Screw Your Mother

Baudrillard has an interesting piece in the latest New Left Review.  What struck me is how it seems to share a theme that Jodi just pointed out regarding Bartleby's "I prefer not to."   Both point to a fundamental refusal:

But France, or Europe, no longer has the initiative. It no longer controls events, as it did for centuries, but is at the mercy of a succession of unforeseeable blow-backs. Those who deplore the ideological bankruptcy of the West should recall that ‘God smiles at those he sees denouncing evils of which they are the cause’. If the explosion of the banlieues is thus directly linked to the world situation, it is also—a fact which is strangely never discussed—connected to another recent episode, solicitously occluded and misrepresented in just the same way: the No in the eu Constitutional referendum. Those who voted No without really knowing why—perhaps simply because they did not wish to play the game into which they had so often been trapped; because they too refused to be integrated into the wondrous Yes of a ‘ready for occupancy’ Europe—their No was the voice of those jettisoned by the system of representation: exiles too, like the immigrants themselves, from the process of socialization. There was the same recklessness, the same irresponsibility in the act of scuppering the eu as in the young immigrants’ burning of their own neighbourhoods, their own schools; like the blacks in Watts and Detroit in the 1960s. Many now live, culturally and politically, as immigrants in a country which can no longer offer them a definition of national belonging. They are disaffiliated...

But it is a short step from disaffiliation to desafío—defiance. All the excluded, the disaffiliated, whether from the banlieues, immigrants or ‘native-born’, at one point or another turn their disaffiliation into defiance and go onto the offensive. It is their only way to stop being humiliated, discarded or taken in hand. In the wake of the November fires, mainstream political sociology spoke of integration, employment, security. I am not so sure that the rioters want to be reintegrated on these lines. Perhaps they consider the French way of life with the same condescension or indifference with which it views theirs. Perhaps they prefer to see cars burning than to dream of one day driving them. Perhaps their reaction to an over-calculated solicitude would instinctively be the same as to exclusion and repression.

The superiority of Western culture is sustained only by the desire of the rest of the world to join it. When there is the least sign of refusal, the slightest ebbing of that desire, the West loses its seductive appeal in its own eyes. Today it is precisely the ‘best’ it has to offer—cars, schools, shopping centres—that are torched and ransacked. Even nursery schools: the very tools through which the car-burners were to be integrated and mothered. ‘Screw your mother’ might be their organizing slogan. And the more there are attempts to ‘mother’ them, the more they will. Of course, nothing will prevent our enlightened politicians and intellectuals from considering the autumn riots as minor incidents on the road to a democratic reconciliation of all cultures. Everything indicates that on the contrary, they are successive phases of a revolt whose end is not in sight.

Comments

[PaulS]

He dies, yes, but his death is also allegorical. If you're going to insist he isn't human, you must agree that neither is his death necessarily something that happens.

[chabert]

""nothing will prevent our enlightened politicians and intellectuals from considering the autumn riots as minor incidents on the road to a democratic reconciliation of all cultures. Everything indicates that on the contrary, they are successive phases of a revolt whose end is not in sight."

... is it the suggestion that there isn't an "end in sight" and/or that the riots are not stages in a democratic progression that you find unecessarily uncanny?"

S: Can you clarify how 'the suggestion that there isn't an end in sight' is a 'depiction'? To me it looks like an inference deriving from the analysis of the referent of the depiction via the details of the depiction.

(The point of the question is to discover how you determined this - unexpected - menu of possible references of the term 'depiction', and why there are only two choices on it, neither of which appear to me to be depictions, and why the menu excludes all the things that are describable as depictions in the text.)

[chabert]

"If you're going to insist he isn't human, you must agree that neither is his death necessarily something that happens."

Very true. I was just accepting the positing of him as human, endowed with a psyche, a being to be emulated, to roll out that option which is offered, and to try to understand what such a reading, entwined in a political proposal, is up to.

