In this fascinating collection , Jacques

Ranciere, one of the world's most

important and influential living

philosophers, explores the nature of

consensus in contemporary politics.

Consensus is not peace. Instead it

refers to a map of operations of war, of

a topography of the visible, of what is

possible and what can be thought, in

which war and peace live side-by-side.

Lying at the heart of these consensual

times are new forms of racism and

ethnic cleansing, humanitarian wars

and wars against terror. Consensus also

implies using time in a way that sees

in it a thousand devious turns. This

is evident in the incessan t diagnoses

of the present and of amnesiac state

p oliti c s , in the farewells to the past,

the commemorations, and the calls to

remember.

All these twists and turns tend toward

the same goal : to show that o nly one

reality exists and that we have to

consent to it. But democratic politics

stands in the way of this undertaking.

These chronicles aim to re-open the

space in which it can again be thought.

CHRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES
Also ava i l a ble from C on t i n u u m:

Being and Event, A l a i n Badiou

C,JI1ditiol1s, A l a i n B a d iou
Infinite Thought, A l a i n B a d i o u
LOHics o f Worlds, A l a i n B a d i o u
Theoretical Writings, A l a i n B a d i o u
Tileory o f the Subject, A l a i n B a d i o u
Seeillg the Invisible, M i chel H e n r y
After Finitude, Q u ent i n M e i l la ssou x
Time for Revolution, A n to n i o Negri
Dissel1slIs, Jacques Ra ncie re
P,llitiCl or Aesthetics, Jacq ucs Ra nciere
Tile Five Senses, M ichel S e r rcs
Art alld Fear, Pall l V i r i l io
NCf/ilt ivc Horizon, Palll V i r i l i o

Fort hcom i n g:
Althusser's Lesson, Jacq u e s Ra nciere
Mal/anne, Jacques Ra ncierc
CHRONICLES OF
CONSENSUAL TIMES
Jacques Ranciere

Translated by Steven Corcoran

."
continuum
Continuum International Publishing Group
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London SE I 7NX New York NY 10038

www.continuulllbooks.colII

Origi n ally published in French as Chroniques des temps consensuels © E ditions du

Seuil, 2005, Collection La Ubrarie du XXle siecle, sous la direction de Maurice
Olender

This English t ra n sl ation © Cont in uum 2010

.

This work is published with the support of the French Ministry of Culture­
Centre N a tion al du Livre.

All rights res e r ve dNo part of this publi cati o n lII ay be repro duced or
.

transmitted in any fmlll or by any Illeans, electronic or mechanical. including

photoc opyi ng re co r d in g , or any information storage or retrieval systelll,
,

with out prior permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catal og u e record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-8264-4288-8

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Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group
 Contents

Preface vii

The Head and the Stomach, Jan uary 1996

2 B orges in Sarajevo, March 1996 4
3 Fin de Siecle and New Millennium, May 1996 8
4 C old Racism, July 1996 12
5 The Last Enemy, November 1996 16
6 The Grounded Plane, January 1997 20
7 Dialectic in the Dialectic, A ugust 1997 24
8 Voyage to the C ountry of the Last S ociologists, November 1997 28
9 Justice in the Past, April 1998 32
10 The Crisis o f Art or a Crisis o f Thought? July 1998 36
11 Is Cinema to B lame? March 1999 40
12 The Nameless War, May 1999 44
13 One Image Right Can Sweep Away Another, October 1999 49
14 The Syllogism of C orruption, October 2000 53
15 Voici/ Voila: The Destiny of Images, January 2001 57
16 From Facts to Interpretations: The New Quarrel over
the Holocaust, April 2001 62
17 From One Torture to Another, June 2001 66
18 The Filmmaker, the People and the Government, August 2001 70
19 Time, Words, War, November 2001 74

v
 CONTENTS

20 P h i l o s o p h y in th e B a t h ro o m , January 2002 78

21 Pri s o n e rs of t h e Infinite, Ma rch 2002 82

22 From O n e Month o f Ma y t o A n o t h e r, June 2002 87

23 Victor Hu go: T h e Ambi g u i t i e s o f a B icente n a ry, A ugust 2002 92

24 The Mach i n e a n d th e F oe t u s, January 2003 97

25 Th e D ea t h o f t h e A u t h o r or t h e Li fe o f t h e A rtist? A pri/2003 101

26 The Logic of A m n e s i a , JlIne 2003 1 06

27 The Insecur i t y Pri n ci p l e , September 2003 1 10

28 Th e New F i ct i o n s of E v i l , November 2003 1 14

29 C riminal D e m ocra cy? March 2004 1 20

30 The D i f fi c u l t Legacy of M i c h e l F o u ca u l t , June 2004 1 24

31 The New R e a s o n s for the Lie, A ugust 2004 1 29

32 Beyond Art? October 2004 ID

33 The Pol i t i cs of Images, February 2005 1 37

34 Democracy a n d I t s D o ct o r s , May 2005 141

Notes 1 45

Index 1 49

vi
 P refa ce

The chronicles collected here are chosen from those I wrote over a
IO-year period at the invitation of a large Brazilian daily newspaper, the
Folha de Sao Paulo. The themes broached were sometimes proposed to me
by the newspaper. More often, I was left to choose them from among the
facts thrown up by what we call current affairs: national debates and
worldwide conflicts, exhibitions or new films.
But the chronicle is not a way of responding to the events of passing
time. For passing time, precisely, does not encounter events. Events are
always ways of stopping time, of constructing the very temporality by
which they can be identified as events. To speak of a chronicle is to speak
of a type of reign: not the career of a king, but the scansion of a time and
the tracing of a territory, a specific configuration of that which happens,
a mode of perception of what is notable, a regime of interpretation of the
old and the new, of the important and the ancillary, of the possible and
the impossible.
I believed I could sum up what reigns today under the name of con ­
sensus. But consensus is not at all what is apt to be written about it by a
disenchanted literature: a state of the world in which everyone con­
verges in veritable worship of the little difference, in which strong pas­
sions and great ideals yield to the adjustments of narcissistic satisfactions.
Twenty years ago, some minds, thinking themselves facetious, praised
this new mood, sure to accord the institutions of democracy with its
mores. Today, more minds, and often the same ones, thinking them­
selves solemn, condemn this reign of 'mass individualism' - in which
they see the root of all dictatorships - for its enfeebling of the great col­
lective virtues. We know common o rigin of these acts of bravery in the
service of intellectual debates: they take from Tocqueville both his praise

vii
 PREFACE

of the gen tle m o re, of d e m o c ra cy a n d h i s co n d e m n a t i o n of its i nclination

to servitud e .
T h e pages that foflow reca l l to u s that cons e n s u s does not consist i n the
pacification of a t t i t u d e s a n d bodies t h u s d e s c ri b e d . New f o r m s of racism
and eth n i c clea n s i ng, ' h u m a n i taria n ' w a rs and ' wars a g a i n st terror' a re
at the core of the conse n s u a l t i m e s c h ro n i cl e d he r e . A l s o fea t u ri n g p ro m ­
i n en t l y a re ci n e m a togra p h ic fictio n s o f total wa r a n d ra dica l evi l, a n d
i n t e l l ectual p o l e m i c s o v e r t h e i n t e rpretation of the Nazi genoci d e . C o n ­
sens u s i s n o t p e a ce . I t i s a m a p of w a r opera ti o n s , a topogra phy o f the
v i sibIe. the thi n kable and the possible i n w h ich war a n d peace a re
lodged .
What con s e n s u s m e a n s , in effect. is n o t p e o p l e 's agreement a m ongst
thc m selves but the m a t c h i n g of s e n s e w i th s e n se: t h e accord m a d e
between a s e n s or y reg i m e of t h e p r e s e n t a t i o n of t h i ngs a n d a m o d e o f
i n t e rp retation of the i r mea n i n g . The c o n s e n s u s gove r n i n g u s i s a rna chi nl'
of powl'r i n s ofa r a s it i s a ma chinl' of vision . It cla i m s to obse rve merely
t h a t which we ca n a ll see i ll a li g n i n g two propositions about the state o f
the world: o n e m a i n t a i n s t h a t we h a v e come a t l a s t to l i v e i n t i m e s o f
peace; t h e othe r states t h e c o n d i t i o n of t h a t p e a ce - t h e recognition t h a t
t h e r e i s no m o re t h a n w h a t t h e r e i s . A l l t h e a rg u ments developed o n
behalf of the e n d of u t o p i a s a n d o f history ca n be s u m m e d up i n t h i s
n utshell . A l l egedly, we h a d a t i m e o f w a r. T h i s w a s t h e t i m e when people
wanted more than what there w a s: not simply economic groups but
s ocial classes, n o t simply a population but a p eople, not simply v a r i o u s
diffe rent interests to a l i g n w i t h o n e another b u t w o r l d s i n conflict, not
simply a f u t u re to predict b u t a future to liber a t e . S o , we now live i n
times of peace for having liberated o u rselves o f a l l these s upplem ents, of
a l l these phantoms, for realizing h e nceforth that what is, i s all there i s .
B u t a l l t o o often t h e p e a ce invoked evades i t s obvi o u s n e ss: a b o d y o f
workers rej ects t h e a s s e rtion that there i s only what t h e re i s , a n d t h a t
o n l y governments know h o w to l i n k what i s to what w i l l b e ; extremis!
parties renew the war a g a inst foreigners to the race; new wars i nscribe
rights of blood and soil o n m a s s acred bodies; terror a n d t h e w a r a g a i n s t
terror take e a ch othe r O il . COllsensu s , therefore, is the machine of vision
and interpretation that m u s t ceaselessly set appearances right, p u t w a r
and peace b a ck i n t h e i r place . Its p rinciple a i m s to b e simp l e . War, s a y s
t h e machine, t a k e s p l a c e e l sewhere a n d in the p ast: i n countries that a r e
s till subj ugated to the o b s c u r e l a w o f b l o o d a n d s o i l , i n the archaic

viii
 PREFACE

tensions of those who cling to yesterday's struggles and obsolete privi­

leges. But because 'the elsewhere' avers that it is 'here' and the 'past'
that it is 'today', the consensual machine must continuously redraw the
b orders between spaces and the ruptures of time.
Often bombs are required to divide spaces and confine 'archaic' wars to
the margins of the consensual world. Time, as for it, is easier to manipu­
late. The consensus asserts a reality that is unique and incontrovertible,
but only in order to multiply its uses, in order to bend it to the imperious
scenarios of the present which leaves no room in which to dispute its
presence, to scenarios of the past in which one confines the recalcitrant -
the lame of modernity or survivors ill-cured of utopia - and of the future
which commands the total deployment of energies. The chronicles gath­
ered here strive to analyse the twists and turns accredited to time: con­
tinual diagnostics of the present and politics of amnesia, farewells to the
past, commemorations, duties of remembrance, explanations of the rea­
sons why the past refuses to go, repudiations of the futures which claimed
to sing, exultations of the new century and of new utopias.
So, to analyse these consensual games, a chronicle must shift the sites
of its investigation, venture to see other markings of time and invent its
own temporal scenarios: for example, to compare the machines in
Cronenberg's fictions or Matthew B arney's installations with those of
Zola or Picabia; see, in present- day exhibitions, the Christly exultation of
real presence confront a politics of the archive; discern the face given to
the present in the new fictions of evil, historical or catastrophe films; or,
the way that the legal debates on image-property rights are effacing the
political status of the visible.
Even so, these chronicles do not claim to be providing an inventory of
the signs of the times. This would remain within the logic of consensus,
part its interpretative machine, which incessantly examines the times lor
its symptoms and looks into all the troubles of the social body, always
recognizing in them the same evil: a want of adjustment to the present,
a lack of adherence to the future. The consensus says that there is but a
single reality whose signs must be depleted; that there is but a single
space, while reserving the right to redraw its borders; that one unique
time exists, while allowing itself to multiply its figures. All this goes to
show that we are merely being asked to consent. The recent actuality of
a referendum gave us the plainest illustration of this fact: even as it gave
us the choice of voting yes or no, we were expected to say yes, or else

ix
 PREFACE

,wow ourselves as worshippers of n o t h i ngness. For the o n l y oppositions

t h a t it recog n i ze'> a re t h ose of t he p resent a n d the p a st, of a fli rmation a n d
nega t ion, of hea l t h a n d sicknes s . I n t h i s p l a y of oppositions, the very pos­
s i b i li t y of a specifi c co nfl ict n ecess a r i l y d i s a ppears without rema i nder:
one which bears on what t he re i s , w h i ch lays cla i m to one p resen t against
<lnotl1l'r a n d affi rms t h a t the visible, thi n k a ble a n d possible ca n be
described in many ways. This other way has a n a me. It is ca lled p o l i t ics.
The fo l l o wing ch ron icles a t tem p t in their way to reopen its space .

x
 CHAPTER ONE
The Head and the Stomach, January 1996

The p e ople need something to believe in, the elites had said until recently.
Today it is instead the elites who n e e d something to believe in. Would
o u r realist governors be able t o accomplish their task had they not, from
the Platonic utopia, retained at least one certitud e : in the sta t e as in the
individual, the intelligent head must command the greedy and ignorant
stomach? In Plat o 's time, the heads o f philosophers were turned too far
towards the skies and they o ccasionally fell in wells . The heads of our
governors are fi rmly planted in front of the screens that announce the
monthly indexes , t h e daily market reactions and the specialist outlooks
for the short. middle and long terms . S o they know very precisely what
sacrifices the stomachs must make t oday for tomorrow and for the stom­
achs o f tomorrow. They no longer n e e d to convince the ignorant masses
o f the nebulo u s d emands of the good or justice . They need o nly to show
the p e ople of the world of needs and d esires exactly wha t i t i s that
ciphered objective necessity dictates. This, in s hort, is the meaning of the
word consensus. This word apparently exults the virtues of discussion and
consultation that permit agreement between interested parti e s . A closer
look reveals that the word means e xactly the contrary: consensus means
that the givens and solutions o f problems simply require people to fi n d
that they leave no room for discussion, and that governments can fore­
see this finding which, being ohvious, no longer even needs doing.
The French Prime Minister thus proceeded to announce to the popula­
tion that from now on it would be necessary - in order to make up
account deficits and balance retirement schemes - to forgo certain tradi­
tional social gains and that public s e rvice employees would have to work
l onger to get the right to retirement. Faced with a general publi c tran s p o rt

1
 CHRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES

s t rike and the p o p u l a t i o n 's u nw i l l i n g n e s s to e n t h u s e a g a i n s t these 'pri v i ­

leged' t ra i n a n d h u s d r i v e r s , w h o m a d e t h e m w a l k i n t h e m i d dl e o f w i n ­
t e r, the pa rty of i n t e l l i g e n c e bega n to p o n d e r. How c a n an ohviously
necessary reform be refu s e d by the people o f n e cessity? It m u st be, they
concl u d e d , tha t the reform w a s not w e l l e x pl a i n ed to the m . They would
have t o work hard a t i t .
The a ffa i r i s , a l l the s a m e , s t ra n ge. Beca use wha t do t h e a u thorities and
t he med ia do througho u t the y e a r, i f n o t precis e l y e x p l a i n to the popul a ­
t i on that nothing c a n b e d o n e e x ce p t w h a t o u r govern m e n t s a r e already
d oing? How n o t to despa i r from the virtues o f t h i s pedagogy? The act o f
e xplaining is, i n truth, e v e ry bit as strange a s it s e e m s s i m p l e. W e , t he
govern ments, a re, they s a y, too rational to be u n d e rstood by the people,
which is by no means ratio n a l. H o w, i n fact, will t h e i n t e l l igent h e a d ever
make i t self s t u p i d enough to be u n derstood by the u n i n t elligent stom ­
a ch? How ca n people, w h o do n o t u n d e rsta n d by d e fi n i t io n , be m a d e \0
unders tand? S o m e thi n k e rs of the elite fo u n d t he recipe - a ga i n a Pla t on i c
o n e, in its own w a y : between the hea d a n d the stomach, there i s the
heart a n d , if the popula t i o n were to be spo k e n to in the l a nguage of
the heart . . . U n fortu n a tely, there i s no s chool by which to know what
the heart cou l d s a y clearly in t h e s e m a tters.
There is a furt h e r hypo t h e s i s , o n e that n o serious govern m e n t will ever
a dmit. since i t u nd e r m i n e s t h e bases o f its fai t h : i f the explanation had no
e ffect on the ignorant s t o m a c h s , then it is beca u s e t h e y understood very
well and d o not t h i n k it convincing, in s h ort, beca u s e they are not ignor­
ant stoma chs but intelligent h e a d s . This hypothesis, r u i n o u s for gover n ­
ments, fo unds what there i s real cau s e t o call politics. Politics will
continue to be confused by many people with the activity that i t inces­
s antly counters - the a r t o f governing . Politics i s the way of concerning
o neself with h u ma n a ffairs ba s e d o n t h e m a d presupposition that a n y ­
o n e i s as intelligent as anyone else a n d that a t least one m ore thing can
always be done other than what i s being done . S a y o u r elites: all that was
well and good i n times o f abun d a n ce . We can n o longer afford the l u x u ry
o f such extravagances. We s h a l l J e a r n with o u r thinking h e a d s abo u t the
laws of necessity and shall h a v e the s t u p i d s t o ma chs take note of this
factual necessity.
This is the bottom of t h e matter. The thinking h e a d of the Platonic
legislator was reproached for being too f a r removed from the stomach to
g overn i t usefully. T h e h e a d o f o u r governors s u ffers from t h e reverse

2
 THE HEAD ANDTHE STOMAC H

misfortune : it is unable to distinguish itself from the stomach. Today's

governing intelligence is but a knowledge of the automatism o f the great
global stomach of wealth . The opposition between the governors and the
governed is turned into that between the ideal stomach and the vulgar
empirical stomach s . This is perhaps the ultimate meaning of the word
consensus: that the head which governs us is no more than an ideal
stomach. The government used to say, in the old style, in the military
styl e : there must be only one head. The watchword of our governments
now is: there must b e no more than a single stomach . Hence , the sym­
bolic violence of conflicts such a s the French strikes of winter 1995.
Observers compared them to the victorious shows of force conducted by
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher to break once and for all the
power of workers' organizations . The governments here, in short, con­
duct a b attle for the monopoly of the stomach, a battle to have it admit ­
ted that the system of needs has but one centre and a sole way o f
functioning.
Our elites promptly say that it is a matter of make or break, when con­
fronted with the bad will o f the p eople . However, there is very little bad
needed for it to break. It suffices if the 'ignorant' simply realize one thing:
that by identifying itself with the government of the stomach, the govern­
ment of intelligence abandons intelligence's only recognized privilege -
the right to attend to the future . It is in vain that our governments have
their experts make long-term forecasts to justify the sacrifices that they
ask for today. The mere announcement that the day's Stock Exchange is
up and that 'the markets ' have 'reacted p ositively' to these measures for
the future suffices to instruct the ' ignorant', in bringing back that future
to the daily activitie s of speculation. For the machine to jam, then, it is
enough that the small stomachs to persist - as did the French transport
workers in the defence o f what the government calls their 'privileges ' ­
and, step b y step, the game gets turned around. The thinking heads then
find themselves accused o f being the mere organ of the great anonymous
stomach of wealth, while the small greedy stomachs start speaking like
intelligent beings and demand the right to attend to the future forgotten
by our governors . Say the wise, these follies will be short-lived. Notwith ­
standing, from time to time it happens that societies suddenly relearn two
or three unheard-of things : that intelligence is the best shared thing in the
world and that inequality only e xists by virtue of equality. These
unheard-of things are simply what make politics meaningful.

3
 CHAPTER TWO
Bo rges in Sa ra jevo, March 1996

In the i n t rod u ctio n to his gra n d book Les Mots et les Chases, I M i c he l
F ouca ult evokes the b u r l e s q u e c l a s sifica t i o n of a certa i n 'Chinese en cyc­
lopaedia' cit e d b y Jorge Luis B o rg e s , which d i vides a n i m a l s i n t o t h o s e
' b e l o n g i n g t o the E m pe ro r ' , 'cm ba l m e d ' , 'suckl i n g pigs', ' w h o b e h a v e
l ike m ad m e n ' , 'who h a v e j u st b r o k e n a pitcher' a n d s i m i l a r s o r t s of ca t ­
egori e s . What strikes u s , h e m a i n t a i n e d , before t h e s e lists which b l u r a l l
o ur catego ries of t h e s a m e a n d t h e o t h e r, i s t h e p u re a n d s i m p l e imposs­
i b ility of thinking that.
Western reason has a p p a r e n t l y m a d e progress since. A n d the t h i n k i n g
political heads of the great p o w e r s recently brokered a p e a ce agreement
for ex-Yugoslavia giving de facto recog n i t i o n of the d i v i s i o n o f B o s n i a ­
Herzegovina i n t o three ethn i c i t i e s : S e rb i a n ethnicity, C roatian e t h n i city
and Muslim ethnici t y. The l i s t i s a dmittedly n o t a s rich in imagination a s
that invented by B orges b u t i t i s n o l e s s aberran t . I n w h a t common genus
could a philosopher teach us to d i st i n gu i s h between the C roatian species
and the Muslim species? What ethnologist w i l l ever tell u s a b o u t the
distingui s h i n g traits of 'Mu s l im ethn i city ' ? We c o u l d ima g i n e m a n y vari ­
ations of s u ch a m o d e l . For e x a m p l e , th e American n a ti o n divided i n t o
Christian ethnicity, femi n i n e e th n icity, ath e i s t ethnicity and imm igran t
e thnicity. People will s a y t h a t t h i s i s n o l a ughing matter. O f t h i s I a m
utterly convince d . H e g e l s a i d t h a t the g r e a t tragedies of world history
were re-enact e d a s come d i e s . Here, conversely, it is fa rce that becomes
tragedy. The B o s n ian war is a m i litary coup de force that not only cau s e d a
country to be torn apart, b u t that has a l s o imp o s e d as a n 'obj ective giv e n '
o f c o l d reason a way o f employing the categories of t h e S ame a n d the
Other that makes our logic fal t e r in a n exemplary mann e r.

4
 BORGES IN SARAJEVO

In classical terms, the B osnian war was a war of annexation separately

undertaken by two states, Serbia and C roatia, with the support of local
irredentist populations, against another state, B osnia-Herzegovina. Now,
the chief endeavour of the aggressors was to impose, in liell of this classic
description, a new description of the situation: in its terms, an opposi­
tion, on the ground, between three ethnicities, whose identities, histo­
ries and cultures apparently prevented them from coexisting. The logical
obstacle to this deSCription was that there is no Bosnian ethnicity, and
that B osnia-Herznogovina is peopled with populations of diverse origins
and religions who have coexisted for centuries, more or less well, as
people often do under the sun. But we know, since Hegel, that death is
dialectical, and the problem was resolved by the killing fields of ethnic
cleansing. Killing the Other as Other is the surest way to constitute him
in his identity, to impose on everyone and on himself the self-evidence
of that identity. By systematically massacring Muslim populations in the
conquered zones, the Serb aggressors proved by this act that they actu­
ally were an ethnicity. Of course, it is meaningless to talk of an 'ethnicity'
defined by religious belief. But the problem is not to have criteria lhal
make sense. They need merely exist in making coincide a specific diHer­
ence and the tracing of a line on a map.
This coincidence, we know, is the same one to which a certain ration­
ality also lays claim: the geopolitical rationality of the great powers. These
great powers, while containing the territorial ambitions of the aggressors,
also granted them their essential point: the 'rationality' of their principle
of division in assigning each ethnicity its own territory. The big powers it
seems were quite unconcerned by the contradictions that might arise
between the great declarations of a supranational Europe and the ethnic
gerrymandering of this small nook of that same Europe. But perhaps
there is no contradiction. The logic of the great powers itself rests on a
simple division. The great supranational spaces are for democracies. The
countries of the former communist world will be able to enter it when,
by their representative institutions and above all by their commercial
development and budget control measures, they have proven them­
selves to be 'good students', ready to enter the great worldwide circula­
tion of people and capital. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, so
long as its state of development does not allow it to be able to afford the
'luxury' of democracy, it is better for it to be governed, as in times of old,
according to the 'natural' criteria of birth, tribe and religion. In this logic,

5
 CHRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES

t hree te rritoria lized eth nicitic s b e a t a n indefi n a b l e a n d divided people.

The u n l ocatable ' M u slim' e t hnicity thus fits q uite n a t u ra l l y into the most
c o n s t a n t division o f western rea s o n , the same one that B o rges ' t e x t plays
with: whoever says ' M u s l i m ' s a y s ' Orienta l ' , and the p a rtitio n o f B osnia
is a way of intro d u cing into the heart of old E u rope an ideal line of divi­
sion . This line separates t h e world of western rea s o n o n the m a rch
t owards a fut u re of com m o n ratio n a l prospe rity a n d an 'orien ta l ' world
d oomed, for an ind efi nite peri o d , t o l a n g uish in irration a l classifi ca tions
a n d t h e obscure ide ntity l a w s o f trib e s , religion and poverty.
This symbolic geogra p h y, which places J a p a n in the west a n d B o snia in
t h e Orient, a n d this p o litica l imagina ry, which increasingly i d e n tifi es
d emocratic u n iversality wit h the global law o f wealth, forgets, however,
what happened a lit tle cast of S a raj evo 2 5 c e n t u ries a g o . In this era , a n
Athenian ca l l e d C listhenes h a d h i s co - citizen s a d o p t a s t r a n g e reform.
U n t i l then A t h e n s had been divided into territori a l tribes dominated by
l o cal chcfferies of a ristocrats w h o s e legendary a n tiq uity obscured their
p ower as landowners. C list h e n e s replaced this n a tu r a l division with an
a rtificia l one: h e n ceforth each t ribe w o u l d be c o nstit u t e d of s e p a rate ter­
ritoria l grou ps - a coa s t a l , a city a n d an i n l a n d one - t h rough the d r a wing
o f l o t s . T h e s e t e rritoria l circ u m s criptio n s w e r e called demes in Greek a n d
i t was th u s tha t C listh e n e s i n v e n t e d d e m o cracy. D e mocracy is n o t simply
the 'p ower of the peop l e ' . It is the power of a certain kind of people: a
peop l e deliberately 'inve n t e d ' to dismiss sim u l t a n e o u s l y the o l d power of
b i rth a n d t h e p o w e r t h a t s o n a t u r a l l y s t e p s in to t a k e its p l a ce - wea lth .
I t is a people that affirms, b e y o n d differences of birth, the simple conti n ­
g e n cy of the fact of being in s u ch - a n d - s u ch a p l a ce a n d not in a n other; a
people that contras t s the d u b i o u s divisions of nature with abstract divi ­
sions of territory.
Democracy consists above a l l in the a ct o f revoking the law o f birth a n d
t h a t of wealth; in affirming the pure contingency whereby individ u a l s
a n d populations c o m e t o fi n d themselves i n this o r that p l a ce; in the
a ttempt to b u i l d a common w o r l d o n the basis of that sole contingency.
And that i s exactly what was at s t a k e in the B osnian conflict: confronted
both with the Serb and C ro a tian aggressors, and also with the claim o f
B osnia 's Muslim i d entity, B osnian democrats strived t o a s s e rt the prin­
ciple of a u nita ry i dentity: a territory in which the common law w o u l d
b e t h e o n l y p rinciple of coexistence - t h e people as demos. I n the facts, the
other people triumphe d: the p e o p l e as ethnos, the people supposedly

6
 BORGES IN SA RAJEVO

united by bonds of blood and ancestral law, however mythical. This tri­
umph is not merely a local affair confined to a small end of Europe . No
doubt we should remain level-headed about the prophecies announcing
the widespread outbreak o f ethnic, religious and other types of identity
fundamentalism. Yet, so long a s ' s o cialists' and 'liberals' act in concert to
identify democratic government with the global law of wealth, partisans
of ancestral law and o f separating 'ethnicities' will be permitte d to pres ­
ent themselves as the sole alternative to the power of wealth . And there
will never be a shortage of appropriate classifications. For when it is for­
gotten that the first word of political reason is the recognition of the
contingency of the political order, every absurdity proves rational .

7
 CHAPTER THREE
Fin de Siecle and New Millennium, May 1996

We mllst 'let t i m e take i t s t i m e , ' the l a t e French President Fran<;ois

Mittl'fan d was fond of saying. Lionel Josp i n , his l u ckless s u ccessor ca n ­
didate, adopted a s t h e fi rst poi nt of h i s progra m m e t o take France i n t o
the third mille n n i u m . No d o u b t s e n t e n t i o u s remarks about t h e t i m e t h a t
w e m u st wait f o r and t h e time that w i l l not wait a re p a r t of t h e wisdom
o f n a t i o n s a n d, conse q u e n t l y, of the rhetoric of o u r governme n t s . B u t
we ca n all well see t h e s u rp l u s v a l u e that t h e latter can e xtra ct from a

fin·de-siec!e that is also the close of a millen n i u m . To say that we must 'let
t ime take its time' a m o u nts to placing oneself as the h i storical j u dge of
t he age of revol utions a n d comm u n i sms, in which the ma rch of time was
identi fied with the advent of a n e w era . This tells us, in short, that time
is nothing other than time : the i n compressible interval necessary for the
s ugar to melt and the grass to grow. C onversely, to take I Janu a ry 2000
a s the beginning of a new age, requiring all our thought and efforts in
a dvance, is, on the contrary, to say to u s that time is much more than
t ime, that it i s the inexhaustible power of production of the new and life,
whose part we must play on pain of perishing.
These contrasting expressions of fin d e siecle scepticism and new mille­
narism point to the strange mixture of realism and utopia that character­
izes prevailing thinking. If we are to believe the discourse of the wise,
our fin de siiecZe is the fi nally conquered age of realism . We have buried
Marxism and swept aside all u topias. We have even buried the thing that
made them possible: the belief that time carried a meaning and a prom ­
i se. This is what is meant by the 'end of history', a theme that was all the
rage a few years ago. The ' end of history' i s the end of a n era i n which
we believed in ' history' , in time m arching towards a goal, towards the

8
 FtN DE StEeLE AND NEW MILLENNIUM

manifestation of a truth o r the accomplishment of an emancipation.

Ends of centuries in general lend themselves to the task of burying the
past. But ours inj ects a very specific touch of resentment into this epochal
task. The thinkers who have made it their speciality to remind u s with­
out respite of all the century's horrors also explain to us relentle s sly that
they all stem from one fundamental crim e . This crime is to have believed
that history had a meaning and that it fell to the world's peoples to real­
ize it. And even commemorations, of which our era is so fond, have
assumed this necrological meaning . Not long ago they were designe d to
remind us of the meaning of our history, that is to say our debt towards
the past and our obligation to accomplish its promise in the futu r e . Today,
their function has been inverted : their stake is to re-bury - or, at the very
least, to set us at an exotic distance from - the time when we believed in
history.
So, of course we no longer b elieve in promises. We have become real­
ists . Or, in any case, our governments and our wise experts have b e come
realists for u s . They stick t o 'the possible', which precisely does not offer
a great deal of possibiliti e s . This 'possible' is made of small things that
progress slowly if they are handled with caution by those who know. We
must no longer wait for the tomorrows that sing and for freedom to
come and overturn oppression. We are implored simply to wait for the
' conj uncture ' to be overcome . The good measure of realist time is not the
present (we must learn how to wait). B ut neither is it the distant future .
It is the time of conj uncture : we work for the following semester or the
next year. And thus we measure, from one day to the next, the time that
we must give to time s o that, if all goes well, we will have one hundred
thousand less unemployed the following year, or, if it doesn't, no more
than a hundred thousand more .
B u t they do not get away with b eing realists so easily, and the modesty
of the time that must be awaited suddenly reveals its other face: the fran ­
ticness of time, which, as for it, does not wait. We can say that time needs
time, but this will never b e enough to see it yield its modest fruits. Time
is not a leader of a liheral company, it is an old-fashioned monarch . It
wants to be obeyed and loved before all else . It does not only want for us
to follow its march . It wants u s to go ahead of it, to give it in advance
the gifts of our persons and our thoughts . Time's specificity is not only to
be slow. It is never to stop . For their part, human beings have, we know,
a distressing tendency to stop. As decades of workers ' struggles have

9
 C H RONICLES OF CO NSE NSUAL T IMES

shown, people m a y wa n t t h e fut u re reign of work a n d t o live in advance

a fut u re of infinite progres s . Th i s does not prevent. to the contra ry, great
ca rl' from bdng ta ken for t h e m o m e n t t o separate clearly between l e i ­
sure t i m e and work t i m e a n d strictly l i m i t the latter to the advantage of
t he former. There is a wa y of living t h e fut ure a n d a n other way of living
t he prese n t . Th e u t opias o f n e w man a n d of glorious work sought in vain
to red ress this double appreciation o f t i m e, to prove that the present and
t Ill' fut u re, leisure and work were not d i fferent i n thdr essence.
Our govern ments and our realist wise e xperts today take up the same
s on g a s t h e shamed u topia n s . By comparison with the latter, they prom ­
ise liS, it is true, very littl e . B u t for this little. they set the m a x im u m
c o n d i t i o n . If. next year, we d r e to get an a d d i tional 0 . 2 per cent growth
a nd a 2 per cen t fJll in u n e mployment. we have to mobil ize full-time, we
I11l1St s t o p cl inging - l ike backwa rd i n d ividuals - to t h e ' rigidities' of work
t i llle and its measure i ll sala ry terms, and put ou rselves e n t i rely at the
d isposi t i o ll of time. We m u st become completely 'flexibl e ' . This i s n o t
bccausc t i m e always needs u s . But it can have need of u s at a n y time.
And we m u st be completely available, both lor the moments when it
needs u s and for those when it doesn't. Time will yield u s its modest
fru i", on one conditio n : that we cease from s topping and from stopping
it. [ II his theses Ober den BegritJ der Geschichte.! Walter Benjamin evokes
the insurgents of the 1 8 3 0 French revol ution who showed symbolically
their will to break with t h e cou rse o f time b y firing gun shots at clocks.
Our realist governments a n d entreprene u rs a re utopians of another kind.
They, too, would promptly b reak t h e clocks, b u t f o r another reason :
because clocks sound the interruptions of time - the end of work, the
closing of shops, the passage to recreation o r from the history to the
mathematics class . . . it is at this point that the sad economic reality is
s uhlima ted into the grand mystiqu e of the new millennium. The future,
to be built cautiously, step by step, becomes the Future which calls u s
a n d does not wait, t he Future that we risk losing forever if we do not get
a move on, if we do not o u rselves rid of everything that keeps u s from
a dopting its rhythm .
The fin-de-siccle managers of disenchanted realism then turn into
prophets of the new millennium. They have preache d submission to the
law of the present and of the merely p ossibl e . They now exult the infin ­
i t e deploymelll of o u r potentials for action and imagination. They a s k u s
1 0 cast ' o l d man' completely aside and m uster u p a l l t h e energies that

10
 FIN DE SIEeLE AND NEW MILLENNIUM

will make us men of the future. Time, then, is no longer the support of a
promise whose name would be history, progress or liberation. It is what
takes the place of every promise. It is the truth and the life which must
penetrate into our bodies and souls. This, in short, is the quintessence of
futurological science. This science does not, in actual fact, teach us much
about the future. Whoever reads its works to find out what shall be done
in the future will generally be left wantinig. This is because its aim is dif­
ferent: it is not to teach us about the future, but to mould us as beings of
the future. This is why school system reform always constitutes the core
of the futurological promise. School is the mythical place whe re it is pos­
sible to fantasize about an adequacy between the process of individual
maturation, the collective future of a society and the harmonious and
uninterrupted progression of time. In the way of great indispensable
mutations, Alvin Toffler once enlisted in a singular reform to the school
system, which suggests that we dispense with the old routine of teaching
blocks of literature, history or mathematics. From now on, it ought to
teach the ages of life: childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age. 2 No
longer was it a matter, in the old style, of a school system's preparing
people for life. It was a matter of making these latter indiscernible with
one another, in short of forming beings who are entirely o f the times.
B ecause the Time which is no longer susceptible to realize any utopia has
itself become the last utopia. B ecause the realism which pretends to lib­
erate us from utopia and its evil spells is itself still a utopia. It promises
less, it's true. But it does not promise otherwise.

