Mouffe: Agonistic Pluralism and Religion

Just started reading Jeffrey Robbins' Radical Democracy and Political Theology, which led me to reconsider the work of Chantal Mouffe (who is famous for co-writing a book with Ernesto Laclau). Why I like what I have found in Mouffe is her reading of pragmatism and Wittgenstein (I am starting to see the wisdom of the words Negri once said about how everything has changed since Wittgenstein, which has led to my growing issues with Badiou). Reading Jeffrey Stout's Democracy and Tradition over the summer, Stout's interaction with the pragmatist Richard Rorty (and even Rorty's latter openness to public, religious expressions) and finally, Stout's utilization of key, underdeveloped ideas about the secular from Barth's theology made me look out for pragmatic ideas about democracy. Thus, my antennas went up on Robbins' section on Schmitt and Mouffe.

Mouffe's idea of Agonistic pluralism is framed by the reality of the "us vs them" format made famous by Carl Schmitt (her view of pluralism also has roots from Nietzsche and Weber). What Mouffe attempts to do is articulate a politics that forms a "we", which brings together this multiplicity of conflicts, diversity and antagonism. In short, society is never going to be free of "adversaries" (not Schmitt's "enemies") but the pluralistic, democratic space must find ways to be tolerant of such diverse positions. By framing the argument as "adversaries" and not the moral term "enemies", Mouffe acknowledges the contingency of her own beliefs but also the commitment to fight for her beliefs without making it a moral issue. So her presupposition is her view of pluralism that entails the antagonistic nature of different values. She declares that "the real issue at stake in democratic politics is how to establish the us/them distinction in a way that is compatible with pluralist democracy." In order for this theory to work, there needs to be consensus on the basis of this system of conflict ( a symbolic "common ground"). She points out that any movement or figures that won't work with this consensus thus ultimately places themselves or herself in the category of the "enemy". Probably the most adequate or legitimate place to bring a sense of unity is some type of constitutional document. In essence she is working with both sides of western democracy: its liberalism (rule of law, separation of church/state and powers, individual rights, popular sovereignty) and its democracy (populism, pluralism).

One of the key subjects that people feel passion/emotion for is religious issues. However, one of the cornerstones for liberal democracy is the separation of church and state. Mouffe reads this idea differently in stating that the separation of church and state really means the separation between religion and "state power." I think this is probably the best analysis I have read on this subject and I think it fits with a Barthian view. She has this great quote: "It is the tendency to identify politics with the state and the state with the public that has led to the mistaken idea that the separation between the church and the state means the absolute relegation of religion to the private." She notes that this view cannot be defended. Passions (including religious) cannot be removed from politics. However, there is a post-Nazi fear of the passions because in the liberal-democratic mind it leads to "irrational" decisions by the mob or as Toscano calls "fanaticism".

Oftentimes religious expression spills into the ideas of public policies and shapes reactions to them as well. There is no such thing as the liberal neutral view that manages to keep "divisive issues" out of the public realm. It is better to acknowledge the tensions that are in society and work to deal with them in a way that is tolerant to all segments of society. This is a tolerance that is shaped by an idea that there will never be a final, complete reconciliation of conflicts. She writes that "the prime task of democratic politics is not to eliminate passions or to relegate them to the private sphere in order to establish a rational consensus in the public sphere. It is, rather, to attempt to mobilize those passions toward democratic designs." In summary, diversity is to be praised in whatever format it is expressed as long as it recognizes the right of the difference of the other or the adversary.

Poltics from all sides

I have been continuing my reading of Rorty and it has been a great pleasure. Again, the biggest benefit is to get me back in touch with American thought. My newest project is to study American pragmatism in Pierce, James and Dewey-which was concomitant with the growth of Barthian thought in Europe.

Rorty's conversational style is also a helpful way in exploring and teaching the Humanities. It ceases to prove some truth or simply gain cognitive knowledge but instead to form a way to live with a certain non-dogmatic approach to things. It is to see value in the great works simply in the way they inspire people; I would argue this is what keeps me reading my Bible because figures like St. Paul, King David and the prophet Jeremiah inspire me to live better toward God and others-even in learning from their mistakes.

