Agonized Liberalism the Liberal Theory of William E

Agonized liberalism The liberal theory of William E. Connolly

Antonio Y. Vázquez-Arroyo

ʻDemocracyʼ in the discourse of the ʻFree Westʼ the assumptions of this article in order to clarify the does not carry the same meaning as it does when stakes of the argument. we speak of ʻpopular-democraticʼ struggle or of Liberal democracy is awash with promises of deepening the democratic content of political life. freedom and equality but it is incapable of realizing We cannot allow the term to be wholly expropri- ated.… Instead, we need to develop a strategy of them. This impossibility is largely due to the contra- contestation around the term itself. dictions between the terms the formula pairs together. Stuart Hall Their coupling in the formula liberal democracy notwithstanding, democracy and liberalism constitute two In the last two decades, William E. Connolly has distinct historical traditions. In the West, at least emerged as a significant figure in American academic since 1945, liberal democracy has come to signify the political theory by framing his theoretical reflections on combination of an electoral regime with a popular base identity, difference and politics in terms of a ʻrework- and a constitutional framework of rights, operative ing of the democratic imaginationʼ.1 The novelty of within a capitalist political economy. It is no surprise, these reflections mostly resides in his combination of then, that the articulation of this ideal is ridden with post-structuralist motifs with the traditional concerns tensions. Gopal Balakrishnan has starkly formulated of Anglo-American liberal theory. Meanwhile, the the current stakes in this coupling: ʻTo the extent that radical/critical import of his reflections has been taken neoliberalism is a liberal doctrine, the relationship for granted both tacitly and explicitly, to the extent that between [democracy and liberalism] today is probably one of his essays even found a home in the pages of this about as complex and antagonistic as it was during the journal.2 Connolly has simultaneously insisted that he Weimar Republic.ʼ3 is contributing to both the liberal and the democratic Alongside the march of liberal democracy in the imaginations. Yet in his writings the compatibility twentieth century there has been a gross increase of these two traditions is never addressed, let alone in inequalities of power and status, both locally and questioned. Rather, Connolly has constantly moved, globally. The global configurations of economic and almost interchangeably, from one to the other. political power impose new demands of local govern- I shall argue that the tension between these two ance. At the global level, a new cast of characters has traditions emerges in his writings in a particularly emerged to replace the old bourgeoisie: indeed, in the revealing way. This tension raises several important contemporary scene, technocrats, CEOs and ʻfinancial questions about the status of democracy in liberal buccaneersʼ squash obstacles in ways the old bour- theory and in Connollyʼs particular contribution. What geoisie probably never dreamt of.4 The contemporary is the role of democracy and liberalism in Connollyʼs world is one full of asymmetries of power and status theoretical reflections? What, if any, are the possibili- – political, cultural and economic. If the nineteenth- ties of democratic renewal that his various formulations century bourgeoisie is no longer present as a visible open up or foreclose? What limits does Connollyʼs oppressor, its counterpart, the oppressed groups and commitment to liberalism impose on his conception classes, has far from disappeared. This is a world of democracy? By addressing these questions, this where ʻthe rulers have ceased to ruleʼ, but where ʻthe article presents a critical engagement with Connollyʼs slaves remain slavesʼ.5 writings in relation to his professed adherence to Politically, neoliberalism and the liberal-democratic democracy. Before I proceed, I shall state some of consensus make few demands in terms of democratic

8 Radical Philosophy 127 (September/October 2004) participation. Rather, there is what Sheldon S. Wolin ethic that is emplotted in a rhetoric of forbearance and has fittingly called ʻthe citizen–spectatorʼ, whose role reciprocity which, in turn, seeks to deflate antagonisms is to cheer fervently in an outburst of abstract patriot- towards difference and reformulate these in an ethical ism, like the one that emerged after 11 September stance honouring what he calls the ʻplurivocity of 2001.6 Or, as Perry Anderson has put it, in the age of beingʼ.10 Stated somewhat differently, the politics of liberal democracy what often reigns ʻis not democratic ʻagonistic respectʼ is one that seeks to translate the aspiration from below, but the asphyxiation of public antagonisms of politics into an agonism of difference.11 and political difference by capital above.ʼ7 Moreover, Connollyʼs agonistic respect embodies an ideal of the early twenty-first century has witnessed a reloca- civility in a world marred by deep conflicts – an ideal tion of the structural interdependency of the liberal of civility that I would suggest is more conducive to state and capitalism from the national level to an the establishment of a stable modus vivendi, a histori- interdependency of the leading national economy (the cally long-term liberal hope, than to a reinvigoration USA) with the global economy, in a relation of media- of democratic contestation. For as long as agonistic tion that is far from consonant with the egalitarian respect seeks abstractly to lessen the conflicts of and participatory aspirations of democracy.8 Connol- politics, and to transform these in a more benign way, lyʼs refashioning of the liberal imagination hardly one of its byproducts is the lessening of any sense of transcends this predicament. On the contrary, it has crisis that could emerge from political antagonisms. A sought to make it less stingy. sense of crisis, however, has historically accompanied transformative political action even if it is sometimes Democracy as culture at the price of stability. Once posited abstractly, ago- We urgently need a new modus vivendi today.… nistic respect also lessens the tensions ensuing from What is called for is a rewriting of liberal ideals not the unfulfilled promises of liberty and equality in their elimination. liberal democracy. It thus becomes a release valve for William E. Connolly the built-in tensions of contemporary capitalist–liberal- From Politics and Ambiguity (1987) on, Connolly democratic politics. has presented a theory whose main goal has been a But what is the role of democracy in this quest for a refashioning of the liberal-democratic imagination by new modus vivendi? In one of his earliest formulations, rethinking the paradoxical relation between identity in Identity/Difference, Connolly defends democracy as and difference. In the process, Connolly has taken the best regime to confront and accept the contingency several turns: from a brief flirtation with Habermas of our identities.12 There is, to be sure, validity to this in the late 1970s and early 1980s, to an immersion in assertion: historically, democracy has represented the Foucault during the 1980s, then an idiosyncratic blend shattering of contingent institutions, cultural practices, of Foucault–Nietzsche–Heidegger in the 1990s, to the and arrangements that impeded the demosʼs access to new trend of Deleuze–Guattari, as well as a blend meaningful participation in political power. In many of neo-cognitive brain research and his latest label, instances, such shattering involved showing the con- ʻneo-Spinozismʼ. By somewhat hastily assimilating all tingency of social and political arrangements in order these theoretical trends in his reflections on subjects to challenge their claim to intrinsic natural order, or such as identity/difference, democracy and ambiguity, divine preordination, and, therefore, it significantly pluralism and pluralization, secularism and rhizomes, altered or eliminated entrenched dynamics of domina- Connolly has carved a distinctive place for himself in tion anchored in ideologies of class, race and gender, the landscape of recent American political theory. among others.13 Yet this is not precisely what Con- Out of these engagements has emerged a theory nollyʼs writings suggest. By means of an increasingly that, according to its author, fosters generosity and culturalist conception of democracy, Connolly subtly responsiveness among different constituencies in a but effectively downplays important aspects of the his- predicament in which final markers for politics and torical experience of democracy: namely, the central- morality are not only uncertain but suspicious. In this ity of meaningful participation in power, substantial vein, Connolly has emphasized the need for what he political equality, and the subversion of linguistic and calls ʻagonistic respectʼ and practices of forbearance civic codes that impaired access to political power and among different identities and the differences that equal status. For Connolly, as I show below, order and either dialogically or linguistically serve as their condi- restrained partisanship seem to take precedence over tions of possibility.9 Accordingly, his theory seeks to democratic participation and equality. At this juncture, foster an ethic of cultivation towards difference, an the liberal moment increasingly starts to take over.

