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# Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics
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Gutmann and Thompson fail to allow for difering conceptions of the Real or difering approaches to truth, preferring instead to instal claims of mutual acceptability and general accessibility in a supposition of morality rather than in an epistemic, political, or aesthetic formation. Accordingly they include (only to dismiss) Fish's point that ·accounts of deliberative democracy "make decisions and policies seem more moral when they are not" (46). Given their use of Bush's march to war as an example of deliberative democracy, Fish's comment hits the mark in advance. How else can one describe their treatment of Bush than as making a decision and a policy seem moral when it is not?
Employing their own rough notion of a performative contradiction, Gutmann and Thompson claim that if Fish is giving reasons while arguing against reason then he "enters willy-nily into the forums of deliberative democracy, and falls under its obligations of reasonable argument" ( 48) . But Fish's point is that the practice of reason giving that Gutmann and Thompson advocate is part of a specific practice, the academic practice of the university. He is participating in this practice-ofering reasons. So the issue is not whether one participates in justifcatory practices. Rather, it is whether these practices establish the terms and conditions of politics and whether these practices legitimize political outcomes. Gutmann and Thompson don't answer these questions. Instead, they present justification as a neutral, fundamental fact of the matter, a fact that transcends the settings in which it could have meaning. Theyjgnore this presentation's dependence on a prior acceptance of the authority of a certain account of knowledge. They fail to consider that the practices of academic debate, practices discussed here in terms of the discourse of the university, do not coincide with the multiplicity of discourses operating ir politics.
To be sure, Gutmann and Thompson don't claim that current democracies are perfect or even that theories of deliberative democracy have provided a final account of political legitimacy. Yet in an allowing for the fallibility of accounts of deliberation, they oscillate between diferent loci of failure or sites of insuficiency. A failure at one point is thus supplemented by the potential of the second point. This process of oscilation and supplementation enables them to produce an imaginary synthesis between proponents and opponents of preemptive war against Iraq. It also encloses hopes for the future into a justifcation for present injustice. Let's consider these points in more detail.
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Gutmann and Thompson are at pains to acknowledge the limits of deliberation. Not only do they allow that deliberation was unlikely to stop the Bush administration's march to war but they admit that the "Bush administration relied to some extent on secret intelligence to defend its decision" (s) . They also grant that deliberation has to stop well before a consensus is reached because decisions have to be made. Deliberation, they point out, "must end in a decision" even as deliberative democracy does not specify the procedures "for reaching a final decision" (18) . Deliberative democracy requires a supplement that it itself cannot provide. Gutmann and Thompson concede further that citizens wil often need to rely ori experts, that the "deliberative mandate" should not apply to all governmental institutions, and that deliberation need not always involve giving reasons-"passionate rhetoric can be as justifiable as logical demonstration" (32, 51) . These acknowledgments of the practical and institutional conditions of politics malce sense-but not as elements of a justification of a theory of deliberation. In the latter setting, they appear as so many exceptions, indeed, as easily allowing for precisely that sort of "state of the exception" a procedural notion of democratic legitimacy was designed to avoid. 28
The limitations and expectations that sustain Guttman's and Thompson's notion of deliberation rest uneasily against their claims for democracy. Given the gap between discussion and decision, how can the decision be understood in terms of government by the governed? In other words, if democracy is conceptualized in terms of deliberative procedures and practices of justification, in what way are the acts and decisions that evade and supplement these practices democratic? Democracy seems limited to the discussions surrounding a decision, the discursive context of a decision, but forever unable to reach the decision itself. The decision continues to exceed the circulation of reasons. Gutmann and Thompson argue that democracy is an attribute of the inclusivity of the discussion (1o ). But this doesn't even touch on the problem of the relation of the discussion to the p olitical decision.29
In Gutmann's and Thompson's account of deliberative democracy, deliberation is self-justifying. Any problems it might encounter are best solved through more deliberation, in the future, after the decision. The benefits deliberation provides, especially insofar as there remains a gap between deliberation and decision, are reflexive and postponed, the bene-:fits of enhanced deliberative capacity in the future. This inclusion of the future to legitimate present practices, moreover, shields Gutmann's and Thompson's account of deliberative democracy from normative or principled critique. Rather than an outside from which one might criticize the present, the future is already included as a justification for the present, as a way of saying Let's just get on with it, we can redo it later. "'When deliberation only circulates around the decision as a justifcation of itself, the demos never has to accept responsibility for the decision, much as the democratic theorist need not accept responsibility for a political outcome. The issue becomes the process and keeping the process open to a future it has already imagined in terms of itself.
