Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics

The theory of deliberative democracy follows the model of the discourse of the university wherein knowledge ostensibly speaks for itself even as the deliberations or interventions of those actualy participating in contemporary democratic politics conform to the discourse of the hysteric and the pervert. Political antagonists may speak the same language, but they speak it in diferent ways, from difering positions of enunciation, to difering symbolic and imaginary others, and within difering discursive formation�. Insofar as democratic theory ignores these diferences and conforms to the discourse of the university; it fails to confront the current political impasse, disavowing its own underlying suppositions of power and authority and, as detailed in chapter 6, the changed conditions of credibility wherein such authority has already collapsed .

Invoking Democracy

Democracy as a radical ideal was invoked by a sign posted in 'a cofee shop in Trumansburg, New York, in early 2005. The sign urged people to "take back democracy:' It advertised the showing of a film about AlJazeera, The Control Room, and called upon people to come inform themselves, discuss the film, and, presumably; organize future actions. President George W.

So

THREE

Bush invoked democracy as a political practice in a speech he gave in 2003. He proclaimed the role of the United States in spreading democracy across the globe, his strategy for democracy in the .Middle East, and his hopes for the future of a democratic Iraq. 12 Citing the lessons of World War II and the Cold War, lessons that teach us that sacrifces made for the sake of democracy are worthwhile, Bush noted that ''now we must apply that lesson in our own time. We've reached another great turning pointand the resolve we show wil shape the next stage of the world democratic movement:' In their well-known and influential description of the current academic consensus around deliberative democracy, Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson invoke democracy as a theoretical justification for rule. They define deliberative democracy "as a form of government in which free and equal citizens (and their representatives) justify decisions in a process in which they give one another reasons that are mutually acceptable and generally accessible, with the aim of reaching conclusions that are binding in the present on all citizens but open to challenge in the future:'13 AB an example, albeit an admittedly imperfect one, Gutmann and Thompson refer to George W. Bush's recognition of a need to justify his decision to go to war, his persistence in making the case for preventive war against Iraq.

What might we make of these three invocations of democracy? A first pass might say that they are not talking about the same thing, that democracy; an empty signifier, is filled in with difering contents in each case. Here one might emphasize the diferences b etween the protestors hailed by the sign in the cofee shop, the leader of a hegemonic power, and academics elucidating a second-order account oflegitimacy in politics. Yet even with these diferences is it not the case that, in each invocation, democracy is somehow missing, outside the frame? That democracy is standing in for aspirations to something lacking in the present, something more than what we have?

Democracy is missing from the protestors' sign when we imagine them saying that their voices have not been heard, that Bush's decision to go to war violated American constitutional principles. The Bush administration violated democratic norms in going to war against the wishes of the majority; The protestors are contesting this decision, saying that it was not in their name, that they do not authorize it, and that this lack of authorization is a lack of democracy. Democracy is outside Bush's frame when we recognize his self-image as a bringer of democracy, an instrument of the future. He looks outside of a present America, sees a global absence that threatens the United States, and acts to fil it. Democracy is missing from Gutmann's and Thompson's account insofar as the argument they make is normative, a theory ofhow things ought to be, not of how they are.

DEMOCRACY

81

Gutmann and Thompson summarize the most widely accepted view of democratic legitimacy, synthesizing decades of work by John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas. Although disagreements among democratic theorists remain, which Gutmann and Thompson rehearse in detail, the general idea is that democracy is properly conceived not in terms of the collective will of the people but in terms of the quality of collective will formation. Democracy, then, does not rely on a simple identity between government and the governed, sovereign and subject, but consists in a mediated relation between the two. Democracy is a matter of the proper procedures. Political theorists don't install these procedures and get them to work They establish what the proper procedures should be if democracy is to hold.

