Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Badiou on voting for a corpse

If the ‘no’ wins, we are threatened with a possible regression with regard to Europe. But I think that this backward step is necessary. What is on the agenda is effectively a 'beyond' of the national sphere – with the difference that this beyond must be subjectivated on the basis of what exists in the national sphere itself. We reencounter our question: the necessity of the identification of a figure of the adversary. The question of a power of a new type, of a power opposed to U.S. hegemony and which would not be symmetrical vis-à-vis U.S. power – a decisive question, which today largely remains open. This is at least as important as ‘social Europe’ (to which I am in any case favourable). We must take up the European question again from the base. (via)

Once again, let us hope that realpolitik, in the practical not the nationalistic sense, may have many faces yet. That said, why people who have no patience for Derrida (or no patience anymore?) find Badiou's presentation exciting is sort of beyond me, still. Endearing, certainly, but exciting? In any case, to suggest that either Derrida or Badiou (or their hack fans, such as myself) would ever support the notion that one super-imperialism should be replaced by two is absurd, of course.

In any case, hurrah for blogs.

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