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Gutmann and Thompson characterize the run-up to the United States' commencing of aggressive war against Iraq in terms of deliberative democracy. They imagine that the supporters and opponents of the war are two sides in a debate, a debate that continues after the bombs have fallen and thousands have died. Emphasizing the circulation of reasons ( inclusive of passionate. rhetoric and secret intelligence), they treat the site of decision as a partner in an exchange of reasons, relieving it of accountability for the decision it makes as they shift political responsibility onto a discursive process where it can be perpetually deferred. We can always change our minds, reconsider. And, then, we can say now things are diferent, hindsight is always 20 I 20, we need to put the past behind us. But the two sides are not equal: one of them decides. One of them has the power to decide and to execute. Gutmann's and Thompson's imaginary synthesis justifies this power by placing it within the neutral context of a delibera.; tion, by equating it with chalenges to it.
Reading Gutmann's and Thompson's version of deliberative democracy in terms of university discourse, a discourse in which the fa.cts speak for themsel;es, shows how their imaging of democracy fails to account for the power to decide, providing instead the permanent deferral of political responsibilty. This deferral incorporates the future into the present as a justification for current failures, thereby shutting it of as a source of utopian energy. "'When democracy is justifed by the very fact of justification, as it is in theories of deliberative democracy, the presence and absence of democracy overlap: our acknowledgment of failures justifes a failed democracy.
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Present Dem.ocracy
The idea that democracy is present, at least in its notion, took hold in the nineties. Socialism, the only apparent alternative to democracy, seemed barren, exposed as a costly, deadly, failed experiment. Expansions in networked communications technologies seemed to realize in material form the conditions necessary for deliberation. With more and more people able to access more and more information, to register their opinions and participate in deliberation, how could any government but democracy even be possible? Of course, matters are not so simple. Some of the most repressive regimes (e.g., Singapore, Indonesia) are some of the most heavily networked. And as I emphasize throughout this book, extensions in communication have been accompanied by, indeed rooted in, amplifcations of capitalism.
As Gutmann and Thompson make dear, the idea that democracy is present justifies Bush's decision. He is acting out a mandate, exercising the people's wil, carrying out the law. But what about the sign in the cofee shop? If we say that democracy is present, then the protestors' appeal to democracy makes no sense: why are they fighting for something that they have? Are they saying, "More of the same! More of the same!"? Clearly this is not what they are after and this is why their appeal to democracy is fruitless: it is an appeal to the status quo for more of the same, with an emphasis, however, on more-more information, more participation, more deliberation-as if sheer quantity could bridge the gap and produce a diferent outcome. To this extent, it fals into the traps of communicative capitalism, strengthening the very structures it ostensibly aims to change.
The protestors (and the left more generaly) appeal to democracy because they look at themselves from the position of their opponents, the Bush administration (or the right more generally), just as the Bush administration looks at itself from the position of its opponent, the so-caled Islamic fundamentalist or terrorist. And just as the Bush administration adopts the tactics of its opponent to try to fil the lack it sees-political wil, moral rectitude, the resolve to name and confront evil-so does the left try to live up to, respond to, right versions of its failures. Avoiding the extremes, it puts itself in the middle. It isn't partisan, one-sided, or politically correct but fair and democratic, not a special interest group but in tune with mainstream American values. It isn't socialist (and really doesn't favor the welfare state) but is instead committed to economic growth and free markets.
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Because the appeal to democracy presupposes democracy is the solution to the problems of democracyj because it incorporates in advance any hope things might be otherwise as already the fundamental democratic promise and provision, it is a dead end for left politics. Entrapped by such an appeal, left and progressive contestation remains suspended between the discourse of the hysteric and the discourse of the university. Such suspension fails to break free of the continued workings of the discourse of the pervert as hysterical contestation afirms the position of the master. Moreover, the appeal to democracy remains unable to elaborate a convincing political alternative because it accepts the premise that we already know what is to be done-critique, discuss, include, and revise. Left reliance on democracy thus eschews responsibility not only for current failures (Look, democracy isn't perfect) but also for envisioning another politics in the future.
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n his State o f the Union address in 2002, George W Bush invoked an "axis of evil:' What available rhetorical fields enabled the president to link together North Korea, Iran, and Iraq and then judge the result as evil? What could hold this unstable train of signification together? How is such a monstrous, bizarre moral geography even comprehensible?1 This chapter shows how r:evil" finds a hospitable environment in Bush's presidential addresses because of the speculative identity of two seemingly opposed patterns ofbelief prominent in the United States under communicative capitalism-pervasive relativism and absolutist conviction. 2 The convergences of neoliberalism and democracy, the materialization of democratic ideals in the information and communication technologies that support and extend global corporate capitalism, establish a matrix wherein each is entitled to her own opinion and incited to protect that precious opinion by voicing it as loudly and resolutely as possible. Bush summoned the axis of evil not to describe three countries and their relationship but to demonstrate his own resolve.