11
 CHAPTER FOUR
Co l d Rac i s m , July 1996

At the heart of the supranational and liberal West, marching towards the
absolute rationalization of social behaviours and the elimination of all
ideological archaisms, racism is back. This march against time is some­
thing that might be wondered at. But political science is not philosophy.
If, according to Aristotle, the latter begins with wonderment, the for­
mer's axiom is that nothing is ever surprising. And one of its favourite
exercises is to demonstrate the utter predictability of the phenomenon
t ha t, moreover, it was powerless to foresee.
When it comes to racism and xenophobia, the explanation is always
pre-prepared. These are phenomena, we are told, of backwardness. And
phenomena of backwardness are the inevitable consequences of the
march forwards. There is no economic modernity without a shaking up
of traditional sectors of activity and a weakening the social strata linked
to them. These worried populations, their futures threatened, thus
develop regressive and archaic behaviours. They look for scapegoats and
find them in 'others': foreigners who take workplaces, abound in the
cities and receive all the considerations of the political class.
The origin of these schemas is easily recognizable; they are taken from
old Marxist funds: when societies transform, the endangered petit bour­
geois classes hold on tightly and enlist in the reactionary backlash. More­
over, we know that this type of Marxism has, practically everywhere,
become the official ideology of liberal states and their intelligentsias, The
reason for this apparent paradox is simple. There is one thing that liberal
optimism is congenitally powerless to understand: the reason for which
the march forwards can produce the march backwards. If there is one

12
 COLD RACISM

thing, by contrast, that Marxist literature brought to a point of impass­

able perfection, it is e xactly thi s : the analysis of the historico-economico ­
sociological reasons for which history always gives rise to something
other than that which it should.
The advantage o f such e xplanations by means of sociological and eco­
nomic conditions is that they always work, regardless of the said condi­
tions . And they work for a simple reason, which is that, at the end of the
day, they do no more than state a pure tautology, namely that the back­
ward are backward. This tautology has, above all, the merit o f assuring,
without any need even to make it explicit, its incontestable converse,
namely, that the advanced are advanced.
There are two things that the advanced seem to have a problem under­
standing. The first is that there is no need to be socially threatened or
culturally 'handicapped' t o resent the other as an obstacle to e nj oyment
and a threat to identity. In lieu of the specialists of political science, it was
a psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, who announced, 20 years ago, the new
racism to emerge within the very heart of a society that is completely
occupied with endless e nj oyment . The second is that, conversely, the
pleasure in speaking and in reasoning is also shared by the s o - calle d dis ­
empowered classes . If racist statements have always proliferate d in com­
pany with the promises o f unprecedented sexual performance s - in the
dilapidation of public toilets as well as in the modernity of internet net­
works - the reason is because they procure equal pleasure . And there is
no need to suspect the combination of socio-economic misery and s e xual
misery. There is obj e ctive pleasure in playing with the formulations that
serve to identify the traits of the other - as ridiculous, detestable o r sim­
ply inferior. Above all, because there is pleasure in playing with words.
The theory of the advanced is that the backward only use words in
weighing them down with a meaning which is that of their needs, pas­
sions, feats or frustration s . In the racist utterance, according to their
argument, there will necessarily b e a burden of popular or populist pas­
sion s . In short, it will b e necessary to believe in this utterance and to
have great reasons for b elieving in it, if it is to function. The advanced
seem not to perceive that the 'backward' are also daily the addressees of
messages - political o r publicity - that play on one or other o f the two
dominant registers of communication: expert explanation and derision .
And the 'backward' follow very well . In one respect, racists speak like
experts : they speak their language; they say less and less that Negroes are

13
 CHRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T IMES

dirty or lazy; they expla in more and more that there are economic con­
straints and thresholds of tolerance, and that, in the end, foreigners must
be driven off, beca use if they are not, there i s a risk of creating racism. In
another respect, they know very well how to play on the undecidable
status of reality and the status of ambi guous utterances which character­
ize the circula tion of med i a messages . Today. there i s practically no
advertisement for a product that is not a play on words; barely any appeal
to desi re, or request to adhere to a belief, that does not pass via a susp i ­
cion o r a derision, more o r less pronounced, o f the object o f desire o r of
the very form of belief. It is not stea dfast belief, rooted in lived exper i ­
ence, that makes us adhere to the order of o u r societies . On the contrary,
it is word plays, suspi cions of belief and the undecidability of opinion.
So, the racism developing today is not the fact of the 'backward of
p rogress'. It is perfectly synchronous with the forms of legitimation of
enlightened governments and a dvanced thinking. It reproduces the
dominant forms of description of society and the preva iling mode of
opinion, that of unbelieving belief, of belief that no longer needs to be
believed to have an effect. Postmodern sociology, in agreement on thi s
point with tra ditional Marxism a s w i t h government discourse, imagines
that the defl ation of belief is an impediment to collective passion and
thereby a ssures social pea ce. B ut the dedu ction is false. Unbelief and
suspicion can simply produce more intellectual. more ludic, more indi ­
vid ualized, and, consequently, more effective passions, ones that are bet ­
ter adapted to the reign of s ceptical adhesion and unbelieving belief.
A good example i s provided by the growing excess of negationist arg u ­
ments . The contribution that these arguments make i s , i n a sense, purely
'intellectual', conceived in vitro. The weapons of negationism were
forged, without objective need or apparent passion, by university aca ­
demics, who availed themselves o f the favourite themes o f advanced
thinking: scepticism concerning the big words in need of deflation; rejec­
tion of globalizing interpretations and Manichean explanations . They
declared that science had no taboos, that 'extermination' was a little bit
too big a word, and that things needed to be examined in detail to see if
they were proven and formed a single chain of causes and effects. And
the reasons for the success o f their arguments are simple: owing to the
chosen object, they simply give a provocative form to the modes of think­
ing and the forms of belief germane to the dominant regime of opinion.
If diverse parliaments have had to pass laws prohibiting people from

14
 COLD RACISM

denying the extermination, this is precisely because it was the sole solu­
tion by which to prohibit this exemplary transformation of the dominant
modes of thinking into anti - Semitic provocation. It is because the daily
bread and butter of advanced thinking is able, at any moment, to be
translated into its 'backward' version.
'Enlightened classes, enlighten yourselves!' said Flaubert. This is the
most difficult commandment to apply. Who will look for what he is
assured of possessing? And why submit to examination theories that
work in every case? Perhaps, quite simply, so that we no longer need to
make them work.

IS
 CHAPTER FIVE
The Last Enemy, November 1996

The extraterrestrials arc here. They've already struck. Los Angeles has
disappeared in a deluge of fire. And upon interrogation as to what
he wants on earth. the sole alien to be captured responds ill virtually the
only English he knows: death. On the morning of this July 4, as the
United States celebrates its independence, the juvenile president
addresses a circumstantial message to his troops: we arc no longer fight­
ing, he says in essence, for freedom and democracy as our ancestors did,
we are fighting for our survival. The participants are overcome with
enthusiasm at the idea of this new challenge, so much more exciting
than the old, and which will be victoriously achieved through the exem­
plary cooperation between a white brain and two black arms.
This, we know, is an American fiction currently showing on cinema
screens throughout the world by the name of Independence Day. And it
might be wondered whether taking this declaration of political fiction
seriously is worth the bother. Is the bombast placed on the fight for sur­
vival not simply part of the dose of shock stimuli that make up the cock­
tail of catastrophe films' The argument would be convincing precisely if
the formula of the film did not appear slightly out-of-kilter. In this film,
the visions of apocalypse and the special effects are, all in all, modest as
compared with films of the same genre. What is striking, on the contrary,
is the depiction of a tranquil America, where a president confronted
with an extermination nevertheless strictly continues to share his paren­
tal duties as regards his daughter, and whose domestic virtues lead by
their example to the regularization of free unions, the reconciliation of
broken households and the rehabilitation of drunkards.

16
 THE LAST ENEMY

In short, the catastrophe scenario involves a strange discordance: on

the one hand, it appeals to all the moral values in which a people likes to
recognize itse lf, to the point o f p ortraying the slightly outdated m orality
of a pilot who, having regularized his marital status, makes for a more
effective combatant; o n the other, it teaches us that in times of great
threat, the common ideals o f freedom and democracy associated with
these private virtues can, as for them, be shelved in the antiquities
store .
We can then question the relation between the moral virt u e 0 1 g o o d
family fathers and a political virt u e in which the fight agaimt d e a t h com ­
pletely supersede all democratic ideals. We recognize in it. of c o u rse, the
persistence of a binary logic strippe d of its other. B efore the aliens, it was
the landing of the Reds in Los Angeles or San Francisco that we awaited.
In those times, the sureness o f American victory was that of the victory
o f freedom and democracy over their mortal enemies. One fought. or
one feigned to fi ght. to find out whether it was better to be ' re d ' o r
'dead ' . Since we n o longer risk being red, the threat of death is all that
remains, so the slogan of the supreme combat can be stated simply: bet­
ter alive than dead.
The deduction is logical . Nevertheless, this fi ctional logic gives out a
singular ring against the d ominant tone of contemporary political sci ­
ence and historiography. These latter say that the collapse of the S oviet
empire was the triumph of a democracy definitively reassured of its ide­
als in a world no longer subj ect to a division between two h ostile blocs.
Victory over the totalitarian enemy made the reign o f democracy and the
reign of peace identical. An entire present -day schoo l of historiography
identifies this end o f our century 's revolutionary cycle a s t h e end of the
long cycle of revolutionary demo cracy that began with the French Revo­
lutio n . The revolutionary pretension to re - found radically the commun­
ity is deemed to have tie d democracy to the void of ideology and t h e
violence of terror, f o r a p e riod from which we have only just emerge d .
Today, at the o t h e r end of this long catastrophe, we are able to reconnect
with the good tradition o f democracy - that of the American Founding
Fathers - that is, with the reasonable democracy - liberal and realist -
which bases public p e a ce on the e x ercise o f private virt ues and the enter­
prising spirit o f individuals.
Now, this is the exemplary ' Americanness' that the discourse o f t h e
president -aviator shatters. It works to ruin t h e edifying identi fication of

17
 C H RO N IC LES OF CONSENSUAL T IMES

good government with the reign of peace, enterprise and liberty. C a tas­
trophe films are not only fi ctions that restore, with little cost. emotions
to populations that simultaneou sly want to enj oy the benefi cial effects of
democra tic peace and to combat the enn u i that it engenders . They
rem ind us that the fi ctions of sta te cannot d ispense so ea sily with the
fig ure of the enemy, with the representa tion of an absol u te threa t . In
o n t' sense, the moral of the special- effect cata strophe fil m is no different
to the one we are fed day after day by our reasonable governments : our
societies must no longer be concerned with the fight for freedom and
e q u ality against their enemies, but with the struggle for survival. which
is prey to the slightest blu nder. The smallest wage rise, the smallest drop
in interest rates, the slightest u nforeseen market reaction is, in fa ct.
t' n o ugh to d i srupt the acrobatic balance on which our societies rest and
plunge the entire planet into chaos.
The invasion of extraterrestrial monsters who want nothing less than
deJth is, in short, a grand spectacle that provides a face for the rampant
fea r that founds the legitimate exercise of governmental management.
And it further illustrates for us one of the great founding my ths of mod ­
e rn political philosophy : that threa t o f absolute war which demands each
of us be alienated from our rights . In Hobbes' work, however, the threat
of death comes from every man's being against the other. And, up until
n o w, the enemy, and its threat of servitude or death, has always taken
the face of another people, another political system. The America of
Independence Day, as for it. i s no longer threatened by any enemy other
than death itself. B y the same token, however, figuring this absolute
e nemy becomes problematic.
Another recent catastrophe film helps u s to understand this . In The
Rock, it is not from an army of extraterrestrials that the threat of chemical
war being unleashed on San Francisco comes . It i s from an American
General. a former Gulf War hero, j ust like the president i n Independence
Day. The reason he takes the town hostage is that he wants to obtain
i ndemnities for the families of the soldiers he has lost and America does
not want to recognize . It is, in short, to gain recognition for the reality of
death in real wars . This is precisely a right. however, that no longer has
any currency. The wars that the Great Natio n u ndertakes are mere police
operations during which everyon e is guaranteed a safe life . The only
' true' war i s the total war against absolute D eath. As a good patriot. the
rebel general ends up recognizing this . H e renounces the murderous

18
 THE LAST ENEMY

enterprise destined to prove the empirical existence of death. He lets

himself be killed to prove that death does not exist. All is well that ends
well.
There is nevertheless a strange game being played here between death
confronted and death denied, between absolute fear and the calm confid­
ence j ointly presented to us by the special effects of apocalypse films and
the ordinary discourse of governments. According to Aristotle, tragedy
has to purify the fear that it elicits, in order to transform troubles of iden­
tification into the pleasure of knowledge and contain passion within the
play of theatrical space. We may ask what exactly is yielded by these
apocalypse comedies with their fears, at once gigantic and so easily dis­
sipated. We may ask what is gained from these promises to deliver us of
empirical death at the price of a total mobilization against imaginary
death. Do they not lead us to seek out imaginary culprits to blame for the
threat that, promise or no promise, continues to weigh upon every life?
This absolute other - the alien, death - which alone is authorized to give
face to the enemy, is this not the one that, at the hour of the great pro ­
claimed democratic peace, comes more prosaically stand in for this figure
so close to the other: the representative of the other race, of the irrecon­
cilable ethnicity or of the maleficent religion that imperils our identity
and our survival?

19
 CHAPTER SIX
The G rou nded P l a ne, January 1997

O f a cinematographic oeuvre, as with any creative effort, there are two

ways of speaking. The first is to judge it in accordance with its idea and
to compare what the artisan has d one with what he/she ought to have
done or wanted to do. We thus begin with the fact that Crash is the filmic
adaptation of a novel by J . C . Ballard, a sort of counter-utopia in the form
of a pornographic science fiction novel, in which the automobile is
placed at the centre of a Sadean scenario of pleasure founded on the
intliction of destruction. We can further mention the interests of the
director, David Cronenberg, in the great mythologies of our time, in
mutant figures or man-machine hybridizations. And so we judge the
film's images as the more or less adequate realization of the intentions of
the one and the other.
And then there is the other way, based on what one knows nothing of
or on the fact that we want somc escapism, which involves placing our­
selves before the thing, looking at the images and picturing the fable that
their sequence proposes to us. We thus start off with what the film's first
images show: a plane hanger. A young woman, apparently driven by an
imperious desire, approaches a plane. She open her corsage, pulls out a
breast from her bra, presses it ecstatically against the metal of the aircraft
cabin and begins, with the machine, a body-to-body eTOtics that the
soundtrack accompanies with the appropriate panting. Meanwhilc, a
man comes from behind to join in the party, and returns, in short, the
young woman's machinic enjoyment to its human normality. At the
film's end, we see the same young woman on the embankment of a
highway, laying beside her overturned car, and ignoring her contusions

20
 THE G RO U N D E D PLANE

to make love with her hushand o r privileged companion, who had

amused himself by forcing her car off the road.
The film, in short, might b e described as the story of a n aviator who
renounces flying . Her being in the hanger, then, had to d o with her
preparation for her pilot's licence, undoubtedly for the euphoria of
cutting through the skies with the dream machine. But in the mean­
while, her companion initiates her into something that he himself has
learnt: there i s a totally other way to make love with machines and to
use them for the fulfilment o f one's desire . Prekrable to the e nj oyment
of the beautiful plane cutting through the sky. is the car headlong on the
encounter with another: the car which causes blood to flow, breaks the
limbs, gashes the skin with scars, covers the body with pro s the ses but
also, and above all, the car that one dents, smashes up, flips ove r, destroys,
sets in flames.
So we might say that t h e point to which tale of Crash bring s LI S i s the
latest episode, the finale of the great opera of the wedding of man and
mach i n e . Ind eed, for the morale of this sulphurous film, whi ch is given
in its last image, could be considered the strict counterpart of anothe r
final image, a literary image t h a t in fact marks this adventure's begin­
ning . At the e n d of his La hete humaine, I after the conductor and his
chauffeur have killed each othe r, ending a long tale of desire s , j ealousies
and murderous folly, E mile Zola describes the deserted locomotive as it
continues alone along its impla cably straight line, driving, in spite of its
crushed victims, humanity towards its future . The crime or the m a d n e s s
of i t s h e r o Jacque s Lantier was p e rhaps to have preferred the e nj oyment
of the feminine fl esh and of human blood to the faithful love of the
machine . Then, conversely, in the 1 9 2 0s, there emerged the great utopia
of machines, which, harmonizing the aspirations of cinematographic art
with the grand enterprise of constructing New Man, wante d t o repeal
the shamefu iness of the ' bete humaine' in favour of a humanity that is
in harmony with the faithful precision of the machin e . 'In the face of the
machine we a r e ashamed of man's inability', said D ziga Vertov, 'to con ­
trol himself', in contrasting the 'unerring ways of electricity' to 'the dis ­
orderly haste of a ctive p e ople and the corrupting inertia of passive
ones ' .
The obstinacy o f the heroes of Crash, not seeing in vehicl e s anything
but machines b y which t o produce accidents for the purpose of procur­
ing enj oyment, stages the revenge of man's disorderliness and corrupting

21
 C H RON I CLES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES

feeb leness. S o , where some s e e a celebration of t h e futurist figu re of man

h yb ri d i zed with the m a c h i n e , I ra t h e r s e e t h e l iq u i d a ti o n of t h e s e c u l a r
u topia o f the couple o f N e w M a n a n d t h e d r e a m machine. Ulti m a t e l y,
t h e fi l m s h ows us t h a t t h e o n l y m a c h i n e t h a t c a n s t a y t h e course is t h e
s m a l l h u ma n sex u a l m a c h i n e , w h i c h t u r n s metallic machines a n d t h e i r
d e s t r u ct i o n t o u se , a n d which, i n o r d e r t o atta i n its g o a l s , could d o j u st a s
wel l with o u t t h e m by co n te n t i n g i t s e l f - a s the c o u p l e w h o ' v e ma stered
t h e ga m e shows u s - to conj u re t h e m i n word s . I n fact, all these scen e s
o f h o rro r a n d a u tomobile orga s m s m i g h t s i m p l y b e stories t h a t t h e cou ­
p l e t e l l e a ch other in bed to a d d spice to t h e i r p l e a s u r e .
In t h i s way, t h i s fi l m o f f u t u rist p o r n o - fiction appea rs to prese n t u s a
t re n d y a n d paradoxical version of t h e g ra n d t h e m e of t h e e n d of celestial
i d eo l og i e s a n d o f t h e ret u rn to t h e s i m p l e a n d solid s a t i s fa c t i o n s that
h u ma n i t y gets i n to when i t fa l l s o u t o f love with utopia s . It is a h u m a n i s t
f i l m i n its wa y. A n d i f we back u p a centu ry, we ca n a l so s e c i n i t t h e
rev e rsal o f a n o t h e r sce n e : t h e sce n e o f u n i o n between t h e absol u t e o f
l ibert y a n d t h e a b sol u t e o f e n j o y m e n t procu red by other's tortured body,
i l lust ra t e d by de S a d e i n t h e e r a o f t h e French Revol u t i o n . Not s o l o n g
ago, in a n a rticle t i t l e d ' K a n t with S a d e ' , J a c q u e s L a c a n e n d e a v o u red t o
show h o w t h e absoluteness of t h e S a d e a n i m p e rative regarding t h e o t h ­
er's s u bmission t o m y e nj oy m e n t wa s the h i d d en t r u t h b e n e a t h t h e
u ncon di t i ona lity o f t h e K a n t i a n l a w a n d m o r a l impera t i v e . E v e rythi n g
t ranspires a s t h o u g h the fi l m inverts t h e d e m o nstra tion. Let's l o o k , for
e x a mple, a t the two fem a l e characters who g o to the ca r p a r k to m a k e
l ove in a c a r . They appear a s t h o u g h they h a ve c o m e to fulfil their d u t y :
a d u t y fixed b y t h e script, initially. T h e o t h e r heterosexual or h o m o ­
s e x u a l combinations h a v i n g a l r e a d y b e e n e x h au sted, i t i s now their t u rn
to have a go. This t h e y do wit h o u t appa rent enthusiasm a n d witho u t a n y
obvi o u s interest on b e h a l f of the director, who cuts their frolics short.
The reason for this is that the fictional d u t y i s ultimately a moral one: a n
a s s e rtion o f the e q u a l right o f every constitutable hetero- o r h o m o s e x u a l
couple t o t a k e e nj o y m e n t i n a ss ociation with t h e machine. The S a dean
game of permutations has become a contract of generalized e nj oyment
a n d the viole n ce on which i t r e s t e d for d e S a d e i s precisely situated in t h e
relations of m a n a n d machine. B etween p a rtners a sort of pre - e s tablished
harmony appears to prevail in w h i c h t h e enj oyment t h a t one desires to
obtain from the other seems, a t each occasion, t o be matched e x actly b y
that w h i c h t h e other desires t o o b t a i n from m e .

22
 THE G ROUNDED PLANE

In refusing to have his film labelled pornographic, C ronenbe rg con­

trasts these sex scenes to the standard cinema tales of love and seduction,
which he claims are fundamentally rape scene s . Love stories , we might
answer, do in fact share a common feature with S adean cruelty, which is
that they are always based upon an inequality between two desires . The
presupposition of the pornographic scene, by contrast, is that you do to
the other wha t the other wants you to do. Pornography thus illustrates,
in its own way, the liberal version of the social contract . This is why its
visual empire develops along with the rhythm of development of con­
sensual neo-liberalism. This is precisely what the final sequence gives us
to see and hear: 'Are you alright? ' asks the hero to his companion, whose
car he has j ust pushed over the railing and who he finds again lying con­
cussed on the side o f the road underneath. 'I'm alright' she responds,
which is to be understood not a s an expression of her physical state but
as an invitation, saying : 'you can go for it. I also desire what you desire ' .
I n this way, all violence i s reduced t o the contract, and all the power of
the machine to human desire . In the end, then, the film presents u s with
the counter- utopia of the brave new world, a rather fitting p a rable for
prevailing notions about the 'end of utopias ' .

23
 CHAPTER SEVEN
Dialectic in the Dialectic, A ugust 1997

How, today, a re we to come to grips with Adorno's a n d Horkheim er's

Dia lectik der Aufkliiru ng? ! Its bril liance seems to have fa ded twice over: a
( i rst time, like that of a star of t h e constellation i rremediably distanced i n
t he p a s t called Ma rxism; a second t i m e , on the contra ry, as the p roto­
t ype, hackneyed by its copies, of the double discourse that is part of the
bana lized regi m e in which we live: the critique of the tota litarianism of
E n l i ghtenment reason that p rovides t h e liberal governmental order with
its intellect u a l crowning point; and the critique of the culture industry
that fuels the vaguely contestatory desires of intellectual opinion.
In one respect, in fact, this book seems to be part of the oft- attempted
h istory of tearing Marxism, as a thinking of emancipation, away from
the reason of the Enlightenment; away from a critique of the religion
that sends religion earthbound after chasing i t from the sky; away from
a fa ith in science that reduces its spirit to a technical mastery of the

world; and away from a progressist vision of history that subordinates

tlIe potential for emancipation to the necessities of the history of dom­
ination. Marxism, in one sense, i s only the perpetually disrupted move ­
ment of that tearing away; it begins with the Marxian critique of the
relations between human rights and the logic o f capitalism . It continues
via the recurrent polemic against evolutionist p h ilosophy, which Adorno
i llustrates as much as Lenin or B e nj amin or Gramsci . It i s manifest once
again in the I 9 60s with the Althusserian polemic against the twofold
heritage of economism and j uridical humanism.
And this interminable tearing away undeniably bears traces of the con­
flict between the philosophies of h istory within which Marxist theory

24
 DIALECTIC IN THE DIALECTIC

and politics unfolded. The emancipatory confidence of the Enlighten­

ment has perhaps only ever existed in the writings of C ondorcet and a
few others. And the Marxist identification between scientific theory and
a practice of emancipation soon ran into a twofold denegation. On the
one hand, Schopenhauerian pessimism, or the theories of decadence,
inverted the assertions of progressivism, by accusing the rationalist pre­
tension to worldwide mastery and human liberation of an original sin or
illusion. On the other, scientism, with Spencer, Renan and many others,
linked evolutionist philosophy to the theme of 'selection of the best' and
the government of experts over the masses bound to servitude. The Nietz­
schean critique of civilization is situated at the exact intersection of these
two traditions. And by the same token it entertains a complex relation to
the Marxist critique of ideologies: it assists it in its effects only at the price
of undermining its principles. And the consequences of this can be seen
in the argument of the Dialectik der A ufkliirung. What the latter proposes
by way of a criticism of Marxist reason is a new version of the original sin
of Greek rationality according to Nietzsche. In repudiating tragic wisdom,
S ocrates' fault becomes that of Ulysses' resisting the songs of the sirens.
The fault, however, is the same and resides in the Apollonian hubris of
the knowledge that wants to forget its Dionysiac side, the shadow-side
that links it to the mythical world and the 'obscure forces of life'.
Adorno and Horkheimer, of course, link their denunciation of that
original sin to the critique of social domination: their Ulysses does not
simply guard himself against the Dionysiac songs of the Sirens. In plug­
ging the sailors' ears, in obliging them to serve his own renunciation of
enj oyment, he identifies the success of the common rational undertak­
ing with the capitalist law of domination. He is therefore strictly opposed
to Nietzsche's 'plebeian' Socrates. But this gap is made against the back­
ground of a common presupposition: that of a grand historical destiny of
Western reason, construed as the accomplishment of an original sin. As
such their critique of capitalist reason or of the culture industry thus
appears much closer than it would like to the other great transformation
of the Nietschzean primal scene, the one developed by the philosopher
that Adorno riddles with his sarcasms; it appears as the leftist rejoinder
to the Heideggerian critique of western metaphysics and its accomplish­
ment in the technological domination of the world. There is, in short, a
dialectic of the dialectic of reason. It strives to accomplish the intermin­
able task of Marxist critique: to cut, at last, the umbilical cord linking the

25
 CHRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES

p romises of revol u t i o n a ry e m a n ci p a t i o n to t h e da ngers of E n lighte n ­

ment rea son . I t e n d e a v o u r s to c o n t r a s t t h e perverted, inst r u m e n t a l a n d
med iatizing reason o f d o m i n a t i o n with a n a u t h e ntic rea s o n , with a rela ­
t i o n of i n timacy between rea s o n a n d t h e lived world which ckvelop s i n t o
a p o w e r of e m a n cipation . B u t t h i s b r e a k t h ro ugh i mpels i t towa rd s
a not her cri tique o f the E n l i g h t e n m e n t , a cri t i q u e that casts the h istory of
western rea s o n and o f its p r o m i s e o f e m a n cipation a s the i rreversible
d e velopment of a p r i m a ry i l l u s i o n .
This ' d i alect i c in the dialectic' fou n d s t h e m e l a n cholic v e r s i o n of M a r x ­
i s t critiq u e . B u t i t also g i v e s i t a n a m b i g u o u s d e stiny. I t s critique of t h e
c u lt ur a l i n d u stry w a s t h e n succe e d e d b y t h e Situationist critique o f t h e
' s pe ct a c l e ' - a n o t h e r g ra n d , m e l a n ch ol i c d i s c o u r s e on the u n i form com ­
mod i fication of the wor l d . Both h a v e become commonplaces of that d i s ­
co u r s e o f ' d e m ys t i fi e rs' which a cc o m p a n i e s e a c h m a n i festa t i o n o f t h e
c u l t u ra l i n d u stry - or of the ' society of t h e spectacle' - to such a n e x t e n t
t hat it beco m e s t h e lat ter'S obligatory d o u b l e [ doublure ] - t h e d i scou rs e o f
t he ' c l e v e r ' w h i c h t h i s i n d u st ry's ' s t u p i d i t y ' n e e d s for its perpetuation .
This dia lectic enters i n t o t h e s t ra ng e d e s t i n y of what c a n b e ca l l e d post­
Marx i s m . Decla red dead with the collapse o f the Soviet system, M a r x i s m
w a s , by t h e same token, liberated f o r a l l sorts o f posth umous u s e s , O n
t h e one h a n d , official M a r x i sm was c a l l e d u p o n t o d o d u t y for n e o - l ib e r a l
politics, to w h i c h it l e n t t h e t h e o r y o f e co n o m i c necessity a n d t h a t o f t h e
i n e l u ctab l e d i rection o f h i s t o ri c a l t r a n sformations; o n the other, critica l
Marxism l e n t its disencha n t e d vision to t h o s e contestations of cultural
comm odities which accompa n y t h e i r development- while simultan e ­
o u s l y maintaining reactive disco u r s e s which c o unterpose art's a u thenti­
city to t h e forms o f its compromise with t h e calculations o f state and t h e
merchants of culture.
And, sure- enough, t h e Dialectic of Reason denounces in a d va n ce a n y
s u ch u s e o f i t s criti q u e . I t shows that a r t o r t h e a ut h e n tic culture that one
c laims t o b e upholding against the c u l t u ral i n d ustry stem from the s a m e
princip l e , T h e division between noble a r t a n d the cultural i n d u stry i s h e i r
t o the first d i v i s i o n symbolized b y t h e g e s t u r e o f Ulyss e s . I n renouncing
the e n j oyment promised by the song o f the Sirens, h e reserves for him­
self t h e privilege of hearing only the song o f promise a n d of pe ril that he
h a s prohibited his sailors from e nj oy i n g . C ivilized barbarism depends on
this first exclusi o n , And here o n e feels the profound motif that separates
Adorno and Horkheimer from the inanity o f those weepers who

26
 DIALECTIC I N TH E D IALECTIC

periodically wallow about an's ru ination in cultural commerce and pol­

itics . This profound motif goes fu rther back than the Marxist critique of
fetishism or denunciation of 'bourgeois' Enlightenment thought.
Through the intermediary o f Holderl inian poetry, it harks to that which
is without a d oubt the veritable founding t ext of the modern thought of
emancipation, Friedrich von S chiller's Uber die asthetische Erziehung des
Menschen. 2 To the establish e d s o cial division between the barba rism of the
civilization o f the Great and popula r savagery, S chiller counterposes that
chance at common humanity - at reconciliation in the sensory world -
constituted by beauty. The resistant force of the Dialekrik der Aujklarung,
that force which separates its denunciation from all the contemporary
commonplaces, lies in its refusal to yield on that fundamental a esthetic
promise, on that horizon of a common sensible humanity. It also lies in
the very radicalization of the theme of the promis e . The romantic readers
of S chiller made of art's b e autiful totality the prefiguration of the free
community. For Adorno and H orkheimer, on the contrary, art only per­
petuates the promise at the price of breaking it, of inscribing in itself the
s ustained wound, the unresolved contradiction of every transfiguration
of reality into a beautiful aesthetic appearance . This is the radicality
which provide s the denunciation of cultural banality with its force of
anger. The problem is not that this banality brings art down to the level
of the 'masses ' . The problem is that it is a machine for satisfying all the
needs, including ' elevated' ones, which deprives art of its force of d e cep­
tion, and therefore o f its p otential for emancipation .
This small difference is e s s ential . W e s e e sim ultaneously what weakens
it. The fact is not that A dorno's and Horkheimer's Marxism is too tainted
with utopianism. It is in fact missing the same thing that 'realist' forms of
Marxism are missing: a political conception of emancipation.

27
 CHAPTER EI G HT
Voyage to the Country of the Last Socio l ogists,
No vember 1997

Tristes Tropiq ues ' begins with a chapter titl e d : La fin des voyages. B u t why
exactly have t h e s e travels ended a n d why is B razil the privileged place
lor t h e verification of that end? Th ese two q ue stions presuppose a nother:
what does it mean to travel i f we are to understand by this not simply a
displacement of bodies but an adventure of the mind?
To understa nd it. let us pause for a moment o n a tale of travel through
B razil that i s much older a n d much less polished than Levi - S trauss'. In
his Memoires d 'un enfant de la Savoie, 2 published by the author in Paris in
1844, Claude Genoux, former chimney sweep turned print worker, tells
us of his years of errancy a n d in p a rticular of his voyage to B razil in
18 3 2 . He set out for it by chance, h e tells us. A letter lying about in the
Marseille port informed him that B razilian b a rbers were in need of
l eeches. So he bought a big lot of them and transported them to the
other side of the Atlantic. With his leeches sold, various circumstances
detained him in the country and h e relates to u s the most extraordina ry.
The main characters are a caiman that devours his travelling companion,
a boa constrictor that threatens to devour him, and a black slave by the
name of Papagall - the former king of an African tribe who revolts
against the inj u stice of the fazendero, massacres his master's entire family
and is hanged. For Genoux this last episode provides the occasion for an
intense mediation on the contradiction of a country in which public
opinion and a liberal press coexist with the b a rbarism of slavery and
corporal punishment.

