Charles Barbour

Militants of Truth, Communities of Equality: Badiou and the ignorant schoolmaster

Badious philosophy of the ‘event’ has itself become an event of sorts for contemporary social and political theory. It has broken radically with a set of propositions concerning the operation of power, the status of knowledge, and the possibility of action that were for some time considered nearly unquestionable, in many ways defining what Badiou might call ‘the state of the situation’. After briefly outlining the manner in which Badious reinvigoration of the concept of ‘truth’ constitutes a serious challenge for the politics of difference and the ethics of alterity, this paper explores the significance for educational philosophy of what, borrowing from Jacques Rancière, Badiou calls the ‘axiom of equality’, or the notion that, in democratic politics, ‘equality must be postulated not willed’. I suggest that this axiom is best understood when read in relation to Rancières The Ignorant Schoolmaster, and thus explore an intrinsic link between Badious more obscure philosophical claims and political assertions on the one hand, and the question of education on the other. I further propose that the limitations of Badious criticism of Rancières work, which suggests that he stops short of locating an effective political subject who might oppose the parliamentary state, are revealed most explicitly when we reassess Rancières approach to education in The Ignorant Schoolmaster, and in his more recent work on political aesthetics. Ultimately, however, I conclude that a truly democratic approach to education will have to learn from both Badiou and Rancière, and take seriously the ‘axiom of equality’.

The Maker of Lies: Simmel, Mendacity and the Economy of Faith

Georg Simmel’s treatment of the lie – in the essay ‘The Sociology of Secrecy and Secret Societies’, but in other, lesser known texts as well – is an aspect of his thought that has not received a great deal of attention among theorists. And yet many of his better known contributions to social theory – including his concepts of ‘interaction’ and ‘sociation’, his appreciation of the spatial and the aesthetic dimensions of social life, and his speculations about culture and subjectivity in the modern world – draw on ideas that he developed while contemplating the problem of deception. In this article, I bring Simmel’s work on mendacity to the fore, and show how a consideration of it sheds new light on some of his most familiar claims. I further argue that Simmel’s work on the lie illuminates a very old and vexing set of philosophical debates, and especially the debate over self-deception, or whether or not it is possible to lie to oneself. Along with providing a close study of his comments on the lie in ‘The Sociology of Secrecy and Secret Societies’, and in the chapter of his monumental Sociology that is based on that essay, I propose a reading of Simmel’s heretofore ignored fable or fairytale ‘Der Lügenmacher’ – one of the eight short pieces that he published pseudonymously between 1899 and 1903 in the cultural journal Der Jugend under the heading ‘Momentbilder’ or ‘Snapshots, sub specie aeternitatis’.

Sovereign times : acts of creation

Contemporary understandings of sovereignty have generally followed, or borrowed heavily from, Carl Schmitt’s theory of the exception, which Giorgio Agamben refers to as a “topological” concept. Schmitt conceives of the sovereign as a figure who exists both inside and outside of the juridical order. This paper suggests that Schmitt’s theory of the sovereign exception involves not only a topology, but also a temporality, in that it treats the decision as a single, compacted instant — one in which crisis, decision, and decider all miraculously leap into existence. It further suggests that Agamben’s interpretation of Saint Paul’s “ho nyn kairos” or “time of the now,” and his distinction between the prophet and the apostle, effectively reinforces the Schmittian conception of “sovereign time.” As an alternative, I refer to Jacques Derrida’s work on iteration and undecidability, and maintain that genuine decisions cast us into, rather than delivering us from, the aproias of time.

The Hazard of Truth: Perjury and Oath in Derrida’s Later Work:

This article takes up the question of perjury and the oath in Derrida’s later work. It proposes that Derrida’s reflections on such theological concepts need to be understood, less as part of a “religious turn,” and more in the context of political and juridical theology, or the manner in which modern politics and law are haunted by theology. It shows how, for Derrida, every social relation is structured by an oath, or an implied promise to tell the truth, and a perjury, or a betrayal of that promise. It develops this argument through a consideration of Derrida’s engagements with Levinas and de Man.

The Republican and the Communist: Arendt Reading Marx (Reading Arendt)

Most — perhaps all — of the great minds of the twentieth century had an ambiguous relationship with the work and legacy of Karl Marx. But few — if any — were more ambiguous than that of Hannah Arendt. On the one hand, Arendt sought to retrieve politics, or the grandeur of public life, in the wake of Marxism, which — she thought — had reduced politics to ‘the social question’. That is to say, for Arendt freedom relies on the construction of a ‘space of appearances’ — a stage on which various actors might emerge and engage in discussion and debate. Marx and his followers treated this space or stage as an empty ideological expression of something more fundamental — labour, material interests, class struggle, modes of production. They thus mistook the realm of freedom for that of necessity and, once in power, cancelled the first in the name of administering the second. On the other hand, the same Arendt often expressed great respect for the political achievements of the working class and counted committed Marxists (Rosa Luxemburg, Walter Benjamin) among her most significant influences. Indeed, when she risked imagining what form political life might take in the future, she almost always pointed to the example of the revolutionary council, or the organisational structure that seems to emerge almost spontaneously whenever working people engage directly in public life.

The acts of faith : on witnessing in Derrida and Arendt

In a brief comment in ‘History of the Lie’, his one sustained engagement with Arendt, Derrida criticizes the ‘absence’ of any reference to the ‘problematic of testimony, witnessing, or bearing witness’ in her work, and asserts that she was ‘not interested’ in what ‘distinguishes’ testimony from ‘proof’. This passage links Derrida’s reading of Arendt to a theme that concerns him throughout his later work, specifically the ‘affirmation’ or ‘act of faith’ that ostensibly conditions all human relations, and the possibility of sociality in general. In this article, I claim not only that Arendt did address the problem of testimony or witnessing, and the difference between bearing witness and establishing proof, but also that her consideration of these issues represents an alternative to many of the arguments Derrida develops in his later work, especially his approach to responsibility and judgment, secrecy and memory, and the relation between the self and others.

Marx's Poetic Unconscious: Secrecy, Literature, and the Political

For a brief period in his youth, while away from home for the first time, studying at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin, Karl Marx imagined that he might become a poet. By 1836, the year he turned eighteen, he had filled three albums or personal notebooks with verse – largely juvenile love poems addressed to his future wife Jenny von Westphalen, with whom he was already completely smitten. Strange as it might seem, it appears Marx sent some of these attempts to his father as well. For in an extended, pedantic letter written during the early months of 1836, Heinrich Marx went out of his way to discourage his son from endeavoring to publish them. ‘You would do well to wait before going into print’, he cautioned. ‘A poet, a writer, must nowadays have the calling to provide something sound if he wants to appear in public’. The paternal counsel continues a little later in the same missive: ‘I tell you frankly, I am profoundly pleased at your aptitudes and I expect much of them, but it would grieve me to see you make your appearance as an ordinary poetaster; it should be enough for you to give delight to those immediately around you in the family circle’.

Review Article: Militancy The Birth of Multitudes, the Politics of Truth

Sovereignty and the Political ONE OF the founding illusions of modern political thought – the concept of sovereignty – is in crisis. A protracted ‘war on terror’, the struggles of migrant workers, the resurgence of religious antagonisms, the dominance of international capital – these phenomena and others have exposed the limits of what was already a fragile notion. For this very reason, many have returned to the problem of sovereignty. Recent works by Giorgio Agamben (2005) and Jacques Derrida (2005) are but two examples, which could be multiplied indefinitely. As Heidegger notes in a very different context, the tool’s operation is only revealed when it breaks. The