9 Such displacements are manifest in Connollyʼs as a condition of possibility for the limited forms of recent formulations, in Ethos, Why I Am Not a Secular- democratic participation, as well as for the dynamic ist and Neuropolitics, where democracy is defined as stability of capitalism.17 What is more, as this ethos limits the range of concerns deemed political within an egalitarian constitution of cultural life that the democratic imaginary, it might end up depoliti- encourages people to participate in defining their cizing issues historically associated with democratic own troubles and possibilities, regardless of where these troubles originate and how narrow or broad struggles. In a predicament marred by inequalities and they are in scope; it is, moreover, an ethos through injustices, a theorization of democracy cannot afford to which newly emerging constellations might recon- bracket ʻthe mainstay of political theoryʼ. Contempo- stitute identities previously impressed upon them, rary obstacles for democracy include class structures, thereby disturbing the established priorities of bureaucratic–corporate power, the military–indus- identity/difference through which social relations are trial power complex, an often reified constitutional- organized; it is, therefore, a social process through which fixed identities and naturalized conventions ist–capitalist institutional order, and the quasi-despotic are pressed periodically to come to terms with their monopoly of public discourse by corporate power. In constructed characters.14 other words, the current concrete forms of the mainstay of the political are deeply anti-democratic. Con- a distinctive culture or as ʻ in which constituencies nolly, however, fails to address these questions. It thus have a significant hand in modelling and moving the seems as if the structural role of political economy is 15 identities that constitute themʼ. unthinkable for Connolly, as it has been for most of 18 Over the past fifteen years or so, I have sought to the liberal orthodoxy. In this theory, there is a built-in valorize productive tension in democratic life be- failure to consider structural and institutional aspects tween, on one side, being, recognition, predictabil- of power in contemporary capitalist liberal democra- ity, rights, governance, and tolerance, and, on the cies. This failure ultimately sabotages the possibilities other, disturbance, becoming, critical responsiveness of democratic renewal, while allowing for centralized to the surge of the new, and a generous ethos of and crystallized forms of power to operate unnoticed public engagement between constituencies honouring different final sources.16 and unhindered. Yet the explanation for these displacements is found The effort to foster a sensitivity to the cultural in Connollyʼs insistence that he is crafting a new dimension of democratic life is praiseworthy, espe- version of the liberal modus vivendi. The latter has cially when contrasted to the electoral, market-oriented historically entailed a reductive role for democracy conception of democracy fashionable in American in both classic and contemporary liberal theory from political science. Even so, there is something disquiet- Hobbes to Rawls. By reducing the role of democracy ing about these formulations, especially once they are to an ethos, Connolly is able to prescribe, among other historicized in the context of US liberal democracy, its things, rules of engagement and civility (agonistic theorists, and its often over-hyped Kulturkampf. Far respect), while severely taming the normative grounds from being an invigorating credo, liberal democracy, for political contestations (framed by the language especially after its proclamation of the end of history, of selective disturbances) and instilling therapeutic has increasingly evolved more sharply into an accom- practices to make life less stingy (self-artistry). Mean- modationist ideology of power that tames potential while, a democratic pluralism is flourishing, in which rivals and subsumes substantial differences in a highly expanded ʻsabbatical leavesʼ are more constitutive of abstract, often prophylactic, consensual discourse of an increasingly culturalist ʻdemocratic utopiaʼ than tolerance and plurality. substantial equality and meaningful political participa- Once cast in this light, to formulate democracy as tion. This is a democratic pluralism that seems better an ethos has important (anti-) political implications, suited for an American Political Science Association especially in its subtle way of restricting the range panel with like-minded white-pluralism-loving liberals of concerns traditionally associated with democratic than for raucous democratic contestation.19 experience. A ʻpolitical ethosʼ has more to do with By framing democracy in this way, Connolly has ʻmodes of civic conductʼ than with the mainstay of significantly altered the concerns traditionally associ- political theory: constitutional principles, democratic ated with it. In their place, he offers a new ʻfast-pacedʼ institutions, political economy. In a contemporary version of the liberal quest for a modus vivendi as the liberal democracy such as the USA, the stabilization primary focus. Stated differently, rather than offering a of institutional juridico-political arrangements serves democratic critique of the tensions between democracy,