28
 VOYAGE TO COUNTRY OF THE LAST SOCIOLOGISTS

Genoux's tale presents us with the classical figures of the travel story.
What we discover, to start with, is that the other country really does
resemble its otherness, that the story describes precisely the animal and
human menagerie and vegetal props recognizable by those who have
never been there and never will. The tropical adventures that Genoux
recounts could have been invented even if he'd never left E u rope . And
one indeed begins to suspect that p e rhaps he did not actually ever leave.
The principle of the e quivalence whereby caimans, boas and parrots lend
support to their own figuration is in itself simple : the map of the world
only ever presents the traveller with the stages of h umanity's develop ­
ment. The territory o f B ra zil is a map of tim e . The America / Africa
encounter arbitrated b y the E u ropean i s one of humanity's past with i t s
fut ure . Before the painted canvass o f t h e t ropical forest, the y o ung Savo­
yard and the old king -become - slave communicate in the language o f the
universal spirit . And this language is easily reducible to that strange liter­
ary language which only exists in s chool texts and the prose of autodi ­
dacts: 'White m a n , you are t h e fi r s t of you r colour who has lowered
himself or rather who has shown himself to be big enough to lower him ­
self to help a poor Negro . C an I treat the colour that heaven gave you
as a crime? - Never, I think, was such a discourse pronounced by a White
Man in the presence of a B lack Man . . . '
In identifying himself with the language of the universal mind, this
literary language, which n o one has ever spoken, annuls the scepticism
that the traveller draws from his experience . He traces the line of a fut ure
at the end of which the New World will end up precisely being identi fi ed
with the territory of a new humanit y which has accomplis he d its march
towards civilization and that will find itself governed by an o rder which
will be the recapitulation of its progress. This hope of a comm unity gov­
erned by the law o f an ordered past was, in Genoux's time, the obj ect of
a young science which Auguste C omte formulated and E mile D urkheim
taught to the masters of Levi - S trauss . This science, which is m ore than a
science, consists in the idea of a society that transforms its s cience into
beliefs and common ritu als; it is called sociology. Travelling to B razil
means travelling t o the country of s o ciology.
This is the voyage that the B razilian j o u rney of Tristes Tropiques brings
to its end . The tracing back of the time which goes from Paris to Sao
Pa ulo and from S a o Paulo t o the Rondon line is the path by which
sociol ogy's meaning is inverted. This is the 'sadness' of the Tropics . In

29
 CHRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I MES

d isembarking at Santos, Levi - Stra uss would have su rely been aware of
the famous phrase of a French president: ' B ra zil will always be a land
o f the fu ture ' . And he, too, could also have described, without leaving
Paris, the tropical avenues and villas of Rio - simila r i n setting to the
seaside sta tions of 1 860s Fra n ce - the herds of cattle grazing in mid - Sa o
Paolo, t h e n e w and instantly a g e d buildings, o r t h e decadent a ristocracy
o f t h e racetracks and the Automobile C l u b . I t is this tropical decor that
t a kes the place of Genou x 's cai m a n a n d boas. The future of civilization i s
a l ready n o m o r e than the imitation of i t s past. B u t a serious consequence
follows from this: if B razil's future is in the past, the same holds for the
f u t u r e of sociology.
Th is is shown already in the 'sociological minuet' carried out by the
chosen society which surrounded the young French professors of Sao
P a u l o University, and in which each sociological species is represented by
a u n i q u e speci m e n : the com m u n ist and the catholic, the ra cing dog a m a ­
t e ur and t h e amateur modern painter, the local erudite and t h e surrealist
p oe t . What is this miniaturized social world, i f not the caricature of the
soci ol ogical principle of a n o rganic society constituted by well- differenti ­
a t ed functions? The great sociological faith from which the theory of
p rogress d rew a second wind, na mely that which was t o give a soul to
the new reasonable republics, is made to look by the B ra zilian mirror
suspiciously as if it is only a game of society.
And yet, sociology is not an illusion . But to encounter i t one must
move towards the real territories of those Indians who, according to the
master of Levi - Strauss, peopled the working class areas of Sao Paolo and,
a ccording to his Paulist interlocutors, had long since disappeared from
the B razilia n soil. On the shore of the Rio Paraguay or near the Rondon
line, the ethnologist at last finds sociology in act. The C aduveo's face
painting or the topography of the B ororo village carry out the same intel­
lectual programme : to invent a cultural order which imposes its norms
on nature . For these 'savages' are 'greater sociologists than even D u r­
kheim or Comte ' . They feel j ust a s much repugnance for that which
a ssociates the pleasures of sex with the vulgarity of procreation as taste
for that painting which imposes the geometrical regularity of its decors
on the 'natural' traits of the face .
B u t the solution to this intellectual problem is also the solution to a
p olitical one: the complex structure of the B ororo village and the divid­
ing up of sides in the face painting of the C aduveos integrates into a same

30
 VOYAGE TO COUNTRY OF THE LAST SOCIOLOG ISTS

structure the two contradictory elements of their social organization:

equality, expressed in symmetry, and the asymmetrical distribution of
three hierarchized classes. S ociology was born in nineteenth-century
Europe for precisely this end: to collapse into a single structure the hier­
archy necessary to the life of the social body and the equality claimed by
the man of democratic times; to make this structure the principle of a
faith and a ritual by which the members of a society manifest, in a half­
conscious half-unconscious way, the principle of their social cohesion.
Far from exoticism, the funerary ritual of the B ororo realizes the ideal of
the positivist Republic, namely that which inspired the commemorations
of the Third French Republic.
So B razil really is the land of sociology. Only, it is among those popula­
tions in the process of final extermination, repressed to the furthest
depths of its territory. The ethnologists complicity with the 'savages'
vision of the world, then, is more than a character trait or a principle of
method. It is a solidarity with the last authentic servants of sociology.
The slow death of the Nambikwara is not only the last episode of 'civiliz­
ing' conquest. With them will die not so much the last savages as the last
true sociologists. And this Nambikwara leader who seizes a simulacrum
of writing, conceived uniquely as a means of power, anticipates the death
of this last true sociology. He makes of it a simulacra similar to the
'sociological minuet' of the Paulist elite.
That is the final lesson of the B razilian voyage, that is of the ethnolo­
gist's return to the sociological continent. However, the Nambikwara is
not the last people to be visited by the author of Tristes Tropiques. Depart­
ing from scientific method, he seized the occasion to enj oy a stay of eth­
nological truancy among the Tupi-Kawahih. There, he said, he was really
able to play Robinson C rusoe and enter into a relation with the savages,
which the absence of an interpreter left in its mute virginity. Return of
ethnological science to the good Rousseauist savage? Or discovery that
the serious sociological science was no less utopian than the reverie of
the good savage?

31
 CHAPTER N I NE
J u stice i n the Pa st, April 1998

For 6 m o n t h s, o fficial Fra nce seems to h a v e b e e n occup i e d by a single

even t : the t rial of Ma u rice Pa p o n , former f u n c t i o n a ry o f t h e French state
of M a rs h a l l Pe t a i n , for his com p l i ci t y, between 1 942 and 1 944, i n t h e
a rre s t o f J ewish m e n , women a n d c h i l d re n g o n e missing i n t h e d e a t h
ca m Jl s . T h i s t rial c o u l d h a v e res u lt e d i n a s i m p l e confrontatio n . O n o n e
s i de, rela t i ves of t h e deported were d e m a n d i n g repa ra tions for t h e cri m e s
p e rpetra t e d a ga i n s t t h e i r k i n . O n t h e o t h e r, s t o o d a f u n cti o n a ry who h a d
fu l filled h i s rol e a s functiona ry o f t h e collabora t i o ni s t state w i t h o u t i n n e r
c o n ce r n s or a n e x cess of zeal . H e s i g n e d t h e a rrest and deporta t i o n war­
rants t h a t fell u n d e r h i s a u t hority, witho u t worrying personally either
a b o u t orga nizing t h e sea rch for J e w s o r about finding o u t the fate of t h e
d epo rted . A s e n t e n ce of 1 0 years in prison w a s h a n d e d d o w n t o sanction
h i s u nd e n i a b l e a n d clearly demarcated responsibility.
However, t h i s is where the s i m p l i ci t y o f things s t a r t s to g e t fuzzy. Wha t
i s t h e relation o f comme n s u r a b i l i t y b e t w e e n t h e 10 years in prison
i mposed, 55 yea rs after the fa cts, on a man now 8 7 years o f a g e a n d t h e
martyrdom of t ho s e who w e r e a s s assinated en masse in the d e a t h camps?
And why d i d a trial that co u l d not r e s u l t in any verdict proportional to
the wrongdoings of a ll indivi d u a l i n v o l v e d i n a m a s s crime t a k e o n s u ch
an importance?
This lack of proportion shows, fi rs t of a l l , the singul a r function t h a t the
i nsta nce of the j u diciary has t o d a y. E ve r y political matter o f rights or
wrong, o f j u stice o r of i nj us tice, t a k e s t h e form o f a trial conducted in a
real or imaginary court of l a w. At t h e s a m e time that the French were
d a ily informe d of the Pap o n trial's u n f o l ding, they cou l d behold, i n a l l

32
 JUST ICE IN THE PAST

bookstore windows, the Livre nair du communisme, I which featured an

advertising sleeve announcing : 85 million dead. S ome have questioned
the figures: how are we t o count the victims of the C hinese famines and
must they be counted a s victims of communism for the same reasons as
those who were shot o r who died in the camps? B ut this is not the heart
of the problem. The function of figures is more legal than statistical .
From Volin2 to S olzhenitsyn there has been no lack of people to disclose
the crimes of communist regimes . B ut they did so in another political
mode. They testifie d a s victims of communism, denouncing it in the
name of another p olitical idea, whether anarchism, the 'veritable' com­
munism or the restoration of the old monarchic and religious order.
Today something else is at stake : the number of deaths is identified with
a court of history whose decision has been made, that has delivered a
verdict no longer on a regime but on an ideology, that is, ultimately, on
a time when one believed in ideologies . The court of history, in sum, has
settled the account between the present and another time: that of Volin
and of Solzhenitsyn as much as of Lenin or Stalin - in short, the time of
politics.
It could be said, in the same way, that the Papon trial involves a set­
tling of accounts between the French people and the French Vichy state
and its participation in the Nazi undertaking of extermination. The trial
of an individual thereby also becomes the trial of the past. It gets identi­
fied with a court of history, charged with stating a truth that would
simultaneously p e rmit a statement of collective guilt and r elegate this
guilt to the past, at last drawing a line between this past and us. The
10 years of prison meted out to a functionary of the French state declares,
once and for all, the guilt of that state as such. This sentence simultane­
ously marks the distance which for u s makes it a pure obj e ct of j udge ­
ment . B ut this e quivalence is indeed misleading . To transform the trial of
a functionary into the trial of his state is a contradictory thing : it is to
accuse him at once for what he did as a functionary of this s tate, which
is guilty as a whole, and for what he did not do, as an individual - dis ­
obey the state whose functionary he was.
A functionary, by definition, serves the state. Maurice Papon served
the collaborationist state . After this he served the Republic of General de
Gaulle. The state abhors a void and the Gaullist Republic took servants of
state from wherever it could find them: from among the servants of the
'French state' that had simply served the state in general, without an

33
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TIM ES

e xcess of milita n t /ea l . Th e reupon, M a u rice Papon beca me a n exemplary

serva n t of the French Republic, notably directing the repression of an
A lgnian demonstra tion in O ctobe r 1 9 6 1 d u ring which nea rly two hun­
d red d emonstra t o rs were beatcn to death and thrown into the Seine.
This latter stat e cri me was n o t implicated i n t h e tria l . II i t was nonethc­
I ns referred t o d u ring pro cecdings, it was in the fra m ework of this sig­
n i fica n t syllogism : since he com mitted t h i s crime of our Republican state,
wh ich n obody d reams of prosecuting, h e may well have committed the
other crime of t h e collaborationist sta t e . The fact that he has always been
a good sta t e serva n t proves his general inability not to serve the state,
h ence his implication in the crime of the state h e served i n 1 942.
Ought we to believe that the trial brought against Papon is the tria l of
I he sta te in general and of those who ca n n ot bring them selves to d i sobey
it '? And has the court of history, in imposing 1 0 yea rs of prison, decided
i n favo u r of Ihe 'right t o d i sobedience' whose legitimacy is the cross of
political philosophers? This wou ld have been quite strange, if we bea r i n
mind what happened a t a Pa risian airport on the very same day as the
verdict: some passengers on flight from Pa ris t o Bamako refused to take
it together with cla ndestine work e rs that the French Interior Ministry
was forcibly sending back to their country. The Minister announced
i m mediately his intention to prosecute these recalcitran t passengers for
' obstruction to the circulation of aircra ft ' .
I t i s therefore quite unlikely that the cou rt's v e rd ict aimed at enshrin­
i ng the right to disobey. The conviction of the overly faithful state ser­
v ant refers instead to the obligation to disobey in the past: not only in the
repressive context of the Vichy state, but i n a time when there was sense
t o obeying o r disobeying. It says to us that back in those times, to obey
o r t o disobey was a decision for individuals. It sets us, in sum, back in the
a mbiance of the existentialist epoch . In those times, Sartre could state
t he ,enlence that once elicited so m u ch scandal and scorn : 'Never have
we been freer than under the German occupation' . I t was a time of com­
m itment and responsibility: one in which each would choose 'for all' a n d
wa, 'responsible for everything in front of everyon e ' . The conj unction
b etween the court's conviction (in the past) and the Interi or Ministry's
threats (in the present) relegates this time to its place in the past. Today,
to obey or disobey the state is n o longer a problem. Not only because the
state is legitimate, but more profoundly because it claims no longer to
want anything, to be no more than the humble executor of an impersonal

34
 JUSTICE IN THE PAST

necessity. What sense would there be in disobeying a state that does not
command anything and only obeys the circulation of flows? In Plato's
times, the sophist Antiphon contrasted the j u stice of nature t o that of the
law according to the following simple principle : one who infringes upon
the law shall b e punished only if seen. However, one who goes against
nature will h e subj ected to punishment every tim e . This is the logic that
our states have readopted fo r themselve s : they tell us that their regula ­
tions simply conform to the natural laws of the equilibrated circulation
of wealth and p o p ulations . The travellers on that day who did not want
to go to Bamako were made guilty, in relation to the French state, of a
rebellion that is neither more nor less than an 'ohstruction to the circula­
tion of aircraft' .
This i s how the settling o f accounts with the past proceeds . D i s o bedi­
ence has had its day: namely the time when individuals stood in opposi­
tion to the wills o f other individuals o r o f states, the time of politics and
of ideologie s . The j ustice system salutes this time and lets us know that it
is past. In some ways, the verdict o f the Pap on trial is a farew e ll tribute
to existentialis m .

35
 CHAPTER TEN
The C risis of A rt o r a C risis of Th oug ht?
July 1998

A mong t h e debates of opi n i on in wh ich 'th i n k i ng F ra nce' is obliged to

be i n t e res t e d , t h e crisis of a rt fi g u res p ro m i n e n t ly. The i n tellect u a l
m aga z i n e s whose vocation i t is t o raise t h e t o n e o f debates about the
g re a t p rob l e m s of socie t y ra rely m i s s a c h a nce to ta ke sto ck of the crisis
i n q u e s t ion . S o m e yea rs ago, Esprit, an org a n of C h rist i a n o - s o c i a l
hermen e u t ic l ibera l i s m , l a u n ched a polem i c aga inst the 'a nyth i n g
g o e s ' a t t i t u d e t h at t o d a y, w i t h t h e comp l i c i t y of t h e fu nctiona ries o f
c u lt ure, is i n va d i n g museu m s a nd g a l leries . Le Debat, a n orga n of h a r d ­
l i ne l ib era l i s m , recently presented a three -way m a t c h up: Jea n C l a re,
a detractor of the ava nt-garde in h i s La Responsibilite de [ 'artiste, went
head to head with P h i l ippe Dagen, whose book titled La Haine de [ 'a rt,
a t t acks the detractors of contempora ry a r t . Yves Michaud, author of
La Crise de [ 'art contempora ine, a s for him, refu s e d to get i nvolved i n this
d ebate between two people by translat i ng the 'crisis' in terms of a soci­
ological evol u t i o n in which mass democracy and multic u l t u ra l i s m
l iq u i d ate not exactly art b u t t h e utop i a s o f a r t . W h i l e from t h e left­
wing daily newspaper Liberation to the f a r right-wi n g j o u r n a l Krisis,
J e a n B a u d ri l l a rd repeats interm i n ably the refra i n of a r t 's fat a l nu l l ity
i n a world where a l l i s image.
I t cannot be assumed that this show of polemics enlightens the reader
much about the following questions: i n what does the crisis of art con ­
sist? And above all, what exactly is the name of art being used to refer
to? Significant in this respect are the names of the stigmatized artists.
Around the star couple Joseph Beuys/ Andy Warhol, these attacks aim at

36
 THE CRISIS OF ART OR A CRISIS OF THOUGHT?

the set of currents which, from Pop Art to conceptual art and d<.>monstra­
tions by FluxU5 at the Dokumenta exhibition in Kassel, have lik<.>ned
their practice with a specific contestation or repudiation of the tradi­
tional forms of art. The crisis of art is, in a word, the new name of what,
3 0 years ago, was called contestatory art - or the contestation of art. But,
then, if they were completely logical, the denigrators of the crisis should
rather rejoice to observe the withdrawal or the banalization of such
forms which - what's more - involve only a very limited sector of the
vast domain of arts, at the border separating the plastic arts and the per­
forming arts.
B ut perhaps the rhetoric of denunciation is more important than what
it denounces. And more than to any considerations of the present forms
of music or cinema, dance or photography, the current critique of 'art in
crisis' adheres to a pre-constituted ideological logic. Its argumentation, in
fact, is only a way of cashing in - a propos of art - on the same arguments
that fuelled the denunciation of the 'master thinkers' in the 1 97 0 5 and
that, since the 1 9 8 0s, have interminably fed the denunciation of 1(1 pensee
68 and calls to restore healthy philosophy, Kantian morality and repub­
lican politics. Nothing is more significant from this viewpoint than a read
of La Responsibilite de [ 'artist. Its author, Jean Clair, has attained renown
for some brilliant essays, memorable exhibitions, and his role as the
director of the Musee Picasso in Paris. Of his incontestable knowledge of
painting, however, there is nothing to be found in this writing which, in
the footsteps of the Glucksmanns, Finkielkrauts, Ferrys and other oracles
of the intellectual French right-wing, accuses the inevitable scapegoat.
This, of course, is German Romanticism, blamed as much for art's con­
temporary decadence as for all the crimes of Nazism and Stalinism.
German Romanticism is held responsible for diverting art's modernity
via the frenzied avant-garde search for the new and its forced anticipa­
tion of the future. It absolutized the notion of art and subjected it to the
irrational fantasies of the 'originary'. Art's hankruptcy, therefore, has
accompanied the crimes of utopia, both being born in the same soil.
Yesterday, Jean Clair tells us, German expressionists - the heirs of
Romanticism via Symbolism - even paved the way for Nazism ( which
would condemn them ) by blurring the boundary between meanings and
the meaning. Today this will to art, henceforth devoid of all content, only
continues to proclaim itself by means of the 'anything goes' attitude to
which it gives itself.

37
 CHRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES

Here, o n ce m o re, t h e concl u si o n t o b e d ra w n i s not obvi o u s . I t cou l d i n

fact be s a i d t h a t today t h i s u topia h a s come to t e r m . The 'anything goes'
a t t i t u d e so decried would spell t h e e n d o f t h e dictatorship o f t h e avant­
gardes a n d open onto t h e peaceful c o e x i s te n ce speci fi c to t h e f o r m s of a
p o s t lTl o d e rn a rt a n d a m u lticu l t u r a l society. T h i s i s , ro ughly speaking, the
il rgU lTl e n t developed i n Yv e s M i ch a u d 's book . B u t t h i s multicultural
h a p p y e n d i n g h a rd l y a p p e a l s t o t h e big n a m e s o f the new French ideo­
l ogy. For t h e m , it i s not t h e s i m p l e m u lt i c u l t u ra l consensus t h a t m u s t be
coun tcrposed t o t h e b a n k ruptcy o f u to p i a s , but t h e renewed m e a n i n g of
repuhlican a n d national v a l u e s . So, i n a t i m e l y fa s h i o n , t h e fi n a l comba t
hetween t h e e n lightened K a n t i a n cosmopolitans against t h e d a rk H e rd ­
i a n ages o f t h e soil a n d t h e origin co m e s to b e relayed t h rough a nother
comba t : t h a t opposing t h e n a t a l charms o f t h e French repu b l i c a n cou n ­
t ry to the A m e rica n m u l t i cu l t u ra l d e s e r t . The b a n k ru ptcy o f con tempor­
il ry F rench a rt cOllsists, t h e n , i n its s u b m i s s i o n to the a e s t h e t i c d i k t a t s of
post -war A m e rica . As s ti ch, J e a n C l a i r tra ces the tri u m p h o f the ' a l l -over'
abstractiolls o f A m e rica n e x p re s s i o n i s m to i t s s e l f - e v i d e n t ca u s e : the
i n finite s i m i l i t u d e o [ t h e fl a t A m e rica n l a n d scape, a giga ntic s u b u rb u n i ­
for m l y c u t t h ro ugh by straight h i g h w a y s . In opposition to this h ighway
d e se rt sta n d s t h e cha rm i n g bocages and sunken lanes of t h e French
countryside of wh ich those writers from Normand country, M a upassant
a n d Fla ubert, a re t h e painters.
I f t h e truth i s to be told, t h e re actually a r e a few mountains i n t h e
U n it e d States (a colloq u i u m w a s even organized by a Mont a n a Univer­
sity a few years back hoping to m a k e J e a n B a u d rillard notice t h i s detail ) .
N o r d o French highways m e a n d e r t h r o u g h w h e a t fi el d s a n y more t h a n
t heir A m e r i c a n cousin s . A n d F l a ubert, f o r his p a rt , hated t h a t F ra n ce of
t h e bocages, p referring above a l l else t h e emptiness of t h e deserts o f t h e
E a st . B u t t h e i d e ology o f resentment h a s i t s r e asons, a n d cares a s little
abuu t the reality of facts a s t h e coherence of i t s a rgumentation .
There i s , however, a logic to t h e operation t h a t transforms the writer
in t h e 'ivory tower' into the loving p a i nt e r o f his village. There is, in
e ffect, a singular [a ct t h a t c h a ra cterizes a l l t h e discourses a b o u t t h e crisis
or end of art. All together, t h e y only s p e ak, u n d e r t h e name of art, of
p ainting o r of t h a t which h a s taken i t s place . J e a n C l a i r, who dramatizes
the a rtist's responsibility, would h a v e no doubt found more convincing
a rguments for so doing i n the works of writers, musicians a n d directors
than i n p ainting, whose powers of mass mobilization a r e far from

38
 THE C RISIS OF ART OR A CRISIS OF THOUG HT?

obvious . Neithe r does Yve s Michaud, who de- dramatizes the crisis of art,
seem to thi n k that a r t extends beyond museums and galleri e s . Yet, cin ­
ema and dance gladly boast of their good health. C ontemporary music is
tending to leave its ghetto and encounter other forms of music. And
even when they engender ennui, rare are those who accuse contempor­
ary composers o f neglecting their work. Nobody speaks of a ' crisis of lit­
erature' even if few living writers provoke wild enthusiasm. Why, then,
consider that art in general is i n crisis, if upon entering the g allery to see
paintings, one instead finds piles of old clothes, stacks of television sets
or pigs cut in half? And even if it were p ossible to tax the totality of con­
temporary painting with b eing null and void, why would the moment­
ary eclipse of one art among others spell the final catastrophe of art?
The reason is, Jean C lair tells us, the painted image has a power that
cannot be achieved by any other ae sthetic genre . Why exactly? B ecause
'painting' in these dis courses designates everything other than an a rt : it
is a sort of ontological revelation o r primary mystique. Painting here is
conceived as an o riginary sacrament of the visihle in which divinity or
B eing appears in its glory. 'r do not look at the canvass as a thing' , said
Merleau-Ponty, 'my gaze wanders in it as in the aureole of B eing ' . The
painter's all- consuming vision, according to him, opens onto a 'texture
of B eing' that the 'eye inhabits a s man does his h ouse ' . We understand
easily enough that the eye does not discover this house of man which is
also the dwelling of god in D amien Hirst's dissected animal s . There is a
whole swath e of the mystique o f the 'visible' that is fuelled by this phe­
nomenological version of the C hristian transubstantiation . And, at the
end of the road, the post - S ituationist critique of the ' spectacular' comes,
in Baudrillard, t o communion in that nostalgia of lost presence and con­
cealed incarnation. The accusation levelled against the 'Roma ntic divini ­
zation' of art itself requires this religion o f the visible to which it gives the
name of painting. Art goes a s it can. B u t the thinking of the soothsayers,
as for it, is not g o ing very well.

39
 CHAPTER ELEVEN
Is Ci n e m a to B l a me? March 1 999

T1H' r e l c J s c o f Robcrt o B e n i n g i 's fi l m La vita e bella ' re - i g n i t c d t h e con f l i ct

o v e r whil t ci n e m a - a n d m o re g e n e ra l l y a rt - ca n a n d ca n n ot s h o w of t h e
N a !.i e x t e rm i n a t i o n . The f i l m 's f i c t i o n a l g i v e n - a Jewish fa t h e r who
Ill ill1 <l g e s t ( ) h J v e h i s son b e l i e v e that their forced s t a y i n a ca mp i s a
g a m e - cl e a r l y mi m i cs, in t ro u b l i n g fa s h i o n , t h e negationist a rg u m e n t
a ccord i n g t o w h i ch fa ct s ca n a l w a y s b e i n t e rpreted d iffe rently. It a l s o
r e k i n d led t h e p o l e m i c of t h o s e w h o m a i n t a i n t h a t t h e horror of t h e
e xtermination ca n n ot b e repre s e n t e d . A n d t h a t assertion a b o u t u n repre­
s enta b i l i t y in t u rn p r o v o k e d t h e r e a c t i o n o f t h o s e who r e f u s e t h e ce n s o r­
s h i p t h e reby placed on t h e i m a g e . A m o n g t h e l a t t e r, Jean - L u c G o d a rd
pmcl a i m e d rece n t l y t h a t no o n e h a s t h e rig h t ' t o prevent peop l e from
fi lming', at the risk of d r a w i n g s u spicion t o himself. I n an a rticle in t h e
Parisian d a i l y Le Monde, Gerard Waj cma n , a psychoanalyst a n d a u thor of
a work with the telling title Objet du Siecle, i n q uired into t h e cult of t h e
i mage u n d e rl y i n g t h a t c l a i m a n d reasserted t h e position illustrated b y
t h e works and statements o f C l a u d e Lan zm a n n : n o i m a g e c a n b e
a dequate to t h e horror of the extermination 2 For t h e image always t rivi­
a l i / e s the extreme a n d gives a human face t o crime .
B eneath i t s apparent clarity, the d e b a t e 's formu lation raises m a n y
q u e stions a n d leaves m a n y unclarit i e s . An expression b y A dorno, u t t e r e d
t o o q u i c k l y a n d glossed for too long, declared a r t impossible after
Auschwitz. We see toda y how this culpabilizing of art i n relation t o hor­
ror can be i n t e rpreted i n two differ e n t ways. A ccording t o Lanzmann,
cinema is gUilty when i t tries t o provide i m a ge s o f the S h o a h a n d t h u s
pa rticipates i n trivializing it. According t o G o d a rd, i t i s gUilty of not

40
 IS C I N E M A TO BLA M E ?

having fi l m e d these images, of having ign ored the camps, n eglecting to

seek out its images, and of failing t o recognize that, in its own fictions, it
had announced the work of death. According to the former, cinema fails
in the consideration o f horror because of the image; according to the lat­
ter, it fails for not having had images of it. Clearly, these two contradict­
ory versions o f gUilt involve two different ideas of the relation between
art and the image, two ideas of art which are based, i n the last resort, on
two theologie s of t h e image.
We can surely grant Gerard Waj cman that Godard's p o sition stems
from something entirely d ifferent than a defence of the right to the free ­
dom o f imag e s . I t stems from a conception o f cinema that is properly
speaking iconic, which Godard illustrates a t length in Histoire(s) du cinema.
In the latter, Godard says that cinema is neither an art nor a technique;
it is a mystery. This 'mystery' is nothing other than the incarn ation.
Cinema is not a n art of fiction, the cinematographic image i s not a copy,
not a simulacrum . It is the imprint o f the tru e, similar to the image of
C h rist on Veronica's Vei l . T h e image i s an attestation of truth beca u s e it
is the very mark of a presence . B e cause there were camps, there were
image s of it. C inema was guilty for lacking them . And those who want to
proscribe the images o f the horror simultaneously refuse testimony of it .
This argument can be read the other way around: there mus t be images
of the camps so that the truth of the image can be attested and the art of
cinematography devoted to its worship .
All the same, is the condemnation of this cult of the image entirely
clear? It asserts the unity of an aesthetic viewpoint: whoever wants to
make images of the unrepresentable horror will b e punished for it by the
aesthetic mediocrity of the product . But what exactly does it mean to
'make image s ' ? B oth Lanzmann and B enigni, in Shoah and La vita e bella,
respectively. make m oving images. What differs is the functio n of these
images, the end that they pursue and the way in which the filmmaker
arranges them to ordain them t o that end. Lanzmann intends to attest the
reality of a process on the basis of the very programmed disappearance of
its traces . The image, then, cannot reproduce what has disappeared. It
must do something else, indeed two things simultaneou sly: both show
the effacing of the traces and give the floor to witnesses and historia n s t o
reconstitute with words the logic of the disappearance accomplished on
the ground - show the logic of the extermination and of its concealment.
To this end, in subordinating images to the words which make them

41
 C H RON ICLES OF CONSE NSUAL TI M ES

speak, Lanzmann rediscovers the para d o x sta ted b y B urke more t h a n two
ce n tu ries ago when h e contrasted the powers o f poetry to those of paint­
i n g : words are always m o re appropriate than images for t ranslating a l l
grandeu r - sublimity o r horro r - w h i ch e x c e e d s the m e a s u re . M o r e appro­
p riate, precisely, beca use they spare u s f r o m having to see w h a t they
describe. To 'show' t h e h o rror of the fi nal j o u rney towards death, t h e ana ­
l y sis of t h e m a rc h i n g ord e rs a n d the cold e x p l a n a tion of th e workings of
the 'group disco u n ts ' gra nted by the Reichsbahn will always be superior to
a rc -cnactm e n t of t h e ' h u m a n h e rd ' b e i n g led to the abattoir, for two
reaSOllS that are only contra d i ctory i n appe a r a n c e : beca u s e they give LI S a
m ore exact representation of the machine of d e a t h , by leaving LIS with less
to see and p i ctu re of t h e s u ffering o f i t s victi m s .
I n short, La n zm a n n 's i n t e n t i o n d e m a n d s a cert a i n type o f a rt, a certa in
t ype of ' fi cti o n ' , that is to say o f organization o f words a n d images. Of
COllrsc, H C ll i g n i 's intention is totally d i ffe rent. With rega rd to the e x t e rm ­
i n a t i o n , h e i s n o t con cern e d to testify to or to n eg a te a n ythi ng. H e takes
i t as a sit ll ation su itable fo r bringing t h e consti t u ti v e l o g i c of h i s ch a ra cte r
t o i t s point of paroxys m . T h e w h o l e film i s i n fact co nstructed a ro u n d a
s o l e given : t h e ability of o n e cha racter to p e rform a permanent m iracle
a n d to tra nsfi g u re every reality. He i s j u st a s i ncapable of denying the
reality of the cam p s a s he is o f s a y i n g a n y t h i n g a bo u t them . The fi l m 's
m e d i ocrity ste m s not from the s u p p o s e d e t h i c a l i n d i g n i ty involved in
fictio nalizing N a z i h orror and having u s l a u g h a t i t . It stems from t h e fact
that B en i g n i h a s not fictionalized anything a t a l l . A n a u th o r- a ctor like
B e n igni, C h a p l i n , i n h i s The Great Dictator, took the risk a n d won the
gamble of making us l a u gh at Hitler. B ut in order t o make a fiction abou t
H itler's person, h e p a i d t h e highest price: h e c o n se nted t o break t h e u ni t y
o f t h e Tra mp form, to p l a y t h e inverse roles o f t h e d i c t a t o r a n d of h i s
v i ctim a n d to cast them a s i d e t o s p e a k i n h i s o w n n a m e . H e thereby
stages the displacement o f h i s character o n t o t h e Fuhre r 's p o d iu m . The
d i rector B en i g n i , a s for him, i s u nable t o i n v e n t the displacement o f
B enigni the a ctor. U n a b l e t o m a k e a fict i o n o f anything, a b l e o n l y t o
repeat ad infinitum the gesticulation o f the illus i o n i st . H i s camp scenes are
n o t bad because they give images o f something that cannot o r must not
b e p u t i n i m a g e s . T h e y a r e b a d b e ca u s e t h e y h a v e n e i t h e r m o r e n o r less
r e ason t o be than the preced i n g o n e s .
The question therefore b e a r s o n the fict i o n a l capacity of the mise­
en-scene a n d not on the dignity or i n dignity of t h e image . Nor does it bear

42
 IS C I NEMA TO BLA M E ?

on what t h e i m a g e in itself c a n or cannot do. If posed in terms of effective ­

ness. the argument of 'trivializa tion' by the image is indeed ambigu o u s .
Since t h e attestation of t h e exceptional event r u n s a twofold risk. To sub ­
tract it. in the name of its exceptionality. from the ordinary conditions of
representation of events is as dangerous as making it commonplace by
representing it according to the same rules as all others. We must then
think that the enemies and devote e s of the image alike have some other
stake in the matter. In criticizing the salvational value that Godard. qua
disciple of Saint Paul. accords to the image. Gerard Waj cman maintains
that he does not intend to put into play another theology of the image.
namely the Mosaic prohibition of representation . But if it is hardly the
sacredness of the law that is at stake here. the sacredness of something
else - art - may well b e . The argument of the unrepresentablc aims to
shore up an equivalence between art·s modern destiny and an historical
mission. According to this logic. Malevitch's White Square on a White Back­
ground. in ruining the principle of figuration. allegedly gives to modern
art its true subj e ct: absence . To prove the image's truth. Godard had to see
in the camp of the Great Dictator. or in the rabbit hunt or dance of the dead
in La RegIe du jeu/ the prophecies of the extermination to com e . To attest
to art's mission. its critique must put the same logic to work. that is to see
in the anti-representative manifestos of the 1 9 1 0s modern art's prophetic
anticipation of its vocation: to account for the 'obj ect of the century' - the
extermination. In this way. a theology of artistic modernity contrasts with
a theology of the salvational imag e . It is not sure that this combat serves
j u stice to what films - good or bad - really do.