[chabert]

"He dies, yes, but his death is also allegorical. "

It's not allegorical I think. Or anyway if you find an allegory, that's just one axis of meaning production; it's presence doesn't actually deactive all other capacity of the text to signify. I don't assume interpretation, or text consumption, that moves sort of vertically between registers as well as horizontally is invalid; I think most imaginitive text is actually working ideologically this way, inviting the weaving of associations of notions across registers, inviting the consuming consciousness to move from say the effect of a textual function in the text on the text to an inference or conception of the relation of its mimetic referent to actuality but also to metaphors in the text. So we consider 'Bartleby's (narrative) death' in relation to Melville as producer of Bartleby's death and to his fictional employer the lawyer as producer/narrator of that death, and to the latter also as narrated witness of the death, simultaneously and in relation to one another, and that we don't really privilege one over the other, in a hierarchy based on the proximity to the imagined actuality, but consume it all as a kind of knot of suggestions in productive struggle with eachother. So that say the appearance of narrative necessity suggests a necessity in the subtext even though 'on its own', 'independent' of the text, set apart, the subtext you produce might not have this illusion of necessity, and even carries the suggestion of necessity from the narrative to the imagined referent in actuality, sort of inescapably. So: the narrative necessity of Bartleby's death has effects on the subtext. But then converting the subtext back to a narrative - this would appear to be the operation involved in trying to deploy 'Bartleby's refusal' as a political principle - you import the narrative necessity which gave rise to the subtext you are re-narrativizing, inescapably, because you can't just declare parts of the text inert, and say this is the meat and this is the fat.

[Squibb]

"Possibly this is the proposal though - fictional characters "in Power." Maybe the proposal is just to change the way we presently 'read' the real people in Power now - stop thinking of them as bunglingly active and think of them as militantly passive. It is kind of Zizek's take on the present condition - and it is also precisely the White House's description of itself... Bush says 'I prefer not to.' This is what we are to believe political power is in fact *always* saying in the neoliberal world order. If you asked the WTO, they would say Bartleby is in power almost everywhere, and they are just hoping he soon comes to power in China. They would be lying, but maybe Z's proposal is that we stop noticing that."

Chabert- Perhaps I have missed something in your formulation here. You are suggesting, I believe, NOT that 'political power' IS in fact militantly passive, but merely that Z. is saying we read it that way?

Furthermore that the WTO would claim that there are such militantly passive people in power 'almost everywhere,' and hopefully in China soon too?

And how is this neo-liberal exactly?

I must admit I find it fascinating that we will quibble at length over various readings of Bartleby, but there is no attempt to reckon with the signifier, 'neo-liberal,' in either its implicit or explicit employ.

One might argue that Bartleby has increased in significance only as we have moved farther and farther away from an honest attempt to grapple with the difficult questions of political economy. Bartleby's reticence echoes not any actually available reading of the political, but merely what the political has become for us on the (academic, institutional) Left. The only 'I prefer not to' that's operative here is Zizek's and Baudrillard's, who, clearly, prefer not to think politics beyond the most grotesque of straw-men, employed to support an aging and decadent faith in their own importance.

Like Chita Rivera in "A Dancer's Life," thinkers like these are simply performing their own former relevance. (Though sadly, Zizek never actually possessed it; too bad) It is a pathetic attempt to capitalize on a certain stale nostalgia, and one that seems to go largely unrecognized among the faithful. Bartleby operates here as an implicit excuse for their own massive failure on the terms of their own theoretical traditions. As the their own inefficacy grew, politics became more and more amorphous and awful, until finally nothing could be expected of our intellectuals but the endorsement of the most empty and vacant of (a)poltical statements, "I prefer not to."

Personally, I find such a proposal an expression of the most disgusting and luxurious decadence - the extension of an entirely structural privilege to a situation where it is totally without precedent or applicability.

Let them eat cake, indeed.

[chabert]

"You are suggesting, I believe, NOT that 'political power' IS in fact militantly passive, but merely that Z. is saying we read it that way?"