10 liberalism and the ideas he cherishes, Connolly has the vocabulary privileged by Connolly (the language proceeded to cast democratic pluralism in a liberal of contingency and contestability); it also silences light. This might merit renaming his enterprise as historically constituted modes of speech that demand a reworking of the liberal imagination in a fast- retribution for past injuries and resist framing their paced world; a renaming that is perfectly consistent concerns as contestable. with Connollyʼs sporadic confessions, or perhaps self- Connolly would most likely object to this account reassurances, throughout his books.20 of his position. He might point out that he has a metaphysical disposition, and also how he does not Caring colonization expect these metaphysical encumbrances not to bear The limits imposed on democracy by Connollyʼs rein- on the public sphere. In other words, contra Rawls, vigoration of liberalism can be more clearly discerned comprehensive doctrines are welcomed in Connollyʼs in the Rawlsian connotations of his notion of an ʻironic modus vivendi – an assertion that surely introduces consensusʼ and a modus vivendi. Historically, in the a sense of historicity into Rawlsʼs otherwise fixed aftermath of European religious wars and revolutions, secular conception of persons. Also, Connolly admits liberal quests for a modus vivendi and its surrogates, a sense of fluidity that resists the fixity that the secular stability and cooperation over time, have been yearn- imagination imposes on prevalent cultural understandings for repose. But after 1991, this has been the ings by means of its interplay of remembrance and yearning of a fatigued doctrine that has sought repose forgetfulness. Accordingly, Connollyʼs ethos of critical while proclaiming its triumph at the same time. It is responsiveness presumably cuts deeper than Rawlsian important to note that in these quests for a modus ideals of tolerance. Even so, his alternative is not free vivendi liberal theorists have traditionally overlooked from the dangers he ascribes to Rawls, since, by posit- the histories and memories that are coalesced in the ing an ahistorical agonistic ethos of engagement, he at institutions that serve as a background for the liberal once silences the history behind some of these soon-to- resting place. This attribute is especially evident in be agonistic combatants, and, in doing so, undermines the contractarian versions of liberal theory where the the openness he otherwise seeks. As he imposes the theorization of the modus vivendi involves a theoreti- language of contingency and contestability, Connolly cal suspension of the structural inequalities of power is imposing a new set of imperatives, especially when and status already in place, while presenting a reified silencing the language of most forms of democratic and ephemeral moment of equality.21 public discourse: from school boards to town meetings, Connollyʼs self-image notwithstanding, there is an labour assemblies, or coalitional politics. None of equivalent of this rhetorical move at work in his these is articulated with the ambiguousness Connolly liberal ethos. Whereas in Connollyʼs reflections there invites. is a professed sensitivity to the way in which theoreti- In good liberal fashion, Connolly has sought to cal devices (such as originary social contracts, ideal colonize potential rivals. To be sure, to enter into the speech situations and veils of ignorance) silence the agonistic encounter, or to live up to the Connollian voices of some constituencies and exclude, frequently ethos of engagement, participants do not have to in advance, from the public sphere voices whose modes endorse the abundance of life and being. Instead, of expression are articulated in terms that are alien to they are expected merely to accept the contingency of the rational thinker, his liberalism shares some of the their identity and the contestability of their views and most fastidious and anti-democratic aspects of these articles of faith. In a formulation that either attests formulations. It presupposes, mostly tacitly but also political candour or plain disingenuousness, Connolly explicitly, the willingness to enter into dialogues of writes: agonistic respect, whose entry point is adopting the Appreciation of such a pluralist/pluralizing ethos language of contingency; it asks constituencies to need not draw upon Nietzschean sources alone, frame discussions bounded by selective disturbances; though they do provide an excellent source for it, it asks participants, irrespective of their backgrounds, and they do deserve agonistic respect from those not histories and subject positions, to accept the contest- moved by them.… It can … draw sustenance from ability of their views, no matter how intrinsic these are a modest rewriting of the Rawlsian problematic. In this refigured Rawlsianism, we pursue restrained considered to be, and, presumably, to ʻlaugh togetherʼ, terms of contestation and collaboration between even if only in principle. The cumulative effect of this multiple, overlapping traditions, each of which discourse is not only to neutralize alternative idioms recognizes a certain reciprocity between the element and the modes of speech of those who do not share of contestability in its own faith and the alternative

11 faiths with which it contends and collaborates. doxical tension between pluralization and equality. Such a rewriting touches the Rawlsian idea that the Instead of addressing this question as one that needs to modern age is incompatible with a ﬁxed conception be negotiated politically – at the end, it is the collectiv- of the good. But it no longer calls upon each con- ity that politically redresses the problems that might stituency to leave its metaphysical/religious doctrine in the private sphere before it enters public, secular arise, by devising ﬂexible institutions, for instance as life. Rather, it calls upon it to acknowledge the a practice of democratic constitutionalism, or an open contestability of its own presumptions and to allow experimental constitutionalism – Connolly restricts that acknowledgement to infuse restraint, agonistic this discussion with the language of consensus. respect, and responsiveness into its relations to In contrast to liberalism, democracy has traditionally other constituencies. That is, it calls upon each to been the means by which subordinated constituencies revise its self-understanding in the light of these considerations. Such an ethos … fosters restrained have sought to change their social lot – namely the partisanship within and between multiple constituen- means by which constituencies that have tradition- cies, each of which may be able to identify lines of ally been dominated and displaced in liberal-capitalist 22 connection and collaboration to a series of others. societies have put forward their claims. To reinvigorate the democratic imagination in the present therefore Connollyʼs ethos ʻmerelyʼ asks one to acknowl- requires a more powerful challenge to the socio- edge what he posits in advance as two of his articles economic structures of late capitalism, something of faith: contestability and agonistic respect. In this that, against the liberal in Connolly, involves more refashioned modus vivendi, one needs to agree to be than progressive taxation, or a practice of forbear- a good agonistic combatant, perhaps even engage in ance, especially when the latter includes those in collective laughter, and not impose too many pres- charge of the oppressive structures that are in place. sures on the system, or on others, even if both the Accordingly, rather than enhancing the prospects for system and those others contribute to oneʼs position of democratic contestation, Connollyʼs relentless commit- subordination within it. To the best of my knowledge, ment to liberalism sabotages the democratic impulse Connolly does not make any exceptions, or dispensa- of his theory. tions, in terms of historical injuries and inequalities, At this point, it might be worthwhile to pursue to this rule, thus sharing one of the most fastidious further the parallels between Connollyʼs liberalism pitfalls of contractualism: the temporary theoretical and Rawlsʼs. ʻPolitical liberalsʼ have emphasized suspension of concrete inequalities that leads to an either ʻrespect for personsʼ (Larmore) or ʻthe primacy abstract equality. This last point is particularly clear of justice as fairnessʼ (Rawls) as universal rational in Connollyʼs utterly abstract negotiation of the para- principles that constitute core moral commitments,