43
 CHAPTER TWELVE
The N a m e l ess Wa r, May 1 999

'Thl' G u l f Wa r will not have taken place', was the pred i ction, in early
1 99 1 , of a French i n t e l l ectu a l . [ According t o h i m , t h e m ilitary mach i n e
o f deter rcl1ce h e n ceforth obeyed the g e n e ral l a w of a world i n which
rea l i t y cedes place t o simulati o n . I n the matter o f war, as i n every other,
t h e logic of power was to simul ate e v e n t s to prevent them from happe n ­
i n g . A ' rea l ' war could n o t h a p p e n b e cause i t w o u l d contra d i ct t h e deter­
rent e x e rcise o f m ilitary power. The e m p i rical events seemed to contra d i ct
t h a t beautifu l deduction . The reasoner haste n e d to s h o w that t h i s was
not at all so: the G u l f war, he ma d e clear, could not take pl ace. And, in
tact. it has not taken place. In effect, its operations were only decided upon
b y c o m p u t e r calculations a n d its e ffects transmitted t o us by television
s creens. Between a computer scre e n and a television screen, the only
space in which events i n g e neral and war in particular can take up room
i s a scre en-like space, the space of virtual reality. That which could not
take place did not take place except on the screens of simulation .
To assert that non -being cannot be has always b e e n the fa vourite pas ­
time of sophists. However, we must not be so hasty as to impute this
kind of reasoning to the irrepressible propensity of intellectuals to deny
reality for the love of words . Intelle ctua l s are m ore observant and more
realistic than is cla i m e d . T h e y k n o w l h a l word s are not the opposite of
reality. Words are, on the contrary, what give reality its consistency. If
the sophists have so many facilitie s today by which to declare the non­
being of no matter what reality, this i s in fact b e cause the artisans of that
' re ality', unable to give a name to what it i s that they do, have aban­
doned it to them. It i s not the fault of computers and the virtual. Today

44
 THE NAMELESS WAR

no one courts the risk of saying that the Kosovo war will not, is not, or
has not taken place . And yet, who can give a name to the military opera­
tions undertaken by NATO? Intervention in a war? But what sort of
war? Hardly a foreign war: the allied powers do not recognize Kosovo as
an actual nation under attack from another. So, is it a civil war? But then
who could have given the allied nations a mandate to intervene in the
internal affairs, a s violent as they may have been, o f another nation? We
are left with a third typ e of war in which the opposed terms are not two
nations or two parts of a nation, but humanity and anti- humanity.
That exact schema was the one retained: the intervention pressed forth
to save humani ty, in the figure of the Albanian Kosovars, victims of a
genocidal und ertaking, against the p e rpetrators of this genocid e : the
anti- humanity embodied in a bloodthirsty dictator. Between humanity
and anti-humanity there are no territorial borders, scarcely a limit to the
right to interfe rence . B ut the contradiction is evicted from the prin ciple
of war only to b e radicalized in its condu ct. The war conducted in the
name of a humanity to save is a total war by definition, a war entirely
determined by its obj ectives of making the rights of a humanity respected,
and which does not recognize any limitation as regards the means of
ensuring that respect. How then to conceive of a restrained h u manitar­
ian war? A war in which selective b ombings are designed to bring the
anti-humanitarian criminal to the n egotiating table, while l e aving the
terrain free for his troops ' operation of massive liquidation of the p e ople
representative of humanity wh ose rights had been impinged upon? It all
happened as if the humanitarian war divided itself into two sets of oper­
ations, situated upstream and downstream of the territory that was
abandon e d to the undertaking of ethnic purifi cation : on the one hand,
military operations that aim at once to deter and to punish the doer o f
t h e crime; on the other, h u manitarian operations to welcome hundreds
o f tho u sands of victims of this crim e .
These appa rent cont radictions have led s ome to suspect the existence
of obscure goals or secret activiti e s , hidden b ehind the humanitarian
parade . B ut it could b e that there i s no contradiction, that there is a
convergence, more profound a n d more troubling than a ny concea l e d
deal ings, between t h e l o g i c of e t h n i c purifi cation and that o f h u m a n ­
i t a r i a n wa r. The principle behind both of them is one and the same : the
negation of politics . E t h n icism revokes the very space of politics i n
ide ntifying the p e ople with the race and the territory of e xercise of

45
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TI M ES

c i t i z e n s h i p with t h e a n c e s t r a l s oi l . E t h n ic p u r i fi c a t i o n d o e s not s i mply

c o n s i s t i n d r i v i n g a n u n d e s i rable e t h n i c it y f r o m a territory. It con si s t s
i n con stitut i n g i t a s a n u n d i ffere n t i a t e d herd, s i multa n e ously denyi n g
t h e collective rea l i t y o f a p e ople e n dowed w i t h a publ i c l i fe a nd t h e
s i n g u l a rity o f t h e i n d i v i d u a l s compri s i n g i t . Hu m a n it a r i a n wa r cla i m s
t o oppose t h e re spect of h u m a n r i g h t s t o t h i s pro c e s s o f t wofo l d e l i m ­
i n a t i o n . B u t t h e 'h u m a n ' t h a t i t d e fe n d s h a s very s p e c i fi c c h a rac t e r­
i s ti c s . The fi gure that i t takes i s p r e c i s e l y t h e product of t h e enterprise
of clea n s i ng, t h e fi g u re of t h e v ic t i m . Here l i e s the core of t h i s stra n g e
con fi g u ration - the hu m a n it a r i a n : w h i c h e n d lessly pro l i ferates i n
t h o<;e no m a n 's lands t h at spread o u t b e t w e e n t h e p o l itics t h a t i s no
more and the wa r that i s n o w a r . P r e v i ously it was sa id that wa r i s t h e
conti n u a t i o n of p o l i t ics by o t h e r mea n s , T h e h u m a n ita ri a n wa r i s t h e
cont i n uation of t h e e l i m i n a t i o n of p o l i t i c s .
There are t w o forms of e l i m i n a t i o n of politics . T h e r e is t h e i d e n ti fi ca ­
t i on o f t h e government of t h e people with t h e s e l f - reg u l a t i o n o f popula ­
t i ons t h rough t h e automatisms of t h e distribu tion of wealt h , That is the
painless elimination of p o l itics; i t i s ca lled consensus, and is practiced
wherever wea l t h permits it. And there i s the type of elimination within
reach of the poor, the violent e l i m i n a t i o n that identifies the govern ment
of the people with the l a w of blood, soil a n d a n cestors . The ' h u m a nitar­
i a n ' is, then, the twofol d system, military and a s sistential. by which the
consensus of the rich contains the excess o f the war of the poor. The
defeated peoples, the individuals denied - all are trea t e d by t h e humanit­
a rian regime a s though they were constituted b y ethnicism - a s victims,
as masse s . The Kosovars o r the B o snians - and the S e rbs, too - are also
individuals a s singular and a s different from one another a s we claim to
be, are the participants of an intellectual and a rtistic life capable of just as
much sophistication as ours, and are the a ctors of a public life marked by
a s many antagonisms, but the humanitarian regime is not bothered
about this one bit. E thnic purification, the dissuasive war and humanit ­
a rian assistance all share a common logic of massification,
This logic was i l l u strated by the 'blunde r s ' l e a d i n g to t h e d e a t h s o f
S e rb travellers and A lb a n i a n refugees, b o t h confused w i t h m i l i t a r y t a r­
get s , Seen from planes a nd computers, indeed, the ones and the others
a re distinguishable with d i f fi c u lty. B ut the problem does not concern
the relations of the real a n d t h e v i r t u a l . It conce r n s t h e relation between
t wo hu m a n ities, between two ways of perceiving and counting - by

46
 THE NAME LESS WAR

individuals or by m a ss e s . The aerial- strike war is a war that states it will

not risk the lives of those waging it . That n o American soldier's life is
put in danger is the implicit contract which supposedly makes the
American war i n the B a l k a n s acceptable for the American p eople . The
respect of this contract from the side o n which the bombs are launched
can provoke d i s appointment on the side on which they are received .
B ut t h e point i s that t h e count i s n o t t h e s a m e : t h e life of an American
military memb e r a n d those of 20 civilians, S e rbs or Albani a n s , do not
compare. The humanitarian war that the 'democracies' - as our states
are called - a r e conducting i n the B alkans i s a war at the frontier of two
hu manitie s : a humanity of individuals and a human ity of mas s e s . To
fight for the humanity of the Albanians of Kosovo aga ins t the i n hu­
manity of the S erbia n cleansers i s t a ntamount to separating these two
hu manitie s . And, from this point of view, the sometimes b l i nd logic of
the b ombings a i m s true : from the sky of western individuals, the masses
of Milosevic's soldiers and the streams of refugees can be confus e d .
Attackers a n d the attacked are o n the same (bad) s i d e of the border: i n
t h e terrestrial world of a rchaic m o h s to which is opposed the celestial
world - modern, rich a n d democratic - of p opulations of individua l s . If
NATO 's aerial war is not one, the reason i s that it does not refra i n from
denying what every war supp o s e s : the existence of a terrain shared by
both partie s .
This i s why t h e blunders committed in relation to ill-identi fied targets
scarcely prevent people's adhesion to this non- war war. In effect, they
confirm the imaginary geography that sustains it. According t o this logic,
the redoubtable bombs are by n o means the ones that American aviators
drop . They are the ones that explode, so to speak, in their ba cks, on the
territory from which they themselves com e . One day, the images of the
Kosovo victims disappeared from the scre ens of CNN. Their place was
taken by other torn- apart bodies, other teary - eyed women and children,
victims of the home-made arsenal perfected hy two Colorado school­
boys . Two ordinary young Americans shot into the pool of American
lives, constitu ted them as a same herd of victims, in the name o r an apo­
litical ' Hitlerism', likened to a certain sensibility, a specific way of dress­
ing, of affirming one's individual difference and the identity of one's
small group . And that sufficed to hlow up the imaginary ge ography of
war proper, to annihilate the border traced by the other bombs betwee n
a world of individuals and a world o f moh s . The murderous madness of

47
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

E ric Ha rris a n d Dylan K l e b o l d bruta l l y reca l l ed t h e fol lowing fa ct: that

b e tween the tastes which s i n g u l a rize the i n d ividuals o f adva n ced societ­
i e s Jnd the pa ssions and s u ffe ring of mobs a t t ributed to a rchaic ethnici­
t i e s, no proper wa r, n or a n y level o f G D P, t ra ce s a n y border. Th i s is o n l y
d o n e p e r h a p s by that t h i n g w h ich h a s beco m e e n i g m a t i c and w h i c h i s
c a l l e d p o l i t ics.

48
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN
One I m a ge Right Ca n Sweep Away Anothe r,
October 1 999

The polemics, which recently erupted in France, between the Ministry of

Justice and the corporation of photographers over 'image rights', docs
not only concern relations between the rights of journalists to inform
through images and the rights of in dividuals to have their own images
and private lives respected. It is the strangeness of the actual state of the
relations between images, the law, politics and even art which has here
found itself placed under a revealing light.
The conflict arises from two dispositions of the bill relative to the p re­
sumption of innocence and the rights of victims. The first prohibits the
publishing of victims wearing handcuffs, the second the publishing of
photos of crime victims in situations that undermine their dignity. B oth
are part of the same overall perspective of developing the rights of per­
sons: protection of private life, of the image and of the dignity of persons,
the presumption of innocence of all persons so long as they have not
been recognized as guilty. Even the 'accused' has had a name change.
Henceforth is he 'indicted'. A step further was taken with the proscrip­
tion of every material image of the indicted's incarceration. B u t this extra
step has troubling consequences. The point was not simply to c uphemize
the name of a factual state. At stake was to make its materiality invisible.
The protection of the private person tends to become a suspension of the
very visibility of the event. What cannot be judged is not to be shown,
must not have any visibility. This implicit rule conceals another behind
it: that the only judgement is henceforth that delivered by the courts.
Previously, the image of the guilty party functioned as an appeal to a

49
 CHRONIC LES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES

j udgem e n t o f p u b l i c o pi n io n , i n d ep e n d e n t o f that o f t h e j u dges, e v e n a s

a cha llenge t o t h e l a t t e r. T h e i mage is p a rt of the classic political combat
that puts into q u e s t i o n t h e legitima cy o f e x i s t i n g l a w s . I n F ra n ce, o n ce
a g a i n , o n e of the l e a d e rs of a ct i o n s u n d ertaken by fa rmers a g a i n st t h e
McDon a l d s cha i n rece n t l y w a v e d h i s h a n d c u ffs a b o u t i n fron t o f t h e eyes
o f j o u rn a l i s t s a s an emblem of the j u s t ice o f h i s strugg l e . With the n e w
l ogic of the p re s u mption o f i n n oce n ce that is a r i g h t o f e v e ry private
p e rs o n , wha t is a n n u l l e d i s t h e political disp u te over this gap betwee n
t w(} forms o f j u stice a n d two forms o f j u dg e m e n t emblematized b y the
fi gu res o f t h e i n nocent c u l p rit and i m pri s o n e d righter of w ro n g s .
The protection of t h e p e r s o n a n d h i s / h e r i m a g e t h u s produ ces a n
o pe r a t i o n that is i n d i s s o l u b l y p o l i t i c a l a n d o n t o l ogica l . It t e n d s to s u b ­
t ra c t a l o n g wi th a cert a i n t y p e o f j u d g e m e n t a n d of p o l i t i ca l j u dgeme n t ,
,

a pa rt o f t h e visibl e . This part i s not t h a t o f t h e con t a g i o u s e x a m p l e o r t h e

u n bea rable h o rror t h a t were o n ce p roscribe d . O n t h e s u bj ect of viol e n ce ,
i ndecency or h orro r, h a r d l y a t h i n g is c e n s o red f r o m o u r scre e n s . The
p a rt p roscribed i s the u n de c i d e d , liti g i o u s pa rt, t h e o n e that fu e l l e d poli t ­
i ca l con fl ict, b y p u tting i n to q u estio n , a l o n g wit h the ' g u i l t ' o f t h e a g e n t ,
the nat u r e of the a ct itsel f . The q u e s t i o n i s t h u s to k n o w where this s u b ­
t raction stops, if it d o e s n o t s p r e a d , a l o n g w i t h t h e visibility o f facts, t o
the very attestation of t h e i r existence .
This question is the o n e r a i s e d by t h e s e c o n d prohibition, that of s h o w ­
i ng t h e victims o f cri m e s i n s i t u ations that a re h a r m f u l to their d i g nity.
Hence, the widow of a p refect a s s a ssinated b y Corsican terrorists was
e nra ged by a photo s h o wing her h u sb a n d with his head lying on the
g round. A similar sca n d a l e m e rged s u rr o u n ding the image of a woman
bared by the blast o f a terrorist explosion i n the P a risian metro. But these
s i ngular cases i n which a p e rs o n 's c a l l to have their dignity respected
bring forth with them t h e i m m e n s e c h a i n of p h o t o s w h i c h h a v e m a d e li S

see and contin u e to m a k e u s s e e the horrors that have s t a m p e d o u r cen ­

t ury. Confronted with l e g i s l ators, j ou rnalists a n d p hotographers have
brandished these past testimonies o f history, i n cl uding photos from Nazi
camp survivors o r of the small, naked Vietna m e s e girl b u rnt b y n a p a l m
as w e l l a s those that still t o d a y register the daily h a rvests of m a s s crime
in Bosnia or Rwanda, i n Timor or i n Kosovo . To be sure, the appearance
of victims does not conform to the i d e a l of h uman dignity. Simple good
s ense responds that it is t h e situation t h a t i s essentially undign i fi e d and
t h is is precisely what t h e image aims to testify to.

50
 O N E I MAGE RIGHT CAN SWEE P AWAY ANOTH E R

But the affair - which is both p olitical and ontological - g o e s further

than the simple opposition between the respect for victims and the duty
to inform us about their situation . The reason being that at stake i s n ot
simply to know if we will or will not be able to disclose , to the doctors
and righters of wrongs, the suffering and inj ustices of the world. Photog­
raphy attests to two things simultaneously: it attests not merely to the
fact of the crime, but also to its nature, in marking the weight o f the pres­
ence and common humanity o f those who the exterminators treat as
subhuman vermin. What genocides and ethnic cleansings deny is in fact
a primary ' right to the image ' , prior to any in dividuals' ownership of his /
her image : t h e right to b e included in t h e image of common humanity.
E thnic cleansing o r extermination is always the demonstration-in-act of
its own presupposition: that the exterminated do not belong to that from
which they are excluded, do not really belong to humanity, not, in any
case, to that which has the right to exist in that position and in that place .
This is why ethnic cleansing or extermination tinds its logical accom ­
plishment in the getting rid of traces and in negationist discourse .
Does evoking, against the s e photographs, the harmed dignity of victims
not replace the first denied right - the right to bear an image of common
humanity - with a right that these victims don't need: the right of owner­
ship of one's image that is e x ercised only by those who have the means to
exploit it? It might b e said that this is only a question of the s chool. It is
hardly hoped that Kosovar victims will front up for indemnities for the
publishing of their pictures in the French press. The ministe r then
responded to the dismayed by affirming that the bill does not c oncern the
facts of war. This 'reassuring' response is baffling. For it refers the image
to a division of domains and of genres that is indeed in question. From his
point o f view, Hitler was n ot waging war against the Jewish p eople, he
was eliminating unhealthy parasites . Similarly. the Serbian militia were
not waging war against the Kosovar p e ople . They were elimina ting those
who were not in 'their' place . And the 'humanitarian' operations that
respond to ethnic cleansing are not claiming to be intervening in a war. If
the fact of the extermination and negationist discourse have taken on
their well-known importance in contemporary discourse, it is because
they themselves also testify to the present - day uncertainty su rrounding
the lines of division between these sphere s : the puhlic and the private, the
political, the police and war. The right of the proprietor and the right of
the victim illustrate in a nutshell the tendenda! blackout of the political

51
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TI M ES

world, to t h e advantage of a twofo l d scene: o n the one side, the private

g l ob a l sce ne o f priva t e i n t erests; on the o t h e r, t h e scene of e t h n i c clashes
a n d h u manitarian i n terve n t ion .
B u t it is not o n l y t h e i m a g e in g e n e r a l - a n d t h e p h otogra p h i c image in
particu l a r - t h a t i s ca u g h t in t h i s t o rm e n t . A speci fi c idea of artistic
Illod e rn i t y i s i m p l i ca t ed in it a s wel l . T h e double s u ccess - p o l i t i c a l and
a rt i s t i c - o f t h e p h o t ogra p h e r in our cen t u ry consists i n h i s / h e r e x e m p l i ­
f y i ng the pri v i l eged l i n k t h a t Ill o d e rn a rt h a d t o t h e i m a ge of t h e a ll o n y m ­
Oti S - t h ose anonymous people who, in the nineteenth centu ry,
a pp ropria t e d t h i s i m a g e , w h i ch h a d a l wa y s b e e n reserved for t h e p ri v i ­
l eged, to t h o s e w h o h a d a n a m e a n d m a d e h i s t ory. T h e obj e ctive of t h e
g rea t reporters w h o b o re t e s t i m o n y to t h e c e n t u ry's h orrors was related
to t h a t of t h e Doisnea u s and the C a rt i e r B re s s o n 's i n their surprising of
s t reet kids o r of anon y m o u s l overs. B o t h e x pressed a time w h e n a n yo n e
a t a l l w a s l i k e l y to b e a s u bj ect of h i story a n d an obj e ct o f a rt . I t is t h i s
' a n onym ' , t h e common s u b j ect o f d e m ocra t i c p o l itics and m o d e rn a rt,
which will a lso sec its image effa c e d , split i n t o t w o . A s t h e l a w e x t e n d s
i t s ambiguous pro t e c t i o n to t h e p re s u m e d i n n o c e n t a n d t o t h e d i g n i t y o f
vict i m s , t h e a n o n y m o u s o f t h e p h ot o g ra p h i c l e g e n d fro n t u p t o a s k a g e n ­
c i e s f o r t h e com m e rcia l p ri c e o f t h e i r i m a g e . I n a world d i v i d e d i n t o own ­
e rs of images a n d owners of d i g n it y, n o t o n l y p o l i t i cs b u t a l s o a r t is h a v i n g
i t s images compro m i s e d .

52
 CHAPTE R FOU RTEEN
Th e Syl l o g i s m of C o r r u pt i o n , October 2000

'Al l corrupt ' used to be the shout when news would emerge of the
fraudulent dealing s of such and such a politicia n . B u t in our d ay, every­
thing tends to get sophisticated and treated in the second or third
degre e . When the president of the United States of A merica has to
explain, with a red square on the screen, the details of his relationsh ip
with his secretary, or when the former treasurer of the Fren ch presid ­
ent's party censures the bribery and corruption that preva iled at the
Paris Town Hall a s the same president was its m ayor, no longer are
demonstrators to b e seen i n the streets of the corresponding capitals,
gathering together to inveigh against their rotten leaders. Instead, we
hear consternation coming from solemn -sounding men, thems elves
often current or former politici a n s . What do these revelation s serve to
do, they say, i f not to give the enemies of republ ican govern ments the
chance to shout 'all rotten ! ' ? It i s politics, they say again, that these
p e ople are assa ssinating. Who w i l l still want to govern in the face of the
relentlessness of j u dges and the media? The 'republ ic of judg e s ' and its
' media lynching' discourage the good will of those who take up the
bu rden of public life. And they discredit politics itself. It i s really high
time to throw a veil over all these t u rpitudes and restore politics to its
nobility.
These pro domo pleas clea rly lend to suspicion . B ut, besides the politi­
cians, who have a few too many interests in the affair, there are the
philosophers, disinterested by definition, with their smatterings of Aris­
totle and the common good, of Lock and civil government, of Kant and
the Enlightenment, and of Hannah Arendt and the glory of puhlic life .

53
 C H RONICLES OF CONSE NSUAL TI M ES

F ra n ce p ro d u ce s an i n c re d i b l e q u a n ti t y of them, a n d a good m a n y
c i rc u l a te between the govern m e n t s p h e re s a n d t h e m e d i a worl d . Now,
t h ese phi losoph ers ra ise t h e i r voices a n d c o n t ri v e to g e t to t h e root of the
evil . There is, they s a y to us, a time of politics which req u i res t h a t we
l ook fa r ahead and a ct for t h e future. How can this be preserved from
s u hj ection to t h e temporal r h y t h m of t h e m e d i a , which lives solely from
t he prese n t a n d f ro m the obl i g a t i o n to s e l l s o m e t h i n g new every d a y ?
P u h l i c l i fe m u st be h e l d a p a rt f r o m t h e turpitudes o f p r i v a t e l i fe a n d pri ­
V ,l t l' l i fc shielded from t h e p u b l i c e y e . T h e i n s t i t u t i o n s o f c o m m o n l ife
rcst o n a symbolism that must not b e interfered with . Poli t i cs is fou n d e d
o n d i s t a n c e . W h e n we try t o s u bj e ct it to t h e m e d i a re ign o f visibility a n d
t o t a l p u b l i city, i t i s m e n a ce d b y d e a t h . T h e con cern f o r transparency i s
t h e g rea t e n e m y o f politics.
As o u r p h i l osophers a re i m p a rt i a l , they d o not hesita t e to call i n to
q u cs t i o n a m e mber of t h e i r corpora t i o n . J e a n -Jacq u e s R o u s s e a u was the
o IlL', t h e y cla i m , w h o h a d this fa t a l idea o f having t ra n sp a re n cy i n com ­
m O il l i fe . I t w a s h e who cre a t e d t h e utop i a s a n d cri m e s o f revol u t i o n a ry
virtue a n d fed t h e Te rror co n d u cted by t h e I n co rruptible Robespi erre . I n
t h e era of glasshouses a n d of s m a l l Soviet h e roes d e n o u n c i n g t h e cou n ­
t e r-revo l u t i o n a ry activities o f their parents, t h i s s a m e i d e a of transpar­
e ncy came to engender totalitarian h o rror. Tod a y, it takes t h e m o r e
a n o d yne form o f t h e crowd s of dem ocratic society a n d their appetite for
t h e secrets of princes and o f the private lives of the stars . But t h e tota l i t ­
aria n worm is i n the democratic fru i t . It i s to satisfy the appetites of the
i n divid u a l s of mass society t h a t j ournalists deliver to them the fate o f
t h o s e i n charge of our l i f e in common and make t h c bed f o r t h e soft
t otalitarianisms of tom orrow. B e forc it is too late, then, let us restore the
s e crecy and d i stance that b e fi t s good Republican government.
This di scourse, all the same, leaves u s dreamy-eyed. What dictatorship
was ever founded on transparency? The S talinist regime may have
erect e d statues of the young Pavel Morozov, killed by his family for hav­
i n g denounced h i s father. I t was nonetheless founded on the systematic
usage of se crecy, to the p oint of t h e existence o f a C onstitution which
those whom it concerne d had no way o f finding out about . Some reli­
giou s -type communities can b e governed by the principle of transpar­
ency. N () state is and totalitarian states l e s s than all the others. B ehind
the fallacious equation Rouss eauism = glasshouse = totalitarianism, this
line of reasoning aims in fact t o e stablish the i dea a ccording to which

54
 THE SYLLOGISM OF CORRUPTION

democracy is equal to the triumph of mass individualism, oblivious to

the symbolic forms of public life but avid for publicity as for commodit­
ies. It is then easy to see in t his democracy the principle of a contempt for
politics that opens the path to totalitarianism. And it is easy to set in
contrast to it some Republican virtue, which gazes high and far towards
the great goals of common life, embodied in the service of the state.
At this point the governments take over again from the philosophers .
After alL they remark, to what do we owe the corruption which reigns
in the public marketplace? Are politicians using their municipal p owers
to extort money from companies in order to finance their party's
expenses? But what, then, is the reason for these expenses if not the
ruinous electoral campaigns during which we must stage publicity
parades to satisfy the depraved taste of individuals of the democratic
mass? Ought we do away with parties and elections? This is h ypocritical,
you see! The people of democratic individuals should have the honesty
to accept this evil that it itself makes necessary. And even if some public
monies inadvertently fall into the p ockets of a few elected officials, it
should recognize in these individual excesses the exaggerated image of
its ordinary appetites. B ecause of it, elected republicans must sometimes
divert their attention away from the great ends of common life on which
they are normally affixed and engage in a bit of fishy business. Our vir­
tue, in being compromised in this way, pays the price of the people's vice.
The people should, in return, have the honesty to pay the p rice for the
sacrifices we make. And it should not be allowed, with its hypocritical
condemnations of a corruption whose cause it is, to exacerbate further
the dangers with which it burdens the political cause and pave the way
for totalitarianis m !
So, everything transpires a s i f p r o o f by corruption now functions the
other way round. Formerly, this proof censured governments in the
name of the people for betraying common affairs to serve their own pri­
vate interests. Today, corruption serves to prove that governments are
unpleasantly impeded in the running of common affairs due to the bad
tendencies of the democratic p eople. The details of the argumentatioll
count for less, then, than for what it must prove, namely that it is n eces ­
sary to let those, whose affair it is, govern in peace. No doubt men of
p ower only expose themselves so often to the desires of the petty demo­
crats, greedy for the scandalous secrets of power, so as to bring this logic
to completion. The media, in effect, only ever spreads the s ecrets that

55
 CH RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES

t h ey a re g i v e n . T h e people w h o a s k e d the American pres i d e n t for t h e

il n J t o m i c a l d e t a i l s conce r n i n g t h e e x a ct n a t u re o f h i s rela t i o n s h i p w i t h
M o n i k a Lewi nsky were n o t j o u rn a l i sts in the s e rvice o f t h e pcoplc press.
T h e y were good C h ri st i a n s, and honest j u dges and represe n t a t i ve s ,
d e fcnders of peace f o r fa m i l i e s a n d o f t h e s e c r e c y of p r i v a t e l i fe . A n d t h e
Cilsset te t h a t con t a i n e d t h e d eta i l s a b o u t t h e secret fi n a n c i n g o f t h e
f r e n c h p re s i d en t 's p a r t y wa s p a s s e d t h ro u g h t h e h a n d s o f a soci a l i s t m i n ­
i s t e r before sprea d i n g t o p u b l i c spa c e . Those w h o d i sclose t h e secre t s a re
a l so t h o s e who e x ploit t h e m fo r t h e p u rpose of m u d d l i n g the a ffa i rs o f
t h e co l l ective with t h e i r o w n o r t h e i r pa rty's . They t h e refore make a l t e rn ­
a t e il ppea l s t o t h e a dv a n t a g e s o f t h e state secret a n d to t ho s e o f t h e m e d i a
t ra nspa re ncy wh i ch d e n o u n ce s i t . S i n ce it i s n ecessa ry t o co n d e m n , a s
t h e grave d iggers o f p o l i t i c a l v i r t u e , the j ou rn a l i sts to w h o m t h e y c o n v e y
t h e i r i n forma t i o n a n d t h e rea d e rs w h o read i t , a n d b e a b l e t o appeal to
t h ei r col l ea g u e s ' s ol i d a r i t y i n t h e fa c e o f ' m e d i a lynch i n g ' a n d m i suses o f
d e m ocracy. S o , a d d e d t h e a d v a n t a g e s o f t h e secret a n d t h o s e of i t s d e n u n ­
ciation a re t h ost' of t h e d e n u n c i a t i o n o f d e n u n cia t i o n . Th is closes t h e
ci rcle, t h e n , whereby t h e v e ry fact o f corru ption s e rves t o p rove t h a t
s tate a ffa i rs m u st not be s u bj ect to t oo much scrutiny s i n ce it risks e n d a n ­
gering t h e Republic. I n t h i s twisted l ogic, t h o s e t h a t it concerns manages
to see them selves clea r without t o o m u c h troubl e . A s for the p h i l o s o ­
p h e rs, tha t's a n ot h e r m a t ter.

56
 CHAPTER FI FTEEN
Voici/Voil a : The Destiny of Images,
January 2001

'The modern', Mallarme once said, ' disdains to imagine' . Disdaining

images obviously did not entail the adoration of solid realitie s . On the
contrary, it meant making a contrast b etween the forms or performances
of art and the confections of doubles of persons or of things . 'Nature has
taken place; it can't be added to', he also once said. The p o em or the
painting must be the tracing of a specific act, the model for which
Mallarme found in the mute hieroglyphs contoured by the steps of the
ballerina . So u n derstood, the Mallarmean expression can quite usefully
sum up an entire idea of artistic modernity. During the tim e s of supre ­
matism, of futurism or of constructivism, this idea was keenly wed to the
proj ect of constructing new forms o f life . With the disillusionment of
these great hopes, it found its emblem in the purity of non - figurative
painting, which counterp o s e d the logic of coloured forms to all produc ­
tions of images that are bound to the consumption of resemblances.
S ome time ago already, this identification of artistic modernity and its
rej ection of images came under challenge . But this is not to say that
landscapes, naked women and still lives began to flourish once more on
the walls of galleries and exhibitions . If the ' compositions ' of the abstract
age tended to recede, the upshot was not a newly figurative style of
painting. Instead, it was a confrontation between images of the world
with themselv e s . This principle was neatly encapsulated by three recent
Parisian exhibitions . First up, the Musee d 'A rt Moderne de la Ville de Paris
presented an e xhibition titled Voila: Le Monde dans la tete. The Centre
Georges-Pompidou then followed suit with an exhibition called Au-dela du

57
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

SI'[','lat'/(', Then at the Centre nation{/I de la photographie an exh ibition opened

cal il'd Bruit de fond. This quasi-sim ultaneousness is significa n t not d u e to
a ny nowlties that these e x hibitions may have introduced but, on the
cont ra ry. due to their simila rity to many other exhibitions throughout
the worl d , t o t h e i r c o m m o n way o f testifying tod a y t o w h a t is common­
p l a ce in a r t .
The t i t l e s a re a l ready signilica n t i n t h emselves. ' Voila ' in French is the
d elllonst ra t ive that refers t o the past o r the d ista nt. A n d , i n actual fact.
t h e exhibition strove to prov i d e a s o rt of memoir of the centu ry. Of the
ccnt u ry a s such a n d not of its a r t . In t h e installations of C h ristia n B olta n ­
� k i or of O n Kawara, i n t h e I 920s p h otographs b y August S a n d e r o r the
recent ones by Hans-Peter Fddmann, in the films of Jonas Mekas or of
C h a n t a l Ackerma n , a nd i n all the other installations. videos, photo ­
g raphic d i splay cab i n ets or com p u t e rs spread throughout t h e e x h ibition,
t h e stake con ce rned o u r w a y s o f taking a n d living w i t h images. Neither
d i d t h e room dedica ted t o painting d evia t e from this principle . I n i t , the
e x h ibiting a rt i s t , B e rtrand Lavier, d i d n o t i n a ctual fa ct pres e n t his own
paintings. H e exhibited a series o f all styles of pai ntings whose sole p ri n ­
ciple of u n i t y was t h e i r signa t u re : in fact, all the paintings gathered ca r­
ried the sa m e family name, the most widespread n a me in France. M a rtin .
S o, the a rt e xhibition prese n t e d itself as i d entical to an a rchival work and
visiting it to lea fi n g t h rough an encyclopae d ia in which texts and images
s ta n d as testimonies o f a t i m e a n d a s ways o f apprehending this t i m e a n d
registering its signs . The contemporary a rt museum itself thus tends to
oscillate between yesteryear's 'cabinet of curiosities' and a n ethnological
m useum of our own civilizations.
The titles of two other exhibitions were e x plicitly borrowed from
books. A u-dcla du spectacle appealed to Guy D ebord's essay La Societe du
spectacle. and Bruit de fond to the homonymous novel by Don Delillo . ' The
banner under which both t hu s pl a c ed themselves is t ha t of the critique
of the world of media and publicity. illustrated by the theoretician of
S ituationism a s by t he novelist o f the stra nge events orchestrated through
television in the small town o f B la cksmith . They testify to a type of art
which no longer counterposes the p u rity of forms with the commerce of
images. Forms can be opposed to images, so long as the latter appear as
the superfluous double of things . B ut the concept of spectacle implies
that images are no longer doubles o f things, but the things themselves,
the reality of a world in which things and images are no longer able to be

58
 VO ICI /VO I LA: THE DESTI N Y OF I MAGES

distinguished. Wherever the image no longer stands opposite the thing,

form and image become indistinguishable from one another. As such the
contrast becomes one between the image and another sort of image . B ut
another sort of image is not an image of different content . It i s an image
that is differently arranged, presented in anothe r perceptu al arrange ­
ment. Thus, in Au-dela du spectacle p aintings were contrasted with media
image s . A n d if Bruit de fond presented photographs, it was n o t as works o f
photographers; it was as materials that artists integrate i n t o arrang e ­
ments whose function is to instruct us h o w t o read images and to play
with them.
Play and learn form an opposition that progressist pedagogues have
never ceased to want to overcome . If Voill!'s installations evok e d curi o s ­
i t y cabinets, those of Au-dela du spectacle could be likened to the d esign of
a playful pedagogy. Indeed, along side a billiard table, a giant baby foot
and a fairground merry - g o - round, there were monitors, small cabins and
doll houses crowding around, confronting visitors either with publicity
icons reworked in a different medium, or with icons reproduced tel queZ
but outside their ordinary environment. The critical use of images thus
tends to a certain minimalism . Photomontages of former times would
play on the contradictory relation between two forms of iconography. In
the 1 9 30s, for example, John Heartfield x - rayed Hitler-the - orat o r t o
make visible t h e circulation of gold that fed the Nazi machin e . And
40 years later Martha Rosier would stick scenes of the war i n Vietnam
onto images o f American advertising narcissism. Today, the simple act of
re - exhibiting identical images of advertising narcissism is itself attributed
a critical valu e . It is as if all that i s required to turn images of commod­
ities and of power into critical instruments is to present them in a differ­
ent space, teaching spectators to hold the noises and the collective images
that condition their existence at a distance . In practice, the plaques intro ­
ducing each work were made to mani fest this difference, in reasserting
in a quasi-incantatory manner the critical virtue of apparatuses of image
displacement.
Art - archive, art-school: Against these two commonplace figures o f an
art comprised of images whose r adicality is supposedly won by their
similitude with images of the world, there periodically returns the n o s ­
talgia of a n a r t which institutes a co-presence between humans and
things and between humans themselves . At the Palais des Beaux-A rts de
Bruxelles an exhibition o f 'one hundred years of contemporary art ' ,

S9
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

w h o s e t i t l e m a n i fests its p o l e m ical i n t e n t i o n , o p e n ed rece ntly u n d e r t h e

a u spices of the c r i t i c a n d t h e o retici a n Th i e rry d e O u v e . Aga i n s t the Voila
o f the Pa risian e x h ib i t i o n , t h e B ru s s e l s e x h ibition c() u nterposed a Voici.
' Voici ' in French is t h e d e m o n strative of t h e presence of t h e prese n t . The
e x h ibition t h u s p resents i t s e l f as the m a nifesto of a modern a rt conceived
as a n a rt of p rese nce and of t h e gaze, a s a facingness opposed t o the formal
flatl1/,ss va l orized by the g ra n d t h e oretician of pictoria l m o d e r n i t y, C l e m ­
e l l t Greenberg . ' I n it one s o u g h t in v a i n , however, f o r a n y o l d - style por­
t ra i t s , gro u p scenes or still lives. Many o f the works e n l i sted under t h e
b a n n e r of t h e Void co u l d have e a s i l y fea t u re d u n d e r t h a t of Voila, i n cl u d ­
i n g : portraits o f stars by A n d y Wa r h o l , hyperrealist photogra p h i c co m ­
p mi t ions b y Jeff Wa l l , docu m e n t s o f t h e mythical ',ect ion of eagles' o f
t h e ti ct i o n a l m u s e u m b y Ma rcel B ro o d t h a e rs, t h e i n s t a l l a t i o n o f a collec­
t ion of G O R commodities by J o s e p h B e u y s , p e e l o ff posters by Raymond
H a i n s , mi rrors by Pistoletto o r a 'family a l b u m ' by C h rist i a n B o l t a n s k i . . .
More, the bodies o f m a n y of t h e works taken from m i n i m a l i s t scu l p t u re
or from arte povera were s o m e w h a t too fra il to inca rn a t e the spl e n d o u rs
of the facingness evoke d .
In s u m , n e i t h e r t h e g a z e n o r i t s obj ect b e a r clear-cut criteria f o r d i ffer­
entiating between voici and voila. W h a t is req u i red, then, i s a supplement
of discourse t o transform t h e ready-made i n t h e d i splay u n i t o r the s m o o t h
p a ra l l elepiped into mi rrors o f intersect in g gaze s . M i n i m a l i s t sculptu res or
h yperrealist photographs thus have to b e s e t under the a uthority of the
supposed fa ther o f modern painting, Manet. But this father of modern
painting must h imself be s e t under t h e a u thority of the word made flesh .
Manet's modernism - a n d that of all painting following it - is defined
here o n the basis of a painting from his youth rated as a primitive scene .
D uring his ' Spanish' period, a t the start of the 1 8 60s, Manet painted his
Christ mort soutOlll par les anges i n imitation of Ribalta. But contrary to the
model. the eyes of Manet's C hrist arc open and he i s facing the spectator.
Nothing more is required, in our era o f 'the death of God', to confer on
pa inting a function of substit u t i o n . The dead C h rist reopens his eyes, he
resurrects in the pure immanence of pictorial prese n ce a n d writes down
i n a dvance mon ochrome p aintings a s well a s pop imagery, minimalist
sc ulptures a s well a s fictional m u s e ums in the tradition of the icon a n d
the religious economy of the r e s u rrection.
'The image will come a t t h e time of the Res urrecti o n ' . S aint Paul's
e xpression provides the l eitmotiv for Godard's Histoire(s) du cinema. In it,

60
 VOICI /VOILA: THE DESTINY OF IMAGES

he develops a theory of the image in which the white screen is trans­

formed into Veronica's veil and Hitchcock's shots into icons of the pure
presence of things. On either side of yesterday's formalism, it is two new
forms of identification of art with the image that have been e stablished:
an art of the re-exhibition of ordinary images of the world and an art
that contrasts them to the pure icons of presence. The paradox is that
exactly the same works can be used to illustrate these antagonistic theo­
rizations. This paradox is perhaps harshest for the theoreticians of pres­
ence. Their dream of immanence may only come about through
self-contradiction: that of a discourse which transforms every piece of art
into a little host, a marceau detached from the great body of the Word
made flesh.