Not "saying" - not recommending explcitily -so much as slyly encouraging. Perhaps. Seducing us to the notion.

"Furthermore that the WTO would claim that there are such militantly passive people in power 'almost everywhere,' and hopefully in China soon too?"

Right: or that the goal is to have governments be militantly passive vis à vis markets.

"And how is this neo-liberal exactly? "

Political power in the neoliberal scheme is hands off, allowing the players in the market to act 'freely'. See the WTO website for their description of their aims, such as, "Building on the work carried out to date [Doha] and without prejudging the outcome of the negotiations we commit ourselves to comprehensive negotiations aimed at: substantial improvements in market access; reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies; and substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support."

[Squibb]

Chabert-

"Political power in the neoliberal scheme is hands off, allowing the players in the market to act 'freely'."

I think the scare quotes here are indicative, insofar as there are several levels on which the idea of the neo-liberal is here taking place.

There is the first, most literal level of the evidence you provide, namely the annunciations of the WTO with regard to its own stated mission. However, even at this level, they do not so much renounce political power as seek to focus it on certain specific agendas, specifically, we might say, an effort to enforce EOI policies as opposed to ISI ones. The relative amount of government activity required for this varies greatly from country to country. In most cases there is nothing 'hands off' about it, as your scare quotes indicate, but still we call it neo-liberal.

Thus there is the second level of operation, namely the theoretical one in which neo-liberal as a signifier subsumes this tension, between the professed avoidance of political action and its indisputable presence. Thus neo-liberal here means, neo-liberal in name, and always already not-neo-liberal in action.
Neo-liberal comes to stand for its own impossibility.

Thus we have the third level where we can now characterize the neo-liberal as the militantly passive. But this categorization takes place not at the level of the specific instance of policy, or even at the level of the strategic politics at work in the assertion of that policy, but in the reception/perception across several categories of a certain performative contradiction by a certain theoretical community, the movement of which hinges on its own intense isolation.

Thus perhaps I meant to say, not, "How is this neo-liberal?" But rather, "whose neo-liberalism are you using, in what form, and at what point?"

Insofar as I maintain that Zizek's characterization of the neo-liberal as militantly passive takes off from a no-place of double (or triple) abstraction and is so rendered determinately ineffectual - the hum of the academic spectacle talking to itself.

[chabert]

"Thus perhaps I meant to say, not, "How is this neo-liberal?" But rather, "whose neo-liberalism are you using, in what form, and at what point?""

I was drawing the analogy between the proposition of "Bartleby in Power" which is similar (total) neoliberalism that is the combination of its theory/slogan (Bartleby) and its practise (in Power).

[nnyhav]

Another datapoint (via PTD): Birmbaum v Delbanco turns on Bartleby. (I prefer The Confidence-Man's standpoint.)

[chabert]

"Zizek's characterization of the neo-liberal as militantly passive takes off from a no-place of double (or triple) abstraction and is so rendered determinately ineffectual - the hum of the academic spectacle talking to itself."

Actually Zizek has on occasion characterized capitalists per se as militantly passive. (And on other occasions as motivated by desire for lost objects.) Etc etc. And now he characterizes the agents of the overthrow of capitalism as militantly passive. I asked myself why would this come into a person's head? What is prompting this fantasy? And then I remarked on the resemblance between Zizek's mysteriously subversive Bartleby's and the neoliberal ideologues characterization of the ideal government with regard to economic policy. And then it occured to me he wrote things of this kind himself, in the past. And then it struck me that this strain of neoliberal apology, in which he has himself produced examples, was the inspiration for his current offering of 'revolutionary idleness'. How deliberate the analogy is, I couldn't say. But it's a curious coincidence.

[chabert]

"Furthermore that the WTO would claim that there are such militantly passive people in power 'almost everywhere,' and hopefully in China soon too?

And how is this neo-liberal exactly?"

