Successful states, failed theories

In "The Failure of Political Theology", a review essay for Mute of Forrest Hylton's Evil Hour in Colombia and Achille Mbembe's On the Postcolony, Angela Mitropoulos (aka s0metim3s of the archive) skewers the assumptions of "failed state" theory.

She points out, on the one hand, that the notion of "failed states" presupposes the norm of the "successful" state as a more or less harmonious instance of the social contract at work.  This is a presupposition shared by liberalism and by Gramscian hegemony theory alike.  And obviously enough I thoroughly agree with her assessment of hegemony theory as no more than "a variant of social contract theory with Marxian pretensions."  Indeed, as Mitropoulos's reading of Hylton's book shows, if anything so-called progressives are more wedded to the social contract (and so to the repression of the state's founding and ongoing violences) than are liberals.  The (populist) demand to refound the state by means of an organic representation of subaltern classes is a ruse of the state's feigned self-cancellation.

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Metaphysical

I am, by no means, a specialist - or even vaguely acquainted - with most positivist philosophy. Recently I read H.L.A. Hart's The Concept of Law in order to teach it to my legal studies students. Among other things, Hart is interested in destroying Austen's definition of law as the command of the sovereign backed up by coercive force. Part of Hart's problem with Austen's definition is the inclusion of the sovereign. Hart hates this idea - regardless of any other merits in Austen's definition, the inclusion of sovereignty is more or less enough to make it completely wrong. My problem, however, is that Hart's argument against sovereignty is anything but: it amounts to little more than saying, "Sovereignty is metaphysical." Apparently - for Hart at least, but I get the impression this is common for most positivists - saying something is metaphysical is enough to completely destroy another argument. I don't get it: why is calling sovereignty "metaphysical" a knock down argument that lets you move on to the next point? Put another way, even if sovereignty is "metaphysical" and has no concrete empirical referent - you never "see" sovereignty; you never "see" causality - the fact remains that sovereignty is ontologically real: people act as though it is there. Doesn't this amount to little but another form of the confusion regarding the reality of social constructed things? ("If they're socially constructed, that means they aren't real or imaginary.")

(Cross-posted to theoria.)

Profile uncertain

Well, since Genet has been looking over Long Sunday of late (by which I mean the picture, fleetingly taking the place of the banner graphic above), here is the the short text eventually published as the first piece in Genet’s L’Ennemi Déclaré: Textes et Entretiens:

J.G. seeks, or is searching for, or would like to discover, never to uncover him, the delicious enemy, quite disarmed, whose equilibrium is unstable, profile uncertain, face inadmissible, the enemy broken by a breath of air, the already humiliated slave, ready to throw himself out the window at the least sign, the defeated enemy: blind, deaf, mute. With no arms, no legs, no stomach, no heart, no sex, no head, all told a complete enemy, already bearing all the marks of my bestiality that now need never be used (too lazy anyway). I want the total enemy, with immeasurable and spontaneous hatred for me, but also the subjugated enemy, defeated by me before he even knows me. Not to be reconciled with me, in any case. No friends. Above all, no friends: a declared enemy, but not a tortured one. Clean, faultless. What are his colors? From a green as tender as a cherry to an effervescent violet. His size? Between the two of us, he presents himself to me man to man. No friends. I seek an inadequate enemy, one who comes to capitulate. I will come at him with all that I can muster: whacks, slaps, kicks, I will feed him to starving foxes, make him eat English food, attend the House of Lords, be received at Buckingham Palace, fuck Prince Phillip, and be fucked by him, live for a month in London, dress like me, sleep in place of me, live in place of me: I seek the declared enemy.

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Schmitt's Influence on American Politics

A moderately strange article at Counterpunch by Arthur Versluis about Carl Schmitt's influence on "fascist America" below.  Moderately strange because Schmitt's name doesn't appear until the end of the fourth paragraph in a six paragraph article; strange because there is a description of some aspects of recent American politics and then a (rather poor) description of some aspects of Schmitt's thought (one fragment of a line from Political Theology - likely taken from Wikipedia than an actual reading of the book).  This stuff is even worse than the "Straussian Conspiracy" business of last year - while Strauss and Schmitt are no doubt influential on certain American policymakers, this "There is this and there is that, therefore they must be connected" is the worst sort of "scholarship" imaginable and it certainly doesn't reflect well on the book this guy is trying to promote!

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Schmitt, Partisans, and Hezbollah

This New York Times article talks about the advanced weaponry Hezbollah has at its disposal and I thought it was interesting to see this development in light of our discussion of Schmitt's 'theory of the partisan.'

America is waiting

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights …

If a consideration of privelige occupies the thoughts of North American progressives, by contrast the principle that has sometimes preoccupied radical politics in Italy (and perhaps, in other versions, radical politics elsewhere) is non credere di avere diritti – don't believe you have rights.