12 as antecedent of democratic will. In the case of Con- is a sore spot for liberals given liberalismʼs professed nolly, he argues for the primacy of acknowledging concern with arbitrary power.26 the contingency of oneʼs identity in order to foster a The tacit reliance of Connollyʼs democratic ethos more generous public life.23 Consequently, identifying on the state, and the imposition of the language of and accepting the contingency and contestability of contingency, along with the colonizing drive of his oneʼs identity becomes a principle that seems to be a liberalism, can be further discerned in his portrayal precondition for engagement in Connollyʼs allegedly of the encounter between someone who endorses his more generous public space. On this register, despite ethical stance and those considered either ʻfundamen- his occasional sniping against contemporary liberals talistsʼ or ʻpuritans.ʼ – which parallels the way American Kulturkampf misleadingly overstated the differences between liber- Soul-craft als and conservatives, or, in the academy, between Connollyʼs ethos expects puritans ʻto modify the way liberals and communitarians – Connolly is closer to they holdʼ their faith (to hold their faith as good political liberals than he may be willing to admit: he liberals presumably hold their truths) and to accept requires the recognition and acceptance of the element its contestability.27 Perhaps more important is the bold of contingency in oneʼs identity as the passport for expectation that a fundamentalist will ʻacknowledge public deliberation guided by the standards of ʻago- the contestability of its claim to intrinsic moral orderʼ. nistic respectʼ. This last aspect is better understood These expectations undeniably constitute fairly thick in relation to two other attributes of liberalism: state- criteria for the agonistically bounded dialogue to take centredness and the presence of colonizing drives. place. They are expectations that, in spite of the In both Identity/Difference and Why I Am Not A misleadingly modest tone in which Connolly formu- Secularist, Connolly has called for a more ʻexpansive lates them, echo Rawlsʼs call for people to accept the practice of public discourseʼ that ʻdoes not have to be primacy of justice as fairness, as well as Larmoreʼs rolled back into strategies of conversionʼ.24 Still, there norm of equal respect, along with both theoristsʼ is something strikingly disingenuous in Connollyʼs invocation of reasonableness, something that Connolly claim that his theory does not seek colonization, as has recently come to invoke.28 Additionally, Connollyʼs there is certainly a moment of conversion in his plea supposedly more generous public space turns out to be for the incorporation of the language of contingency very demanding, albeit still confined to a liberal mode into oneʼs identity. And this is where a strong element of reasoning. It carries with it an irrefutable moment of disingenuousness resides, especially in the way in of conversion that is built into the ʻinvitationʼ that which the recognition of contingency is elevated to Connolly extends to fundamentalists. a liberal principle of engagement. Stated differently, Ironically, Connolly has chastised Rawlsʼs idea of for Connolly the recognition of the contingency of personhood because it ʻobscures … dense cultural dif- oneʼs identity leads to the realization of its contest- ferentiationʼ and ʻdeflects ethical attention from thick ability. Both are set as preconditions for a new ethics cultural demarcations of what is inside, marginal to, of care for difference in a radicalized liberalism that and excluded from personhood before justice as fair- is statist even while claiming not to be so.25 Liberals ness arrives to the sceneʼ. Yet, his call for establishing like Connolly often neglect the statist dimensions of contestability and contingency as passports to the agon liberalism, although the modus vivendi that is theo- is equally or perhaps even more oblivious to the ʻthick rized frequently requires a powerful state that at once cultural demarcationsʼ and assumptions operative in regulates the conflicts and inequalities that it produces non-liberal identities. Regardless of his professed – the very same state power that, like a big leviathan, sensitivity to the natality of the political, or what he also watches over civil society and remedies/pasteur- calls ʻthe politics of becomingʼ, Connolly nonetheless izes its fissures. Yet, according to Connolly, it seems expects people to accept the norms of engagement that that only the cultural realm needs to be refashioned he imposes.29 As soon as a fundamentalist accepts while the state stands in the background watching over the contingency of her/his beliefs, s/he ceases to be the people, guaranteeing order and stability. But as in so, and becomes a liberal who happens to have a dif- Thomas Hobbesʼs universe, its citizens are incapable of ferent religious view. Such a position is certainly no deliberation over the nature and uses of the forms of less ambitious than Rawlsʼs. Actually, the Rawlsian power crystallized in the institutional framework that formulation that Connolly so vehemently criticizes provides imperatives that often structure their choices. is more compelling than Connollyʼs in at least one The innocence in relation to state power and its uses sense: it is honest about its demands, and, even if it

13 brackets oneʼs metaphysical views from the public Presumably, even if the fundamentalist refuses to sphere, it does not impose their modification in the engage s/he will see the advantages that ʻagonistic ways Connolly does. In ʻThe Idea of an Overlapping respectʼ as a modus vivendi presents, and discover Consensusʼ Rawls writes: how s/he is better off with the affirmation of ʻself- restrictionsʼ in a public ethos of ʻselective distur- how might it happen that over generations the initial bancesʼ.33 Formulations like these clearly exemplify an acquiescence in a liberal conception of justice as a modus vivendi develops into a stable and enduring increasingly prominent theoretical temperament, where overlapping consensus? In this connection I think conviction becomes a synonym of authoritarianism a certain looseness in our comprehensive views, as while fuzziness has become identified as democratic.34 well as their not being fully comprehensive, may This is a theoretical temperament that at once impairs be particularly significant. … many if not most the capacity to be passionate about democracy while citizens come to affirm the political conception [of it raises the anxieties of liberal democracy to a virtue. justice] without seeing any particular connection, one way or the other, between it and their other Theoretical fuzziness notwithstanding, the state that views. Hence it is possible for them first to affirm is usually behind it is everything but fuzzy: it is the political conception.… Should an incompatibility powerful, aggressive and pretty much principled in its later be recognized between the political conception exportation of neoliberalism and liberal democracy. and their wider doctrines, then they might very well The statement in The Augustinian Imperative, ʻNo adjust or revise these doctrines rather than reject the writer is free from the drive to convertʼ, is as much a political conception.30 testament of Connollyʼs sense of irony as it might be Or so Rawls hopes. Connolly has something similar to a reluctant admission of his failure to escape the colo- say after the challenge to the puritans is made, and/or nizing tendencies of the liberal tradition.35 Sadly, this the invitation to the fundamentalist extended: is liberal colonization at its best. Something perhaps unexpected from a thinker who has zealously defended Some might become post-puritans over time, either ʻthe plurivocity of beingʼ. in the form of the faith they adopt or in the way they now articulate it. Or in both ways. Others might become more reticent to generalize what they Don’t worry, be happy are in the name of religious truth.… The cumulative I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion effect of such enactments, when a generous ethos is that the Negroesʼ great stumbling block in the stride operative, links a growing number of constituencies toward freedom is not … the Ku Klux Klanner, but to appreciation of the fundamental contingency of the white moderate who is more devoted to ʻorderʼ 31 things. than to justice. Martin Luther King, Jr. The expectation is that citizens would restrain the range of their comprehensive views and articles of To state the matter bluntly, had blacks waited for liberals for deliverance from the caste system, they faith – these are either loose or contestable – for the would still be consigned to the back of the bus. sake of the advantages of living in a society with a fair Blacks have had to overcome not just the vicious system of cooperation over time (Rawls), or in a more opposition of their political enemies, but also the generous ethos in which ʻmore partisans acknowledge well-intentioned counsel of ʻfriendsʼ who, whether their own ambiguous implication in many of the dif- inspired by utopian ideals or swayed by practical ferences they engageʼ (Connolly).32 Here Connolly is politics, actively discouraged the aggressive pursuit of civil rights. bringing back the ancient tradition of soul-craft. In Stephen Steinberg36 Platoʼs Republic, soul-craft and state-craft go together. And both are ordered according to the principle of In focusing almost exclusively on the quest for a justice and stability. With Machiavelli modern political modus vivendi, Connolly ultimately sabotages even theorizing shifted from the realm of consciousness to the most democratic moment within his theory, which an almost exclusive focus on the arena of collective resides in its resistance to rights-centred discourse. political power. Whenever considered, the passions of Connollyʼs sensibility to the natality of the political the soul were cast politically, not the other way around. notwithstanding, his formulations do not go beyond Writers like Connolly want to send us back into the traditional understandings of liberal tolerance. For realm of soul-crafting but not for the sake of justice; critical responsiveness to be critical, a more vigilant stability, though, remains a crucial consideration. The attitude towards liberal tolerance, ʻits kissing cousinʼ, focus is on how to make contemporary life, the status is called for.37 And for this ethos to be critical, a more quo, bearable for liberals, less stingy. concrete rendering is needed. Discussions of tolerance

