For each identification (the creation or cobbling together of identity) creates a figure that provides a material for its investment by the market. There is nothing more captive, so far as commercial investment is concerned, nothing more amenable to the invention of new figures of monetary homogeneity, than a community and its territory or territories. The semblance of non-equivalence is required so that equivalence itself can constitute a process. What inexhaustible potential for mercantile investments is this upsurge — taking the form of communities demanding recognition and so-called cultural singularities — of women, homosexuals, the disabled, Arabs! And these infinite combinations of predictive traits, what a godsend! Black homosexuals, disabled Serbs, Catholic pedophiles, moderate Muslims, married priests, ecologist yuppies, the submissive unemployed, prematurely aged youth! Each time, a social image authorizes new products, specialized magazines, improved shopping malls, “free” radio stations, targeted advertising networks, and finally, heady “public debates” at peak viewing times. Deluze put it perfectly: capitalist deterritorialization requires a constant reterritorialization. Capital demands a permanent creation of subjective and territorial identities in order for its principle of movement to homogenize its space of action; identities, moreover, that demand anything but the right to be exposed in the same way as others to the uniform prerogatives of the market.
~ Alain Badiou, Saint Paul: The Foundations of Universalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 2003), 10-11.
5 responses so far ↓
Danny // January 31, 2008 at 11:17 pm |
Does Badiou’s attack on identity politics have implications for the Hauerwasian emphasis on narrative identity?
amondstien // February 1, 2008 at 7:32 am |
Do you mean, in as much as Hauerwas (et. al.) advocate the constitution of a unique Christian identity, i.e. The Church as Polis — which can then be reterritorialized by the market?
Sure, there are certainly implications…
Which posses and interesting question, can anything escapse the territorialization of the market?
Hey, when are we getting that beer?
– Christian
Danny // February 1, 2008 at 8:19 am |
Christian,
In a certain way I do think the success of the Hauerwas system is inseparable from the emergence of identity politics. Particulary, those who embrace the politics of identity are immune from particular epistemic criticisms in the name of their fundamental entitlement to an identity (which in a certain sense I think is right).
Originally I think this was put forward by feminist, queer theorist, etc. However, on the flip side, it then became extended to groups of all kinds, including Islamic fundamentalist. I believe actually that this is the real reason why multiculturalism has fallen on hard times in France and Germany. It is okay when Charles Taylor says that French Catholics in Quebec have a fundamental identity that must politically be protected. It must be rejected, though, if it tolerates religious violence. The religious violence criticism of Islam I simply take to be a cover for German and French citizens worried over the economic conerns of Muslim immigration.
One aspect of the Hauerwasian system is that it refuses to allow the Christian narrative to capitualate to a standard of rationality foreign to it. In this way, it carries an entitlement immune from secular criticism. It is in this sense that it reminds me of an identity politics, since it projects its unique political identity over and against a criteria of reason that would endanger it.
Any time will work for me, besides Wednesday and Thursday, regarding meeting up. I would greatly enjoy this.
amondstien // February 1, 2008 at 12:53 pm |
Danny,
I think a key to understand a difference between what a Hauerwasian position entails and what identity politics is up to is captured in this statement you made: “It is okay when Charles Taylor says that French Catholics in Quebec have a fundamental identity that must politically be protected.”
Hauerwas would never claim that the Christian identity be “protected.” It is true to say his position posits a Christian narrative that is resistant to and more fundamental than a “standard rationality” (as if there is such a rationality as such), but this is to be lived into via the way of the cross — that is, through nonviolent witness. It is the market which offers political protection for specific individual or group identities. And the “rights” that offer this protection are something that Hauerwas would lay no claim to on behalf of Christians.
Maybe we could meet up next Tuesday.
Danny // February 1, 2008 at 3:54 pm |
I can meet you on Thursday, but it would have to be after 5:30.
I suppose I should not have used the term protected and instead maybe used something like integral or unviolatable. Of course, the Taylor example refers to an ethnic group of people.
We should talk over the phone about meeting up. You have my email address in your reply information if you want to email it to me.
Best,
Danny