Oh, I see what happened. The second time you quoted this, you dropped the next sentence "They would be lying" so took the object of remark - neoliberal apology and propaganda - as something proposed by me as an accurate description of neoliberal political and economic policy. Which evidently I am not suggesting ("they would be lying").

Despite being a fairly transparent deception, the establishment of this 'Bartleby' government is in fact the consistent claim of neoliberal ideologues and apologists, including not only journalists and philosophers but economists and trade treaty negotiators. They are, of course, lying.

Also, the WTO's agenda on agriculture is not about transforming economies from ISI to EOI, it is about the global conditions in which countries which have already for a long time been export oriented - many for hundreds of years - will compete. And also to prevent any possibility of reversion to ISI policies, by protecting the ability of the aggressor nations to dump in the victim nations, though in various 'not exactly dumping' guises.

[Squibb]

"Oh, I see what happened. The second time you quoted this, you dropped the next sentence "They would be lying" so took the object of remark - neoliberal apology and propaganda - as something proposed by me as an accurate description of neoliberal political and economic policy. Which evidently I am not suggesting ("they would be lying")."

First of all, no, I didn't take it that way, and I think "as your scare quotes indicate" makes that pretty clear.

The point I am trying to make is that the "they would be lying," is beside the point, as 'neo-liberal' is being asked to operate across the contridiction between the propaganda it espouses and the buisness of its implication. Thus, a simple question, what are they lying about? About being neo-liberals? Or about being 'hands-off'?

(insofar as they are not neo-liberals because they are not hands-off)

Both, right? But then neo-liberals aren't the problem. People who pretend to be neo-liberals are.

Or, neo-liberals are the problem, insofar as neo-liberals are always already lying.

In which case, again, neo-liberals, per se, aren't the problem, as neo-liberal here stands not for an actual coherent position, but for a relationship of deceit, and the term neo-liberal is misleading, as it posits a coherence which isn't really there. (The monstrous straw man)

"Despite being a fairly transparent deception, the establishment of this 'Bartleby' government is in fact the consistent claim of neoliberal ideologues and apologists, including not only journalists and philosophers but economists and trade treaty negotiators. They are, of course, lying."

Here we see you running your terms together, as clearly, 'neoliberal ideologues' are not 'of course, lying' about being neo-liberal. So they must be lying about being hands-off, in which case neo-liberalism is again, not the problem in this formulation, its betrayal is. Not what you want to be saying, I don't think.

(and yes, I am repeating myself)

"Also, the WTO's agenda on agriculture is not about transforming economies from ISI to EOI, it is about the global conditions in which countries which have already for a long time been export oriented - many for hundreds of years - will compete. And also to prevent any possibility of reversion to ISI policies, by protecting the ability of the aggressor nations to dump in the victim nations, though in various 'not exactly dumping' guises."

What I said was:

"However, even at this level, they do not so much renounce political power as seek to focus it on certain specific agendas, specifically, we might say, an effort to enforce EOI policies as opposed to ISI ones."

which sounds an awful lot to me like-

"And also to prevent any possibility of reversion to ISI policies"

[Squibb]

"How deliberate the analogy is, I couldn't say. But it's a curious coincidence."

We agree here at least.

(Also, I do not mean to assert that essentially fallacious positions like neo-liberalism deserve to be approved of, more that damning them without exploding their incomprehensibility reinforces their power.
I mean, the WTO is, as an organization fundamentally not neo-liberal, as it responds to collective-action problem neo-liberalism asserts does not exist. So why do we grant it the benefit of its lies?)

[chabert]

"I mean, the WTO is, as an organization fundamentally not neo-liberal, as it responds to collective-action problem neo-liberalism asserts does not exist."

I think if I were to try on your style here i would ask: Which 'neoliberalism' asserts this does exist?