14 usually take place along an axis in which liberty and expect injured and displaced constituencies (racial or equality are pitted against each other. In actuality, sexual minorities and targeted poor constituencies, however, these are negotiated politically. In Tzvetan for example) to enter into agonistic contestation with Todorovʼs formulation, ʻthe form and the direction that the source of their suffering. Historical experience the fight for toleration will take depend on the histori- has involved precisely the opposite: transgressing the cal, cultural, and political context in which one lives.38 impediments for ordinary people to share in power. But this is not the path chosen by Connolly. Ordinary people, who are striving to open up space Evidently, a theory of any complexity involves an for political contestation to redress unequal access to important degree of abstraction in order to gain critical power and status cannot afford to practise the kind of distance and formulate a comprehensive view of the forbearance that Connolly prescribes, let alone engage reality it seeks to comprehend. Therefore the point is others on the basis of the mutual contestability of their not merely to take Connolly to task for what he fails to positions. Doing so would lessen the critical import say. Rather, it is to ponder critically whether or not the of their claims. An egalitarian cannot accept that the exclusions of Connollyʼs theory are built into its struc- presence of inequalities and domination is merely ture, and what effects these have on its normative and ʻcontestableʼ when these are part of the everyday life explanatory power. Up to now, I have argued that once experiences of people who suffer these in their bodies certain exclusions of Connollyʼs theory are brought to and psyches. Connolly is a thinker who is fond of bear, its accommodation to the liberal status quo, as bringing the body to bear on theoretical discussions, well as its limitations from a democratic perspective, yet, ironically, he fails to consider the incontestability become apparent. Such theory conveniently brushes of this material dimension of the suffering of real aside class and bureaucratic structures, the imperatives bodies. of military and corporate power in a constitutional In light of the preceding discussions, Connollyʼs capitalist democracy, and the absence of a democratic emphasis, at least since The Ethos of Pluralization, on public discourse. Likewise, the compatibility, or lack ʻwork on the selfʼ and ʻself artistryʼ could be cast in thereof, of Connollyʼs ethico-political stance with the a different light. Practices like these remain too close historical experience of democracy, or with capitalism, to a discredited white-liberal strategy in the American is not considered in any sustained way. Furthermore, academy that often reduces racialized inequality and Connollyʼs increasingly prophylactic understanding of domination to the language of prejudice, and is oblivi- agonistic conflicts mirrors the no less prophylactic ous to the complex socio-economic processes intrinsic mass-media culture of ʻsafeʼ conflict and risk in a to contemporary patterns of injustice and inequality.40 liberal society such as the USA, as well as its thera- The strong emphasis on therapeutic strategies serves peutic trends. In fact, Connollyʼs emphasis on agonism further to clarify the audience Connolly is addressing, presupposes a rough equality that is hardly attainable while absolving him from the charge of cynicism. within its own terms. It seems that these practices on the self are hardly This built-in obstacle to equality can be better seen intended for those who do not share in power, for the if one extends the ʻdrive to convertʼ to questions of dispossessed, the inhabitant of urban ghettos, poor significant economic redistribution and the distribu- inner city neighbourhoods, or forgotten countryside tion of power and status. Historically, especially in areas. Rather, the strong emphasis placed on forbear- the USA, it has not been the good faith of those in ance seems directed to those already sharing power, privileged positions that has allowed democracy to privilege and status: these are asked to practise for- take place. On the contrary, democracy has involved bearance to the forces unleashed by the disadvantaged shattering obstacles to power and, in some circum- members, to react more generously to new constituen- stances, the use of violence and force.39 Democratic cies seeking parity of status and cultural capital. The movements attempt to resist the terms of discussion prescription seems to be: a dosage of work on the self and engagements that the status quo imposes. In brush- and the colonization of rivals by means of providing ing this aside, Connollyʼs theory further imposes a an emplotment of their claims in a ʻdonʼt worry be domesticating language of engagement – a language happyʼ narrative that privileges the protean ʻpolitics of that deprives of political teeth what might otherwise be becomingʼ as an offspring of ʻthe abundance of beingʼ. radical claims of equality and justice, and incorporates In other words, the work on the self is a prescription these as part of a liberal modus vivendi. As a result, for fellow-traveller liberals to be less static, and more the established neoliberal corporate–constitutional responsive, in relation to new political and cultural order remains unthreatened. It would be cynical to constituencies.