For example, in his Achieving Our Country, he makes the point that dogmatism in politics gets nowhere; that real reform works from the top-down and from the bottom-up. In short, this goes against a theory like Marxism that focuses only on the poor (mythical proletariat) for the agency of hope or in elitism that says reforms only comes from the powerful/wealthy. In a democracy, in theory, it is the arduous, everyday work of all to iron out what is best for the greater society. I would then argue that Charles Dickens gets this point well; if you read his novels you see both corruption and virtue from both the rich and poor classes.

Deleuze Again?

It seems that I can not escape the works of the French thinker Gilles Deleuze. Even back when a number of my fellow Fuller seminary students took it upon ourselves to read a little Deleuze (we started with his book on Foucault; I even took my French language qualifiers by translating Foucault's preface to Anti-Oedipus), I came to the conclusion that something special is here.
It appears that his popularity is growing and a renewed interest is here especially as it relates to the realm of the political and the spiritual (thanks to Hallward I believe).
My project from the start is to take Karl Barth's works and have him in conversation (not debate) with so-called postmodern thinkers. This has led me to read and enjoy the works of Derrida, Badiou, Foucault and especially Zizek. When it came to Deleuze I decided to take a Directed Reading with Dr. Carl Raschke on Deleuze because he seemed to be enamored with him (he seems to advocate a rhizomatic theology in his GloboChrist). He recommended that we read the man himself. So I read his book on Nietzsche, Logic of Sense, Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy with the help of Negotiations and Dialogues as guides not to mention the commentaries by Badiou, Zizek and Hallward. It was tough reading and quite frankly I keep going back over a number of those texts not simply to glean info but to be moved a bit by his style of thinking.
Where did that study go? Into a look at Deleuze on humor. Deleuze is clear that thinking should be a more dynamic, fluid thing that is not controlled by opinion or certain static ways of thought. I found that Deleuze was open to thought-forms that were not reactionary and resentful (see the influence of Nietzsche). Humor itself can be rather reactionary, so it takes a special type of humor to get away from the "I-told-you-so" ironic versions of it.
This now leads me to try to use Deleuze and Barth to open up a creative way to look at post-modernity in all the various ways it appears to us. Is Barth the right thinker to do this with? We shall see. For starters, one of my goals is to see how they view modernity in an accepting way and at the same time to see the opening up of movements of thought whether or not they have a spiritual bearing. For starters, I have been consuming the Substance article on Deleuze and the spiritual/political. Lets see how the weekend goes in fleshing this out...

A Tale of Two Zizeks

I recently finished Matthew Sharpe's new study of Zizek's Politics. The first thing to note is just how clear the analysis was on Zizek's corpus. Job well done! I have read a lot of Zizek introductions and I have to say that next to Kotsko's (which I frequently return to) this is a good place to start if you are interested in this particular theorist.

The crux of the book is the idea that there are two theorists in Zizek: 1) Zizek as the Radical Democrat (which could also be called the early Zizek up into his works on Schelling; here Zizek is more concerned with the Symbolic) and 2) Zizek as the Revolutionary/Vanguard (which is post Schelling and his so-called Christian works; here Zizek leaps into the Real). The current Zizek is the Zizek2 even though Zizek1 has not entirely gone away. Sharpe beleives that there is a turn with Shelling into a much more pessimistic turn to Zizek's overall work. Sharpe ultimately criticizes Zizek2 for basically becoming a closet admirer of Hobbes/Schmitt.

I have been wrestling with this thesis for the last couple of weeks especially as I have been reading some Derrida lately. I wonder, as my brother pointed out, that this pessimism that offends people is the deferment of easy solutions, or real concrete acts of justice, or of the real ugliness that is out there in the world... I really do think that the "theology" that theorists like Zizek have been dealing with lately (as opposed to the "impossible god") is worth something that can perhaps awaken believers from their dogmatic slumbers. So reading Barth (like always) and Derrida with Zizek in the background continues to open up new dimensions for me; at the most part, it is a comfortable unsettling that he brings.