Neoliberalism is a set of propositions for policy (regarding privatization, the abolition of capital controls, the abolition of capital gains tax, etc) with a propaganda cover or rationalization to make these proposals sound like a good idea for people in general. The fact that the propaganda cover is deceptive doesn't make it not neoliberal, it makes it not policy. The fact that the policies don't correspond to the propaganda doesn't make them not neoliberal, it makes them not propaganda. "Neoliberalism" is not the only 'ism' structured like this, with a praxis and a myth that do not mirror eachother. It would seem that the really fundamnetally inconcievable notion of "Bartleby In Power" captures the nature of an 'ism' of this sort and perhaps most resembles 'neoliberalism' in that it suggests praxis (revolution) whose protagonist is envisioned as militantly passive, and thus suggests militant passivity must somehow permit/encourage/incite some invisible hand (or invisible communal psyche as the case may be) to reorder material conditions for the best, although, as with neoliberalism, how this would actually unfold historically and materially is a mystery.

[Squibb]

"Neoliberalism is a set of propositions for policy (regarding privatization, the abolition of capital controls, the abolition of capital gains tax, etc) with a propaganda cover or rationalization to make these proposals sound like a good idea for people in general."

(First, let me say that I appreciate your continued engagement on these issues, as indeed it would appear we have a great deal of lexical distance between us. So be it)

You posit here an essential distinction present within neo-liberalism, between its implications on the level of policy, and the 'propaganda' or 'rationalization' it offers to 'make these proposals sound like a good idea for people in general.'

"The fact that the policies don't correspond to the propaganda doesn't make them not neoliberal, it makes them not propaganda."

So, again we have neoliberal-policy and neoliberal-propaganda. How exhaustive is this distinction? (Can’t we, on some level, fault it for simply being wrong?)

"Neoliberalism" is not the only 'ism' structured like this, with a praxis and a myth that do not mirror eachother."

My point is merely to question the efficacy of this formulation- with regards the realm of political economy. I agree that there is a disconnect between the myth and the praxis, but in order for this discrepancy to fall into relief requires a formulation of the myth/praxis relation that does not show this discrepancy, otherwise we are left complaining of the nature of -isms themselves. Which, though perhaps a responsible recourse in certain (metaphysical, ontological) realms, is not necessary at the level at which neo-liberalism seeks to operate. We ARE in possession of critical vocabularies in this arena. Thus I see the reading into neo-liberalism of Zizek's passive militancy a certain surrender, a certain confusion of categories, and therefore I fully agree with you when you say, "as with neoliberalism, how this would actually unfold historically and materially is a mystery" insofar as I don't understand why we would seek to combat the vulgar impossibility of a neoliberal political economy with a similarly impossible conceptual weapon. It seems so rare when we can assert, categorically and without exception, the absolute bankruptcy of a discourse, as I think we can in the case of neo-liberalism, that I grow frustrated when we would forgo assertions of market failure, say, or capture theory, to mess about, instead, with Bartleby, and his 'I would prefer not to,'

Thus when you ask of me an account of neo-liberalism that allows for the CA problem that the existence of the WTO testifies to, I would say simply that no, I would rather testify to the absurdity of the neo-liberal position than offer a potential reconciliation between itself and its most dastardly of instruments.

Does this clarify things at all?

[chabert]

"I don't understand why we would seek to combat the vulgar impossibility of a neoliberal political economy with a similarly impossible conceptual weapon"

We wouldn't!

But an intellectual might propose this precisely for its a) ineffectuality and b) suggestion that 'neoliberal' ideology is not ludicrous insofar as it concerns this notion of 'passivity in power', but rather mysteriously profound.

I'm not saying it's a persuasive or interesting suggestion. Just that these seem to be the implications of the suggestion, and hint at the historical explanation for it.

So we wouldn't want to buy it, but would intellectuals with a certain political agenda perhaps want to convince us to be passive this way and think about passivity this way? Killing two birds with one stone by a) naturalizing the neoliberal dogma insofar as the paradoxical notion of passivity in power in concerned and b) insuring that we do nothing to make a nuisance of ourselves, that we are too busy pondeirng the revolutionary possibilities of doing nothing (presumably while watching tv), that is, pondering the revolutionary possibilities of what we are already doing?