61
 CHAPTER S IXTEE N
From Facts t o Interp retations : The New Q u a r rel
over the H o l o c a u st, April 2001

A n a t m o s p h e re o f s ca n d a l h u v e r s a ro u n d t h e work of Pe t e r N o v i c k
( Tht' Holoca ust i n A m e rican Life) a n d o f N o r m a n F i n ke l s t e i n ( Tht' Holo ­
callst Industry ) . The l a t t e r i n d e e d h a s t r i g g e r e d a v i o l e n t polem ic i n t h e
U n i t e d S t a t e s a n d E n g l a n d , a n d n o w i n G e r m a ny a nd F r a n c e . H e r e i s
a Jew, s o n o f a n A u sc h w i t z s u r v i vor, w h o v i o l e n t l y d e n o u n c e s t h e
p o l i t ica l , i d e olog ica l a n d fi n a n c i a l e x pl o i t a t i o n o f t h e g e n o c i d e b y
l a rg e J e w i s h orga n i za t io n s . H i s v i r u le n c e h a s m e t w i t h a v i o l e n t r e a c ­
t ion o f rej e c t i o n i n w h i c h t h e a u t ho r i s a c c u s e d of n e g a t i o n i s m . A
s l a n d e ro u s a cc u s a t i o n , h e repl i e s : a n e ga t i o n i s t i s s o m e o n e w h o d e n i e s
t h e e x i s tence o f t h e h o l o ca u s t . N o w, f o r h i s p a r t , h e r e s o l u t e l y a f fi r m s
t h e e x i s tence o f t h e h o l oc a u s t , i n lower c a s e , a s h i st o r i c a l fac t . W h a t
he denounces, o n the other hand, i s t h e Holocaust i n upper c a s e , t h a t
i s , t h e i d e ol o g i c a l elab o r a t i o n o f t h e h o l o c a u s t a s a u n i q u e e v e n t , o f
i ncompa rable !l a W re t o a n y o t h e r h i s to r i c a l form o f m a s s a c re o r geno ­
c ide, s p e c i fi c a l l y l i n ke d t o t h e G e n t i l e s ' a n c e s t r a l h a t r e d a ga i n st t h e
Jews, a n d w h i c h , by t h e s a m e token , j u s t i fi e s a n u nc o n d i t i o n a l s u p ­
p or t for the s t a t e of Israel a n d i t s p o l i c i e s - w h i c h a l s o m e a n s for t h e
Federa l A m e r i c a n s t a t e , w h o s e own s up p o r t for I s r a e l wo u l d a b s o l v e
i t of a l l w rongd o i n g aga i n s t t h e I n d i a n s a n d t h e B l a c k s o f A m e r i c a , a s
wel l a s a g a i n s t t h e V i e t n a m e s e c h il d r e n b u r n t b y napa l m o r t h e
s tarved Iraqi ch i l d r e n .
I f the cont rad ictors were h a r d l y s a t i s fi e d b y t h i s response, t h i s i s
because the negat i o n i s t a ff a i r brough t to light the p roblematic nat u re o f
t he simp l e d is t i nction b etween facts a n d i nterpretations of fac t s . A n

62
 TH E NEW QUARREL OVER THE HOLOCAUST

h istorical fact is constituted as such by the interpretation that I ill ks a

multiplicity of material facts together. One of the pioneers of negation ­
ism, the F renchman Paul Rassinier, himself a survivor of the Buchen­
wald camp, gave the fi rst demonstration of it in the 1 9 5 0s. He denied
neither that regular selections were made in the camps nor the presence
of gas chambers. He simply cast doubt on the connection between the
two. He was even ready to accept the idea that there effectively were
gassings. He simply cast doubt on the question of whether they were
part of a overall design.
The documents gathered since then have shown the inj ustice of these
quibbles. But if negationism still remains, and if today someone who
recognizes the reality of the Nazi extermination of Europe's Jews can be
accused of negationism, then it is because the tracing of the border sep­
arating 'facts' and 'interpretations' is more twisted than it first appears.
Where do we place the border that enables us to affirm the constituted
fact as such, in its self-sufficiency, and to discard every other additional
connection as an extrinsic interpretation? If the polemic over the excep­
tionality of the massacre of Europe's Jews seems interminable, it is owing
to a conflict between two contradictory requirements. If the holocau st is
to be considered an indisputable fact, it must be isolated in its raw factu­
ality, outside of every interpretative debate on the reasons for which it
was placed on the Nazi agenda. But if its reality is to be considered that
of the anti -Jewish holocaust, the interpretation must, conversely, trace it
back to a first cause, to a necessary and sufficient reason, and establish
that what was at work in the death camps was an original will to exterm­
inate the Jews. But where is this first cause to be located? The mere
delirium of a head of state or of a group of fanatics does not constitute a
necessary reason. This reason is identified by theoreticians concerned
with proving the holocaust as radical singularity with the Gentiles' age­
old hatred of Jews. The reality of the holocaust is therefore held to be
indissociable from a determinate interpretation. But at this point the
argument turns around: why did this ancient and universal hatred take
the specific form that it did in this country and at this historical moment,
a form which, moreover, we know was also applied to other categories
of 'degenerates' ; the mentally ill, homosexuals, gypsies?
Thus, the dialectic of the fact and the 'intention' redoubles to infinity
and aets to cast suspicion on the exact intentions of anyone who stops
the ehain of connections at any given point. Thus, regarding the thesis of

63
 CHRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES

i m m e m o r i a l h a t re d , F i n k e l s t e i n d e n o u n c e s t h e s u b o rd i n a t i o n o f fa cts t o
a n i n t e re s t e d i n t e rp ret a t i o n . F o r h i m , l i n k i n g t h e h o l o c a u s t to a n i n e r a d ­
i cable, e x t e r m i n a t o r y w i l l i s t a n t a m o u n t to j u st i fy i n g , i n a l l aspects, t h e
I s r a e l i s t a t e 's pol i t ics o f s e l f p re s e rv a tio n a n d the U S p o l i cy o f s u ppor t .
-

l3 u t it is not the ba re n u d i t y o f fa c t s t h a t h e brings to bea r against t h e

scc n a r i o t h a t h e d e n o u n ces; i t i s a n o t h e r s c h e m e o f i n t e r p re t a t i o n ,
n a m e l y t h e c l a s s i c sce n a r i o o f s u s p i c i o n w h i c h i n q u i res i n t o t h e h i d d e n
rCJson JS t o w h y o n e spea k s s o m u ch a bo u t t h i s fa ct o r t h a t s u ffera n ce ,
Cl n d i n va ri a b l y c o n cl u d e s t h a t i t i s t o h i d e o t h e rs . In F i n k e l s te i n 's d i s ­
co urse, t h e ' H o l oca u s t ' t h u s b e c o m e s t h e c o v e r w h i c h e n a b l e s Isra e l t o
c o n t i n u e despoi l i n g t h e Pa l e s t i n i a n s a n d A m e ri ca t o fo rget t h e m a s s a cres
Cl n d i n j u s t ices t h a t have s t a m p e d its h i s t o ry. B u t t h e s u s p i c i o n o v e r t h e
' i nt e n t i o n ' i m m e d i a t e l y t u rn s back o n h i m : rel a ti n g t h e h o l oca u s t d e a d
! l ot t o t h e ca u s e o f t h e m a s s a crc b u t t o t h e e x t e r m i n a t ed A m e ri ca n In d i ­
a ns or t h e b o m b a rd e d Vie t n a m e s e m e a n s d i ss o l v i n g t h e fa c t s i n t h e l o n g
h i story o f h U ll l il n a t ro ci t i e s i n w h i c h e v e ryt h i n g l e v e l s o u t a n d i s m a d e
cquivalent in order to weaken Is ra e l 's m o ra l position a g Cl i n s t the
P a l es t i n i a n s .
However, t h e p ro b l e m ca n n o t be red u ce d to a n e x ch a n g e o f u nv e r i f i ­
a bl e a rg u m e n t s b e t w e e n t h e p a r t i s a n s o f Is r a e l a n d o f Pal esti n e . T h e
i n t e r n a l i za t i o n o f t h e q u a rrel o v e r n e g a t i o n i s m refers t o t w o d e e p e r
i n t e l l ect u a l p h e n o m e n a . First o f a l l , i t concerns t h e s p l i t t i n g o f o u r idea
o f rea l i t y. Proving the rea l t o d a y is carried o u t twice over: p h e n o m e n a
a re i n serted i n a c h a i n of ca u se s a n d e ffects, a n d , conversely, a re shown
to b e brute i n cha racter, l a cking in reason . I f this d u a lity constitutes the
core of the theoretical con fl i ct over the holoca u st , this i s n o doubt beca u s e
the process o f the extermination and o f the programmed d isappea rance
o f i t s traces has obliged the long d e t o u r o f a rg u m entative reconstruction
t o confirm the reality of t h e fa cts. B ut i t i s a l s o becau s e the impossibi l i t y
of assigning a n ecessary a n d s uffici e n t r e a s o n w o r k s to u n d e r m i n e t h e
rationality of political and scientific phenom e n a .
It is symptom a t ic t h a t t h e p r e s e n t a t t a c k s a g a i n st the 'holoca u s t i n d u s ­
try' come from a n American Jewish Marxist. This latter presents himself
as a sort of last of the M o h i ca n s , remaining loyal to t h e tra d i t i o n o f pro­
g ressivism to which the Jewish emigres t o the U n i t e d States subscribed .
B u t h e does s o n o t only b y laying claim t o a political t ra d i t i o n . I t i s m o r e
a tradition of i n terpretation that he d e fe n d s : one that links politica l a n d
i d eologica l phenomena t o social causes, a n d local facts - regardless o f

64
 T H E NEW QUARREL OVER THE HOLOCAUST

their singularity or enormity - to the global entanglement of caus e s and

interests. The quarrel over the holocaust challenges the val idity of gl o ­
balist e xplanations of a s o cio - economic type, against which some irre­
ducible irrational element is brought to bear, whether raw facts or a
primordial hatred that serves as their cause. B ehind an American Marx­
ist Jew's rage against his p eers there lies the singular ideological config­
uration of the present, that in which new radical forms of world
domination are escorted b y a p ublicly announced prohibition on the
forms of global explanation that pretend to have their measure.
It is thus pos sible to u n derstand the singular temporality a ccording to
which th e Nazi genocide was transformed apres coup into an historical
cut. Novick and Finkelstein recall that after 1 945 the holoca ust was not
greatly present in western consciousness. They attribute the reversal in
spirit to the Israeli - Arab war and to the Israeli victory of 1 96 7 . However,
more than this, it was in the 1 9 9 0 5 that the vision of the holocaust as an
event that cut the history of the world into two imposed itself. This ret ­
rospe ctive cut clearly marks the mourning of another cut in the history
of the world, the one that was called revolution, and whose last avatars
crumbled with the fall o f the S oviet empire and the disappointed expecta ­
tion of not seeing a regenerated democracy emerge from its ru ins. It is in
this context that the holocaust's irreducibility has become emblematic of
the rej ection of the Marxist conception of history, conceived as the global
rationality of historical facts and as a temporality oriented b y a p romise
of emancipati o n . Invocations of t h e G e ntiles' 'immemorial' hatred of the
Jews and assertions of the impo ssibility, after Auschwitz, of thin king and
living as before, amount to much more than the intere sted arguments
condemned by Finkelstein. They carry out an emblematic ove rturning of
the direction of time , opposing the promises of a hypothetical future to
an immemorial past which never passes. If the explanation is so violent
that pits the partisans o f the exceptionality of the Jewish genocide against
those who want to integrate it into the great historical and worldwide
interweaving of cases, it is because it brings together the two avatars of
militant certainties and o f yesterday'S historical expectation. One side
has inverted the great promise into the weight of an immemorial past,
the other wants to uphold its vigour, were it by simple argu m e ntative
fury. The quarrel over the holocaust is also a mourning of revolutionary
thought. This is why a simple knowledge of the facts cannot come close
to resolving the quarrel over intentions.

65
 CHAPTER S EVENTEEN
From One To rtu re to A n oth e r, June 2001

W h a t provokes o u r i n d i g n a t i o n today a n d wha t face do we give to the

i n tolerable? Some weeks ago, Fra n ce was s h a k e n by t h e retu rn of a n o t
v e ry old repressed . G e n e ra l Au ssares, c o m m a n d e r o f the F r e n c h s p e c i a l
s e rvices d ur i n g t h e Algeri a n w a r, r e v e a l e d t h e details o f the systematic
p ractice o f tortu ring s u spects that was carried out by the i n telligence
s e rvice s . Reveal is going a bit t o o far. M ore than 40 years ago, writers a n d
t eachers t o o k u p t h e i r p l u m e s t o d e n o u n ce t h e methods that the special
s e rvice was employing. Th e i r books were banned o r prosecuted, a n d the
governments, socialist and then G a ullist, which con d u cted the war i n
Algeria, treated these revela t i o n s a s fabrications designed to d e moralize
l h e t roops and the nation i n order t o a i d t h e Algerian insurrecti o n . S o
o lle may find comic the h o rri fi e d d e clarations b y J a c q u e s C hirac a n d t h e
s o cialist ministers expressing o u t r a g e a t this abominable torturer - him­
s elf a simple executor o f t h e p olicy d e v i s e d b y the heads o f state o r gov­
ernment of which they are the inheritors. Those who condemned the
t o rture i n Algeria forgot t o mention that the affair was not about the
s cheming o f a perverted military official but a p olicy o f a state, a policy
of the reason of state that j ustifies everything and o f t h e state secrecy
that provides cover for i t .
So, this ' revelation' of a broadly k n o w n secret put today's government
leaders, who are the sons o f yeste rday's leaders, in a n uncomfortable
position. Fortunately, the capacities o f public indignation would soon fix­
ate on a wholly different obj ect o f contemporary scandal . A private
French television station launched a programme called Loft Story, modelled
on the D utch Big Brother, which had already been adapted in several other

66
 FROM ONE TORTURE TO A N OTHER

countries. Eleven young p e ople were confined under the eye of cameras
which then continuously broadcast the episodes of their encaged lives :
anodyne conversations, grooming rituals and erotic frolics . The ensemble
of this ( in ) activity was simultaneously centered around the aim of the
game : the progressive elimination of the loft's occupants - by internal
pre-selection and the vote of viewers - until only a single couple - the
winning couple - was left. Within a few days, all audience records were
broken. Also within a few days, j ournalistic and intellectual opinion had
scrutinized this new 'phenomenon of society' . The dominant tone was
one of indignation. This indignation was sometimes limited to the eco­
nomic and cultural aspects of the affair: here were people paid a m i nimum
wage to provide an image of life as it is - this is simultaneously a new
form of work exploitation and a way of reducing the expenses of the cul­
tural industry to a strict minimum, necessary to bring in advertising rev­
enues. 'Money has brushed aside culture ' declared a l e ft weekly
newspaper. Most often, h owever, the condemnation bore on much more
than some infringement of the industrial relations legislation; it decried
the accomplishment of the totalitarian system. These guinea pigs, shut up
day and night under the eye of the camera, displaying their p rivate lives
to the gaze of all, this sham community with no other goal tha n to elimi ­
nate the others, was this not the accomplishment of the great dream of
total control over the lives of individuals? In the columns of Le Monde, one
philosopher drew the consequence from it: Loft Story portrayed the ' ter­
rible but tame ideal of the society that totalitarianism had dreamt of with­
out being able to fulfil it' . I In vain did one draw to the attentio n o f the
prophets of final catastrophe that there were some slight differences
between the 1 1 competitors of Loft Story and the millions of prisoners of
the S talinist or Nazi camp s . These latter had not chosen to be held where
they were, and those who had l o cked them up were not preoccupied
with making spectacles o f their lives but, on the contrary, with relegating
it to the shadows . Lastly, instead of mass extermination, slow extermina­
tion or psychic destruction, the lucky winners were promised a vill a . S u ch
details would not trouble the condemn ers: they responded that this is
exactly what perfected totalitarianism is, a 'soft totalitarianism ' that does
not perform any torture and does not destroy any bodies, but which is
exercised 'only on minds, only in images ' .
We recognize the logic o f t h e argument: the more invisible the effect,
the more proven is the cause. Ironically, this paranoid logic has always

67
 C HRON ICLES OF CONSENSUA L T I M E S

b e c n t h a t of tota l i t a ri a n p o w c r s . T h e p ro c u rer Vich i n s k y w o u l d u s c i t t o

i d entify the most p e rverted s a b o t e u r s o f the S o v i e t h o mel a n d : those who
concealed t he fact that t h e y w e r e sabote u rs by not getti n g involved in
a n y a cts of sabota g e . S i m i l a rl y, t h e more i m m a t e r i a l it is, or t h e more
i n tern a l its e ffects, the m o re perfect tota l i t a ri a n i s m is rep uted t o be. B y
t h e s a m e t ok e n , t h e sto r i e s o f t or t u re, o r s t a te reason a n d secrecy ca n be
m a d e to d isa ppea r wi t h o u t a t ra c e . Tota l i t a ria n i s m , w e a re t a u g h t to d a y,
is the i n t e rnal ized l a w of g e n e r a l i z e d t ra n spa ren cy. In t h e age of p la n ­
e t a ry p u b l icity, we a r e a l l con fl n e d , a l l i n camps, victims of t h e p u re,
a ccompl ished logic of t h e system t h a t old - style t or t u re rs and h e a d s of
e x term i n a t i o n ca mps co u l d o n l y a p p ro a c h in a m a te u ri s h fa s h i o n .
Not long ago, Mich el Fo u ca u l t fea re d t h e simplistic con s e q u e n ces that
mig h t be d rawn from h i s t h e s e s o n ' co n t ro l society ' . He feared that a l l
t h e world 's p o l i t i ca l pers e c u t i o n s w o u l d fi n d t h e mselves d i ssolved i n a
n i g h t of ' co n fi n ement' i n w h i c h a l l cows were grey. He b e m o a n e d a n
u tt e r l y co n v e n i e n t way o f s a yi n g : ' We a l l h a v e o u r G u l a g : i t is t h e re at
o u r doors, i n o u r t o wns, in our h os p i t a l s , i n o u r pri s o n s . It i s h e re i n our
heads'.l Th is fea r was certa i n l y j u s ti fi e d . S i n ce then, d i s c o u rses d i d not
cease t o d evelop, some even making r e fe r e n ce to Fo u ca u l t 's 'biopolitics'
as a cover, that s u b s u m e t h e m o s t d i v e rse a trocities o f state rea s o n u n d e r
t h e con cept of ' soft' totalita r i a n i s m - w h i c h is everywhere, b u t fi rst of a l l
a n d especi a l l y o n television scre e n s a n d i n t h e h e a d s o f television v i e w ­
e rs. To den o u n ce t h e commerce o f i m a g e s h a s become t h e fore m o s t of
d uties - a n d the least costly o f ' h e ro i s ms ' .
To be sure, t h e promoters o f t h e s e programmes d i d n o t l a u n c h t h e i r
p ro ducts to h a v e us forget g e n o ci d e s a n d torture s . And n e i t h e r d o the
d en u nciatory philosophers m e a n t h e m to b e forgott e n . B u t i n t h e raging
p olemic, a strange con s e n s u s is established b e tween t h e image mer­
chants, the condemners o f th e i m a g e a n d t h e govern m e n t . T h e latter,
a lways bothered by the return of repressed episodes o f state reason,
i n d ulgently welco m e d t h e s e 'totalitarian ' progra m m e s . The television
v iewer of ordinary everyday life, offered up t h e consumption of o r d i n a ry
i ndividuals, is a p e rfect m atch for t h e i r current motto : everyday realism
in the service o f the daily preocc up a t i o n s o f 'citize n s ' . ' Getting in touch'
and ' community politics ' , the p r e s en t - d a y key words of our govern ­
ments, herein fi n d t h e i r m o s t precise illustra t i o n . T h e old representation
of the state a n d t h e political condemnation o f i t s 'reason' and s e crecy i s
substituted f o r a twofold d e scription o f o u r society. O n t h e o n e h a n d ,

68
 FROM ONE TORTURE TO A N OTHER

society is presented a s the seat o f p e aceful and run -of-the -mill pre occu ­
pations, of little problems and small pleasures, whose pacifying virtues
are counterposed to the social and democratic tu mult accu s e d of creating
the great totalitarian catastrophe s . S o ciety is thus most harmoniously
suited to the modest state management of today, liquidator of grand u t o ­
pia s . B ut, on t h e other, this s o ciety of the ' everyday', o f 'listening' a n d o f
'proximity' is presented a s t h e supreme form of a totalitarianism whose
seat is none other than the narcissism of the ordinary democratic indi­
vidual, epitomized by the television viewer. So, on the one han d , t here
is the wise and realist management state set in opposition to the 'tutali­
tarianism' born o f the utopian passions of popular fermen t . Whil e, on
the other, the noble Republican state, guarantor of the symbolic order
and of universalist values, is summonsed to contain the ' totalitarianism'
inherent in the narcissism of democrati c individuals . On both hands,
then, the reason of state is discretely lightened of the load of its real
crimes and is l egitimated anew against those of an imaginary
totalit arianism .

69
 CHAPTER E I G HTEEN
The F i l m m a ke r, the People a n d the G ove r n m e nt,
A ugust 2001

A m ong t he fea ture fi l m s of t h e Ve nice Fi l m Fes t i v a l is L'A nglaisc et Ie Due, a

period piece by E ric Rohmer, i n spire d by t h e m e m oirs of a n a ri s tocratic
E ng l i s h w o m a n living u n d e r t h e Fre n c h Revol u t i o n . ' R u m o u rs have it that
t h e Italian fe s t ival is th u s paying tribu t e t o a film that t h e Fren ch selectors
of th e Fest ival of Cannes a l legedly rej ected for reasons o f politica l correct ­
n ess. A scent of sca n d a l a n d of repres s i o n never does a n y h a rm to a fil m
b u t t h i s t i m e it ca lls for reflectio n . For w h a t reason would i t be comprom­
i s i n g t oday t o film Revolu t i o n i n g e n e r a l a n d t h e French Revol u t ion in
p a rticular from the viewpoint o f a ristocr at s ? For decades, French ch ildren
h ave devo u red - witho u t a n y d a m a g e h a ving been d o n e t o Republican
and revolu tionary val u e s - the stories of the Mouron rouge, a h e roic E nglish
a ristocrat who saves gentle nobles from t h e clutches of the ferociou s pop ­
u lar brutes. And since the 1 9 80s the theses of Francois Furet, largely
inspired b y the counter- revolu tionary tradition, have dominated revolu ­
t i o n a ry histori ography and intellect u a l opinion i n France. O n e does not
therefore see what considerations o f political correctness would prevent
the showing of bloodthirsty revolutionaries today. And one s u spects that
those who make Rohmer to b e t h e artistic flag-bearer o f a France t h a t i s
fi n a l l y confronting its revolutionary phantoms b y simply using the classic
trick of presenting the dominant vision o f things as a m i nority viewpoint,
a victim of persecution i n a h o rrible 'plot b y i n tellectuals' .
B ut if there is a politics in th i s film, perhaps it plays out elsewhere t h a n
i n these flag fight s . R o h m e r has n e v e r tried to p a s s himself off a s a man
of the left. And he maintains t h a t h e d i d n o t w a n t to m a k e a militant

70
 THE FILM MAKER, THE PEOPLE AND THE GOVER N M ENT

film . Indeed, the story o f Grace Elliot's adventures in the revolutionary

torment is little concerned to j udge the causes and effects of the Revolu­
tion. B y way of doctrine , it presents only two commonpla ces of political
and historical fi ction . The first contrasts moral and affective fi delity to
the tortuous calculations of politics . In this way, the English Lady embod­
ies the feminine and unthinking virtue of fidelity to the persecuted Royal
family, in the face of the masculine vice of calculating self-interest, rep­
resented by the Duke of Orleans, one of the King's cousins and a man
who is prepared t o make any compromise to serve his own dynastic
interests, including voting for the death of his cousin. The s e cond com­
m onplace opposes the good manners of evolved people to the eternal
uncouthness of the bestial populace . S ome used to counterpose the cor­
rectness of German officers t o the sa dism of the SS bru t e s . S imilarly,
Grace Elliot is contin u o usly wrenched from the hands of the concupis ­
cent and inebriate d h o r d e s by officers or commissaries, inde e d by repres­
entatives of the people o f Robespierre, to remind the populace of the
sense of the laws and of the civility of worldly decency. So, if there is a
political message in the film, it does not concern the legitimacy or the
illegitimacy of revolu tio n s . It boils down to t h e rather widespread, t w o ­
fold i d e a that politics is a dirty thing a n d that this dirty thing m u s t remain
the preserve of those who have proper clothing and civil manners, that
it must be placed out of reach o f the street population .
Of course, Rohmer is no ideologu e . He is a filmmaker. B u t this is
exactly where things become interesting. In his film, the relation between
the proper and the dirty, between respectable people and the street
crowd, is turned into a problem of o ccupying the image . This problem is
rais e d and solved in a esthetic and technical terms which have an
emblematic value . The film in fact has a pictorial backdrop, drawn from
aquarelles representing the Paris at the end of the eighteenth century,
with its aristocratic 'sweetness o f living', which had j ust been drastically
altered by the Revoluti o n . A l l the exterior scenes and in p articular the
crowd scenes were filmed in the studio against a neutral background and
were then inset into this painted canvass setting. This procedure is not
merely an economic alternative t o the costly reconstitu tion of d e cors
from the epoch . It is also a manner of staging the people and of putting
it back in its place. This s etting, which is made for the passage o f car­
riages, is best s uited for the two o r three picturesque characters that con­
ventionally establish the scale of the monuments and inj ect some life

71
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

i n t o i t . O n l y, a t t h i s p o i n t , t h e c a n v a s s i n S OIll e s e n s e opens u p a n d i n s t e a d
o f t h e s e g e n t e e l b i t players t h e r e e m e rges a c o m p a c t crowd, w h i c h , v i s ­
i b l y, h a s n o p l J ce b e i n g t h e r e . T h e vi s u a l a rrJ ngell1 e n t of t h e mis�-en -scene
t h u s presents t h e a l l egory o f t h e ' ba d ' politics: t h a t w h e re t h e streets
n O fln d l l y designed [or t ra ff i c b e t w e e n p u h l i c e d i fi ces a n d priva t e res i d ­
e n n's becom e t h e t h ea t re i n w h i ch t h e crowd o f a n on y m o u s b i t p l a y e rs
i m properly p rocl a i m s i t s e l f t h e pol i t i c a l peop l e .
B u t t h i s arrdngel1l l' n t correct s t h e e x cess t h a t i t I1l d n iies t s . These crowds
of com m o n m e n of s i n i s t e r appearance, w h o i n v a d e t h e p a l a ces of k i n gs
a n d t h e h o t e l s of nobles, a re a s s e m h l e d i n t h e s t u d i o by t h e fil m m a k e r
b e t ween ropes fi xed t o preve n t t h e i r d i g i t a l i zed images from e n t e ring
i n opport U l1 e l y i n to the p a i n t e d d e c o r. T h u s, the p a i n t e d image, the st u ­
d i o ,lil t! t h e d i g i t a l ca m e ra combi n e t h e i r p o w e rs t o resolve a e s t h e t i c a l l y
a pol i t i ca l p robl e m , or ra t h e r t h e v e r y p r o b l e m of pol i t i cs i t s e l f : t h e fa ct
t h a t t h ese s t re e t people, t h o u g h visibly not d estined to d o so, co n ce rn
t h e m selves wi t h com Ill on a f fa irs.
T h i ngs a re e v i d e n t l y l e s s easy fo r t h o s e we c a l l politicians. A n d p e r h a p s
t h e Ven ice fi l m j u r y, i n b e h o l d i n g R o h m e r's f ra m e d a n d d i g i t a l i z e d
c rowd s , b o r e il compassi o n a t e t h o u g h t for t h e s t a t esmen of t h e G 8 who
had ga t hered at G e n o a only 2 m o n t h s b e foreh a n d . For t h e l a t t e r, who
would l i ke to gove r n t h e w o r l d in only h a v i ng to d e a l with r e s p o n s i b l e
' i nterlocutors' - be t h e y d i c t a tors or for m e r K G B e r s l i k e P u t i n - s t i l l
h a ve n o ways o f perform i n g a ny s t u d i o c h a n ne l l i n g or d igi t a l d i ss o l v i n g
o n t h e crowds of demonstrators w h o p e r s i s t i n t h i n k i n g that t h e y a re
a I s o p a r t of t h e world a n d h a ve a v o c a tion to concern them selves w i t h
i t s a f fa i rs . N o r d o e s s h o w i n g d e m onstrators i n h o o d s - the modern
e q u i va l e n t of the b e s t i a l face o f r i o t e r s o f ye steryear - s u ffice to p u t t h e
p e ople i n its p l a ce . S o it i s n e ce s s a r y to e n t r u s t the police w i t h the ' a e s ­
theti c ' t a s k o f clea n i n g u p t h e s t r e e t s , i n t r a ns fo r m i ng h i storica l tow n s
i n t o b unkers, i n cha rgi n g d o w n d e m o n s t rators a n d i n i nva d i n g t he i r
Headqu a rters, and i n a m u c h l e s s c i v i l m a n ne r t h a n t h e P a r i s i a n S e c ­
t i on a ries in R o h mer's film i nv a d e t h e dwe l l ing of t h e beauti f u l E n g l i s h ­
wom a n . Accord i n g to t h e wel l - k n o w n j oke, b e i ng u n a b l e to b u i l d cities
in the cou n t r y, the greats of t h i s world h ave therefore decided to g a t h e r
next time i n the C a na d i a n m o u nt a i n s , s o t h a t , f a r from the noises of t h e
u nwelcome c rowd, they c a n r e a l i ze t h e i r own d r e a m , the c u rrent
d ream of governmen t s : t h e d i re c t i on b e t ween responsible m e n of a
world without peop l e .

72
 T H E F I L M MAKER, THE PEOPLE AND THE GOVER N M E NT

So, if Rohmer's film provokes embarrassment, it is not because it

clashes with the spirit of the times . On the contrary, it is because it is too
conformist to this world, because, b e n e ath its visu ally and i d eologically
retra appearance, it images in t o o direct a manner the contemporary
dream of the world government of 'competent' people, delivered of all
disturbances from the street. Once again, Rohmer is little concerned to
play the flag -bearer for the final burial of revolutions . His politics is first
and foremost aesthetic. His own 'counter-revolution' is ci rcums cribe d
within the fi e l d of cinema . Though he never played at being a leftist, in
the 1 9 5 0s he was one of the first champions of the Ross ellinian revol u ­
tion whose principles ended up p aving the way for the 'New Waves ' : bid
farewell to the studios and g o into the streets with the cameras on the
s earch contemporary inhabitants of the world, chasing all the unfore­
seen events that make up their material, sentimental and possibly p oliti ­
cal itineraries . F ollowing the mobile camera of New Wave filmmakers,
students of the 1 9 60s set out t o discover the social world of their time
and invaded the streets of Paris and a few other m etropolises . Again, this
link between an a esthetics of the cinema and a way of practi cing politics
is also evoked by Godard's last film, Elage de l 'amaur, in which the camera
travels through the streets of Paris, visits the night cleaners of trains as
though it were a leftist handing out pamphlets, and places itself medita ­
tively before the b uilding, today des erted, of the erstwhile 'worker fort ­
ress' at the Renault factori e s . As for Rohmer, he turned away from the
hazards of the streets very early on to dedicate himself to the ups and
downs of sentiment in s ocially protected microcosms, but all the same
without renouncing Rossellinian realism. The avowed artificialism which
corresponds, in L'Anglaise et Ie Due, to an historic broadening of the set,
today works as an a esthetic manifesto symbolically closing an age of cin ­
ema. It is in this, more than in any i deological measure, that he is in
agreement with the desire to close, finally, an age which wanted to
return to the streets and render p olitics to all.

