Monday, January 02, 2006
(11:21 PM) | Anonymous:
Letters From a Theologian
Dear Friends,I have something of a history as a Marxist and latent Communist, and that is not wholly in the past, even if my later academic years were marked by a continual conflict with Marxists. But I have just undergone a shock which makes me realize that this conflict is not yet dead, and probably very much alive even if in an invisible or unspeakable form. This has arisen from my reading of the Badiou anthology, Infinite Thought, and while I have only recently become aware of the name of Badiou, I have discovered that he is now revered by large numbers, and by a significant number of theologians. At the annual AAR meeting last month, I continually encountered witnessing to Badiou, and never have I heard anything but the most positive comments, even exalting comments. There are apparently Badiou scholars, and, yes they exist, who think highly of Infinite Thought, and even though I think very highly of his book on Paul, I find this anthology to be appalling, and most so in its arrogance. All of the material here is of recent or relatively recent vintage, and it is all non-technical, and even though solid, not truly brilliant. But what is most shocking is its political essays, and their basic points are echoed throughout the book, essays enacting the most extravagant claims for Communism, and essays confessing Badiou's own proud confession of Communism! Yet I had not heard a word of this, despite speaking about Badiou with many people. Is this now an absolutely forbidden subject?
This talk begins here with a reference on page 79 to the great political thinkers: Robespierre, Saint-Just, Lenin, Che Guevara, Mao. But it only becomes fully concrete with the essay on philosophy and the "death of Communism," which speaks proudly of "We Communists," a "we" supposed as an ultimate referent, or that ideal community posed prior to itself as a historical axiom. Indeed, it is declared that for thought in general there was no other conceivable "we" than that under the banner of communism. "Communism" named the effective history of "we." True, Badiou insists here that he has always fought the Communist Party, the site of a brutal politics and an arrogant incapacity. Nevertheless, this philosopher of the event knows every historical event as communist, inasmuch as "communist" designates the trans-temporal subjectivity of emancipation. Let me remind you that Badiou openly thinks of himself as the philosopher of the future, the philosopher coming after the collapse of hermeneutic philosophy, analytic philosophy, and postmodern philosophy, and the philosopher who for the first time knows of the actuality of event, and who for the first time can unite ethics and ontology.
Badiou, who apparently thinks of himself as our only truly historical philosopher, can claim that philosophy has always been and will always be a constant escort of the great popular uprisings, when the latter are not captive and opaque, as everything is today. From Sparticus to Mao, it has always been a question of communism, and it will always be a question of communism, one speaking for the eternal concept of rebellious subjectivity, so that Badiou maintains this communism against the "death of communism." For any event which is politically foundational of truth, exposes the subject that it induces to the eternity of the equal, and it is "Communism" which names this eternity. Then he goes on to give us his ecstatic chant, written over twenty years ago, and in the style of Saint-John Perse, a chant celebrating all true radicals or revolutionaries, denying the possibility of failure, and concluding with a celebration of our intact singularity which has made this great hole in the world in which, century after century, the semaphore of communism is fixed.
Now it is true that Badiou can write forcefully, and I very much admire his sophistication in many crucial areas, even including the mathematics of the infinite which is essential to his thinking, even if I cannot understand it. And I do admire him for assaulting the bondage to finitude which has so captured the philosophical world, just as I think that his book on Paul is truly important, and even theologically important. I also admire him for his honesty in confessing his Communism, this is extraordinarily rare in our world; but insofar as it is open in Badiou why have I heard nothing about it, although I now remember reading somewhere that he has been a Maoist. I think that it would be truer to say that he is a Maoist, even if I think that he is a Communist who is not a Marxist, which is so refreshing after these hordes of Marxists who are not Communists. But why is Communism so unspeakable among our intellectuals, and why does one not dare to discuss the Communism of Badiou? I am not hostile towards Badiou, but rather to that silence which has been imposed among us.
Yours faithfully,
Tom