But is the matter of missing democracy really so simple? Does it make sense to render each of the three cases in terms of democracy to come? As a missing utopia? Vhat if, instead, we think of each case in terms of the presence or realization of democracy, as what real existing democracy looks like? When we do, we see that the protestors invoke a democracy imagined as resistance. They appeal to pract�ce� of constitutionally protected questioning and c:ritique. The organizers showing the AI J azeera film are democratically engaged, active citizens. Like the protestors, Bush; too, is following and invoking a democratic script. He is carrying out his democratic mandate. He is executing a decision ·which, while necessarily in excess of the complex string of reasons and knowledge bearing upon it, takes place nonetheless within a space of power opened up and guaranteed by democratic procedures. And here, Gutmann and Thompson return as providers of insight into the knowledge of democracy. They don't decide to go to war or contest the decision to go to war. Rather they set out the procedures through which decisions should be made. And from their perspective, from the perspective of the neutral knowledge of the university) democracy is proceeding apace. This is what democracy looks like.

82

THREE

According to Gutmann and Thompson, the practices of the Bush administration exemplify the fundamental characteristic of deliberative democracy-the requirement to give reasons. They point out that the administration "recognized an obligation to justify their views to their fellow citizens" and that it gave reasons for preemptive war. These reasons, Gutmann and Thompson claim, "laid the foundation for a more sustained and more informative debate after the U.S. military victory" ( 2- 3). As a com­.menter on my blog put it, it's as if they are saying, "One good thing you can say about the war is despite all the death and destruction, it reinvigorates the postwar political debriefing process:'14 Gutmann and Thompson con., cede that the administration did not exhaust nonmilitary options before shocking and awing the Iraqi people. Nevertheless, they marvel that "the remarkable fact is that even under the circumstances of war, and in the face of an alleged imminent threat, the government persisted in attempting to justify its decision" ( 2) . They add that it is likely correct that "no amount of deliberation would have prevented the war" ( 2) .

Both the missing and the present democracy readings are unsatisfying. Nevertheless, they are useful for elaborating a certain epistemological im.­ passe in deliberative democracy, especially once we reread them in light of the diferent positions of enunciation at work in each explanation, that is, in light of the discourses of the hysteric, the pervert, and the university. 15

The Lack of Democracy

If we frame the issue as one of missing democracy, the protestors seem to take on the position of hysterics. Why? One, because they address their claims to a master, challenging his authority as they say, we need democrac)'J democracy is not what we have; and, two, because the demands they make seem fantastic, incapable of being filled by the master they address.

The claim that democracy is missing is dificult to take seriously. An antiwar position was out there, made vivid by the millions all over the world out in the streets on February 15, 2003. A democratically elected Congress voted to authorize the president to carry out military operations should diplomacy fail. Where, then, is the failure of democracy? The emptiness of the concept of democracy is a problem insofar as it isn't clear what, exactly, the protestors might be demanding. What do they really want? Is it democracy or something else? And insofar as it isn't clear what the protestors are demanding, it seems impossible to give them what they want.

DEMOCRACY

83

We should also ask whether the screening of the film is really intended to inspire democratic debate. Are pro-torture, anti-Islamists expected and encouraged to attend? Is this an opportunity for Christian conservatives to explain the benefits of Fox News or try to organize those at the screening to evict anti-American tenured radicals from the university? Since the answer to these questions is obviously no, the appeal to democracy seems disingenuous, a way of avoiding the true, partisan position of the protestors, of masking the fact that their appeal is actually ruptured by an excess of power or desire that they can't fully acknowledge. The organizers of the film viewing don't really want an inclusive conversation. They want organized political resistance, but they don't say this directly. Instead, they appeal to democracy, shielding themselves from taking responsibility for the divisiveness of politics.

Ultimately, insofar as the protestors address their demands to a master and fail to assume their own claim to power, they end up reinforcing rather than subverting the master's authority.16 They don't confront Bush as an equal in political debate. They issue demands that he can accept and reject from the very position of the master their demands presuppose. This issuing of demands, moreover, installs Bush into the position of master. Instead of screening a movie and demanding democt:acy, the protestors could acknowledge the division between their position and that of the government.;\_and at least half of American citizens at the time-: and work toward building a militant countermovement or joining with existing movements. They could refuse to play by the apparent rules of American political discourse and eschew the legitimizing shelter of the term democracy.

If democracy is missing in the Middle East and Bush is the instrument through �hich it can be provided, his discourse is perverse and his position of enunciation that of the pervert.17 Despite the demands of the hysterics, Bush is not a master. Or diferently put, the demands of the hysterics demonstrate the way the position of the master is always that of a fraud. His words fail to coincide with his position. And here, to an extent, Gutmann and Thompson are not wrong to emphasize the importance of continued questioning and argument for democracy. Such questions and arguments can expose the fact the master is not a master; his authority is a result of his position. It is relational rather than absolute.

