The paradoxical and unsettling relation between political truth and disorientation. Evaluation of Alain Badiou's analysis of contemporary political disorientation and its ontological ground.
An essay on Alain Badiou . You don’t see that everyday ! Really commendable especially here on Substack, writing about one of France’s important, somewhat neglected and irritating figures, a man simultaneously long-distance Red Guard, set theorest and philosopher. The big question is on the table: what kind of society do we want to live in ?
Badiou’s 'disorientation' is a perfect word for the present moment. Unfortunately for the Philosopher-King, the ground has shifted under his lofty heights. I don’t think the reality he’s describing is the reality we inhabit; boundaries are porous and unless one believes the Right-Left schema inherited from the French revolution is permanent, life is outside, in different territory.
1 “The avatars of a new form of right-wing populism lay claim to reason when they firmly despair at a gender discourse that no longer understands biological sexual difference...”
The first paragraph leaps immediately into the Twitter-trap of lumping disparate groups.
Is Badiou saying that the women demanding that we recognize sex differences are or are aligned with right-wing populists, all of them traditional ‘family values’ types ? They’re in the front lines of resistance to a robotic future. Fighting for an inconvenient truth, they pose an event outside the various political sets: unaligned, they receive negligable support from established political groups in France, right or left.
Likewise, the disarray on the ecological front is so complete I have no idea whom Badiou is talking about. Davos cult ? Greta and her end of the worlders ? Carbon-taxers ? Badiou is guilty of false teaming to support his narrative.
2 “In other words, Badiou intends to point out the forms of libertarian, right-wing, and crypto-authoritarian ‘liberal’ discourse...”
Badiou’s bias is revealed here, an allegiance to the ‘pensée unique’ school of a decade ago. He aligns ‘Authoritarian liberalism’ with ‘nationalistic, republican suspicions’ – that’s the pensée unique crowd in a nutshell. They argued that it’s necessary to forego belief in a nation and its culture for the greater international good.Culture was thus not defense but limitation. This is the logic of the triumphalist EU bureaucracy, where, I suspect, many of those young radicals now work.The vast majority of Europeans do not like the look of this new Bureaucrat-Without-Borders, tied to nothing except the advancement of his or her career.
As to authoritarian restriction: several dozen free speech events were banned in Belgium, Germany and France over the last month; Yanos Varoufakis is now forbidden to speak or publish in Germany. Meanwhile, a real authoritarian, Orban in Hungary, permits street demonstrations ( almost always in opposition to his policies) on a regular basis. Equivalences presented here lack complexity and are false.
3 “Four variations of this authoritarian liberalism...” “Feminism...”
Mes excuses mais non...! 1, There are authentic nationalists who are not in the least nostalgic for a bygone colonialism but Badiou prefers to put new people in old boxes. Will he call them colonialists when France votes to leave the EU ? A non-sensical position. 2, Feminism ‘as such’ is dead. It committed suicide in return for tenure. Women organizing today refuse to call themselves feminists; they are politically homeless, as are so many of us. 3, ‘Rejecting ecological movements which don’t make a point of taking on Capitalism’ (I paraphrase) is both wasting time and virtue signaling; as the Irish say, It’s a pity you’re trying to get there from here.
Badiou is asking people to do nothing unless they stroke his pet monkey first. The Extinction Rebellion crowd already tried that. They achieved nothing.
Your essay is extremely valuable in presenting a philosopher’s reaction to our current creative impasse. Badiou’s effort to build sandcastles against an in-coming tide is doomed, largely because of his attachment to Left-Right schematics, when what distinguishes our present moment is fragmentation. Political alignments are preserved fossils. There is no grand Event but instead a continual fragmentation of belief.
An essay on Alain Badiou . You don’t see that everyday ! Really commendable especially here on Substack, writing about one of France’s important, somewhat neglected and irritating figures, a man simultaneously long-distance Red Guard, set theorest and philosopher. The big question is on the table: what kind of society do we want to live in ?
Badiou’s 'disorientation' is a perfect word for the present moment. Unfortunately for the Philosopher-King, the ground has shifted under his lofty heights. I don’t think the reality he’s describing is the reality we inhabit; boundaries are porous and unless one believes the Right-Left schema inherited from the French revolution is permanent, life is outside, in different territory.
1 “The avatars of a new form of right-wing populism lay claim to reason when they firmly despair at a gender discourse that no longer understands biological sexual difference...”
The first paragraph leaps immediately into the Twitter-trap of lumping disparate groups.
Is Badiou saying that the women demanding that we recognize sex differences are or are aligned with right-wing populists, all of them traditional ‘family values’ types ? They’re in the front lines of resistance to a robotic future. Fighting for an inconvenient truth, they pose an event outside the various political sets: unaligned, they receive negligable support from established political groups in France, right or left.
Likewise, the disarray on the ecological front is so complete I have no idea whom Badiou is talking about. Davos cult ? Greta and her end of the worlders ? Carbon-taxers ? Badiou is guilty of false teaming to support his narrative.
2 “In other words, Badiou intends to point out the forms of libertarian, right-wing, and crypto-authoritarian ‘liberal’ discourse...”
Badiou’s bias is revealed here, an allegiance to the ‘pensée unique’ school of a decade ago. He aligns ‘Authoritarian liberalism’ with ‘nationalistic, republican suspicions’ – that’s the pensée unique crowd in a nutshell. They argued that it’s necessary to forego belief in a nation and its culture for the greater international good.Culture was thus not defense but limitation. This is the logic of the triumphalist EU bureaucracy, where, I suspect, many of those young radicals now work.The vast majority of Europeans do not like the look of this new Bureaucrat-Without-Borders, tied to nothing except the advancement of his or her career.
As to authoritarian restriction: several dozen free speech events were banned in Belgium, Germany and France over the last month; Yanos Varoufakis is now forbidden to speak or publish in Germany. Meanwhile, a real authoritarian, Orban in Hungary, permits street demonstrations ( almost always in opposition to his policies) on a regular basis. Equivalences presented here lack complexity and are false.
3 “Four variations of this authoritarian liberalism...” “Feminism...”
Mes excuses mais non...! 1, There are authentic nationalists who are not in the least nostalgic for a bygone colonialism but Badiou prefers to put new people in old boxes. Will he call them colonialists when France votes to leave the EU ? A non-sensical position. 2, Feminism ‘as such’ is dead. It committed suicide in return for tenure. Women organizing today refuse to call themselves feminists; they are politically homeless, as are so many of us. 3, ‘Rejecting ecological movements which don’t make a point of taking on Capitalism’ (I paraphrase) is both wasting time and virtue signaling; as the Irish say, It’s a pity you’re trying to get there from here.
Badiou is asking people to do nothing unless they stroke his pet monkey first. The Extinction Rebellion crowd already tried that. They achieved nothing.
Your essay is extremely valuable in presenting a philosopher’s reaction to our current creative impasse. Badiou’s effort to build sandcastles against an in-coming tide is doomed, largely because of his attachment to Left-Right schematics, when what distinguishes our present moment is fragmentation. Political alignments are preserved fossils. There is no grand Event but instead a continual fragmentation of belief.