15 Historically, in the USA, white liberals do not have in the academic politics of the culture wars that he the best record in dealing with issues of inequality, fails to notice how his ethos of engagement based on especially in relation to questions of race and class. an agonistic respect, once extended to other issues, During moments of democratic upheaval, liberalism contributes to the liberal stalemate and ends up colo- has functioned as an accommodationist ideology of nizing rivals as much as traditional liberals do. This power that has often reverted to reformist rhetoric is an ironic twist for a thinker who has so zealously (by means of a call for the preservation of order and affirmed that ʻdifference is fundamentalʼ. moderation) in order to tame democratic energies. One measure of the lack of political import of This is one of the foremost anti-democratic bents Connollyʼs theory is his silence in relation to the in the liberal tradition. While presenting a politics events unfolding in the aftermath of 11 September of selective disturbances for the have-nots, Connolly 2001, a silence that attests to either an overly academic proposes practices of work on the self for the haves, conception of politics or to the ethnocentric nature so the upper mobility within corporations, or the of his critique of fundamentalism. After all, this is education of targeted constituencies, does not evoke someone who has written quite a bit on secularism too much of a visceral reaction in the establishment, and fundamentalism – in 1999 he published Why I Am or resentment among whites. In the meantime, the Not a Secularist. In relation to the heated exchange have-nots not only abide by the terms of restrained in the pages of Grand Street between Edward Said participation, but as long as they emplot their claims and Michael Walzer on the question of Zionism in in the narrative of contestability it is less difficult for Palestine, Connolly writes: ʻThey sink to a level that the haves to admit them. is unacceptable within an ethics of agonistic respect Historically, liberalism has harboured inequalities in intellectual engagement.ʼ45 This assertion is at once of power, class and status. Such inequalities are not mind-boggling and revealing. Mind-boggling because only the product of historical contingencies, or of of the way in which a deeply political discussion, ascriptive traditions that have developed alongside framed in relation to a concrete political situation liberalism. A good number of them are liberal in that has taken tragic overtones, is deemed unaccept- character, and intrinsic to the liberal tradition in its able unless phrased according to Connollyʼs rules of historical coupling with capitalism and its market civility; revealing because of the way that it illustrates imperatives.41 As Wolin, democracyʼs pre-eminent how deaf Connollyʼs ethos is to politically infused, contemporary theorist, has put it: in a world defined passionate modes of speech and contestation. Fur- by structural tendencies and imperatives that in spirit thermore, there seems to be a culturalism at work and design lead to increased inequalities and pow- in his theory. In a formulation that adds insult to erlessness, active political action ʻon the part of the injury, Connolly frames the divergent persecutions socially and economically disadvantaged becomes the and stigmatizations of ʻ“Gypsies,” “Jews,” “women,” crucial means of saving themselvesʼ.42 Rather than “homosexuals,” “Indians,” “prostitutes,” “welfare free- questioning the structural forms that produce and loaders,” “blacks,” “atheists,” and “postmodernists”ʼ perpetuate inequalities in a liberal society (corpo- as the offspring of ʻan accusatory cultureʼ that resents rations, managerial and economic class structures, the speed he associates with late modernity. Remarks educational elitism, the corporate media, centralized like these suggest a vulgar culturalism at the core of power in an increasingly unaccountable government, Connollyʼs theory.46 unaccountable bureaucratic and governmental institu- Evidence of the intellectual dearth of ʻagonistic tions, among others), Connolly focuses on mild redis- respectʼ as an ethos of intellectual engagement is tribution (a policy he first formulated thirty years ago also found in Connollyʼs fondness for an us/them with Michael Best) in order to transform political matrix of oppositions, which serves as a pre-emptive antagonism into an agonism of difference. Potential rhetorical strategy that avoids engaging thinkers and claims for equality and recognition are bounded by the positions that challenge his own. Yet this strategy has politics of selective disturbances: ʻIf every settlement proven superficial in the way it serializes thinkers. For came up for grabs at the same time, then a sustaining an instance: ʻFriedrich Nietzsche, … Gilles Deleuze, condition of pluralization would self-destruct.ʼ43 Stuart Hampshire, Moira Gatens, Michel Foucault, Democratic contestation involving different con- Paul Patton, Jane Bennett, Thomas Dumm and Brian stituencies with disparate languages involves reciprocal Massumi are all neo-Spinozists.ʼ47 Sentences like these translation, not the imposition of a mode of speech, beset Connollyʼs writings. What this matrix effectively or colonization.44 Perhaps Connolly is so invested achieves is an avoidance of serious engagement with

16 critics who do not share Connollyʼs assumptions. His Reflections like Connollyʼs, however, are not inno- introduction to Wolinʼs Festschrift provides a good cent in relation to the structure of power and privilege example. Connolly almost writes more about himself that saturates the present. In fact, they are symptomatic than about Wolin, and when he is dealing with Wolin of a larger trend in Anglo-American political theory it is done, almost exclusively, self-referentially.48 In that unreflectively mirrors contemporary forms of other words, affirmations of difference and openness power. Authors like Connolly, who has taken pretty notwithstanding, substantial differences are hardly much every ʻturnʼ there has been in the last twenty-five dealt with. Perhaps here one is witnessing a display years, praise theoretical novelty as an end in itself. of Connollyʼs practices of self-artistry. Connolly has If postmodernism was once considered ʻthe cultural asserted that distorting the ideas of those critical of his logic of late capitalismʼ, in the American academic own is part of the tactics of the self: ʻYou misrepresent scene it has arguably become the theoretical logic of a religious or metaphysical perspective that troubles neoliberal liberal democracy.53 With few exceptions, you, to relieve the feeling of disturbance it generates.ʼ49 contemporary political-theory politics has become aca- This is yet another ironic twist for a thinker who demic. Meanwhile, academic politics, though waging unfailingly announces the virtues of ʻagonistic respectʼ insatiable battles in relation to canons and cultures, as a mode of intellectual engagement. fails to consider the ways in which its institutional One of the features of American academic political supports (mainly universities) are implicated in the theory is the lack of resonance between the problems present-day structures of power. on which its doyens reflect and the political questions Forty years ago political theory was a marginal afflicting the American imperial polity and the rest discipline in the Anglo-American academy. Nowa- of the world. Seldom is the gap between one and the days ʻtheoryʼ reigns, even if its political import is other closed. An arresting example of this paradoxical elusive. The Western tradition of political theory is inversion is the now worn-out debate between ʻliberals richer. Historically, it has been constituted by different and communitariansʼ – a debate that, as many critics genres of reflection and writing: aphorisms, comedies, have observed, overstated the differences between both counsel-pamphlet, dialogue, historical-textual com- camps in what turned out to be a debate among liberals mentary, history, poetry, tragedy, pamphlets, philo- bearing little weight in the USA.50 In contrast, conserv- sophical treatises, theological and political treatises, ative theorists like Friedrich Hayek and Leo Strauss sermons and speeches. The contemporary challenge enjoyed immense popularity in the centres of power in might thus reside in breaking with the yoke of ʻtheoryʼ. both England and the USA. Their ideas shaped public Better still, the key might be in starting to think about discourse and rhetoric during the Reagan/Thatcher theory politically. years, when Rawlsʼs reign was at its peak.51 The only common thread within the academy and outside was Notes the displacement of the theory and practice of democ- 1. In this article I draw from the following texts by Con- nolly: Politics and Ambiguity, University of Wisconsin racy in any meaningful sense. This is perhaps the Press, Madison, 1987; Identity/Difference: Democratic only arena where theoretical articulations of academic Negotiations of Political Paradox, Cornell University liberalism correlate with public practice. Democracy Press, Ithaca, 1991; Political Theory and Modernity, was increasingly becoming an archaic term whose Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1993; The Augustin- ian Imperative: A Reflection on the Politics of Morality, only meaning resided in its coupling with liberalism. Sage, Newbury Park, 1993; ʻBeyond Good and Evil: The In Rawlsʼs formulations democracy is seldom present, Ethical Sensibility of Michel Foucaultʼ, Political Theory while Hayek and Strauss were consistently hostile to 21, August 1993; The Ethos of Pluralization, University it. In the USA of the early twenty-first century the of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1995; ʻReworking the Democratic Imaginationʼ, Journal of Political Philoso- liberal part of liberal democracy has taken over its phy 15, 1997; Why I Am Not a Secularist, University democratic counterpart to the extent that the historical of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1999; ʻAssembling discourse and practice of democracy are pretty much the Leftʼ, Boundary 2, 26, Fall 1999; ʻThe Nobility of Democracyʼ, John Tambornino and Jason Frank, eds, absent from public discourse. Simultaneously, a retreat Vocations of Political Theory, University of Minnesota from substantial and concrete equality, along with its Press, Minneapolis, 1999; ʻSecularism, Partisanship and by-product – increasing inequalities that are growing the Ambiguity of Justiceʼ, in Edward B. Portis et al., eds, at an amazing rate – is masqueraded by the abstract Political Theory and Partisan Politics, SUNY Press, Albany, 2001; ʻPolitics and Visionʼ, in Aryeh Botwinick liberal discourse of diversity, tolerance and difference and William Connolly, eds, Democracy and Vision: Shel- that simultaneously structures the coordinates of public don Wolin and the Vicissitudes of the Political, Princeton rhetoric and marketing.52 University Press, Princeton, 2001; ʻConfessing Identity/