While chapter s considers left retreat from a politics of conviction, this one focuses on the conservative embrace and extension of such a politics. Through a retrospective on "evil" in presidential speeches, it locates the current coincidence of relativism and resolve first in the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, arguably the figure Bush most sought to emulate as president. At work in the words and personae of both the fortieth and the forty-third presidents is a powerful combination of conviction and vacuity such that resolve exists simply for its own sake: the lack of meaning creates the conditions for a certain conviction efect.
Resolve
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S P EAKI N G O F EVIL
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In Bush's speeches this resolve culminates in a vision of himself and America as instruments of the will of God. "Evil" could inhabit the 2002 State of the Union address not simply because of Bush's fluency in the language of faith but because of the coincidence of conviction and the broader culture of relativism in which the term evil floats so freely. "Evil" is powerful, eficacious, because its very lack of meaning (or the excesses of meaning overdetermining it, which is the same thing) enables the term to produce a conviction efect: no matter what "evil" means, people can be confident in Bush's conviction-he knows.3 Hearing the 2002 State of the Union address, we believed that he was convinced there was an axis of evil.4
Many Evils
More obvious explanations for the presence of ''evil" in the 2002 State of the Union address are, one, the ready availability of a discourse of fear and terror folowing the events of September u, and, two, the prominence of religion in American life. Evil clearly flourishes ih these discursive environments. 5 But these quick explanations distract us from the pervasiveness of evil and the multiplicity of its modes of appearance. Hence they fail to account for the evil in Bush's speech.
The first explanation regarding the discourse of fear and terror repeats the familiar (but nonetheless wrong) mantra that Sept�mber u changed everything.6 It is said 9 I n exposed the pernicious danger of postmodern relativism and the soul-destroying impact of irony. It demonstrated the persistence of evil in the world. And it reconfigured reality by chalenging us, the ci ilized (according to Bush and Samuel Huntington), to confront; wage war on, evil.
Accounting for "evil" in the president's speech by appealing to this changed environment, however, fails to acknowledge the setting of these claims-a discursive habitat nourished through the culture wars long preceding 9 I n-and grows out of the assumption that over the past forty years Americans have lost their moral sense, their capacity to speak seriously about evil. This loss is said to be significant, a truncating of the moral world insofar as the category "evil" is necessary for evaluating experiences, harms, suferings, and dangers. Concern with the amputation of Americans' moral sense, moreover, shares its discursive habitat with critical claims regarding the culture of irony, a fecund environment already in the post-World War II era as the presumption of the general secularization of American society took hold?
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The discursive environment of the culture wars supports an additional assumption linked to claims that 9 I 1 changed everything, namely, the assumption that relativists hate America. A number of conservative thinkers contend that the problem with liberals and postmodernists is not that they are relativists but, on the contrary, that their apparent ethical pluralism is in fact ideological. Liberals and their ilk are not really relativist at all. Rather, liberals believe that America itself is evil. 8 For these conservatives, relativism and its multicultural, ecumenical, and ethically pluralist kin serve as the ideological guise of a treasonous anti-Americanism. They take it as a given that a concept of evil remains part of a postmodern worldview, a worldview antithetical to American values that September u revealed to be a threat to American unity and security.
The problem with the idea that September 11 provides the conditions of possibility for Bush's use of "evil" because "everything has changed" is that it is too vague to account for the specificity of the rhetoric of evil. Why did the change in "everything" not reconfigure political language in terms of hope, care, and the triumph of the human spirit? Why did support for the police and firefighters not lead to a renewed commitment to the sharing of benefits and burdens, to a more equitable distribution of privilege and prosperity? That contemporary political rhetoric does not provide a hospitable environment for such a political language seems fairly obvious-but why? A plausible account needs to attend to the culture wars, finding there the context delimiting "everything:'
Even if there were a plausible link between 9 I 11 and evil, this link could not extend by itself to North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. What made this link possible?9 What enabled this use of "evil"? An appeal to September u can't answer these questions-none of these countries had anything to do with September n.
