Politics of Security: Towards a Political Philosophy of Continental Thought/Michael Dillon

Politics of Security In this critique of security studies, with insights into the thinking of Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, Levinas and Arendt, Michael Dillon contributes to the rethinking of some of the fundamentals of international politics, developing what might be called a political philosophy of continental thought. Drawing especially on the work of Martin Heidegger, Politics of Security establishes the relationship between Heidegger’s radical hermeneutical phenomenology and politics and the fundamental link between politics, the tragic and the ethical. It breaks new ground by providing an etymology of security, tracing the word back to the Greek asphaleia (not to trip up or fall down), and a unique political reading of Oedipus Rex. Michael Dillon traces the roots of desire for security to the metaphysical desire for certitude, and points out that our way of seeking security is embedded in technology. Accessible and lucid, Politics of Security will be invaluable to both political theorists and philosophers, and to anyone concerned with international relations, continental philosophy or the work of Martin Heidegger. Michael Dillon is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Lancaster. He has held visiting positions at The Johns Hopkins University and the Australian National University, and has written extensively on the structures and processes of post-war defence decision-making. He has also written on the onto-political underpinnings of modern international politics in The Political Subject of Violence (1993, co-edited with David Campbell). ‘Michael Dillon engages the problem of security not as a mere matter of geopolitical boundary maintenance, but as the dark heart of the western logos. Dillon knows that in the late modern era, we come closer to comprehending the limit-experience of danger in the realisation of our deepest desire for certitude— a desire that can never be filled, except in total destruction. Providing us with a new way to think about the ontological underpinnings of security and insecurity is but the first major accomplishment of Politics of Security. But Dillon does more than this: he asks us to rethink the tragic as a way of evading the fate of security. This is a challenging and important book.’ Thomas Dumm, Amherst College ‘Dillon has done both political theory and international theory a great service, not least by collapsing the traditional foundations of the two fields through a genealogy of security that turns metaphysical, political and disciplinary boundaries inside out. This could well be disquieting for readers—as I suspect Dillon intends. But it is a disquiet that aptly captures the globalised anxieties of insecure times.’ James Der Derian, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts ‘Although I do not share the author’s commitment to a Heideggerean mode of thinking, with its residual anthropocentrism and philosophical idealism, I am impressed by the earnestness and boldness with which Michael Dillon seeks to rethink and revitalise the question of the political in Heidegger’s wake. In particular, his reading of the tragic and Greek tragedy to illuminate his problematic of security/ insecurity is genuinely brilliant and compelling.’ Keith Ansell Pearson, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Warwick Politics of Security Towards a political philosophy of continental thought Michael Dillon London and New York First published 1996 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. Routledge is an International Thomson Publishing company © 1996 Michael Dillon All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Dillon, Michael, 1945– The politics of security: towards a political philosophy of continental thought/Michael Dillon. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Security, International—Philosophy. 2. International relations—Philosophy. 3. Political science—Philosophy. I. Title. JX1952.D58 1996 327.1’01–dc20 96–3435—CIP ISBN 0-203-05080-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-21124-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-12960-5 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-12961-3 (pbk) For Jayne and Sarah Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 1 Security, philosophy and politics 12 Introduction 12 Must we secure security? 14 The critical conjunction of the philosophical and the political 23 Conclusion 29 2 Radical hermeneutical phenomenology 36 Philosophy and politics 37 The truth of hermeneutical phenomenology 43 The recovery of the political 52 The rift between poetry and thinking 56 Free being as ethical encounter 61 Free being as tragic being 65 Cognition to comportment 70 Security to tragedy 73 3 The topos of encounter 79 The transformation of the essence of truth and the transformation of the essence of the political 90 The conflictual essence of the political 95 The pivotal essence of the political 98 The essence of the pivot of the political 103 The public and chiasmic essence of the political 110 4 Interlude: (In)security 113 5 The political and the tragic 129 The tragic 137 Violence and the tragic 150 Limits of the tragic 154 vii viii Contents The tragic extremity of the political 156 Conclusion: The polos of tragedy 160 6 Oedipus Asphaleos: The tragedy of (in)security 162 Opening 162 Action 170 Ending 197 Conclusion: Imagination at the call of ethico-political responsibility 199 Notes 205 Bibliography 237 Index 245 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following for the intellectual and moral support they provided in the writing of this book: Keith Ansell Pearson; Alastair Black; Robert Bernasconi; David Campbell; Howard Caygill; William Connolly; Costas Constantinou; Simon Critchley; James Der Derian; Peter Euben; Richard Kearney; Michael McKinley; Michael Shapiro; Rob Walker; Sam Weber. I am also very grateful to the graduate students at Lancaster University, and at The Johns Hopkins University, for suffering the thought that has gone into it. Thanks as well to Jeannette, for always being there. The book is dedicated with love to the two people for whom it was most written: my daughters, Jayne and Sarah. ix Introduction The other is the future. The very relationship with the other is the relationship with the future. (Emmanuel Levinas) International Relations is a discipline concerned with observing how the political project of living-out the modern emerged, and how it continues to operate globally. I am concerned with how we might out-live the modern politically. I think of outliving here as surpassing the modern political imagination, not merely surviving its dereliction. In making its contribution to out-living the modern, politics must be an art capable not only of applying existing moral and economic codes, or of administering the interests of existing subjectivities. It must be capable, also, of allowing new possibilities of political being to emerge out of the unstable, unjust and violently defended sediment of modern political existence. In the development of such a project, International Relations becomes more rather than less important. For the question of whether or not human being does out-live the modern is one posed in and through the interstitial politics of (inter)national politics. To conceive of politics as being concerned with making way for new possibilities of being requires reimagining politics itself. Specifically, it requires that politics be thought as something which arises from human being as a possibility. To understand human being as a possibility, however, means understanding that it consists in the improbable feat of always already containing more than it is possible to contain; understanding that there is always already in human being an excess of being over appearance and identity. Thought as a possibility rather than a fixed and determinate actuality, human being must necessarily also be thought as free; free to take-up the difficult and inescapable challenge it encounters in itself as a possibility, and make that possibility its own. For if the human were not free, in the condition of having its being as a possibility to be, there would be no action to take, no decisions to make, no dilemmas to face, no relations to relate, no loves to love, no fears to fear, no laws to make and no laws to break. There would, in short, be no politics. Consequently, the very 1 2 Introduction project of politics is made possible by human being as a possibility. A possibility engendered by the freedom of human being as a possibility, the project of politics must then be the making way for the taking place of human being’s freedom as possibility. Such an account of politics would also make International Relations more rather than less important: albeit, it would make International Relations something which its orthodox proponents would not recognise. Reimagining politics is, of course, easier said than done. Resistance to it— especially in International Relations—nonetheless gives us a clue to one of the places where we may begin. For although I think of this project as a kind of political project, resistance to it does not arise from a political conservatism. Modern exponents of political modernity pride themselves on their realistic radicalism. Opposition always arises, instead, from an extraordinarily deep and profound conservatism of thought. Indeed, conservatism of thought in respect of the modern political imagination is required of the modern political subject. Reimagining politics therefore means thinking differently. Moreover, the project of that thinking differently leads to thinking ‘difference’ itself.

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