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The Two Politicals

1. A number of commentators have speculated on the relationship between the people, the state and the political in Carl Schmitt’s political theory. Some, of course, have pointed out that this is a futile task: on the one hand, the English translation of The Concept of the Political is of the second edition and not the apparently decisive third and, on the other hand, the situation in the Weimar Republic is hardly comparable to our own. Thus, in one case we are told not to speak because of a lack of information and in the other case we are told not to speak because of the inherent difficulties in transposing concepts developed in one conjuncture to another. Readers of Carl Schmitt should, apparently, remain silent. (Indeed, some critics would prefer that Schmitt not be discussed at all.) And, yet, non-stop chatter, discussion and inquiries. The present 'symposium' is, by some measures, the most successful to date: it looks as though it will last the entire month featuring a diversity of contributions (many unduly neglected!) from a wide spectrum of contributors.

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Introduction: Carl Schmitt

In place of something substantive...

"Anybody who is at all committed to liberal democracy does not at all need to read Carl Schmitt." - Kurt Sontheimer

Introduction - First, I would like to thank everyone who has agreed to contribute a short piece or scattered thoughts on Carl Schmitt's essay, "Theory of the Partisan," which will likely end up dominating Long Sunday content for about the next week.  I am especially greatful because this is, by far, the longest piece yet proposed for a symposium and, therefore, the time committments I've asked of people is, most certainly, unreasonable.  I look forward to reading the posts!  Second, if you have not volunteered to post something, but would still like to or would like to contribute a more detailed response to an individual (or series!) of posts than can be adequately done through comment threads, then please do contact me and we'll arrange something.

The texts under discussion can be found here: from the New Centennial Review and Telos; two journals which incidentally published translations - with some interesting differences - of the same text in the same year.  A bibliography of Carl Schmitt's works in English can be found here.

Additionally, this post can be used as an 'open thread' regarding administrative matters, comments, etc that do not fit into the already existing posts.

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Carl (und Karl)

The next (formal) symposium to take place at Long Sunday will be on the topic of Carl Schmitt's "Theory of the Partisan".  (The next informal symposium event will be in celebration or commemoration of Karl Marx's birthday.  Short pieces, scattered thoughts, etc.)  It is tentatively scheduled for early June, possibly the first week. Because of the length of the essay, I've put the announcement out a bit earlier than the previous ones.   If you're interested in participating, please reply here or at theoria.  As always, new and old participants alike are welcome -- and encouraged -- to join in.

The essay, originally published in 1963, has finally been translated into English -- twice in 2004.  One version, under the title of "The Theory of the Partisan: A Commentary/Remark on the Concept of the Political" translated by A.C. Goodson is available online [pdf] from CR: The New Centennial Review  as a companion to their special issue on the essay in Volume 4, Issue 3.  It has also been published as "Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political" [pdf] in, of course, Telos 127 (Spring).

A bibliography of Schmitt's writings in English can be found here [pdf].  The essay, like Schmitt's work in general, has received quite a bit of attention, links and references to which will be posted shortly.

Confirmed: John S. Ransom, Adam, Nate, Angela, Craig, Luke, Jodi, Matt, Anthony Paul Smith, Old Doug Johnson, Squibb, John
Unconfirmed: Jon , Brett

Swadeshe pujyate raja vidyan sarvatra pujyate

Before I attempt to bring some threads together, a bit of anecdotage, that may also prove illuminating about value and global communications.

A few years ago, at a time that I was working in Manchester, England, I happened to be in North Carolina for a conference. There I received an email from my friend Jean Franco, who taught for many years at Columbia (she is now emerita) and is one of Gayatri Spivak's closest friends. She'd just got back to the States from London and said she had "an immense favour to ask." Gayatri had phoned her from Hong Kong, "in a state of agitation," because she needed to get hold of a book by Tony Blair, The Third Way, in advance of her keynote at the British Sociological Association conference in Manchester at the weekend. It was now Wednesday. Jean passed along Gayatri's temporary email address in Hong Kong so we could make further arrangements.

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Resistance with irony

The following is a guest post by Brett Neilson, blogger at the irregular Life During Wartime.

1. ‘Triumphant global finance capital/world trade can only be resisted with irony.’ I am simultaneously drawn and worried by this claim from Spivak’s 2000 essay ‘From Haverstock Hill Flat to U.S. Classroom, What’s Left of Theory.’ Perhaps this is because the work of irony is never done. Reaching on the one hand toward insubordinate refusal and on the other toward an unbearable ontological lightness, irony holds forth a promise it cannot keep. As such, it provides no chart of programmatic action--no twelve steps for overcoming global capitalism. Its tactics are inevitably polluted with ideological longings that, as Spivak’s teacher Paul de Man points out, it can know but never quite overcome.

Irony divides the flow of temporal experience into a past that is pure mystification and a future that remains harassed forever by a relapse within the inauthentic. It can know this inauthenticity but can never overcome it. It can only restate and repeat it on an increasingly conscious level, but it remains endlessly caught in the impossibility of making this knowledge applicable to the empirical world

Is this precisely the impossibility that drives Spivak to rewrite her observations on reading Marx after Derrida so many times?

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Total Normality

To the right is the front page of Argentine daily newspaper Clarín, from March 25th 1976, thirty years ago, the day after the coup d'état that ushered in the so-called "Process of National Reconstruction." A "Process" in which some 30,000 would be killed.

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