73
 CHAPTER N I N ETEEN
Ti me, Wo rds, Wa r, November 2001

' B e t w e e n good a n d evil, we k n o w t h a t G o d is not neutra l ' . These were

t h e words with which G e o rg e B u sh a n n o u n ce d his co n fi d en ce i n t h e
U S - l a u nched a n t i - t errorist wa r. The a r g u m e n t obvi o u s l y rai s e s some
p ro b l e m s , the fi rst of which might be s i m p l y e x presse d : God a ctu a l l y
d o e s seem stra ngely n e u t r a l i n the a ffa i r. The s a m e God, that of M o s e s /
M o u s s a a n d of Abra h a m / Ib ra h im, s u pports t h e opposite conviction : that
the Jihad comba ta n ts will t ri u m p h i n t h e i r g o o d ca u s e against t h e evil
A m e rican empire. The ca u s e s are e xp r e s s e d b y e a ch side in moral and
religi o u s l a n g u a g e . A n d this l a nguage i s a l s o often u s e d by the opp o ­
n ents to t h e crusade announced b y the president of the United States.
The terms 'God ', 'Love ', 'Peace ', 'No more hate ', were to be read pra ctica lly
everywhere o n the inscripti on - covered posters carrie d by those gath ­
e red, in Union Square or in Wa shington S quare, to bring t h e solicitu de
o f the God of love to bear against the fury of t h e God of vengeance : 'Let
u s nol become the evil that we d e p l o re ' . As if it were admitted that only
i n such religious a n d moral terms can a distance be taken with respect to
the great consensus of the nation united around its victims and their
vengeance. B u t it i s not simply a q u e s t i o n of respect and of solidarity
t owards the victims. More radica lly, everything transpires as i f t h e words
that were tra d e d 3 0 years ago - free world, imperi a l i s m , oppression,
resistance . . . - have no more currency, as i f n o other language, n o other
framework of thought were available t o articulate and j u dge the
s ituatioll .
That this is so at the b e g i n n i n g of the t h i r d m i llenni u m , i n the c o r e of
t he 'adva n c e d world ', calls for refl e c t i o n . A while ago a l ready, t h e

74
 TI ME, WORDS, WAR

soothsayers proclaimed the end of politics and history. Thi s end, how­
ever, bears meagre resemblance to the one that they proclai me d . The
'end of history' proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama, and soon confirmed
by the fall of the S oviet Empire, b e sp oke the end of a world that had
b een divided into opposing blocs by the socialist alternative. The end
of utopias - another grand theme of the 1 9 8 0 s - b e spoke the end itself 01
the gap between the ideals of j ustice and the empirical administration of
necessitie s . D emocracy h a d imposed itself as the ultimate form 01 gov­
ernment, the rationa l government able to make the demands of justice
coincide with economic necessity. Where utopia had create d division,
the return to a shared set of givens about a restrictive reality app e a re d to
promise, i n the more or less distant long term, agreement within nations
and among nation s . Sure enough some expressed their discordance,
their voices breaking through the consensual mu sic of official political
s cientists . Thes e voice s set against this all-too- simple realism, the advent
of a virtual, media world, where every reality vanishes into images and
every image i nto numb e r s . The ones welcomed the reign of commu nica ­
tion for its ability to destroy economic and state fortresses and establish,
within this situation o f generalized intermixing, the great pla netary
democracy of networking. The others denounced the limitless extension
of the society of control, the collap s e of the reaL the soft totalitarianism
of the total screen, or the fatal triumph of the narcissistic individual in
mass democracy. But these apparent dissidences rested on one and the
same e ssential b elief. The naive and the clever, the opti m i s t s and the
pessimists, at bottom shared the s a me idea - the cha rge so often levelled
at the now defunct communism: that of a unique sense of history in
which technology, e conomics and p ol itics progres s hand- i n-hand, in
which the worldwide circulation of humans and commodities dooms
particularisms to vanish, i n which the development of new te chnologies
spells the ruin of old ideologie s .
The ethnic conflicts i n the E u ropean East, the rise o f fundamentalism
in the Muslim world and the rise of an extreme racist and x enophobic
right in several western countri e s were apparently not enoug h t o shake
the belief in this temporal concordance . Would the collapse of the Twin
Towers be enough to shake it today? For a start, S eptember 1 1 reminded
thos e who thought we now lived in the pure virtual universe o f the net­
work, and even those who said that the horror endured that day had
been anticipated one hundred time s over by catastrophe films, that we

75
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

c o n t i n u e t o live a n d w o r k i n b u i l d i ngs m a d e of i ro n , gl a s s o r stone w h ose

r e sistance or weaknesses have n o t h i n g t o d o e i t h e r w i t h scre e n s o r w i t h
s pecia l effects a n d t h a t w h e n t h e y c o l l a p s e t h e y rea lly d o . Above a l l , it
s h owed above a l l that t h e s u p r e m e w e a p o n o f ca rrying o u t real destruc­
tion wa s t h e very ' i deology' t h a t t h e rea l i t y of t h e present - d a y w o r l d a n d
t h e e m pi re o f technologica l co m m u n i ca t i o n were s u pposed to h a v e rel ­
egated to t h e realm of m e m o ry. B e h i n d t h e f a l s e l y nai"ve q u e s t i o n ' W h y
d o t h ey h a te u s ? ' , l i es a d i s m a y t h a t is m o re s i n cere: ' W h y a re t h e y not
reasonable like u s ? Why d o n ' t things obey that simple rea s o n a ccord i n g
t o w h i c h , w h e n g o o d s m u lt i p l y, p e o p l e l i v e b e t t e r a n d , i f t h e y l i v e b e t t e r,
t h ey become more peacefu l ? ' We w o u l d l i k e to believe t h a t such a t t acks
a re perp t' t ra t e d by those a s yet u na b l e t o e n j o y g o o d s a n d w e l l - b e i n g .
S u t how a re we to understa n d t h a t s o m e o n e ca n bot h be t h e h e a d of an
i n t e r n a t i o n a l fi nancial n e t w o r k a n d a warrior o f God, a s u i ci d a l fa n a t i c
a n d a m e t i cu l o u s o rga nizer a n d e x ecuter? H o w c a n s o m e o n e w h o i s not
m i serable and does not have n o t h i n g l e f t to lose, a m a n w h o i s ra t h e r
n o r m a l . h a s an e d u ca t i o n a n d i s a b l e to p u r s u e a gre a t c a r e e r a s a n engi ­
n eer, rush headlong toward a cert a i n d e a t h ?
So t h e present-day ru i n i n g of politics to the a dvantage of morality and
religion cannot be put down to the 'end o f h istory' scenario that h a s d ragged
Oil more or less everywhere for the last 2 0 years. It can not be identified
with the planetary reign of reasonable management setting itself up on the
ruins of utopi a . O n the contra ry. it m a rks not only t h e refutation of this
' reasonable' scenario, but also of the linear conception of h istorical evolu ­
tion which u nderpins it. Politics is n o t over. It is simply absent. It i s excl u d e d
in principle by authoritari a n state forms, which claim bluntly not to n e e d i t
b eca use the word of God o r some other principle of identity constitutes the
t rue foundation of the life of communities. It is hollowed out from the
inside by liberal states, which tend increasingly to reduce d emocratic forms
t o the reputedly u nivocal management of common economic interest s .
More than ever today, i t appears that politics is not a perman e n t given
a ssimilable to the organization of state communities. It is instead a singular
way of conducting conflicts and of making them the very centre o f life i n
common. This way i s n o t always activ e . B ut, i n addition, every state,
whether good or bad, tends t o effect a reduction of politics, whether by
violent or mild means, in the name of a n u n ambiguous, n o n - conflictual
principle of community: that is, in the n a m e of an identity of faith or origin,
o r of the law, the common i nterest o r the force of circumstance .

76
 TIME, WORDS, WAR

Further, as politics tends to vanish, then it starts above all to appear a s

a way of providing events with a name a n d a framework, of understand ­
ing the difference of temporalities in one and the same present, of situat­
ing the same and the oth e r in a common space . S ome have n o need of it.
finding in the Holy S criptures or the law of blood or soil something that
caters for all necessities . O thers, educated by political perceptions m ore
than they might think, find they have been disarmed of it. This i s what
can be observed i n the present- day United States and among its all i e s .
Their recourse t o the sure b earings of morality and religion translates the
impossibility of giving a name t o the conflict. of situating the enemy i n a
common space, of conceiving the common time of an cestral convictions
that animates it and of n e w technologies that it wields to translate them
into acts . The inability is shared by American leaders who d o n o t know
how to name their war and by opponents to the war, who do not know
how t o argue their opposition. Some might say that this is m erely a que s ­
t i o n of words, which in n o way hinders the game of power. Bul this
simple opposition between words and acts also comes into question . The
difficulties that American power has to contend with do not result sim­
ply from the in adaptability of its military means to Afghan g eography
but from the very nature of that power. American hegemony consists
first of all in the hegemony it exercises over its allies in the name of the
consensual logic o f common interests and limitative realities . The same
logic by which alli e d states are subordinated is the one by which they
consolidate their own p ow e r. For those who accept the rules of the game,
this logic is irrefutable. For those who rej ect it wholesale, it spins around
in the void. In the heart of the superpower arises an impotence vastly
different from the traditionally invoked difficulty of attuning domestic
democratic life to the fight to death against an enemy that bars no hol e s .
T h e same reasons which disann p rotest in western states and give free
reign to their government could well make it difficult for them not only
to name their enemy and their war hut also to bring it to an e n d .

77
 CHAPTER TWENTY
P h i l osophy i n the Bath room , January 2002

La Philosophic (omme maniere de vivre, Petite Philosophie du matin, 1 0 1 Experi­

ences de ph ilosophie quotidienne, A n tima n uel de ph ilosophie, The Consolations
of Philosophy ' . . . The p h i l o s o p h e r p e r u s i n g the titles fea t u ri n g on t h e
s h e l v e s of Parisia n bookstores i n this festive p e r i o d wo u l d be agreea b l y
s a tisfied b y the f a c t that h i s i d o l c o m p a res f a vo u ra b l y w i t h B i n La d e n a s
t h e sta r o f ed itoria l fa s h i o n . P h i l o s o p h y i s c ertai n l y m o s t fas h i o n a bl e . A
few years ago, t h i s fas h i o n w a s m a d e by t h e s u ccess of p hilosoph y - cafes
w h e re, with t h e h e l p of a moderator, anyone a t all cou l d t u rn up on
S unday to debate t h e great q uestions of human existence. Then came
the consultations of philosophy, philosophy in the service of company
p roble ms, a n d the s u ccessful day- or w e e k - long p h ilosophy semina rs
organized b y various l arge a n d small towns, called to come a n d live the
hour of philosophy.
At a second glance, of course, the philosoph e r a sks himself a question:
what exactly i s this triumphant phil o s o p h y ? And, being in the trade, h e
c a nnot fail to notice the dominant tone of this philosophical bookstore
display. From philo- cafes to philosophy b e s t - s e llers, one and the same
a ssertion i s repeated over a n d over again. This a s s ertion contrasts living
p h ilosophy, t h e o n e w i t h w h i ch e a ch of us can confront the problems of
our concrete existence, to university philosophy, that which one teaches
a s a professor or studies to become a professor in turn . Some of the
a uthors alluded to above are themselves p a rt of the university corpora ­
tion. And yet they speak with t h e same voice a s the others, in l a ying
claim a style of philosophy t h a t has d e s cended from the university chair
and into the world of life .

78
 PHILOSOPHY I N TH E BATH ROOM

It remains only t o find out what exactly this 'life' is to which phil o ­
sophy h a s return e d . T h e despondent never fail to note that this restora ­
tion of philosophy to all and sundry is also a way of confining all and
sundry within their existential problems . 'University' philos ophers such
as Kant or Fichte confronted the all -powerful Theology Faculty, under
the gaze of students dreaming of the French Revolution and o f monarchs
who might cancel their courses at any moment . The philosopher
slumbering inside e a ch o f us, as for him, is asked to devote himself to
other problems than those o f founding the legitimacy of the s tate : that is,
the 'true' problems that each of us encounters in daily life once we've
left the concerns of j u stice and freedom to the specialists. The rea der of
Alain de B otton's The Consolations of Philosophy will first discover, with the
example of S ocrates, how not to suffer from one 's 'lack of popularity ' .
After which the r e a d e r w i l l have the liberty to fi n d in Epicurus t h e means
to resist money worries, in Montaigne those to endure sexual problems
and in S chopenhauer the weapon with which to brave love disappoint ­
ments . Philosophy is thereby returned to its function: to change the life
of those who dedicate themselves to it. Forget the contradiction involved
in contrasting living philo s ophy with its university history only ultimately
to propose a few s u mmaries or chosen texts from great philosophers.
B ecause the privile g e d philosophers themselves - Socrates , Epicurus,
S eneca, Montaigne, S chopenhauer - actually provide a demonstration of
a philosophy for non-professionals, identical to the experiment of chan­
ging one's lif e .
T h e problem is o n l y t o k n o w what life it is that is to be changed and
what the extent of the change is. Nietzsche, who often appli e d Plato and
was a passionate reader o f S chopenha uer, had his own view o f this. For
him, the school of S o crates taught not the pleasures of a life preserved
from popularity, but a new sort of comhat sport by which to s hine in the
eyes of the world. It was o f course a sport addressed to privileged ama ­
teurs: those young rich p e ople who had nothing to do with their exist­
ence other than to turn it into a work of art. And the work of art par
excellence by which they were fascinated, the new goal that philosophy
assigned to their life, was the dying S ocrates . To transform one 's life and
to make it philosophical by making philosophy become life m e ant learn­
ing to flee as quickly a s p o s sible, as far as possible.
To ask philos ophy t o b e a n a r t of living that remedies t h e little worries
of existence, does this not, i f t a ken seriously, always force it towards

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 C H RON ICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M ES

t h i s goa l : to t a ke t h e s e r i o u s n e s s a w a y fro m t h e s e wor r i e s , a n d to t a ke

a way o n e 's bel i e f i n t h e i m p e ra t i v e s of l i fe to w h i c h t h ey a re l i n ke d ? We
c a n read S c hope n h a u e r to l e a r n h o w to rel a t i v i z e o u r h e a r t a c h e s . B u t
S c ho p e n h a u e r h i m sel f a s k s s o m e t h i n g e l s e, w h ich i s t h a t w e e s c a p e
f ro m t h e v i s i o n o f t h e w o r l d i n w h i c h t h e s e hea r t a c h e s ma k e s t h e m ­
s e lves fel t , t h a t w e lea rn n o t t o wa n t a n d t o b e c o m e s p e c t a t o r s . T h i ngs
ca n d o u b t l e s s b e s t a t e d m o re o r less d ra m a t i ca l l y. T h e re i s not h i n g a t a l l
u npleJ s a n t , for e x a ll1ple, in t h e 1 0 I Experiments in the Philosophy of Every­
day Life proposed by Roger-Pol D ro i t : ' Wa i t w it h o u t d o i n g a n y t h i n g ',
' Fo l l ow t h e movement s of a nt s ', ' S h ower w i t h you r eyes c l o s e d ', ' E x i t
t h e c i n e m a i n b ro a d d a y l ig h t ', ' Wa ke up w i t h o u t k n ow i n g w h e r e ', a n d
' Ta ke t h e m e t ro w i t h o u t goi n g a ny wh e r e ' . B u t we ca n s u rely s e e w h e r e
J I I t hese e xe r c i s e s of sense d i s o r i e n t a t i o n l e a d . The ph i l osoph icJ I e x p e r i ­
e n ce o f t h e s t ra ngeness of t h e wor l d c o m e s t o t e r m i n t h e conv i c t i o n
t h at ' t rue l i fe ' i s ' n ot h i ng but a fi c t i o n a m o n g ot h e r s ' w h i c h ' w i l l com e
t o <I n e n d i n a n y case'.
Is this way o f changing l i fe rea l l y what i s req u i red a t a time w h e n each
of li S is e n couraged to ca st o f f all pessi m i s m a n d make o u r e n t h u s i a s t i c
contrib u t i o n t o t h e new l i fe of t h e cyber- m a rk e t , t h e e u m a n d t h e gra n ­
d i ose m e rgers of t h e gia n t s of p l a n e t a ry com m u n i ca t i o n ? S ocra t e s a n d
S chopen h a u e r a re asked to l o w e r t h e i r d e m a n ds , to t r a n s form their ways
o f l e a rn i n g t o l e a v e this world i n t o a way of ' li v i n g t h e everyd a y ' . For
t h is, a l l th a t is required is a little c h a n g e i n t h e m e a n i n g o f the e x e rci s e .
The j o u rn<llist -philosophe r encou ra g e s u s t o ' s h o w e r w i t h y o u r eyes
closed', so that, u n a ware of w h e re t h e gushing water i s coming from, w e
a re left only with t h e p u r e sensation of wet s k i n . The philosophe r-j our­
nalist, author of the Petite Philosophie du matin, removes t h e s u spect Scho­
p e n h a u e rian sophistication from these ablutions: 'Among the tonic acts
o f the morning, finishing y o u r w a s h w i t h a j e t o f c o l d w a t e r o v e r t h e
whole b o d y is among the m o s t stimula t i n g ' , C hristi n e Rambert assures
us in the 1 2 7th of her ' 3 6 5 thoughts t o b e happy every d a y ' .
This philosophy is certa i n l y l e s s p e r il o u s . It agrees perfectly with tbe
multitude of recommendations that w e a r e fed b y doctors, psychologists,
hygienists, n u tritionists a n d others in h u n d re d s of mag<lzines and special
p rogrammes, teaching us how to take g o o d care of our self and how to
l i ve life harmoniously i n the e v e r y d a y. The q u estion that thus r e - emerges
i s the following: i s t h e r e r e a l l y a n y n e e d o f p hilosophy i f all i t does i s
r e p e a t the media refrain of the e v e r y d a y c a r e of t h e s e l f ? T h i s i s t h e h e a r t

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 P H I LOSOPHY IN TH E BATHROOM

of the problem: the a dvocates of 'philosophy in life' want simultan eously

to enj oy the thrill of travelling in the Platonic chariot across the radiant
heaven of Ideas and to have the half-hearted comfort of tho ught and
body in the smallest things of life . S o crates renouncing the life of opinion
and a water mixer.
In philosophical imagery, there is always one who gazes at th e sky and
one who gazes at the earth . To have the sky and the earth at once, we are
no doubt obliged to turn towards other fictions . Alongside the philo­
sophical consolations o n offer on bookstore tables, another consoler
began a new stage of h e r fabulous career through DVD. This consoler,
the little Amelie Poulain, spearhead of the French cinematographic
industry, solves the problematic marriage of the sky to which one flees
and the earth in which one takes root. Le Fabu leux Destin d 'Ame/ie Poulain
presents an exemplary reconciliation of two opposite theses : first, you
have to escape the greyness of reality into the ideal; second, y o u have to
return from the ideal sky back into reality. On the one hand, Amelie is
the little fairy who changes the lives of those a round with her simple
decision, assuaging their inconsolable hearts, unifying solitary souls,
p uni shing the wicked, rewarding the good and moving the s e d e ntary.
But it would b e all mere illusion if the one who proj e cted her ideal sky
into the lives of others did not also take care of herself and know how to
cash in on her dreams for an occasion that has offered itself in prosaic
reality and is certain never to b e represented again, in the figure of young
man who it seems is not very bright .
Fiction is more b e autiful than reality. Reality is more bea utiful than
any fiction. Amelie has spectators participate in the enj oyme n t of tha t
irrefutable philosophy by placing the S chopenhauerian experience of
disorientation from the familiar world on the side of the villainous, racist
greengrocer - whose slippers she swaps or whose toothpaste sh e replaces
with foot-cream. She contrasts the e quivocal experiences of p hilosophy
to the happy union of the sky and the earth . No douht quarrelsome
minds will say that the union of the sky and the earth bea rs strong
resemblance to the wedding of a dvertising and commodities and that
this cheerful philosophy of the everyday recalls all too much the th e o ­
logy of the s ensible / suprasensible commodity that, in another time, was
analyzed by Marx.

81
 CHAPTER TWE NTY- O N E
P r i s o n e rs o f t h e Infi n ite, March 2002

' I n fi n i t e J u stice ' : t h i s w a s t h e i n i t i a l n a m e g i v e n to t h e Penta gon 's o ffe n s ­

ive aga i n st t h a t fuzzy - co n to u red e n em y d e noted b y t h e n a m e 'te rror­
i s m ' . As we know, the name was q u i c k l y correct e d . It had been, we were
l e d to u n d e rsta nd, an excess o f l a n g u a g e on the p a rt of a president still
i n e xperi e n ced i n t h e a rt o f n u a nc e . I f h e wa nted bin Laden ' d e a d or

a l ive', it was obvi o u s l y beca u s e he h a d w a t c h e d too many Westerns in

h i s you th .
This explanation is h a r d l y convin c i n g . F o r t h e ' d e a d or a live' principle
is by no means that of Westerns. I t is i n a c t u a l fact commonplace i n
Weste rns to see sheriffs riski n g t h e i r s k i n t o wrench assassins from t h e
l ynch m o b a n d h a n d them o v e r t o t h e s y s t e m of justice. I n contrast to
t h e lessons o f any We stern, infinite j ustice is a j ustice without limits: a
j u stice that ignores a ll the categories by which the e xercise of j ustice is
t r a ditiona l l y circumscrib e d : those which distinguish l e g a l punishment
from the vengeance of indivi d u a l s , which separate th e l a w from the
political, the ethical or the religious; and which separate t h e police forms
of tracking down crimes from t h e m i l i t a ry forms of battles between
a rmi e s . From this viewpoint, there was n o excess of language . 'Nuances'
wou l d indeed be quite inappropri a t e . F o r i t i s e x a ctly these features that
characterize t h e retal i atory operations u n dertaken by the United States.
These operations involve eliminating the differences that separate war
a n d the police from a l l the legal forms b y means of which we've sought
to spe cify a n d limit the action of e a ch o f the m . One no longer says ' d e a d
or alive' except to say t h a t n o b o d y k n o w s whether t h e individual con­
cerned is, precisely, dead o r alive . Yet n o o n e knows exactly o n what

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 PRISONERS OF THE I N F I N ITE

grounds the American military is detaining and aiming to try prisoners

who benefit n either from prisoner of war status nor from the ordinary
guarantees grante d to defendants in the framework of a criminal ca se.
The term 'infinite j ustice ' says precisely what is at stake: the assertion of
a right identical with the omnipotence hitherto reserved for the aven­
ging God. The traditional distinctions, in fact, all wind up being abolishe d
at t h e s a m e time a s t h e forms of international l a w a r e effaced.
Of course, this e ffacing is already the principle of terrorist action, which
is e qually indifferent to p olitical forms and to the norms of law. B u t
'infinite j ustic e ' is not only the response to t h e adversary's provo cation,
a constraint to situate oneself o n the same terrain as him. It also expresses
that strange status that the effacing of the political today confers on law.
both within and between nations.
Considerations of the c urrent state of law reveal a singular i nversion of
things . In the 1 9 9 0 5, the S oviet empire's collapse and the weakening of
social movements in maj o r Western countries were generally cel ebrated
as the liquidation of the utopia s of real democracy and social democracy
in favour of the rules of the State of R ight . Outbursts of eth n ic conflict
and religious fundamentalism j ust as soon gainsaid this simple philo­
sophy of history. But the identification of Western triumph with the tri­
umph of the State of R ight has likewise proven problematic. Within the
Western powers and in their modes of foreign intervention, the relation
between right and fact has actually evolved in such a way as to tend
increasingly towards blurring the boundaries of law. In these countries
we've seen two phenomena b e come more pronounced: on the one hand ,
an interpretation of law in terms of the rights granted to a multipl icity of
groups as such; on the other, legislative practices aimed at putting the
letter of the law everywhere i n harmony with new lifestyles, new forms
of work, of tech nology, of family or of social relationships . In correspond ­
ence with this shrinking of p olitical sphere, which is constituted i n the
interval between the law's abstract literalness and the polemics over its
i nterpretations . The law thus celebrated increasingly tends to he the reg­
istering of a community'S lifestyl e s . A political symholization of power,
its limits and the a mbiguities of law has been replaced by an ethical sym­
bolization of the latter: a relation of consensual inter- expression between
the fact of the state of a s o c iety and the norm of the law.
The American response affirms this immediate adequation of right and
fact within the life of a community. B ut the dominant representation of

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 C H RON ICLES OF CONSE NSUAL T I M E S

t h e A m e rica n C o n s ti t u t i o n a l s o s y m b o l i z e s i t : i t is t h e ethical i d e n t i t y
between a particu l a r l i f e s t y l e a n d a u niversa l s y s t e m of v a l u e s . ' Ethos'
m e a n s dwell ing a n d l i festyle before i t d o e s a s y s t e m of m o r a l va l u e s . T h e
recent m a n i fe s t o i s s u e d by A m e ri ca n i nt e l l e c t u a l s i n su pport of George
W. B u s h 's policies highligh t e d this point we l l : m o re than a j u ri d i co - polit­
ieal comlll u n i t y, the U n ited Slates < He fi rst and fore most a com m u n i t y
u n ited b y com mo l1 m o ra l a n d religi o u s va l u e s - a n ethical com m u n i t y.
Till' Good that fo u n d s the c o m m u n i t y is t h e refore t h e i d e n t ity betwe e n
r i g h t a n d fa ct . And t h e crime pe rpet ra t e d a g a i n s t t h o u s a n d s of A m eriCilI1
li ves can be i m m ediately posited as a crime perpet rated a g a i n s t t h e
E m p ire of G o o d a s s u c h .
But a wh i l e ago t h i s r i s e of e t h i c s to t h e d e t r i m e n t of j u s t i ce wa s
a I rc a d y t a k i n g s h a p e in t h e fo r m s of fore i g n i n te rven t i o n s u nd e r ta k e n
by t h e great powers . I n t h e m , t h e blu r r i n g of the l i m i t s b e t w e e n fact
a n d law has ta ken a n other fi g u re, o p p o s i t e a n d comple m e n t a r y t o t h a t
o f COI1 Sell S u a I ha r m ollY - t h e fi g u r e o f t h e h u m a II i t a ria n a l i d of ' h u m a n ­
i t a rian i n t e rference'. The ' r i g h t o f h u m a n i t a ria n i n t e r fere n c e ' has
e n abled the p rotec t i o n of s p e c i fi c popu l a t i o n s of ex-Yugo s l a v i a [ ro m a n
u n derta k i n g of eth n i c l i q u i d a t i o n . B u t i t wa s d o n e at the price of bl u r­
r i ng the borders of the s y m b o l i c a s wel l a s of the s t a t e . Not o n l y d i d i t
s ea l the d e fi n i t ive a b a n d o n o f a s t r u c t u ra l p r i n c iple of i nt e r n a t i on a l
l a w, n a mely t h e principle of n on - i n ference - a principle of a d m itted l y
a mbiguous v i rt u e s ; above a ll , i t i nt r o d u c e d a p r i n c iple of l i m i t l e s s n e s s
t h a t r u i n s t h e v e r y i d e a of t h e g a p b e t we e n r i g h t a n d fa ct, w h i c h g r a n t s
t he l a w i t s s t a t u s .
A t the time of the Vietn a m Wa r o r o f t h e coups d 'etat more or l e s s
directly i n ci t e d b y A m e r i c a n power i n v a ri o u s regions t h r o u g h o u t t h e
worl d , t h e r e existed a n opposition, more o r l e s s expli cit, between the
great principles a sserted b y We stern powers a n d the practices subordi ­
n ating those principles to t h e i r v i t a l intere s t s . T h e anti - i mperialist m ob i ­
lizati ons of the 1 9 605- 1 9 7 0 5 h a d c o n d e m n e d t h i s g a p between founding
principles a n d real practice s . Tod a y t h e p o l e m i c over means a n d e n d s
s e e m s to have vanish e d . The principl e o f I h i s disappear a n ce is t h e repre s ­
entation of the absolute victim, the v i c t i m o f a n i n fi n i t e evil, obliging
infinite reparation . This ' ab s ol u t e ' righ t of t h e victim h a s developed i n
t h e framework of ' h u m a n i t a r i a n ' w a r. And i t h a s been seconded by t h e
maj or intellectual m o v e m e n t o f theorizing i n fi n i t e crime, which has
been elaborated over the last q u a rt e r o f a century.

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 PRISO N E RS OF THE INFINITE

The specificity of what might be called the second denunciation of

S oviet crimes and the Nazi genocide has without doubt received too little
attention. The first denunciation had aim e d t o establish the r eality of the
facts, while also reinforcing the determinati on of Western democracies to
struggle against an ever-pres ent and still -threatening totalitarianism . The
second, develope d d u ring the 1 9705 as a ledger of communis m or in the
1 980s by way of a return to the extermination of the E urop ean Jewry,
has acquired a wholly new meaning . These crimes have not only been
construe d as the monstrous effects of regimes that have to be fought
against. but as the forms of manifestation of an infinite crim e , unthink ­
able and irreparable, as the work of an E vil power exceeding all legal and
political measure . E thics has become the way of thinking abollt this
infinite evil, creating an irremediable cut in history.
The ultimate consequ ence of the excess of ethics over law and politics
is the paradoxical constitution of an absolute right for those whose rights
have been absolutely denied . This figure in effect appears as the victim of
an infi nite Evil against which the fight is itself infinite . S o the defender
of the victim's right gets to inherit this absolute right . The limitlessness of
t b e irreparable wrong p erpetrated against the victim then j u stifies the
unlimited right o f his defender. American reparation for the absolute
crime committed against American lives brought the process t o its point
of culmination. The obligation of attending to the victims of absolute Evil
is identified with the limitless fi ght against this evil. And this is identified
with the deployment of exorbitant military might. functioning like a
police force in charge of restoring order to every part of the world where
E vil can find shelter. But this military power is also a j u ridical power,
carrying out against all the supposed accomplices of infinite Evil the
mythical power of Vengeance tracking down the C rime.
As the adage has it, unlimited right is identical with non-righ t . Vi ctims
and culprits alike fall into the circle of ' infinite j ustice ' which today
results in the total legal indeterminacy affecting the status of prisoners of
the US Army and the qualifi cation of the facts held against them. Long
ago Hegel mocked the night of the Absolute in which ' all cows are grey ' .
T h e indistinctness of ethics, in which politics and the law are smothered
today, has turne d the prisoners of Guantanamo B ay into captives of an
Infinite of like genre, which has simply traded grey for orange .
The ethico- police symbolization of the lives of s o - called democratic
communities and of their relations with another world - which is likened

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 C HRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

to the sole r e i g n of eth n i c a n d f u n d a m e nt a l i s t p o w e r s - h a s s l owly c o m e

t o replace j u ri d i co -political forms o f symbo l i za tion . O n o n e s i d e , the
world of g o o d : t h a t of co n s e n s u s eliminating political litiga t i o n i n the
felicitous h a rm o n ization o f r i g h t a n d fa ct, o f w a y s of b e i n g a n d v a l u es;
on the other, t h e world of' e v i l , in w h i c h wrong is, o n t h e contra ry,
i n fi n i t i zed a n d w h e re it ca n o n l y be p l a yed o u t a s a wa r u n to d e a t h .

86
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
From O n e M o nth of May to Another, June 2002

B etween the e n d of April and the start of May, the streets of Paris and of
many other towns in France were filled with corteges of demonstrators
and notably o f crowd s of youths in a way not seen since the month of
May 1 96 8 . However, one difference separated these two Springs : in
1 9 68, the demonstrators had noisily contrasted the reality of political
and social power that they represented to the electoral gam e s of the par­
ties . Their disinterest for the elections then organized by the General de
Gaulle found expression in the slogan: 'Elections, idiot trap ' . In 2 0 0 2 ,
t h e slogan born by those who had not entered the street since 1 9 6 8 and
the youths who were marching i n them for t h e first t i m e w a s , con­
versely: 'Abstention, i diot trap ' . It was as if this street movement's fore ­
most task was to atone for a good 30 years of sin.
This was perhaps the most profound sense of the events surrounding
the French presidential election. Regardless of what was said about it,
the most important aspect was not the result obtained by the extreme ­
right. This result w a s p erhaps slightly above its average o f the last 1 5 years,
but was by no means tsunami-lik e . Moreover, it expressed a force that
was closer to a diffus e movement of opinion than to a fascist party on the
verge of taking power. This slight increase became a traumatic e vent,
however, becaus e the mechanism of the maj ority- rules system, designed
(0 s e cure the two governmental parties a monopoly in the s truggle for
power, for once resulted in the contrary. The S ociali st Party had broadly
benefited from the electoral strength of the extreme-right a n d the fact
that it took vote s away from the official right . This time the m echanism
turned against it.

