Zizek writes that "in the University discourse, it is Knowledge which occupies the agent's . . . place, turning the subject (\$) into that which is 'produced; into its unassimilable excess-remainder:'26 In the discourse of the university, the facts speak for themselves and when they do there is no proper place for the subject; the subject emerges as an extra, as present but altogether unnecessary. We can understand this point in terms of the exchange of reasons. In university discourse, reason trumps any personal or political claim. Faced with a rational argwnent, the subject can either accept the argument or view itself as "irrational;' "malign;' or "duplicitous:' In the discourse of the university, then, . knowledge is underpinned by an unacknowledged power. Seemingly neutral lgowledge is authoritative even as, especially as, it claims and disavows its power at the same tiine. In Zizek's words, "The 'truth' of the University discourse, hidden beneath the bar, of course, is power, or the Master-Signifier: the constitutive lie of the University discourse is that it disavows its performative dimension, presenting what efectively amounts to a political decision based on power as a simple insight into the factual state of things."27 The power of the facts is that they speak for themselves. To engage the facts is to accept their authority� (This sheds light on the Bush administration's rejection of "reality-based media" -their point is precisely that the facts do not speak for themselves.)
This neutral knowledge speaking for itself even as it rests on the unacknowledged support of power appears in Gutmann's and Thompson's elaboration of the basic moral principles underpinning deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy, they argue, depends on "the prinCiple of the economy of moral disagreement" which enjoins citizens to "find justifications that minimize their diferences with their opponents" ( 7). They highlight ofering reasons "that any citizen who is trying to find fair terms of cooperation could reasonably accept" (53). To emphasize one's diferences from one's opponent is thus morally objectionable) a violation of the principle of the economy of moral disagreement. Likewise, failing to accept another's reasons or finding another's reasons unacceptable is to be irrational or possibly duplicitous because one is not working toward fair terms of cooperation.
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THREE