Chapter 6: The Political Condition

The fragmentation of critical utopias reflected a deeper problem within critical theory, namely its failure to come to terms with the anti-foundational challenge. By their very nature, the post-‘68 forms of critique, of a post-structuralist or deconstructive nature, did not mobilize a critical utopia. Foucault developed an aesthetics of existence. Deleuze and Guattari gestured toward vitalist desires. Derrida was even more elusive, frequently deconstructing his own critical horizons. But few critical theorists were able to reconcile these newer forms of postmodern critique with a positive political vision.

Few critical theorists could come to terms with the idea that there might not be a foundational utopia, a fixed object on the horizon—that there may be no singular type of political economic arrangement that guarantees equitable distributions, no single communalist regime that could ensure equity and a just society, no one utopic social organization on the critical horizon. This is, after all, destabilizing. It is hard to accept the idea that, just as there is no institutional fix or charter of rights that would guarantee liberal democracy, there is no institutional or structural way to ensure a utopic future. It is difficult to concede that an equitable social outcome must depend on reconfiguring the specific minutia of rules and principles that are instantiated in whatever political economic arrangements already exist. It is practically unbearable, especially among those who aspire to equity and just distribution. The fact that a proletarian revolution could so easily lead to a terribly unjust society, as could a state-controlled economy or the absence of the state; the fact that the style, the type, the form of economic and political organization is hardly relevant to the justness of the outcomes—that what matters are the values that regulate the production and distributions—these are all difficult to imagine from within the critical tradition.

Few critics were willing to acknowledge the unbearable core of critical theory—namely, that there is no end to the political struggle, or that, given the endless political contest, the political struggle must ground our critical utopias. In effect, that struggle is our political condition and our political horizon—a constant unending struggle that never reaches a stable equilibrium, but endlessly redistributes wealth, well-being, freedom, and life itself, through the organization and reorganization of political economies.

Our political condition is that endless combat, in which some seek solidarity, others self-interest, and yet others openly pursue supremacy and domination. Our condition is a relentless contest over resources, possessions, ideals and identity, over existence itself. Not a war, nor a civil war as Foucault suggested. The notion of a war has an end in sight—our political condition of endless struggle does not. The concept of civil war is too binary. We face instead endless battles in which alliances are fluid and shifting.¹⁴² This is precisely what makes it so difficult and painful to admit.

Political economies are constructed, deconstructed, reconstructed, and constantly shifting as we pursue survival in times of scarcity and social competition. Our political condition is not merely a Hobbesian state of brutal, solitary, and short-lived existence in a natural condition of war of all against all that comes to an end in the mutual submission to sovereign authority. Neither fear of loss or even of death, nor hope, nor reason, not even pragmatism propels us out of this predicament or puts an end to the endless power struggles. No, the political condition rather provides the weapons, the vehicles, new strategies and tactics, new venues, and jurisdictions, and the space and time of combat. Not just through parliamentary debate rules and executive orders, not only in electoral campaigns or in the drawing of district lines, but in the very minutiae of locating a polling place, granting or not a protest permit, enforcing orderly conduct, infiltrating a political movement, prosecuting—always inevitably selectively prosecuting—an individual or organization or demographic.

Over the centuries, we rarely have had the strength or courage or perhaps the stamina to confront our political condition. Most often, instead, we have found ways to mask our predicament by means of creative, but fanciful, illusions: liberalism and the rule of law, the myth of natural order, the imaginary of a general democratic will, the illusion of free markets or of economic equilibria, or even the fantasy of really-existing socialism. Our desperate desire for security and stability has blinded us, over centuries, to our inescapable political condition—to the constancy of the recurring battles, the succession of confrontations and competitions, the instability of it all, even within established leftist regimes. We wish, we fantasize our way out of our political predicament—only to find ourselves engulfed in it, again and again, and again.

Throughout history, political thinkers have merely played with shadows trying to avoid the depth of our political condition. Even the most aware perhaps, like Niccolo Machiavelli, earnestly believed they could propose a set of tools, a bag of tricks to tame political providence—to domesticate fortuna. Thomas Hobbes imagined the towering sovereign as a means to steady the strife and enable civil society—terrorized, as Hobbes was, by the fear of war and death. Hobbes let us fantasize an end to the war of all against all, even if temporary, and the possibility of a civil condition. John Locke hungered for a parliamentary solution to appease the sovereign’s authoritarian impulses. Montesquieu made up checks and balances. Marx, a commune of like-minded workers and the withering of the state. Rawls, procedural mechanisms to ensure justice. And after the Holocaust, perhaps one of the most brutal forms of politics—openly exterminative, supremacist, eugenic politics—Western thinkers timidly placed their hope in liberal legal mechanisms, legal process theory, human and civil rights, as safeguard against the recurrence of fascism first, and later, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, of communism. Some would even fancy the expansion of liberal democracy as the end of history—in effect, an end to politics, to our endless condition of political struggle.