17 Belonging to Differenceʼ, Identity/Difference: Demo- been carried out in the name of ʻreason of stateʼ, the cratic Negotiations of a Political Paradox, expanded glory and security of the nation, a peaceful social order, edition, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, racial purism, a consensual politics à la ʻthird wayʼ, 2002; Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, and Speed, Uni- among others. Nevertheless, the length of duration of versity of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2002. a contingent event, discourse or system depends on a 2. William E. Connolly, ʻBrain Waves, Transcendental variety of factors, including its coherence, the combina- Fields, and Techniques of Thoughtʼ, Radical Philosophy tion of cultural and economic imperatives, as well as the 94, March/April 1999. effectiveness of its affirmation and/or contestation. 3. See Gopal Balakrishnan, The Enemy: An Intellectual 14. Ethos, p. 153, emphasis added. Portrait of Carl Schmitt, Verso, London and New York, 15. Why I Am Not a Secularist, p. 154, emphasis added; see 2000, p. 263. For a different formulation of the relation- also ibid., p. 185. ship between democracy and liberalism, see Chantal 16. Neuropolitics, p. 173. Mouffe, Democratic Paradox, Verso, London and New 17. See James Tully, ʻThe Agonic Freedom of Citizensʼ, York, 2001. Unfortunately, Mouffe is consistently super- Economy and Society 28, May 1999, p. 169. On the re- ficial in dealing with this question. lationship between a stable politico-juridical framework 4. For a discussion, see Perry Anderson, ʻConfronting De- and capitalism, see Ellen Meiksins Woodʼs suggestive featʼ, London Review of Books, 17 October 2002, pp. accounts in The Origins of Capitalism: A Longer View, 11ff. Verso, London and New York, 2002; and The Empire of 5. Lutz Niethammer as quoted in Perry Andersonʼs ʻThe Capital, Verso, London and New York, 2003. See also Ends of Historyʼ, in A Zone of Engagement, Verso, Terry Eagleton, ʻCapitalism and Formʼ, New Left Review London and New York, 1992, p. 280. 14, March/April 2002. 6. See Sheldon S. Wolin, ʻBrave New Worldʼ, Theory & 18. An arresting discussion of the role of the unthinkable Event, vol. 5, no. 4, 2002, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ as one of the discursive strategies of silencing is found theory_and_event/. See also his Politics and Vision: in Michel-Rolph Troulliot, Silencing the Past: Power Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, and the Production of History, Beacon Press, Boston, expanded edition, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995. 2004, pp. 520–23, 557ff. 19. Neuropolitics, p. 144. 7. See Perry Anderson, ʻRenewalsʼ, New Left Review 1, 20. ʻI do not have radical hopesʼ, he has stated; ʻThis per- January/February 2000, p. 16. spective is, of course, a liberalism.ʼ ʻThis would be a 8. For an informative treatment of this dynamics post-1945 radicalized liberalism, but not in the direction of revo- to the present, see Robert Brenner, The Boom and the lutionary overthrow, socialist abundance or the univer- Bubble: The US in the World Economy, Verso, London salization of the late-modern stateʼ – no, the gods forbid; and New York, 2002. rather, ʻI myself aspire to a critical liberalism that both 9. Right away in Identity/Difference Connolly writes: ʻthe expands and thickens the range of secularism.ʼ See ʻBe- relational and constructed character of identity can yond Good and Evilʼ, p. 338; Identity/Difference, p. 94; nevertheless make a difference to the ethical quality of Political Theory and Modernity, pp. 174–5; Why I Am political lifeʼ (p. ix). Later on he will define his ʻethic Not a Secularist, p. 20. of care for lifeʼ as ʻan ethic in which alter-identities fos- 21. On this point my discussion is deeply indebted to Wolin, ter agonistic respect for the differences that constitutes ʻʻThe Liberal/Democratic Divide: On John Rawlsʼs Pol- themʼ (p. 166). itical Liberalismʼ, Political Theory 24, February 1996, 10. See, for instance, Identity/Difference, pp. 166, 168, 170; p. 103. Ethos, pp. xv, xxii, 28, 38, 99, 183, 200. See also Why 22. ʻSecularismʼ, pp. 168–9; emphasis added. I Am Not a Secularist; ʻBrain Waves, Transcendental 23. See Charles Larmore, ʻThe Moral Basis of Political Lib- Fields, and Techniques of Thoughtʼ; and Neuropolitics, eralismʼ, The Journal of Philosophy 91, December 1999, especially ch. 4. pp. 599–625. 11. Identity/Difference, p. 178. 24. Why I Am Not a Secularist, pp. 42–3; Identity/Difference, 12. In Connollyʼs rendering: ʻthe ambiguity of democracy p. 179. adds the possibility of engaging the contingency of ex- 25. This point is forcefully made by Roberto Alejandro in istenceʼ and ʻmore than other social forms, democracy his essay ʻEthics and Politicsʼ, unpublished manuscript. accentuates exposure to contingency and increases the I would like to thank Alejandro for generously sharing likelihood that the affirmation of difference in identity this essay with me. It brought to my attention the simi- will find expression in public lifeʼ. Identity/Difference, larities between Connolly and Rawls, and my argument p. 193. is indebted to it. 13. Commonplace narratives on contingency suggest that 26. Cf. Wolinʼs ʻThe Liberal/Democratic Divideʼ. An ac- the contingency of social and political affairs always count of the dynamics of contemporary capitalism might leaves open the possibility for things to be otherwise, shed a different light on Connollyʼs theory, in relation and thus spontaneity, freedom and action are possible. to material dynamics of redistribution and recognition, But, as Connolly rightly suggests, there are ʻentrenchedʼ equality and status, in liberal-democratic societies. On and ʻobdurateʼ contingencies. Furthermore, contingent this point, see Fraserʼs essay ʻHeterosexism, Misrecog- relations and events often inaugurate their own patterns nition, and Capitalismʼ, Social Text 52/53, Fall/Winter and imperatives of legitimization and justification. His- 1997. torically, contingent events have inaugurated modes 27. Ethos, p. 181. of domination and oppression that often bring about 28. ʻThe Nobility of Democracyʼ, p. 308. their own patterns of justification; that is, contingently 29. ʻSecularismʼ, p. 158. hegemonic institutions impose and develop patterns and 30. John Rawls, ʻThe Idea of an Overlapping Consensusʼ, practices to assure their continuity: practices that have in John Rawls: Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freedman,