I'm just trying to determine the content/ implications of Z's propsal here. (I take for granted at this point he is up to no good of course.)

Why else turn A Tale Of Wall Street which is a little parable about Wall Street, about the unreliability of fictitious capital (claims on future profits), about the violence this requires we do to our *ideas about people* and inevitably to real people - there is a thorough critique of classical liberalism in the story, that is of the foundations of neoliberalism - into its opposite, the triumph of Bartleby? If not to engage in a inventive, covert apology for the object of Melville's attack? And even if this isn't the motive, it would be seem almost inescapably to be the result...

[chabert]

"I grow frustrated when we would forgo assertions of market failure, say, or capture theory, to mess about, instead, with Bartleby, and his 'I would prefer not to,'"

Yes, this perverse reading of Bartleby is though not just missing the point (missing an opportunity to examine the myths of efficient markets and so forth) but *overtly* refusing it, explicity refusing it by choosing Bartleby specifically, and then refusing to recognize Bartleby as the center of this critique of all the myths of the market, and liberal democracy (we see a 'model' or abstracted employer/employee relation limned all around, hazily, by history, the option of coercion, the importance of preferment, the abolition of the office of master in chancery, and bartleby's initial exile from dead letters in washingtonby 'a change in administration')...at one point the Master in Chancery considers that if he just walks into Bartleby as if he were not there, this intolerable man of preferences would not be able to stand such a display of the force of assumptions.

[chabert]

In the first paragraph its as if Melville said, I've read wonderful novels and then came on this novel The Wealth Of Nations (or some other in this vein) and it contained the eeriest most uncanny character...and he then goes on to tell in detail his version of the scene where the capitalist and the worker meet in the marketplace to negotiate. This scene is the foundation, the fundamental myth of Wall Street, where are traded claims on future profits, the value of which fictitious capital is purportedly evaluated based on predictions based on assumptions regarding how that negotiation goes (the interaction between the master and the scrivener)....

[chabert]

Squibb, I'ms just saying: like you said:

"The only 'I prefer not to' that's operative here is Zizek's and Baudrillard's, who, clearly, prefer not to think politics beyond the most grotesque of straw-men, employed to support an aging and decadent faith in their own importance."

So, that's the recommendation to everyone, but not explicitly: NOT "do nothing so that the status quo is unthreatened", but instead disguised: "passivity is revolutionary power, you are insufficiently passive and this is what's preventing the invisible hand from overthrowing capitalism because in fact there's merit in this notion of 'market forces' unimpeded bringing about Utopia."

So the explicit recommendation is: "stay away from that unkewl altermondialism. Do not organize, do not act, do not resist, you would only be impeding the revolution."

[chabert]

which is not a suprising message to hear from this quarter, the hired ideologues of capital, right? what else would they say? Would they want to recognize that in fact the Paris riots had some demonstrable efficacy? That the defeat of the Eurotreaty has slowed down the dismantling of the welfare state? Why would they want to acknowledge these things? Who would pay them to do that? They want to deny them, of course.

[s0metim3s]

I see the discussion has moved on to the WTO. But, before it did:

collective 'hydras' of this type are implausible and a bit eerie.

Is that a reference to Pete Linebaugh's work?

In any event, I can't see what's either implausible or eerie (even less, disgusting) about suggestions that the 'no' vote in France, the more recent riots - and, I should add, the protests against the WTO - were hydra-like.

It's a simple thing to discern quite divergent (and in some cases, irreconcilable) reasons among the 'no' voters, among those who rioted, among protesters against the WTO.

[chabert]

"Is that a reference to Pete Linebaugh's work?"

A reference to it? No. To what in Linebaugh do you suspect I was referring?

"In any event, I can't see what's either implausible or eerie (even less, disgusting) about suggestions that the 'no' vote in France, the more recent riots - and, I should add, the protests against the WTO - were hydra-like."