But these political pipe dreams have done nothing more than exacerbate the hold of illusions and obfuscate the true lines of battle. They have diverted attention from our inescapable political condition: That there is no institutional fix or structural redesign or practical trick that will stem the conflict or avoid political upheaval, let alone guarantee political stability. Truth is, any form of purported political stability is itself a moment of brutal consolidation at the expense of others whose interests we are not even acknowledging. It is always at the expense of others. And there is no way to put in place a system of rights or of agencies, or of laws, of judges or ombudsmen, or even of men and women, that will protect against political contest and resulting harms—small or large, from mere corruption to expropriation, to genocide. There is no procedural mechanism, no judicial review that can, independently, ensure justice. Nor are there any laws of economics, or politics, or human nature that push history forward—or backwards. There is, in effect, no teleology, and no possibility even of a determinist philosophy of history.

Our political fate and our present circumstances are, and always will be determined by what we struggle for. –By who we are. The individuals creating or operating or manipulating the institutions, what they are made of—those individuals and their values—will shape our political condition. It is what we do—each one of us, in terms of the justice and equity, and liberty that each one of us fights for—that does and will transform our political condition. Ultimately, our political circumstances depend on our actions: when we protest, whether we vote, what we endorse, where we contribute, what we say, how we act, where we fight. Institutions are no safeguard. Rights are not self-enforcing. Political parties go astray. It is what we are made of and what we fight for—each and every one of us, individually, collectively, and severally—that shape our human condition and social and political relations.

In the end, there is no place for any of us to hide. No refuge. No private sphere. No shelter. There is no intimate realm to retreat to. No personal domain that will protect us. No way to avoid it: We make our political condition at every moment in pursuit of our values. In every little thing we do. That is our political predicament. Invariably and at all times, each one of us is both the author and subject of our political condition. Every microscopic choice, every decision, even the most minute, will have consequences for the world we live in. This is the utterly excruciating reality of existence—from the smallest gesture to the greatest, we shape our social relations and human condition: Whether we mindlessly ignore the homeless panhandler on the street or deliberately pull the execution switch, what newspaper we buy and book we read, whether we retire and cede the ground or blog or hack—entire political economies are built on those choices, a world is shaped by each one. Each and every one, minute or profound—these shape our human condition.

This is why—although it may sound entirely counterintuitive—work on ourselves, transformations of our selves in the narrowest sense, must necessarily accompany political action and the quest for justice. There is here no tension between ethics and politics. There is no priority of one over the other—there is no passage from one to the other. The two are inextricably linked insofar as our every choice, our every action is the foundation of our political condition. To act or not to act, and how to act, or not, is an ethical choice that is entirely political as well. There is no natural equilibrium in politics—and there never will be. Each moment is produced by infinite actions and inactions of each and every one of us. There is nothing but a constant struggle over resources, wealth, reputation, force, influence, values and ideals—constant power struggles.

Those who understand this, for the most part, try to dissimulate it in order to gain the upper hand. The art in politics is to put up a façade, a veneer of civility and normality. To make it seem as though politics is not battle. To calm and appease, at the very same time that we strategize and engage. “The presidency is bigger than any of us,” we are told. “We must all work hard to ensure a successful transition,” since “one presidential administration must follow the other.”¹⁴³ Those are the arts, the techne of politics, intended to sooth and distract, and simultaneously to lead or rather mislead the subject and citizen. To make them believe that they need not always preoccupy themselves with politics, or truly get their hands dirty, or get too involved, or protest too vehemently. That they should contain themselves, play by the rules, or let their elected representatives take care of matters. That politics is not warfare. That things are under control.

“Enjoy your family and private life,” “go shopping again,” “pursue your personal projects and ambitions,” we are told—and all will work out for the best. Nothing could be further from the truth! No, things will not work out for the best, instead others will decide how to restructure laws and taxes, and redistribute wealth, and benefit themselves. “The pursuit of self-interest will lead to the common good”—that is perhaps the greatest illusion of all. A farce, if it were not so tragic. A strategy that will merely allow others to determine the “common good.” Or allow others to claim, reassuringly, that our political condition is under control, or well regulated, or controlled by norms. But it is not. It is not under control, except insofar as it is entirely controlled. It is shaped by our every action and inaction.