Monday, June 13, 2005
(10:31 AM) | Anonymous:
Buchanan's Axiom
I thought it would be helpful to bring to common attention an article by Ian Buchanan, which can be found here.It might serve to take up again some of the issues from those halcyon days of sovereignty week. I think this essay provides one way using Deleuze and Guattari for contemporary political analysis, one not identical to the "Empire" project. Obviously, there are a number of open questions within the essay, and a number which arise when we evaluate it. One thing which is interesting, for a blog such as this, which concerns itself with philosophy, theology, and politics, is the way it raises (in commencing) the political determinations which commit Deleuze to anti-Hegelian thought. A somewhat ordinary or obvious observation, perhaps, but one that is relevant, without always being reflected on as such. Being somewhat polemical, one of the reasons I prefer a Deleuzian paradigm to a Zizekian one, or a theological (in the more classical sense) one, is that I like, and can see in part, or can begin imagining, its politics. Buchanan offers one way of analyzing politically in a Deleuzian paradigm - I'm often unsure of how a Badiouian paradigm would analyze such matters. To what degree is it committed to a version of Maoism?
Last non-ordered remark: I think one advantage of Buchanan's essay is the way it helps us think, via axioms, the relation between global neo-liberalism and regional, subjugated governments. This is important for us to address. How do we think about the revolutionary potential of a state socialism such as found in Chavez, or the recent and current events in Bolivia? Obviously, these are extremely helpful in resisting the Washington consensus, but beyond this excellent antagonism, where to for communism? Also, Hardt and Negri focus precisely on living labor and its (purportedly fortuitous) conjuction with what is called Empire. How does the introduction of the axiomatic interrupt, supplement, etc., their analysis?