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 C H RONICLES OF CONSE NSUAL TIMES

But i f the socia l i s t repre s e n t a t i v e c ou l d be e l i m i n a t e d from t h e second

round by the extrem e - right, t h i s i s obv i o u s l y for a n o t h e r rea s o n . It i s
b e ca u se t h e 'left ' votes that i t u s u a l l y d e p e n d s o n were l a cking. H e r e ,
a ga i n , t h e maj o ri t y - rules m e c h a n i sm bega n 10 function in revers e . F o r
2 0 yea rs t h e offi c i a l l e ft h a d b e e n a b l e t o obta i n , reta i n o r rega i n power
t h 'lIl k s 10 the votes o f the o t h e r l d t . namely the l e ft t h a t l a ys cla im to t h e
h l' r i t a g e o f t h e 6 8 yea rs, t h a t f o u g h t i n t h e s o ci a l m o ve m e n t o f 1 9 9 5 , a n d
t h el l , i n subseq u e n t yea rs, h el s m o b i l i z e d a g a i nst racist l a ws, a g a i n s t c a p ­
i t a l i s t g l oba l i za t i oJl o r f o r t h e reg u l a r i z a t i o n of w o r k e r s w i t h o u t pape r s .
T h l' offi c i a l l e ft h a s gcnera l l y b e n e fi t ed from t h e v o t e s o f this m i l i t a n t
l e ft . w h ich is m o re interested in t h e d e v e l op m e n t of p o l i t i c a l m o ve m e n t s
0 1 <;l ruggle t h a n i n e l ecto ra l proces s e s . A s i t h a s reckoned t h a t it i s a t a n y
ra t e g u a ra n t e e d t h ese votes, t h e offi c i a l l e ft h a s n e v e r been b o t h e re d t o
C el rn t h cIll . I n pa rticu l a r, it h a s d o n e n o t h i n g t o p rovide a pol i t i c a l sol u ­
t i o n t o t h e p robl e m o f i n t e g ra t i n g w o r k e rs o f foreign origin a n d t h e i r
c h i l d re n . For 2 0 y e a rs, i t h a s d o n e n o t h i n g b u t contin u e t o d e l a y m a k i n g
g ood O I l i t s p ro m i se, a l beit a ra t h e r m o d es t o n e : t h e part icipati o n o f for­
e i g n ers i n l o ca l e l e ct i o n s . The F r e n c h , they have said, a re not yet rea d y
t o t a k e this s t e p . A s i f t h e a v e rage v o t e r w a s really too ba ckwa rds to
a ccept the absol u te l y incredible i d e a accord i n g to which it is right that
t h os e who live a n d work i n a place are also able to participate i n the
d i scllssions and d e ci sions t h a t affect the l i fe o f this pla ce . These ' n o t - y e t ­
r c a d y ' Fre n c h m e n and w o m e n are simply t h e voters of the oppos i n g
p a rty, whom t h e socialist governors a i m t o s e d u ce by manifesting t h e i r
s pirit of responsi b i l ity. S u ch , i n fact, i s t h e l o g i c of the maj ority - ru l e s
syste m : t h e p a r t i e s of p o w e r concern t h e m s e l v e s n o t with a ddressing t h e
commitments to their v o t e r s , w h o they think w i l l be comp e l l e d to vote
for them i n any case, but with trying t o p i ck up - from among the voters
of the opposing party - the l i t t l e b i t extra t h a t s e cures victory.
The real event o f the p r e s i d e n t i a l e l e c t i o n is that this l o g i c fai l e d . For
the fi rst time since 1 9 6 8 , the m i l i t a n t l e ft refu s e d , i n l a rge numbers, to
vote for t h e official left. O f course, this s a m e m i l i tant l e ft was the first to
b e shocked b y the result of this breakdown and to fill t h e s t r e e t s , a l o n g ­
s i de t h e high s c h o o l students, and express i t s a b s o l u t e rej ection of t h e
i d eas and v a l u e s of the racist and xenop h o b i c e xtrem e - right that. thanks
t o the failure of the official Jeft, had q u a l i fi e d for second round of the
e lection. But next there came about a s t range reversal of things . The
oificial lelt, its press and i t s intellectuals b e l a b o ured the demonstrators i n

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the following terms : why are you in the streets today, if not because of a
situation for which you are largely responsible? If you had voted like
responsible voters for the socialist candidate, nothing like this would
have happened. B ut you preferred to take refuge in abstentio n or to scat­
ter your votes among protest candidat e s .
This notion of 'protest' merits our attention . All t h e authorized a n a ­
lysts explained t o u s at length that there were t w o types o f candidates for
this election: government candidates and protest candidates . But what
distinguishes a government candidate from a protest candidate? It is,
quite simply, the fact that one is already used to governing and the other
is not. The argument says, in a nutshell, that the existing authorities
must be return e d to power, which is to say that power is the preserve of
the two large consensual parties that share in it by means of alternation.
That fine logic is disrupted by the fa ct of 'protestors ' . What i s a protestor?
It eould be advanced that protestors are very simply those who remain
unsatisfied with the reduction of p olitics to the art of seizing and main­
taining power and that even the success of the extreme -right lies in the
fact that it calls for clear-cut coll e ctive decisions to b e made on the maj or
national and international question s .
This explanation, w e know, does n o t at a l l appeal to the ' government
candidates ' , nor t o any o f the j o u rnalists, political scientists, sociologists
or other intellectuals assigned to e xplain the former's lack of succe s s . For
them, 'to protest' - that is, not to give credence to the consensual parties ­
is an illness. And for those who represent the adult science of g overnm ent,
there are two m aj or forms of illn e s s : old age and youth. They distinguish
the protestors as follows : on the one hand, there are the 'victims of
modernity', those that have failed t o adapt to the new economic and
technological conditions or lifestyles, and that therefore vote for the old ­
fashioned value s of the extreme - right; on the other, there are the eternal
children who dream of radical political and social change, and who refuse
to support modern, liberal and responsible socialism.
Illnesses are the business of doctors . For those who suffer senility,
measures are prop o s e d t o help them live better with their situations, in
hoping that the march of modernity will push them gently into the
grave . For thos e who suffer j uv enility, by contrast, shock treatment is
required . They must be made to understand once and for all what p olitics
is. For they imagine that p olitics consists in fighting for a certain idea of
the community, in putting their confidence in the power of intelligence

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a n d action of t h e l a rgest n u m b e r. T h e y m u s t h e cu red o [ t h i s folly, t a u g h t

to doubt r a d i c a l l y this collective capacity a n d t h e i r own ability to j u dge
and a ct a ccording to t h e i r j u dg e m e n t . They m u st be t a ught not only t h a t
p o l it ics for them m u s t consist solely i n v o t i n g , h u t also i n voting against
their ch o i c e . H e w h o v o t e s , i n effect. a l w a ys t e n d s t o d o s o a ccording t o
t h e i d e a s t h a t h e recko n s a re j u st a n d l o r t h e ca ndidates that h e t h i n k s
a r e cl osest to t h e s e i d e a s . That, a ga i n , is t a n t a m o u n t to i rresp o n s i b i l i t y.
The i rrespon s i b l e m u s t be t a u g h t to u n d e rsta n d that t h e principle of the
v o t e i s n o t about choice but s u b m i s s i o n , n o t about con fi d e n ce b u t fea r.
T h i s is by a n d l a rge what Hobbes said w h e n h e m a d e fea r t h e principle of
t h e ('om m u n i t y fou n d e d o n u ncond i t i o n a l s u b m i s s i o n to t h e sovereign
p o wer. The big names of the offici a l l eft have t ra nsform ed H obbesian
t h eory i n t o a practical e x e rc i s e of m o rtifi ca t i o n : you d i d n o t wa n t t o v o t e
l o r t h e ca n d i d a t e of t h e o ffi c i a l a n d r e s p o n s i b l e left. Yo u s h o u l d a t o n e .
A n d h o w t o a t o n e , i f n o t b y v o t i n g o v e rw h e l m i ngly a t t h e seco n d ro u n d
fo r the man w h o repres e n t s t h e cu rre nt s y s t e m of govern m e n t i n i t s
most m e d i ocre a n d most corru pt a s p e cts, b y voti ng, t h a t i s p u rely a n d
s i mply for s u bm i s s i o n to t h e s o v e reign - a s u h m i s s i o n w h o s e e x e m p l a r­
i t y i n creases in acco r d a n ce w i t h t h e contemptibility of t h e person w h o
embod i e s t h i s sovereign?
How does t h e mech a ni s m o f submission work? B y playing on t h e d o u ­
b l e source of guilt a n d fea r. B y prod u cing fea r b y m e a n s of guilt a n d gUilt
by means of fear. The task was not a n e a s y o n e , a s the p o l l s con d u cted
the evening before the first r o u n d predicted C h i ra c's overwhelming vic­
tory in the second. In the d a y s following it, t h e n , we s a w develop, in th e
p ress a n d the a rtistic a n d intellect u a l l e ftist m i l i e u s , a n intense a l a rmist
campaign, talking u p the p s e u d o - polls of the secrets services that revealed
i n credible levels of support for Le Pen . Preaching campaigns then sprang
up, often r u n by figures more or l e s s emblem a t i c of the 6 8 years, trying
t o convince us all that, if w e abstained from putting a vote in the ballot
box for C hirac, we w o u l d b e come t h e witting a ccomplices o f the i m m i n ­
e n t opening of concentration camps i n F r a n ce .
We then beheld h undreds of tho u s a n d s of demonstrators turn their
own power against themselves. They had filled the streets to express
their dismay a n d their refusal against t h e e x t ra o rdinary p u b licity that the
o ffi cial left 's failure had served up to the candidate of a racist France .
They were obliged to defile u n d e r the banners of contrition a n d fear,
sporting their placards which s a i d : 'Vo t e t h e crook, not the fascist ' . O r

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 FROM ONE MONTH OF MAY TO ANOTH E R

again : ' B etter a B anana Republic than a Hitlerite France ' . A s n o o n e

could seriously believe in the threat of a Hitlerite France, t h e directive i n
fact meant: b e t t e r a banana republic than the Republic that all of us gath­
ered here could imagine b uilding with our own forces . Better a banana
republic, that is to say, in general, submission.
We know that this campaign was an overnight success. It assured the
electoral success of the politician who epitomized submission by fear. B y
t h e s a m e token, it provided an irrefutable verification of the argument
which s eals the success of the extreme-right, namely that it is the only
force oppose d to the consensus, the only force, that is, to b e actually
engaged in doing p olitics . As for the long -term effects of this twofold
demonstration, it does not appear that the campaign's promoters have
paid much heed to them .

91
 CHAPTER TWENTV-THREE
V i ctor Hugo: The A m b i g u i t i e s of a B i c e nte na ry,
A ugust 2002

So, Vict or H u go was born 200 yea rs ago. A n n iversaries do not depend o n
I l H.' I l 's wil ls. I t i s otherwise for celebration s . l\vo years ago, t here was no
decisive reason t o t u rn the twentieth a n niversa ry of J ea n - Pa u l S a rt re 's
death into an eve n t . B u t there was a will to signify, through his ' rehabilita ­
tion ' , that a ce rtain page h a d been t u rn e d . As M arxism a n d the revolution
to which h e had associa ted his speech a n d a ction, to the sca n d a l of honest
people a n d m a n y of his colleagues, was no longer to be feared, h e could be
d i ssociated from it a n d , on the contrary, his independence as a rtist a n d his
e xigencies as a moralist could be highlighted - featu res that had always
d istinguished him from the forces of evil even when he h a d seemed closest
to them. He could thus b e integrated into a national tradition of t h e h onest
writer, a man, a lover of art a n d a l s o someone who was mindful of com ­
mon j u stice a n d goods, in contrast to the blindness of scholars seduced by
the sirens of theory and totalitarian practice .
For Victor Hugo the proced u r e i s app a rently s i mpler. The celebration
of the author of Les Miserables seems n a t u ra l ly consistent with a political
situ ation i n which the new French gove rn ment has a dopted as its
watchwor d concern for the lowly F r a n c e : a wording e l a stic enough to
u n ite the i nhabit a n t of the suburbs caught in delinquency, the artisan
bou langer, the old - s t yle b a ke r of b r e a d , the s m a l l businessman and t h e
local not able. Jean Va lj e a n w a s a b r e a d thief rather t h a n a b a ker, but
a l so, once out of prison, a b u s i n e s s m a n and t h e mayor of a n indust r i a l
tow n . B u t a b ove a l l t h i s celebration of Victor Hugo i s part of the great
under t a k i n g to oppo s e t h e bad t r a d ition of yesterday's intelle c t u a l , the

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 VICTOR HUGO: AMBIGU ITIES OF A BICENTENARY

i m moral idoli s e r of the necessities of the dialectic and t h e r u s e s of

history, with the good tradition of the day before yesterday's i ntellectua L
the moralist, l over of j u s t ice, s o c i a l j ustice and public instruction.
For a long time these nineteenth- century republicans, lovers of human
fraternity and progress of the people through instruction, were the obj ect
of an ambiguous tribute, which was readily mixed with suspicion and
mockery. Marxists mocked the s entimental republicans and socialists,
who dissimulated the naked realities of class struggle behind grand words
and believed they could cure s o cial evils with generous sentiments and
public instructi o n . B ut the anti - Marxists bore j ust as much of a grudge
against them: did not the bombast with which they denounced misery
create a sentimental atmosphere of compassion for the humble opening
of the door to murderous egalitarian illusions and encoura g e the com­
placency of intellectuals towards totalitarianisms? Did not their calls to
universal fraternity contrihute to disarming the will of dem ocracies in
confronting their adversaries? S o long as there was fear of th e spectre of
communism, the phantoms of the great fraternal and human itarian faith
were themselves s u spect. The morality of idealists was thought of as an
accomplice to the brutality of realist revolutionaries. This point already
found ironical expression in Gavroche's song from Les MiserabLes:

I have fallen to eart h

T i s t h e fault of Voltaire
With my nose i n the gutter,
Tis the fault of Rousseau t l

Now that the fear of comm u n ism i s distanced, history can b e rewritten
and re- evalu a t e d . Morality, for a long time associated with the facile
flight from realities and a dubious complacency towards revolutionary
illusions, today i s the principle that governors, warlords and id eologues
claim informs all their action. So, now, Voltaire and Rousseau, Hugo,
Michelet or Zola are able to furnish the example of good intellectuals,
those who denounced the real abuses of their times and defended the
essential values of civilization and the community. In this vein, part of
the French intellectual clas s sings the praises of these national heroes of
universal thought. a s opp o s e d to the miserable petty intellect uals of the
twentieth century: receivers of salaries or s ubsidies from democratic
governments, who fi e rcely deny the liberty they thus enj oy, and sing the
praises of totalitarianism.

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 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

On top of these post mortem t ri u m p h s is a d d e d , i t i s true, a h a l f - m ock

h a lt-seri o u s worry. T h o s e who, 1 0 y e a rs ago, celebrated the fi n a l victory
o f liberal d e m ocra cy, h u m a n rights and the indivi d u a l over t h e con ­
st raints or the h o rrors of coll ectivism, n o w c h a n g e their t o n e . Tod a y,
t h e y say, there a re too m a n y ri ghts a n d too few duties, too much free
i n d ivi d u a l choice a n d t oo l i t t l e coll ective d i sc i p l i n e a n d socia l bon d .
D e mocra t i c i n d i v i d u a l i s m n o w s u ppose d l y i m p e ri l s de mocracy itself.
A g a i n s t this, the reported rem e d y i s to rev i t a l ize the great tra d i t ion o f
e d ucative rep ublica n i s m , t e a ching a l l a n d s u n dry to how t o p u t t h e i r
own private d e m a n d s seco n d t o t h e gre a t u n iversalist values and the
sense of the common bond . The m o m e n t is one o f return t o the fou n d i n g
fa t hers of civic life, wh e t h e r their name is Thomas Jefferson or Victor
H u go. Nosta lgics for social movements, n a t u r a l l y, h a ve a more ca ustic
i n t erpreta t io n o f t h i s ret u r n to the great figures o f republ ican i d ea l i s m . I f
Ll's Miserables i s i n t h e news a ga i n , i t i s beca u s e m i sery i s a l s o i n t h e n e ws,
b eca use the n e o - l iberal d estruction o f the form s of protection and socia l
s olida rity have a g a i n t u r n e d it i n t o a n i n d ivid u a l m a t t e r, an obj e ct of t h e
solici t u d e of soci a l s u rveyors, of p h i l a nthropic a ssoci a t i o n s a n d of b i g ­
h earted men of letters .
To both these g roups, h owever, i t i s p o s sible t o show t h a t t h i s big
h e a r t has its a mbiguities a n d t h i s is precisely w h a t for m s the a c t u a l it y
o f t h e poet . Victor Hugo pre s e n t e d Les Miserables a s a great cry d i rected
a ga i n s t the ' d e g r a d a t i o n of m a n b y t h e prol e t a r i a t ' . B u t t h i s c r y i s fa r
from b e i n g u n ivoca l . Not o n l y b e c a u s e he d i v i d e s misery i nt o two: into
a problem to resolve by the gover n m e n t s of men a n d a mystery con fi d e d
t o divine providence. B ut a bove a l l , b e c a u s e comp a s s ion for the victi m s
o f t h e s o c i a l order i s m i x e d w i t h a s i n g u l a r f a s cination of t h e obscure
d regs of this order. A s lyrical a s the description of heroic death of repub ­
l i cans on the b a rrica d e s i s , we sense that the poet is more i n terested b y
the episode t h at follows w h e r e Jean Va lj e a n c a ves i n a s he c a rries t h e
b ody of the wou n d e d M a rius i n t o the 'intestine o f Leviath a n ', t h a t i s t o
s ay into t h e great Parisian sewer. The o b s c u re u nderneath of the b r i l ­
l i a nt city i s , f o r pol itici a n s , a world that b l a m e s t h e socia l o r d e r f o r i t s
misery or a realm of subversion that u n d e r m i n e s t h i s order's b a s e s . F o r
t he novel ist, t h e 'des cent into the u nderworl d ' of society i s someth i n g
e l s e : a dive into t h i s u nderground worl d w h i c h i s t h e secret truth of the
other, i nto the u n iverse of the great e q u a l it y which supports the s u rface
of social d i s t inctions and t a ke s i n its old rag s . T h e sewer i s , h e s a y s , t h e

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 VICTOR HUGO: AMBIGU ITIES OF A BICENTENARY

'city 's consciousness', the 'great cynic' who says all: the j udge 's hat wal­
lowing beside a rotten part that was once the servant's skirt, the louis
d 'or m i ngling with the nail of the suicide victim, or this fin de marquise
b e d linen which i s now the shroud of a revolutionary.
This great pell - mell is something other than an aesthete's curiosity. It is
the emblem of another equality than that for which the insurgents fight.
It is also the emblem of a new idea of art. For a long time art had deco­
rated palaces and served to fete the great of this world. D uring Hugo's
time, art began t o dedicate itself to a new beauty: not that of the exploits
of the people, but that of the unprecedented splendour which arises out
of the very fall of former grandeurs. From now on, not only i t is that, as
Flaubert put it, there is n o longer any distinction between noble subj e cts
and vile subj ects and that a small Normand provincial town is equal to
C onstantinople . Rather it is that, at the very moment when some
announce the death of art anaesthetized by the grey rationality of the
bourgeois order, art discovers a new, endlessly renewable territory: the
territory of all the finery of grandeur or opulence of commo dities fallen
from their social usage and thereby endowed with an unprecedented
beauty formed b y contradictory elements : they are at onCl:: written signs
ciphering a history, emblems of the m elancholy of disaffected things a n d
testimonies of t h e n a k e d splendour of what is there without a why, like
the rose of the mystic.
C ertainly, Hugo only lets himself go halfway towards the charm of this
beauty. The chapters of Les Miserables about these dregs verge on schizo­
phrenia . The poet sumptuously describes the fantastic landscapes of the
sewers; the reformer interrupts him to demand that the fields be fertil­
ized with these excrements thrown unprofitably into the river waters.
The former lets himself be fascinated by the monstrous creations of this
langue crapaude that is slang. The latter stops him to call the governors to
spread in torrents the wisdom of instruction which dissipate s the dark­
nesses of crime a n d of its language . Posterity. as for it, has followed the
path of this descent into society's unconscious, with greater frankn ess, in
order to exploit the seam of this new beauty of disused things . Surrealist
poetics was nourished o n it: the promenades by Aragon's Paysan de Paris
in those old - fashioned Parisian arcades, which are like the opening of
the underworld in the heart of the great modem city; photography by
Brassai of the new rock paintings that are wall graffiti or of involuntary
sculptures made, for example , o f a rolled up bus ticket; shots b y E l i Lotar

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 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TI M ES

of t h e Abattoi rs; Wa lter B e nj a m i n 's t h e o rization on t h e 'work of t h e d i a ­

l e ctic' with i n the o l d - fa s h i o n e d a rchitecture of d i s u s e d , n i neteenth ­
centu ry commodity t e m p l e s . In h i s recent book titled NinJa moderna,
G c orges Didi - H uberm a n a t t empts to trace t h e passage from the fa l l e n
d rapery o f t h e a n t i q u e s c u l p t u r e t o t h e d i s p l a y s o f cl o t h i n g by C h ristian
B ol t J l l s k i or to St eve M cQ u e e n 's p h otogra p h s o f rol l s of ca rpet in t h e
P a r i s i a n g u t t e r s . H e s e e s H u go's s e w e rs a n d h i s ra gs re n d e red to t h e m u d
as a key m o m e n t of this e v o l u t i o n , betwee n the a ncient beauty of p u re
l i n es a n d noble a ttit u d e s a n d t h i s c o n t e m p o ra ry b e a u t y, l i a b l e to m a n i ­
f e s t i t s e l f in a p i l e of disa ffected r a g s . H i s a rg u m e n t is open to discussion,
hut it ca n b e rea s o n a b l y c o n s i d e red that t h i s h e ritage o j t h e a u t h o r o f
Les Miserables is m o r e a ct u a l a n d m o re profo u n d t h a n t h e oth e r.

96
 CHAPTER TWENTY- FOUR
The M a c h i ne and t h e Foetu s, January 2003

When intellectuals no longer really know where they are at, often it
happens that artists indicate it to the m . This is not because a rtists have a
superior gift of divination. It is simply because it is easier t o mark I h e'
hour of time' when one is not responsible for pred icting it or drawing
lessons from it. In these times, Parisian intelle ctuals are lost in an obscure
quarrel in which th ey accuse each other, on the front pages of the main
daily newspapers, of having wed the reactionary cause by betra ying the
ideals of liberty or of equality or both at the same time, without us hav­
ing any clear idea of what these belligerents are talking about I C onve rsely,
the visitor who steps through the door of the Musie d 'Art moderne de la
Ville de Paris, where there is a retrospective of Picabia's works and a
presentation of Matthew B a rney's Cremaster cycle, has the rather mind­
blowing feeling of completely understanding in 2 hours both the ideals
of a century and their transformations.
The Picabia e xhibition, for starters, takes the figure of the encyclopae ­
dia . The first painting that it presents is a Pissarro truer than nature,
while the last ones, painted in the 1 9 5 0s-1 960s, are' part of the inform a l
painting movement. In between tim e , t h e painter will have painted the
most resolutely cubist p aintings, works emblematic of dadaism and th e
most convincing testimonies of the return to a most academic sort of
realism. Owing to his date of birth, he will only have avoided the oldest
of the schools that stamped the thr e e - quarters of a century that he tra ­
versed. S ymbolism alone is missing from the collection of styles from
which he borrowed . Now, this is the missing link that is presented, in its
most radical form, in the Cremaster cycl e . Through the analogies that it
composes between musical films, plastic sculptures and Cib a chrome, it

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 CH RONICLES OF CON jE NSUAL T I M E S

replays t h e Wa gnerian d re a m o f t h e tota l w o r k o f a rt. I t a l s o s h o w s o f f a l l

t il l' ima gery a n d t h e favo u r i t c proced u r e s of a n e ra : scenery of g l a c i e r s o r
o f Rococo colo n n a d e s , s m o oth f o r m s a n d u n d u la t i ng l i n e s , a rt - deco a e s ­
t h e t i cs t u rn i n g a ca r shell or a t a b l e s e rvice i n to a b s o l u t e p o e m s , v a r i ­
a t i o n s o f p o s t - ro m a n t i c o p e ra s e t a g a i n s t fin de siecle g i l t . a q u a t i c divin ities,
- -

n y m p h s , sat yrs and b a l l e t s w i t h y o u n g girls or evoca t i o n s o f C e l t i c

l e gcn d s .
T h e re lation between t h e s e t w o floors o f t h e M usee d 'A rt Moderne t h u s
c o m poses a s i n g u l a r d r a m a t u rgy of m o d e rn a rt . I n Matthew B a rney's
work can be seen t h e last episode o f t h e legend of a centu ry, s i m p l y l e a p ­
i n g t h e p o p a n d concept u a l a g e s a n d s u b l i m a t i n g the n e o - Gothic b ri c - a ­
brae of con t e m p o ra ry fo rms o f m u s i c o r fi l m s to return one cycle of a rt
to its point of depa rt u re . C onve rsely, i t can be s a i d t h a t t h e Cremaster
cycle reca p i t u l a t e s t h e whole symbol i s t . spiri t u a l i st. Wa gnerian a n d a e s ­
t lll' l izing h otchpotch a ga i n s t w h i c h , i n the 1 9 1 0s, the f u t u r i st or dadaist
p rovocations were m o u n t e d by y o u n g people s u ch a s Picabia, in con s i d ­
e r i n g t h a t , i f t h a t wa s a rt , t h e n it w o u l d be b e t t e r to p u t it t o d e a t h a n d
celebrate t h e j oy o u s r e i g n o f the m a chi n e .
To b e reta ined, t h e n , m o r e t h a n t h e travers i n g of t h e forms o f a cen ­
t u ry, is the opposition of two c h a ra c t e ri s t i c m o m en t s : t h e 1 9 1 Osl 1 9 2 0 s
a gainst t h e 1 9 9 0 s / 2 0 0 0 s . This opposi t i o n , however, c a n n o t be reduced to
some opposition between a m odernist a g e o f radical ruptures and a post­
modern age o f recuperatio n a n d general i z e d recycl i n g . More complex i s
t h e way that t h e i r aesthetic p a ra digms c o n t r a s t with one a n o t h e r, para ­
d igms which a re m o re b r o a d l y a b o u t the relation of men with materi a l ­
ity, harbouring antagonistic visions o f history a n d t h e common worl d ,
With t h e radical a rtist o f the 1 9 2 0 s a n d t h e feted artist of t h e year
2 000, two i d e a s of a n ti - nature go h e a d - t o - he a d : machine or arti fi c e , I n
t h e years from 1 9 1 5 to the 1 9 2 0s , Picabia p a i n t e d his 'mecanom o rphic'
p aintings . R ej e cting tra d i t i o n a l pictori a l resemb l a nce, he w a s very faith­
fully inspired b y drawings o f m a ch i n e s in scientific j ou rnals, if only to
give them names of fantas y : Le Saint des saints or Portrait d 'une jeune fiUe
ambicaine dans Utat de n udite. Later on, he decided to choose the Ripol i n ­
b rand enamel u s e d b y industrial painters for h i s p a intings . He contrasted,
then, the natura l order commanded b y the tradition o f painting to the
hardness of metal and the g e o metry of the machine. This aesthetic choice
a g rees with a time when great hopes were p l a c e d in the machine that
would destroy Old Man and promote a new worl d , Picabia was not m u ch

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 THE MAC H I N E AND THE FOETUS

concerned with politics, and even less with revolution. B ut the link
between the inventions o f a rtists and the struggles and hopes of a time
passes less through their pers onal involvements tha n through a common
attitude with regard to the potentials of sensory matter.
Matthew B arney's anti - nature goes by the name of artifice. Its matter is
not the metal of dadaist dream machines or of the Soviet epic, but the soft
matter of oil derivatives . Nylon, plastic, vinyl and resin are, along with
tapioca, the essential primary matter of the more or less monum e ntal
s culptures which sometimes serve as replica s, sometimes as ped estals for
the images of his films . His cars have neither piston rods nor cylinders,
only shells set in moulded plastic. The inventors of the 1 92 0 s contrasted
the hardness of the machine's gears to the old-world feeblen ess and th e
embellishments of the Modern Styl e . As for Barney, he chos e a residual
and malleable matter, a matter that is obedient to dreams and to hands
alike, preferred by an age which thinks less of changing life than of abol ­
ishing the borders separating the living from the non-living.
A 'matter' is always a certain idea of what it is that matter can do for
man and of what man can d o upon matter. The irony contained in Pica ­
bia's mecanomorphic paintings is pretty far removed from futurist
euphoria and constructivist dreams, Even so, it is thereby only better
able to express what is foremost at stake in them, Let us look again at the
titles of these paintings o f gears, pistons and pulleys: Parade d 'amoul; Ie
Fiance and above all that, reprised several times, Voila la fille nee sans mere.
The machine's dream i s exactly that : the dream of abolished maternal
affiliation . This is why it agre e s so well with the d ream of workers' seJf­
emancipation , The dream of autonomy is that of a male humanity
spawning itself. C e libate machines of mischievous artists and the tem­
pered steel of S oviet constructors both cling to the dream of an absolute
power of self - engendering, There are, to be sure, many different ways of
converting it. With Picabia this capacity is ultimately realized, far from
any collective constructivist programme, in the simple virtuosity of the
technician who is equally able to make whatever is possible , like can ­
vasses or anti - canvasses, figurations or anti- figurations. It is common to
contrast the individualism of a rtistic invention to the rigour of the collect­
ive enterprise . Yet both draw from the same common source . An indi­
vid ualism is always the other face of a collectivism .
There are different ways to liquidate this promethean dream of the
man who wants to be his own progenitor. There is the old tragic wisdom

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 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TI M E S

w h ich s a y s t h a t the grea test g o o d f o r m a n k i n d w o u l d be n e v e r to h a ve

h e e n born, a n d t h a t t h e second greatest w o u l d b e t o d i e t h e e a rliest pos­
s i b l e . This w i s d o m t ra n s forme d , d u ri n g t l1e R o m a n t i c era, into a n o s t a l ­
gia o f t h e t i m e before b i rt h . Nietzsche s u m m e d u p t h e tragic Wa gnerian
wisdom i n Isold e 's d y i n g w i s h , t h a t o f losing oneself a g a i n i n the great
original sea of t h e I n d i ffere n t i a t e d . Psychoa nal ysis, for i t s pa rt, rea d i l y
co n t rasted t h e co m m u n i s t u t o p i a o f t h e s e l f - c re a t i ng m a n t o t h e irre d u ­
c i b l e m isery of t h e h u m a n a n i m a l a s i n complete a n imal, ma rked b y t h e
p r e m a t u ra tion of its b i rth . U n d e r its a p p e a ra n ce s of a ret u rn to simple
re a son, contempora ry cap i t a l i s m perhaps n o u ri s h e s its own utopi a : the
u t o pia of a life esca p i n g from this ' m i s e ry ' , a painless l i fe of consumption,
w hol l y spent i n t h e tra n q u i ll i t y o f the m a t e r n a l womb . The Cremaster
cycle proposes to retrace, in a n a l ogy, t h e h i story of t h e foet ll s between
i n d i He re n t i a t i o n and sexual d i ffere n t i a t i o n . But t h i s i s not merely a mat­
t e r o f a n a l ogy or o f symbol s . Th e ca r i n t e ri ors w h i ch M a t t h ew B a rn e y
e ll closes in p l a s t i c b l o c k s , evoking a t once the protective fa t a n d t h e
p ur i l y of gla ciers, a re cl e a r l y i l l u s t ra tive o f t h e o v e rt u r n i n g of a n ideology
of meta l l i cs and mech a n i c s . The s o ft matter of a rt i fice i s that matter that
is a l wa ys rea dy to melt into a primitive ocean o r i n to a n a m niotic l i q u i d
to cel ebrate a f o e t a l l i fe e l e v a t e d to the d i m e n si o n of eternity.
Here aga i n the i n divid u a l and t h e collective a re no more separate than
a rt a n d politics. S o m e serious t h i n k e rs a r e reg u l a rly perturbed by the
d a n gers that the e x a cerbated na rci s s i sm of ' d e m ocra t i c i n d i v i d u a l i s m '
p rese n t s to the a d ministering of coll e ctive i n t e r e s t s . B u t these feigned
oppositions may well be no more than two sides of the same coi n . The
d ream of u n i n te rrupted maternal protection e x p ressed b y the liquid u n i ­
verse of t h e fa shionable a rt i s t i s synchronous w i t h t h i s promise of secur­
i t y i n which the rich states today symbolize politics a s such .

100
 CHAPTER TWENTY- FIVE
Th e Death of the A u t h o r or the Life of the A rti st?
April 2003

This time, the author was s upposedly really dea d . Already 30 years ago,
the philosophers reportedly proclaimed his theoretical death s entence by
undermining the foundations of his pretension - the subj ect as master
and possessor of his thoughts . This was the epoch when pop artists, with
their portraits of stars or their s e ries of soup tins, would destroy the privil ­
ege of the unique oeuvre . Following afterward were such things as: an art
of installations in which the artist often remained content t o rearrange
obj ects of use and already existing images; the practice of DJs mixing
sonorolls elements h orrowed from e xisting compositions to the point of
rendering them unrecognisable; and, lastly, the information revolution,
instituting the uncontrolled reproducibility of texts, songs and images .
What thus appeared t o come undone was the very content which con­
stituted the notion of the work : the expression of the creative will of an
author in a specific material that h e had worked over, singularized in the
figure of the work, posited as an o riginal distinct from all its reprod uc­
tion s . The idea of the work b e came radically independent of any work
done on a particular material. B e rtrand Lavier's Salle des Martin exhibited
50 p aintings painte d by authors b e a ring the name of Martin . None of
these paintings any longer played the role of the original work. The
work's originality here passes over into the idea, in itself immaterial, of
their gathering. Any old heap of materials can then stand in for the
work, such a s this pile o f old papers here, the element of a D a mien Hirst
installation that an employee of a Londonian Museum, in the concerns
of cleanliness, ill - advisedly threw in the bin.