84

THREE

The innovation of democracy is to draw attention to the distinction between the occupant and the place of power. As Claude Lefort argues, the key element of the democratic invention is the assertion that the place must remain empty. 1⁸ Principles of right and law are to guarantee this emptiness, to maintain the gap between the place of power and whoever occupies this place. When Bush speaks, then, he does not fully occupy the place of power. His word is not law. Rather law speaks and Bush carries it out. His position of enunciation is that of an instrument of the law. Thus, he executes the wil and desires of others, not himself, in accordance with law. To do so, to carry out the wills and fuli the desires of others, he has to presuppose that he knows these desires, that he possesses the knowledge of desire. We might think here of Bush's frequent invocations of the Iraqi people and their desires for freedom and democracy. Al that he does is for them, to realize their desire for liberty. In helping them realize their desire, he, like America, is a tool in the hands of nature and history. As Bush declared in his State of the Union address in 2oo6, "We are the nation that saved liberty in Europe, and liberated death camps, and helped raise up democracies, and faced down an evil empire. Once again, we accept the call of history to deliver the oppressed and move this world toward peace:'19

Read in terms of the discourse of the pervert, Bush's aim to spread democracy around the world relies on an excess of power, on a point of decision. As he said when pressed by reporters to justify retaining Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld after six retired generals called for the secretary's resignation, ''I'm the decider:'20 This position is supported by the knowledge he claims to subject himself to as he carries out its mandate to spread democracy.

I can now clarify how Bush's position as an instrument of a future democracy resists the exchange of reasons: insofar as he is merely the executor, he doesn't speak for himself or participate in the exchange of reasons. The reasons, or knowledge, already underpin his decision and are subject to his servicing of them. Bush addresses the subject, the split hysterical subject of democracy, the protestors, from this position of instrument. In this way, their questioning misses the mark. He isn't ofering them knowledge; he is ofering them action. He therefore reiterates his decisiveness, his conviction, his resolve, the fact that he is acting in the service of a cause, principle, and design of nature that is incommensurate with his will. And as we have seen, this hysterical process produces, but does not depend on, the authority of the master. The pervert doesn't recognize himself in the address of the hysteric because he is merely an instrument.21

DEMOCRACY

ss

There is a way, however, that this reading of the protestors and Bush in terms of the discourses of the hysteric and the pervert is too rigid. Their positions are too fixed and thus unable to acc0unt for an overlap in their claims regarding democracy's absence. Upon closer analysis, the fact that the two positions share a lack means that they each pass into the other.22 With respeCt to the examples of the protestors and Bush, what we have is the passing of questioning into decision, of inclusivity into division, and back again.

Zizek's discussion of Hegel helps clarify this sharing of a lack. Zizek emphasizes that "antithesis" is "what the 'thesis' lacks in order to 'concrea tize' itsel£:'23 He writes, "The 'thesis' is itself abstract: it presupposes its 'mediation' by the 'antithesis'; it can attain its ontological consistency only by means of its opposition to the 'antithesis; '!.24 The protestors lack the power to execute their demands. Their discourse only achieves consistency, then, as a demand for power, for what they lack. They slide into their opposite as they position themselves as vehi\_des for the realization of a democracy to come, as they make their activities the practices constitutive of democracy, decisively excluding torturers, warmongers, and rightwing Christians from the democratic imaginary they thereby produce. These exclusions need to be emphasized, brought to the fore as exclusions, as the very limits establishing the ·protestors' political ideal. To avow such exclusion, however, would shoot the fantasy of an inclusive, undivided democracy in the foot. And as its own kind of political violence, such a decisive exclusion would force the protestors to abandon their stance as beautiful souls. Nonetheless, as hysterics, they refuse to acknowledge this element of their discourse, preferring instead to continue questioning the master.