Is this a reference to Linebaugh?

What do you mean by "hydra-like?" What is the single body of a hydra the metaphor for? What are the heads? Have you ever participated in something "hydra-like"?

"It's a simple thing to discern quite divergent (and in some cases, irreconcilable) reasons among the 'no' voters, among those who rioted, among protesters against the WTO."

But as you can see, B suggests uniform absence of any *reason* or *reasons* among a substantial number of no voters:

"Those who voted No without really knowing why"

If this had been the case, there would have been some sign of such voters. I spoke with about 2500 people prior to the referendum; about half could be considered a nearly random sample. There were *none* who did not know why they were voting no. Just because you can imagine something, does not mean it accurately describes other people. Have you a reason besides your own capacity to imagine such people that they exist?

Can you name someone who voted no without knowing why? What percentage of the no voters does your data suggest voted no without knowing why? What were the other reasons and what percentage of voters were motivated by each?

What about the Yes votes? How many people voted yes without knowing why? How many had a reason? What were the reasons and how were the votes distributed among them?

Was the Yes vote also "hydra-like"? If not, why not?

[chabert]

You have to remember S, they sounded like this on Television night after night too:

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/chat/0,46-0@2-3224,55-631786,0.html

You didn't need to be a noramlien to see this for what it was. Or rather, perhaps, one needed to be one not to?

[chabert]

Also S: are you saying there is no distinction between 'hydra-like' and 'exiles'? You have shifted the modifier 'disgusting' from one to the other as if these were synonyms.

Also 'hydra' is only a metaphor. All groups of people are hydra like in some ways. You belong to several hydra like groups.

The implausibility and eerieness of the collective characters in B's text derive from the specific characteristics attributed to the collectives, which make them more like hydras - fantastic beasts - than like groups of people, even though both the former and the latter always resemble insofar as they have many heads.

Hydras, mythic beasts, *DO NOT* have multiple irreconcileable motives; it is not assumed they have multiple brains and divergent personalities. Your seeking to justify the metaphor 'group of people-hydra' by remarking that the former have multiple reasons for participating in a given collective action, is particularly unpersuasive, because this would be an example of a characteristic groups of people *do not* share with Hydras.

B's No voters resemble Hydras because they don't have any motives other than the kind of fabulous destructiveness and negativity that mythical monsters have. And also, like Hydras, they know nothing of their adversaries' thoughts and motives - B and the many-headed collectivity to which he is attached - while the adversaries know a good deal about them.

How does multiplicity of motive among participants in collective action - this would seem to be a characteristic ubiquitous among groups of people whatever they do, watching tv, voting yes, voting no, not voting, shopping, driving - suggest something peculiar in this case, the absence of motive and 'exile'?

Irreconcilability: the undertaking of collective action itself is testimony to a pre-existing reconciliation with regard to the action itself. Perhaps groups of people have rhetorically and discursively irreconcilable thoughts - but this only means they couldn't co author a good academic treatise, which neither the No voters nor the Paris rioters endeavoured to do, not that their views are irreconcilable with regard to collective political action.

[s0metim3s]

Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, _The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic_.

Your seeking to justify the metaphor 'group of people-hydra' ...

Say what? I'm pretty sure that you introduced the metaphor into this discussion and I queried the significance of doing so (for you).

Irreconcilability: the undertaking of collective action itself is testimony to a pre-existing reconciliation with regard to the action itself. Perhaps groups of people have rhetorically and discursively irreconcilable thoughts ...

How do you go about reconciling those who voted 'no' because the EU's welfare policies are worse than those of France with those who voted 'no' because they don't like foreigners? And why would you even want to?

In other words: your distinction between 'real human subjects' and 'uncanny fictions' becomes implausible because you're obliged to subtract those troubling "rhetorically and discursively irreconcilable thoughts" (including the xenophobic ones) from the very sense of subjectivity in order to produce the fiction an identity (that you prefer).