18 Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1999, p. 441; Press, Chicago, 1999. emphasis added. See also Justice as Fairness: A Restate- 42. See Wolin, ʻThe Liberal/Democratic Divideʼ, p. 101. ment, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2001, 43. Ethos, p.194. pp. 192–5. 44. See the stimulating treatment of these questions in Susan 31. Ethos, p. 181. Buck-Morss, Thinking Past Terror, Verso, London and 32. Why I Am Not a Secularist, p. 155. In the most recent New York, 2003. restatement of his positions, Connolly has introduced a 45. Ethos, pp. 225–6 n16; emphasis added. distinction between accepting the contestability of oneʼs 46. Neuropolitics, p. 163. On this point, see Nancy Fraser, views and accepting that others see them as such. In ʻRethinking Recognitionʼ, New Left Review 3, May/June ʻConfessingʼ he has offered the following statements: 2000. ʻThe idea is to attend to the persistence of multiple 47. See William E. Connolly, ʻThe Radical Enlightenment: ethical sources in political life while dramatizing the Faith, Power, and Theoryʼ, Theory & Event, vol. 7, no. 3, comparative contestability of the candidates, and to work 2004, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/. on ourselves and others to affirm, without existential 48. See Connolly, ʻPolitics and Visionʼ. resentment, the contestability on each in the eyes of 49. Connolly, Neuropolitics, p. 102. othersʼ; ʻI also find it noble to treat oneʼs faith as contest- 50. Although one of its offspring, the debate on the rights of able in oneʼs own eyes, not just to affirm that it is so in ʻminoritiesʼ has had a larger impact on Canadian politics. the eyes of others.… But I do not contend that everyone Its main theorists, Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka and must hold this view for a positive ethos of engagement James Tully, are Canadians. to emerge. It suffices if numerous partisans appreciate 51. See Perry Anderson, ʻThe Intransigent Right at the End the contestability of their faith in the minds and souls of the Centuryʼ, London Review of Books, 24 September of others, and struggle to overcome resentment against 1992, pp. 7–11. this persistent feature of the human condition.ʼ See ʻCon- 52. Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The fessingʼ, pp. xxi and xxiii, respectively. This distinction Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West, MIT Press, seems to reduce the demands imposed on others, but it Cambridge MA, 2000, p. x. For an excellent discussion hardly eliminates the drive to colonize. of how the discourses of difference have diluted the 33. On ʻselective disturbancesʼ, see Ethos, pp. 74–104; Ale- commitment to racial equality, see Claire Jean Kim, jandroʼs ʻEthics and Politicsʼ offers a good discussion of ʻClintonʼs Race Initiative: Recasting the American Di- this theme. lemma, Polity 33, Winter 2000, pp. 175–97. See also 34. See Terry Eagletonʼs remarks in After Theory, Basic Steinberg, Turning Back. More recent treatments of the Books, New York, 2003, p. 103. eclipse of equality in the USA are found in Lisa Duggan, 35. The Augustinian Imperative, p. 86. For two discussions Twilight of Equality?, Beacon Press, Boston, 2002; and of this feature of liberalism, see Wendy Brown, States Godfrey Hodgson, More Equal than Others, Princeton of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity, Prin- University Press, Princeton, 2004. ceton University Press, Princeton, 1995; and Roberto 53. Cf. Wolin, Politics and Vision, p. 567. Alejandro, The Limits of Rawlsian Justice, Johns Hop- kins University Press, Baltimore MD, 1997. 36. Stephen Steinberg, Turning Back: The Retreat from �� Racial Justice in American Thought and Policy, Beacon Press, Boston, 1995, p. 56. �� 37. For Connolly, ʻtolerance and agonistic respect are kissing �� cousinsʼ, even if ʻthey are not equivalentʼ. ʻConfessingʼ, p. xxvii. 38. See Tzvetan Todorov, The Morals of History, trans. Aly- �� son Waters, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1995, p. 156. �� 39. See and contrast with Étienne Balibar, ʻOutlines of a Topography of Cruelty: Citizenship and Civility in the �� Era of Global Violenceʼ, Constellations 8, March 2001, p. 27. �� 40. Steinberg, Turning Back, pp. 68–93. For Connollyʼs views on how a practice of agonistic respect opens up �� the possibility for an ethical understanding of democracy, linking practices of the self with democratic politics, �� see Identity/Difference, pp. 178–97; Ethos, pp. 41–74; Why I Am Not a Secularist, pp. 143–61; ʻThe Nobility �� of Democracyʼ, pp. 319–23. 41. For a highly sanitized view of liberalism that largely as- �� cribes its coexistence with inequalities to ascriptive traditions outside of its core, see Rogers Smithʼs otherwise �� stimulating book Civic Ideals, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1997). For a critique, see Bonnie Honig, �� Democracy and the Foreigner, Princeton University �� Press, Princeton, 2001. For a stimulating elucidation of �� the link between liberalism and territoriality, see Uday �� S. Metha, Liberalism and Empire, University of Chicago

19 radical philosophy 6/17/04 6:52 PM Page 1 Read Deeply

The Intervention Lacan and of the Other Contemporary Film Ethical Subjectivity in Levinas and Lacan TODD McGOWAN and DAVID ROSS FRYER SHEILA KUNKLE, Editors The Intervention of the Other weaves together Because of its dual focus on developments in the seemingly disparate theories of Levinas and Lacanian theory and in contemporary film, this Lacan. The two thinkers lived and worked in the collection serves as both an approachable introduc- same city at the same time, yet they never engaged tion to current Lacanian film theory and an intro- with each other directly. Fryer shows how Levinas duction to the study of contemporary cinema. and Lacan can be used together to come to an understanding of the ethical subject in contempo- “Focused on films of recent vintage and working rary thought. from the later texts of L