What about Bush? If he is simply the perverse instrument or executor of a larger law beyond himsel£ or of a greater wil, how does his discourse achieve consistency? Via the insertion of questioning, via a hystericization -but not toward the protestors. Its relation to the protestors is not complementary as in two sides of a synthetic whole. This lack of complementarity is clear when we recall that in neither the discourse of the hysteric nor that of the pervert are claims made to some sort of equal. These discourses are not structured in terms of the exchange of reasons. Rather the Bush discourse is hystericized in relation to a diferent position, .from its point of symbolic identification, the point from which it sees itself.25 And this point is clearly that of its opponent, "Islamic fundamentalism" or terrorism, which the discourse itself elides. In effect, underlying Bush's position is a challenge to his opponent that both neurotically asks 'he we who you say we are?" and perversely proclaims "We are not soulless, weak, materialist, consumerist, decadent, capitalist, imperialists:' There is more to us than reality television, McDonald's, and net porn. The U.S., too, is resolute, stron� willing to fight to death, able to stay the course in a lon� struggle with no end in sight. We are righteous. And 1, as President, am the unwavering instrument of the higher law.

86

THREE

The following chapter considers the willingness to name and confront �vii as an indicator of Bush's resolve. For now, what is important is the gaze Bush imagines watching him when he speaks, the other he imagines looking at, judging, the United States. In the 2oo6 State of the Union address, Bush avows, "By allowing radical Islam to work its will-by leaving an assaulted world to fend for itself-we would signal to al that we no longer believe in our own ideals, or even in our own courage. But our enemies and our friends can be certain: The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil:' Before this imagined gaze-primarily that of the enemy, the terrorist who would receive the signal that the United States is sending-the wilingness to die for freedom demonstrates that American freedom is not simply a market freedom, a decadent freedom to shop or choose from a wide array of colors, but something more, something as powerful as the conviction driving the socaled terrorist.

Democratic Theory as the Discourse of the University

The third invocation of democracy, Gutmann's and Thompson's theory of deliberative democracy, is usefully read in terms of the discourse of the university. Recall, in this version of the social link, knowledge is in the position of the speaker or agent. Underlying this speaking knowledge, in what Lacan designates as the position of truth, is the signifer of the master. The knowledge that speaks in university discourse relies on an unstated, underlying power, a master's claim to truth. Two points arise from reading Gutman and Thompson via university discourse. The first appears when we understand them to be espousing a normative theory and involves their occupation of the position of neutral knowledge. The second appears when we read them as providing a descriptive theory and involves, one, the imaginary character of their synthesis of Bush and those who opposed his march to war as equals in democratic deliberation, and, two, the closure, the loss of a hope for a diferent future, that accompanies their account of the openness of democracy.

DEMOCRACY

87

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.

88

THREE

Gutmann's and Thompson's treatment of Stanley Fish illustrates the way that power underpins university discourse. Selectively rehashing criticisms Fish raises in his contribution to a volume dedicated to discussing Gutmann's and Thompson's Democracy and Disagreement (and failing to consider any of Fish's other work), they point out that Fish argues that "the demand for justification is misguided because it presupposes a shared understanding of what counts as a good reason" ( 46) . They then claim that Fish "seems to suggest that there is no way to distin_guish between justified and unjustified exercises of political power" and that he "seems to have put democracy on the same moral footing as apartheid, authoritarianism, and fascism" ( 4 7).

Accusing Gutmann and Thompson of failing to follow their own principle of the economy of moral disagreement as they morph Fish the critic into Fish the fascist is too eas}r. More interesting is their failure to recognize Fish's fundamental point that context matters. This is the idea of a shared understanding: what counts as a good reason depends on reason's setting, tl).e context in which a reason is given. Indeed, Fish's argument is even stronger. Meaning requires limits, discursive parameters establishing the conditions of truth and falsity, of adequation and appropriateness. A justification is convincing not when it is independent of power but due to the prior operation of power in securing the context within which it becomes compelling. Gutmann and Thompson don't consider Fish's account of shared understanding this way. Instead, they insert him into their way of thinking, their episteme, accusing him of reducing al argumentation to power politics. In this way, their refusal even to acknowledge the validity of another epistemology, of another way of thinkng about meaning, principles, and the practice of reason giving, ends up demonstrating Fish's point: context matters, meaning depends on a prior set of conditions.

DEMOCRACY

89