The second obvious explanation for "evil" in Bush's speech points to the prominence of religion in American life. Surely here we find a readily available reservoir of terms of moral denunciation and outrage. Eighty percent or more of Americans do not doubt the existence of God, pray daily, and believe in a final judgment.10 The religious right is a powerful political force, one that has strengthened its hold and influence over the past thirty years. 1 1
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We shouldn't be too quick to jump to this explanation either. The appeal to the ready availability of languages of faith conflicts with the notion that September 11 changed everything. The latter idea presupposes an underlying secularization or falling away from faith, a loss of faith to which the day's events awakened us, not its prominence and ready availability as a language of moral condemnation.12 So there is an incompatibility between the two explanations.
More important, however, is the rich variation among and within American religious discourse. Religious language inhabits the political register in multiple, changing, and inconsistent ways. There is not a single or constant discourse of religion in American history: evil isn't and never has been "one thing" in American life. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, for example, drew on a language of faith, beginning his first inaugural address with a prayer. Yet his use of "evil" difers significantly from Bush�s. Indeed, religious controversy and disagreement is far more prevalent in U.S. history and politics than anything like a unified Christian doctrine. There is even fragmentation and disagreement on the so�called religious right. One of the hardest-hitting critiques of the "evils of Fundamentalism" comes from John F. Baugh, a mainstream Southern Baptist who anchors his arguments firmly in the Bible:13
To be sure, that "evil"· in the 2002 State of the Umori address grew out of a language of faith is uncontroversial. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum reports that "axis of hatred" in the original draft of the speech was changed to "axis of evil" because it resonated better with the theological language Bush ha�l been using since 9 I 11.14 To call this theological language "religion;' however, consolidates multiple stories, tropes, ethics, and imaginaries. Bush's own salvation experience, his personal religious wall<:, does not stand for "religion" in the singular. In fact, his relation to scripture and experience of conversion are not tied to mainstream denominational religion. Rather, they emerged out of a small-group program of focused reading and discussion called Community Bible Study. The diference between Bush's "faith walk" and his father's Episcopalian upbringing enabled the younger Bush to serve as the liaison to the religious right for the 1988 presidential campaign.15
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In the face of religious pluralism, the historical changes and variations within and between American religions, Bush's religiosity cannot account for the "axis of evil:' Instead, we need to know more about the variety of ways in which religious invocations can be convincing in politics. How, in other words, are these invocations at home in a community larger than a specific community of faith?
The problems that arise with trying to explain "evil" in the State of the Union address as the result of September u or religion arise from a unicity of thought. Each account, in inverse ways, formats evil as a singularity as if "evil" were a master signifier capable of stopping shifts in signification. The idea that "everything has changed" obscures its rhetmical habitat, treating as settled values and suppositions contested in the culture wars. 16 The idea that a pervasive American religiosity accounts for "evil" likewise is inattentive to the varieties of religious practice and expression. In short, operating within each idea is a failure to attend to the ways evil stimulates speech, how it opens speech up rather than closes it down.
Evil is not at all uncommon. It's all over the place. 17 Evil is a major literary theme. A quick Google search turns up more than :five million websites that contain the word evil. Many are satirical. Some involve faux mathematical equations proving that women are the root of all evil. Horror movies often explore the nature of evil, whether in the guise of say, Hannibal Lecter or Austin Powers' nemesis, Dr. Evil. In psychoanalytic terms, evil functions not as a master signifier or nodal point but as objet petit a, Jacques Lacan's term for that fantastic/ Real excess that attracts us and repels us, that we can desire but never reach, that we might flee but can never escape. 18
So even as Bush may invoke evil as that ultimate threat which cannot be left unaddressed, this invocation does not unleash a repressed language of evil. That language is already there. Evil thrives in various habitats and registers. It adapts to differing practices, uses, and deployments. Journalists emphasize this multiplicity, seemingly stunned by the excesses of evil's free-floating moments even as they ponder the instability of any and all attempts to explain or signify evil. 19 This ery multiplicity :figures into invocations of evil as that which must be confronted as it comes to be embodied and summoned through extreme, unbearable images. Writing in Time magazine, Lance Morrow declares, "Even if it's elusive and even if the term is used brainlessly, evil is still there-a mystery, a black hole into which reason and sunshine vanish but nonetheless . . . there. Talk to the children with chopped of hands in Sierra Leone:'20 Armed with horrifying examples, one invokes evil as that which even the most deconstructive postmodernist cannot deny. One might say that in this way "evil" functions as a conservative logic of performative contradiction (by getting the relativist to deny that Hitler or slavery is evil, say, the absolutist thinks he has exposed a fundamental inconsistency that calls into question the place from which the relativist speaks) or a theological diagnosis of relativism's universal symptom (if one accepts that X-or denies that Y-is evil, then one has no way not to accept, ultimately, the extermination of masses of people, the obliteration of humanity, or the destruction of the world) .21
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