Tuesday 25 May 2010

Ultra-politics

"the fourth form, the most cunning and radical version of the disavowal, is what I am tempted to call ultra-politics: the attempt to depoliticize the conflict by bringing it to an extreme via the direct militarization of politics - by reformulating it as the war between 'Us' and 'Them', our Enemy, where there is no common ground for symbolic conflict - it is deeply symptomatic that, rather than class struggle, the radical Right speaks of class (or sexual) warfare."

Zizek, Ticklish Subject, p.190

I feel that such a distinction is extremely important in that the ultra, mostly acclaimed by Fascists in Europe, and politics do not add up to a Leftist project. At the same time of course, Zizek formulates this simultaneously with the critique of anti-radicalism inherent in liberal multiculturalism, which is para-political. One can take this as a critique of Schmitt and a critique of Schmitt's critique of liberalism at the same time. The idea of a common ground for symbolic conflict is incompatible with Schmitt's concept of the political as far as I read his work.

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