of the ”mass line,” would seem to remain of chief importance.  Certainly Badiou has yet to prove this crucial concept to be “exhausted.” Nor has his own practical “experimentation,” as far as I can tell, yet produced a method to replace the dialectic captured in the slogan: “from the masses, to the masses.” I for one, though tempted to delve deeper into Badiou, am not holding my breath on this one.