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 C H RONIC LES O F CONSENSUAL T I M E S

I t i s t e m pting to liken this i n d isti n ct i v e n e s s wh ich ren d e rs a l l ma terial

i n d iffere n t to that which tran sforms d i scou rses, i mages o r m u s i c into b i t s
o f i n form a t i o n . With t h e i n fo r m a t i o n revol u t i o n , a l l ma teriality, i t i s s a i d ,
i s t ra n sfo rm e d i n t o an i d e a l ity. I d e a s , i mages a n d m usic, l i k e w i s e d i g i ­
t a l ized, ru n freely f ro m screen to scre e n , m o c k i n g those w h o wa n t to
c b i lll p rope rt y ri g h t s over t h e m . S o t h e very p ri ncip l e o f t h e a u t h o r's
p rivi l ege w o u l d seem to h a v e va n i s h e d : t h e d i ffere n ce between t h e
lJ I ea n s of crea t i o n a n d t h e m a c h i n e s of repro d u ctio n . S o m e sec i n t h i s
t h e p o w e r o f the bra i n - world o r of t h e m a ch i n e - world t h a t ca u s e s own ­
e rs h i p a n d d o m i n ation to s h a t t e r. T h e proleta ria n s of a l l cou n t ries a re
n o t u n i te d to b u ry bourgeois d o m i n J t i o n , b u t t h e tcchn i ca l revol u t i o n
h a s su pposedly co n fi rm c d , t o t h e d e t r i m e n t of i n tellect u a l a n d a rtistic
p ro p e r t y, t h e other great p ro p h e cy of t h e Communist Mal1l!esto: 'All that i s
s o l i d Ill el ts i n t o a i r ' . Ta k i n g over w h e re t h e fa l t e r i n g produ cers left o ff,
t h e m a c h i n e s of reprod u ct i o n work t o w a rd s a n e w com m u n i s m , rc n d e r­
i ll g a l l rea l i t y i m m a teri a l , J n d t h e refore i n a p p rop riabl e ,
This fa i t h i ll t h e com m u n ist v i r t u e s o f t e c h n o logy i s n o t wi thout p ro b ­
l e ms . Nei t h e r t h e engi n e e rs n o r t h e j u ri s t s a re s h o rt on w a y s to refor m u ­
l a t e property rights a n d i n v e n t s o ftware progra m mes to m a k e s u re t h a t
t h ey a re respect e d . B u t above all, tech n i ca l reproducibility h a s n o obvi ­
O tl 'i conse q u e n ce on t h e concept u a l sta t u s o f t h e a u t h or. I n t h e 1 9 3 0 s
Wa lter B e nj a m i n h a d seen i n t h e i n d u strial conditions o f repro d u ction
a n d ci n e m atographic d i s s e mi n a t i o n t h e p r i n ciple of a n a r t liberated from
t he aura of the u n i q u e w o r k . The prophecy w a s n o t born out: a t t h e very
Ill o ment when B roodthaers, B e u ys and t h e F l u x u s a rtists made a mock ­
e ry o f m u s e u m a r t , t h e y o u ng Turks o f t h e Cahiers d u cinema enshrined
the 'politics of the author', And j u st a s museums converted t o the prose
o f installations, Jean - L u c Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinema a dopted the
s a credness of Mal r a u x 's imaginary Museum. D e spite the multitude o f
constraints t h a t a fi l m p l a ce s o n production a n d on artistic a n d technical
collaborations, the cinematic ' director' h a s b ecome the exemplary
embod i m e n t of the a u t h o r who p u t s his s tamp o n his cre a t i o n .
But no doubt the excessive confidence placed i n the effect o f the tech ­
nological revolution followed from a somewhat simplistic view o f the
a uthor. A received opinion h a s it that a rtistic and literary modernity
s i nce r o m a n ticism has been linked with t h e development o f the cult of
the author, born at the same time a s the rights o f the same name and as
t he individualism of the ' b o u rgeois revolu t i o n ' , In consequence, a nything

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 D EATH O F THE AUTHOR O R THE LIFE OF THE ARTIST

that contradicts this privilege - from series of images of stars or of com­

mercial products o f the pop age to the piracies of the digital age - is
attributed to a postmodern revolution, which is reported to have
destroyed, if not the legal property rights, at least the modernist illusions
of artistic originality associated with the myth of the owner- author.
But the relations between the author, the owner and the person are
infinitely more complex . The enshrining of the literary genius did not
arise at the end of the eighteenth century with Beaumarchais ' acts in
favour of authorial rights nor with the offensives of bourgeois individu­
alism. It arose, on the contrary, with the fury of the epoch's philologists
wanting to dispossess Homer o f the paternity of his work, and 10 make it
into the anonymous expression of a people and an age. The modern idea
of the author was born a t the same time as that of the impersonality of
art. This equivalence hetween the a uthor and the anonymou s force pass­
ing through it was given expression in the concept of the geniu s during
the Romantic era. And the supposed representatives of art for art's sake
and of the cult of artists has never ceased, with Flauhert, to voice the
radical impersonality of art or, with Mallarme, to affirm that the poet
was necessarily 'dead as s o - and-so ' .
This idea has never prevented any artist from claiming his a u thorial
rights. B ut it defined a splitting o f the idea of property, a singular link
between propriety and impropriety. Nearly two centuries before Sherry
Levine made a work in photographing the photographs of Walker E vans,
the S chlegel B rothers re - poetized classical poems hy updating them to
the times of romantic poets. Meanwhile, the surrealists showed that the
most personal expressions of the absolute of desire and of dream could
coincide with the re cycling of out-of-use commodities or of old-fashioned
illustrations of magazines and catalogue s. The absolute and impersonal
author is the one that has a patrimony of art at his disposition, which can
be extended to any obj ect whats oever.
Thereby is a solidarity affirmed h etween the impersonality of the art ­
istic process and the indifference of its subj ects, which is borrowed from
the impersonality of ordinary life . Walter B enj amin showed how pho­
tography had become an art by renouncing the compo sition of th e can­
vass to appropriate the image of the anonymous. The photography of the
small fisheress of New Haven, he said, had done more for the glory of
D avid O ctavius Hill than his great pictorial compositions. Photography
thus set itself up in the wake o f the literary revolution which had

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 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

a s s i m i l a t e d , w i t h Fla u b e r t , t h e a b s o l u t e o f a book held solely b y i t s s t y l e

w i t h t he ha rnessed i m p e rs o n a l i t y of l a n g u a g e , of d reams, and of t h e lives
o f n o n descript indivi d u a l s . T h e c u l t o f a rt i s born with t h e a ffi rmation o f
t h e sp l e n d o u r of t h e a n o n y m o u s .
I n one s e n s e , we ca n s a y t h a t t h e perfo r m a n c e s a n d i n s t a l l a t i o n s o f
co n t e m po r a r y a rt carry t o i t s u l t i m a t e c o n s e q u e n ce t h e im perso n a l i t y o r
c r e a t i o n a n d t h e i n d i fference o f i t s m a t e ria l . S o p h i e C a l l e 's ' stolen ' i ma g e s
i n hot e l roOJl1 S w o u l d t h u s be t h e c o n t e mpora ry version o r t h e Journal
d ' ulli' fl'I1lIll C de chambre a n d , m o re b ro a d l y, o f t h e ro m a n t i c d ream of
e n t e r i n g i n to the l i fe o r a b s o l u t e l y a n y o n e . B u t p e r h a p s t h i � a p p a r e n t
con seq u e n ce concea l s a logical reversal w h i ch overtu r n s t h e n o t i o n of
t h e a u t h o r o t h e rwise than t h i s i s h a b i t u a l l y describe d : not i n m a k i n g it
d i s a p p ea r in the b a n a l i t y o f t h i n g s and the i n fi n i ty of repro d u ct i o n s b u t .
o n t he con t ra ry, i n liken i n g i t t o t h e p e r so n a l o w n e r s h i p o f t h e i d e a . T h e
F l a ubcrt i cl n i d ea o f t h e a b so l u t e w o r k com p e l l e d t h e novelist to i d e n t i fy
t h e sp il'n d o u rs of h i s p h ra s e with t h e repro d u ct i o n of t h e b a n a l i t y or t h e
world . T h e I d e a of t h e c o n t e m p o ra ry a rtist. on the c o n t ra ry, is wit h ­
d ra w n , h o v e r i n g i n su rvey o v e r t h e work of its rea lization . C h ri s t i a n
B o/ t a n s k i h i m s e l f had n o n e e d to a ffi x o n t h e wa ll the a n on y m o u s p h o ­
tographs w h i c h I i n l' t h e h a l l s o f e x h ib i t i o n s . A n d Lawrence Wei n e r h a d
n o n e e d to t a k e h i s r i f l e t o p ierce a miniscule h o l e in the m u s e u m wall
which co n s t i t u t e s his quasi -immaterial contribution to a rece n t
exhibi t ion .
W h a t gets lost. then, is n e i t h e r the a u t h o r 's personality n o r t h e work's
ma teriality. It i s the work b y which this persona lity i s supposedly altered
in this materiality. The work's retreat into t h e i d e a does not a n n u l the
ma terial reality o f the work. But i t tends t o transform the paradoxical
p rope rty o f t h e impers o n a l w o r k i n t o the l o g i c a l p roperty of a n invcn t o r's
p atent. The contemporary a ut h o r i s , in this s e n s e , m o r e strictly a p rop ­
e rty holder t h a n a n y a u t h o r h a s e v e r b e e n . T h e p a ct is t h u s broken
b e tween the impersonality o f art and that o f i t s material . While the for­
mer is closer to the property o f the idea, t h e l a t t e r tends to b e displaced
t owards the property of the i m a g e .
Generations of photographers h a v e m a d e a r t in capturing, in the streets
of great metropolises, fetes o f the suburbs o r popular b e a ches, everyday
o ccupations or the extraordinary p l e a sures o f the anonym o u s . To day
t hese a nonymou s indivi d u a l s a r e call e d u p o n t o make themselves recog­
nized, to recl a i m , i n s t e a d o f t h e imm o rtalization of art, more tangib l e

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 DEAT H OF T H E AUTHOR OR THE LIFE OF T H E A RTIST

rights over the property of the image that has been stolen from them.
Property does not dissolve itself i n t h e immateriality of the n etwork. O n
t h e contrary, it t e n d s to s t a m p with i t s s e a l a l l that is apt to enter the
sphere of art, to make art into a negotiation between owners o f i d e a s and
owners of imag e s .
This is doubtless t h e r e a s o n that autobiography, which makes b oth
properties coincide, takes up so much place in the art of our tim e . We
think of those writers who publish only the interminable jou rnal of their
life and their thoughts; of those photographers who privilege their own
image, such as C indy S h e rman, or the scenes of i ntimacy between close
relations, such as Nan Goldin; of those directors who, like Nanni Moretti,
compress their work on the epoch around the chronicle of their lives; of
those artists-installers who, like Mike Kelley or Annette Messa ger, p opu ­
late their works with the soft toys of their fantasies rather than with
hij acked obj e cts or images o f the world.
Today the author par excellence is suppose dly the one who exploits what
already belongs to him, his own imag e . The author is then no longer the
'spiritual histrion' of which Mallarme spoke, but the come dian o f his
image. The art of the comedian always tends towards a limit which is the
transformation of the simulacrum into reality. Working on the physical
remod elling of her face, Orlan is thus, in this sense, the typical artist of
our time. At the hour of universal digitalization, the ' death ' of which
Mallarme spoke still seems rather aliv e . A little too alive, indeed .

lOS
 CHAPTER TWENTY- S I X
T h e Log i c o f A m n e s i a , June 2003

' My memory 's giving out' - thus begins the song that serves a s t h e e m b l e m
of F ran cois Tr u ffa u t 's .lu les et Jim . 1 W h a t t h e h e ro i n e cou l d not reca l l very
w e ll was the beloved 's n a m e a n d e y e col o u r : ' We re they blue? Were they
g rey? . . . His name was, we c a l l e d h i m . . . What wa s his n a m e ? '
Forge t ting t h e sen sory q u alities o f a being e x t e rnal t o o n e s e l f genera l l y
p a sses as a benign form o f m e m ory tro ub l e . And the e m otion of love is
commonly a ssociated with thc impossibility of bcing a b l c to represent
a d equately its ca u s e . C l e a r l y more s e r i o u s is the fa ct of not remembering
a t the end of a sentence what one wanted to say in beginning it, or of
forgetting at the p o rt of arrivaL the reasons for which one l e lt on voyage .
S ti l l more seri o u s is the fact of forgetting in s uccession what one h a s said
and done .
This amnesia is at the h e a rt of o u r a c t u ality. Throughout the year, d a y
a fter day, 24 hours a day, George B us h a n d h i s a d visors, republica ns a n d
d e mocrats a n d a cohort of j o u rn a lists, e xperts and councillors in a l l
t hings, have gone untrammelled , o n e a fter the other, o n the s creens o f
C NN, F o x a n d so on to c x p r e s s the t e r r o r t h a t they f e l t a n d that we
s h o u l d all feel because of t h e weapo n s o f mass d e struction that are in the
p ossession of the Ira qi l e a d e r. However, t h e closcr t h a t t h e armies, sent
to incapa citate the possessor of these weapons, wcre to reaching their
g oal, the more this goal s e e m e d t o fa d e from memory, A s the troops
passed through, no weapons of mass d e s tr u ction were encountere d :
there was therefore no time to speak - o n the sa m e channels, which
were busy with narrating h o u r by hour what was happening - about the
non- information constitut e d b y t h i s non - encounter.

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 THE LOGIC OF A M N ESIA

Such i s precisely that i n which continuous information consists : it

only speaks about what it i s t h a t m a ke s up information : t h e felt threat,
expressed 2 4 hours a day; the intervention that responds to the threat .
Where can we find the time to recall the cause of the threat and t o a s k
whether the intervention has veri fi e d it? Where is the time left for sur­
prise about the fact that he who p o s s e s s e s the weapons of m a s s destruc­
tion forgets to use them or gets b u s y hiding them when he i s attacked?
S ome people could respond that the hypothetical possession of
weapons of mass destru ction was a s econdary issue as compa red to an
absolutely certai n realit y : that I r a q was governed b y a d i ctator. The
intervention found its ultimate legitimacy less in the neutralization of
the dictator's weapons than i n t h e g i f t given t o h i s people of t h e c o n ­
t r a r y of dictatorship, ca l l e d democracy or liberty.
There is not much difficultly i n having the idea acknowledge d that free ­
dom is preferable to dictatorship. The difficulty lies in knowing what this
freedom consists i n and to whom it falls to prefer it to servitude. One wh o
takes the trouble to bring freedom to others must suppose that it is a p o s ­
itive g o o d whose power alone dissipates t h e darknesses of the 'axis of evil'.
However, when interrogated over what he thought about the piJ lages in
B aghdad, the American minister of defence, who was the brains behind
operation Iraqi Freedom, responded singularly as follows: freedom is indi­
visible, it is therefore also the freedom to commit faults and crime s .
The problem i s that the Iraqis never lacked this latter freedom, nor did
others, and that on this count the dictator, too, was as free to commit crimes
or possess weapons of mass destruction as the pillagers were to strip his
palaces bare . This gift of freedom must b e understood other than as the free
will to choose between good and evil . It must be understood as the positive
good that constitutes, for a people, the possibility of self-government. It is
this good that the American armies allegedly brought to the Iraqi people in
ridding them of their dictator. Of course, to do this it was necessary to cast
definitively aside the rule of international law that prohibits one state from
m eddling in the domestic affairs of another. This barrier was at first only
timidly pulled down in the form of the 'right to humanitarian interference ' .
This right. initially claimed b y humanitarian organizations to save popula­
tions in danger of extermination, was taken up from them, at the charge,
by the great powers . A superior right was thus set over against the tradi­
tional rules of international law, namely the absolute right of the victim of
absolute wrong. The victim of absolute wrong is the one who has no way

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a t all of asserting his rig h t s . It follows q u ite obviously that this right which
p revails over every rule of law can only be e xercised by another, in simple
t e rms by a foreign army of i n tervention.
How ca n this right o f e x ception become t h e rule? F o r t h i s to occur, the
p ri va t i on o f political lib e rty must itself b e i d en t i fi ed with the situation of
.:l hsol ute d i stress which j u s t i fi e s t h e i n t e rvention of t h e rig h t e r o f wrongs.
N o w, the su ffe r.:l nce o f b e i n g d e p rived o f polit ical liberty i s more d i ffi cult
t o verify than t h a t of being t h ro w n i n to t h e streets after having seen
o n e 's h O ll se b u rn t down a n d fa m i l y e x t ermi n a t e d . U n l e s s one makes an
a rgument of the very a b s e n ce o f s u ffe rin g to identify both situations a n d
l e g i t i m a t e the interventi o n . S o w h a t i s , i t will b e a s k e d , t h e well - k n own
COllsequence of dictatorsh i p ? It is to t a k e away from t h e s u bj u gated t h e
t a ste o f freedom, t h u s the s u ffering o f i t s privation . The impossibi lity t h a t
t hey h a v e t o demand t h e i r fre e d o m i s t h erefore the absol ute s u ffering
which m a k e s it incumbent upon oth e rs t o hand it to them, were i t by the
l orcl' of arms.
The arg u m e n t h e re becomes somewhat s u btle a n d , ra ther than t h e
orators o f Fox News, it i s t h e p h i l osophers w h o ta k e o n t h e o n u s of h a n d ­
l in g it. O n the eve of t h e confl i ct, a F r e n c h philosopher published a
c h ronicle in Le Monde in w h i ch he got right into t h o s e impenitent paci­
fists who raised the q u e s t i o n o f whether p e oples could, despite them ­
s elves, really be given the gift of fre e d o m . 2 Let us not a s k peoples what
they want, h e repli e d . The response i s pretty well known . E v e n s i n ce t h e
y e a r 1 5 7 6 when E t i e n n e d e La B oetie published his Traitt de La servitude
volontaire, we have knowll t h a t w h a t p e ople want i s to be alienated. Little
matter by what: consumption, religions, symbols . They have always
want e d it and always wil l . S o . . .
So, what? That i s the prob l e m . F r o m this affirma t i o n , i t i s possible t o
conclude everything - a n d i t s contrary. First concl u s i o n : since t h e y want
t o be alienated, they m u s t b e allowed their masters. Second concl u sion:
t hey must be liberated despite themselves, though they may u s e this
l iberty to alienate themselves a n e w. Third conclusio n : since, i n a n y case,
t hey will be alienated, they must b e alienated b y b e t t e r masters, by free
masters . I t rema i n s of c o u r s e to know why the people thus b u rd e n e d
with imposing its fre e d o m on o t h e r s i t s e l f e s capes the u niversal prefer­
ence of peoples for s e rvit u d e .
T n philosophy, this i s calle d a n undetermin e d argument: an argument
s uch that, the premises being posited, a n y conclusion can b e deduce d from

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 THE LOG IC OF A M N ESIA

them. An undetermined finite argument completes the spiral specific to

the p olitics of amnesia . The conqueror forgets what it is that he went to
look for. The j ournalist forgets to ask him if he found it. The politician who
exults the freedom brought to the oppressed manu militari forgets that he
has, over the course of decades, designated the specificity of totalitarian ­
ism as a desire to want to give p e ople happiness despite themselves . The
philosopher forgets, in the m iddle of his argument, that nothing can be
deduced from it other than the equivalence of all the conclusions .
Our present is readily described a s the age of amnesi a . Ord inarily, the
fault for this i s laid on the new technologies of memory and of commun­
ication. They say that the television, the Internet and the reign of com­
munication has made u s forgetful by imposing on us their limitless
present and their reality itself indis sociable from simulation. B u t this
amounts to charging technology with more crimes than it can commit .
The information machines communicate what their masters make them
communicate . The explanation must rath er be sought on the side of the
masters . It is the absorption of politics in the pure exercise of limitless
power which imposes this continuous amnesia and this loss o f reason in
the indefinite. The logic of global government is that of an indistinction
wherein all differences are abolis h e d . For this govern ment's only affair i s
with an evil posited as infinite and a terror which is withou t before o r
afterwards.
Not long ago 'infinite j u stice' was the name working to enshrine the
vanishing of all the distincti ons that had hitherto served to delimit j us t ­
ice: private vengeance and public sanction, war and police operation,
politics, law, morality and religion, all likewise engulfed in the infinite
war of good against evil . The indistinctness of power now extends i t s
reign to t h e abolition of temporal differences, to t h e reign of this uninter­
rupted present where the before and the afterward are no more distin ­
guishable than the cause and the effect o r the means and the end.
Formerly it was said that power would always find the facts and the
arguments it needed to legitimate itself. Today, it is instead the forgetting
of facts and the impossibility of s eeing to the end of one's reasoning
which accompanies the deployment of superpower. Not simply is it that
these things s e rve its desires better. More radically, it is perhaps because
the specific element of limitless power is to remember no longer what it
was that it wanted, to destroy the very time in which it might be able to
remember.

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 CHAPTER TWENTY- S EVEN
The Insec u rity P r i n c i p l e, Sep tember 2003

I n t h i s s u m m e r of 2 0 0 3 , in w h i c h t h e American govern m e n t h a s h a d to
con front the u n foreseen c o n s e q u ences o f i t s victori o u s ca m p a i g n i n Iraq,
the French govern m e n t w a s called t o t a s k hy another u n foreseen e n t' m y,
t h e heatwave, which k i l l e d more t h a n ten t h o u s a n d people in a mon t h .
What i s t h e rel a t i o n between t h e I r a q i politico- military f u r n a ce a n d t h e
1I Il u s u a l severity of t h e Fre n c h s u m m er? T h a t of h i g h l i g h t i n g t h e i n crea s ­
i ngly massive rol e t h a t the obsession w i t h securitization p l a y s in s o - ca l l e d
a dvan c e d states.
The stated goal of Iraq campaign w a s t o r e s p o n d to t h e t hreat pre ­
sented by a rogue state, possessor o f weapons o f m a s s destruction able to
reach western states i n less t h a n a n h o u r. There is little p l a u s i b i l i t y to t h e
notion t h a t American a n d B ri t i s h lea ders really believed t h e tall-tale told
about this threat, brandished t o muster t h e s u pport of their fell ow­
citizens for t h e war. I t remains t o fi n d o u t w h y t h e y needed a war against
a danger that t h e y knew n o t to exist. I f t h e traditional economist expla n a ­
t i on that sees some oil - related a ffair b e h i nd every conflict of o u r time
leaves u s unsatisfied, then i s i t perhaps necessary to invert the terms of
the problem . I f the war w a s necessary, i t w a s not to respond t o a s i t u ­
ation, re a l or imagin a ry, of i n s e c u ri ty. I t was to m a i n t a i n t h i s sentiment
o f insecurity, necessary t o the good functioning of states.
In view of the most common a nalyses of the relation between our
societ i e s a n d their governments t e l l u s , t h i s might seem absurd. These
a n alyses are apt to describe contemporary capitalist states a s e xercisin g a
power that is i ncrea singly diluted a n d i n v i s ible, synchronous with the
fl ows of commo d i t i e s and of communication. The advanced capita l i s t

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 THE I NSECURITY P R I N C I PLE

state is said to b e one of automatic consensus, of painless adj u stment

between the collective negotiation o f power and the i ndivid ual negoti­
ation of pleasures within mass democratic society. It functions to take the
heat out of conflicts and to divest values.
The present uproar over weapons, the renewed hymns to God a nd the
flag, and the revival of some of the grossest state propaganda lies would
seem to undermine this dominant view. In those places where the com­
modity reigns limitlessly, in post-Reagan America and post-Thatcherite
England, the form of optimal consensus is not that of the management
state; it is that cemented b y the fear of a society grouped around the pro­
tectionist police stat e . In denouncing the illusions of consensus, we still
conceived of the consensual state in terms of the tradition of the State of
arbitration applying itself to minimal forms of wealth redistribution appro ­
priate t o maintaining social peace. Now, a s the state tends to unburden
itself of its functions of social regulation to give free run to the law of Capi­
tal, consensus adopts an apparently more archaic face. The consensual
state in its accomplished form is not the management state. It is the state
reduced to the purity of its essence, that is, the police state . The commun ­
ity of sentiment which supports this state and which this state turns to its
advantage - aided by a media which clearly does not have to b e owned by
the state to support its propaganda - is the community of fear.
The American government's conflict with 'old E urope' consists per­
haps in a contrast between two t yp e s of consensual state, whe re the one
that is most 'advanced' is not the one we may think. B u t insecurity is
also o n the agenda in old E urope, a n d in forms that a r e more fragmented,
indeed more tortuous, than tho s e o f the great crusade against the axis of
Evil. As such, the last French presidential election presented a remark­
able combat - or a remarkable complicity - between rival forms of insec­
urity. The discourse proferred by the rightwing can didate about the
extreme rightwing candidate was built entirely around the the m e of the
insecurity caused b y immigration. The official right candidate p roclaimed
that immigration alone was capable of fighting effectively against this
insecurity. Lastly, the left rushed to the rescue of the right candidate,
holding him up as the last rampart of democracy against the supreme
cause of insecurity - the danger of the totalitarian pest.
Since this time, the defence of endangered democracy and the fight
against threatening insecurity have tended to become more discree t . The
priorities adopted by the French government have concentrat e d on the

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 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TI M ES

' m oderniza t i o n ' of the state a n d co u n t ry, t h a t is to say t h e lightening o f

t h e s t a t e 's soci a l b u rd e n . B u t i n se c u r i t y i s t h e reby rep resented w i t h a
n e w fa ce. Over the cou rse of A u g u st . the government fo u n d itself accused
o f i t s lack o f foresigh t . which ended u p leaving t h o u s a n d s o f old fol k s to
perish a s vict i m s of this ra re heat wave. T h e president defended h i m s e l f
lll eekly a n d i n i t ia t e d a n i n q u cs t i n t o the co n d i t i o n s of t h a t neglige nce,
but in so d o i n g he de facto con fi r m e d the notion e x p rcssed by t h i s op i n ­
ion, t h a t he o u g h t . i f not e x a c t l y t o m a k e ra i n a n d good wea t h e r, t h e n a t
l e a s t t o predi ct t h e co n s e q u e nces of t e m p e ra t u re change for divers e ca t ­
egories o f t h e popu l a t i o n .
H l'fe aga i n , we a re faced w i t h a n appa rently paradox ical a n d n l've r t h e ­
l c s , logical sit u a t i o n . E x a c t l y w h e n t h e gove r n m e n t , accord i n g to g o o d
l i be ra l doctri n e, p l e d g e s t o lower t a x es , r e d u ces p u b l i c s p e n d i n g o n
h ea l t h a n d c u t s d o w n on t h e t r a d i t i o n a l s y s t e m s of s o c i a l p ro t ect ion, it
a cce p t s its respo n s i b i l i t y for the acci d e n t s t h a t might be t rigge red by c l i ­
lll iltic cha nges. R i g h t when t h e state docs l e s s f o r o u r h e a l t h , it d eci d e s t o
d o more f o r o u r lives. I
It is not certain t h a t t h i s c h a n g e w i l l grea t l y re d u ce state s p e n d i n g .
What i t will d o , h oweve r, i s cha nge t h e relation between i n d i v i d u a l s a n d
t he state. It was only y e s t e r d a y t h a t offi ci a l h y m n s still s a n g t h e benefits
o f responsibility a n d o f t a k i n g i n d ivi d u a l risks a s opposed t o t h e ca u t i o u s
' p ri vileges' a fforded by t h e systems o f soci a l protection . Tod a y i t i s m o r e
t h a n evident that the w e a k en i n g o f systems of social p rotection also
i n volves establishing a n e w r e l a t i o n between individ u a l s a n d a state
power that i s made a cco u n t a b l e for secu rity in general. for all the forms
of security against threats t h a t are themselves multifo r m : terrorism and
I s l a m i sm, but also the h e a t a n d the cold. This French s u m m e r will leave
u s with the abiding fe eling t h a t we have still n o t taken enough preca u ­
t iol15 aga i n st the inherent threat. t h a t i s , h e a t . Tha t i s , the feeling that w e
h a v e n o t b e e n protect e d e n o ugh a g a i n s t thre a t s and that we need
increasingly more protection - against known threats a n d against those
t h a t we haven't even susp ecte d .
The f a u l t t h a t o u r gove r n m e n t s r e c o g n i z e , or a re a c c u s e d of, w i t h
respect to the protection o f t h e i r p o p u l a t i o n s t h u s p lays on its counter­
e f fect . In not prote cting us wel l , gove r n m e n t s prove that they a re there
t o protect u s IIlore t h a n ever and that mOTe than ever we must pull tight
a round them . That the A m e r i c a n gove r nment was u n a b l e t o protect
i t s population aga i n s t an extensively premed itated attack proves

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 THE I NSECURITY P R I N C I P L E

superlatively t h a t its very m i s s i o n consists in preventative protection

against a n invisible a n d omnipres e nt t h r e a t . T o foresee dangers i s one
thing; to manage the s e ntiment of i n s e c u rity is a nother, on e in which
the state will a lways b e more expert, p erhaps because it is the ve ry prin­
ciple of its p ower. Preva i l i ng opinion has it that the development of
secu rity rationales a r e the defensive reactions occasioned by the d a n ­
g e r s t h a t weigh on a dva nced societies t o d a y from t h e reactive attit u d e s
of d i sempowe r e d popUlations, w h o a r e b e i n g pushed b y p ove r t y l owa rds
fanaticism and terroris m . B u t nothing indicates that either the Cll rrent
militaro -police campaigns or s e c u rity regulations will lead to a reduc­
tion in the gap between the rich and the poor said to constitute the
perma nent threat weighing o n adva nced countrie s . If I ran is i nva d e d
a f t e r I raq, t h e r e will still b e nigh on sixty ' r o g u e states ' left that th reaten
the s e c u r it y of rich count r ie s .
More, for o u r countries, inse curity is essentially much more than a set
of fact s . It is a mode of management of collective life . The daily m e dia
management of all forms of danger, risk and catastrophe - from tcrror­
isms to heat waves - not to mention the intellectual tsunami of cata ­
strophe discourses and the morality of the lesser evil suffice to show that
the theme of insecurity has unlimited resources at its disposa l . T h e d ecla ­
ration of hostility by e nlightened opinion against the Iraq campaign per­
haps might not have b e en s o vociferous had the operations been aimed at
toppling governments in cou ntries whose lack of foresight ris ked trigger­
ing some climatic, ecological, health or other type of catastrophe . The
sentiment of insecu rity is not an archaic tension that has res ulted from
circumstances in themselves transitory. It is a mode of management of
states and of the planet that is geared towards reproducing and renewing,
in circular fashion, the very circumstances that maintain it.

113
 CHAPTER TWE NTY- E I G HT
The New Ficti o n s of Evi l , No vember 2003

E v i l is d o i n g we l l . I n t h e s h a d o w s of t h e g re a t B u s h i a n mise-en -scene of
t he f i g h t aga i n s t t h e a x i s of t h e s a m e n a me, severa l p i e c e s of fi c t i o n
h ave been pro d ll c e d rece n t l y t h a t a re d e d i c a t e d to prese n t i n g t h e C f ll ­
s a d e i n i t s i nverted vers ion : s h ow i n g t h e way i n w h i c h t h i s A m e r ica , a s
i t h u n t s down deat h - m a kers a c r o s s t h e e n t i re s u rface o f t h e globe, fi n d s
t h e m aga i n a t h o m e , a t t h e h e a rt o f t h e w i d e mapl e - l i ned avenues a n d
t h e modern a n d conv i v i a l s c h o o l s of m i d d l e A merica , i n t h e fig u re of
h onou rable citizens a n d o f a d o l e s ce n t s l i ke a l l o t hers .
E v i l i s not v i o l e n c e . V i o l e n c e c a n b e d o m e s t icated i n va r i o u s ways . O n
t h e one h a n d , i t ca n b e d e a l t w i t h a s a p u r e i n t e n s i t y : t h u ndero u s
e x plosion s , s t rea m s of b l o o d a n d b u i l d i ngs c ol l a p s i n g i n fl a m e s a re
t hus, l i ke deluges of d e c i b e l s o r s p e c t a c u l a r camera move m e n t s , p u r e
i nt e n s i t i e s w h i ch m a ke u p t h e enj oy m e n t o f a spect a cle f r o m w h i c h
o n e leaves a s o n e entere d . From t h i s v i ew p o i n t , t h e n , violence h a s no
reperc u s s i o n s . From a n o t h e r, on t h e cont r a r y, it lend s i t s e l f to t h e g a m e
o f d i fferences a n d of cau s e s . T h e r e i s g o o d a nd b a d v i olence . N o t too
l o ng ago at the cinema, freela nce s h e r i f f s a nd righters o f w r o n g s u s e d t o
wield, without i n h ibition, t h e violence o f t h e c o m m o n law, o r of m o r a l ­
i t y, aga i n s t the v i olence o f t h o s e w h o followed t h e law o u t o f mere
g reed.
O n the world s t age, we r e d iscover, u n d e r an elapsed f o r m , a n opp o s i ­
t ion of t h e s a me t y p e : a s w a s s a i d i n t h e t i m e s o f S a rtre a n d Frantz
Fanon, t here i s v i olence wh ich oppr e s s e s a n d v iolence w h i c h l i b e rates .
Th is d i fference c o u l d be m a d e b e c a u s e it was p o s s i ble t o a s s i g n cau s e s
t o t h e violence, t o r e f e r i t b a c k t o a m o r e h i d d en violence, namely the

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 THE NEW FICTI ONS OF E V I L

violence of order and prop erty. O n t h i s basis, political scenarios were

devised about the toughness required for j u stice, or aesthe t i c scenarios
p resenting confrontations between these types of vio l ence.
Today, to all appearances, these scenarios provoke suspicion. Michael
Moore's Bowling for Columbine attests to this i n its own way. The a r g u ­
ment according to w h i c h ' t h e r e are c r i m e s because there are weapons
that a nyone at a l l can buy' straddles an awkward position between two
different logic s . According to the old logic, the causal schema would
involve not simply pitting b etween a lobby group's interests against an
American i d e a l of virility, but the very fact of living in a society i n
w h i c h everyth ing i s bought. I f Moore stops causal chain whe r e he does,
this is of cou rse because it corresp ond s to the contemp orar y forms of
l eft consciousness, which a r e more attached to the regulation of dan­
gerous products than to the critique of property as such. But i n addition
it l eaves the way free for another form of causality, namely t h at which
refers the finite fact of s u c h - a n d - s uch a murderous act to t h e i n fi nite
fact of evi l .
In effect, t h e t h i n g a b o u t evil i s t h a t i t cannot be righted except at the
price of a nother evil wh ich remains i rreducible . There is a shared trait
in t h r e e recent fi l m s t h a t s p e a k to u s of evi l in general a n d o f A merican
evil in particular: Dogville, Mystic River and Elephant. In these films the
law is either radical ly abs ent ( Elephant), or else the accomplice of e v i l :
t h a t is, insofar a s it designates the victim t o su ffer a n d leaves the care o f
punishing t h e tort urers to the b a ndits ( Dogville) ; o r insofar a s i t leaves
unpunished the crime of the honest family father/gangsterlrighter of
wrongs (Mystic River) . O f these no doubt it is Dogville that best shows the
gap b etween the two d ifferent logics, which also form a gap between
the two e ra s . Its abstract m ise-en -scene, which compares the fi ctive space
of the cinema to the real space of the theatre, its comp osition in smal l
acts, which functions a s s o m a ny mora l ta l es, a n d t h e distancing r o l e o f
t h e voice o f f - a l l t h e s e featu res r e c a l l t h e theatrical origin of t h e p a r­
able which Lars von Trier prop oses to u s . The principles of this mise­
en-scene are inherited from B r echt 's 'epic theatre '. And the story of
disillusionment endured by the young woman with blue eyes who
wants to do good, but i s unable to, irrepressibly recalls Die Heilige Johanne
der Schliichthofe. More, it a l s o comes to the same conclusion, na mely that
doing good in a b a d world i s impossible a n d s o violence is necessary.
B ut that is where the analogy stop s . Instead of C h icago, of capitalist

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 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

s pe c u l a t i o n a n d m i s e r y or worker r e v o l t , we h a ve a l o s t h o l e of a place
somewhere in hea r t l a n d A m e r i c a , c o m lll u n i t y s e r v i c e s , a nd t h l' b a n a l ­
i t y of e v i l a lllong good peopl e .
S o t h e new Joa n o f A rc i s n o l o n g e r a p a ro d y o f C h r i s t , who offe r s h e r
l i fe u p for t h e peopl e 's r e d e m p t i o n a n d d i scovers t h e t e r r e s t r i a l rea l it ie s
o f c l a s s st ru g g l e . Grace ( wh o i s g ra c e i t s e l f ) b e c o m e s a C h r i s t i c fi g u re ii
la D o s t oyevs k y, a n e nvoy from t h e E l s e w h e r e who encou n t e rs t h e t a s te
o f ex ploi t a t io n a n d h u m i l i a t i o n i n fl i c t e d upon o t h e r s i n the t i n i e s t a nd
most peacefu l cel l s of t h e s o ci a l b o d y. T h e e v i l i nc a r n a t e d , i n p a r t i c u l a r,
by t h e pervers i t y of t h e l i t t l e J a s o n , w h o a s k s G race for a s pa n k i n g a s a
proof of l ove a n d t h e n u s e s it a ga i n s t h e r, c a n not be rem e d i e d by a n y
s t rugg l e . Th i s i s what i s show n by t h e a mb i g u i ty o f t h e p h o t o g r a p h s
t h a t accompa n i es t h e fi l m 's c l o s i n g c r e d i t s : photo g r a p h s by Wa l k e r
Eva m , D o rothea L a nge a n d o t h e r p h o t o g r a p h e r s , a l l of w h o m b e M w i t ­
n ess t o t h e e ra o f t h e G re a t D e p r e s s i o n a n d t h e socia l com m i t m e n t of
a r t i s t s . S i m p l y, we a re ! e l l wo n d e r i n g w h e t h e r t he s e photos h a v e b e e n
s h own to u s to rem i n d u s of a s o c i a l i n j u s t ic e w h i c h n o one c a n p u t
r ight, or to h a v e it u nd er s t o o d t h a t t h e fa m o u s m e n o f J a m e s Agee a n d
Wa l ker E va n s h ave t u r n e d i n t o t h e s m a l l m o n s ters of h e a r t l a nd A m e r­
i c a . B u t one t h i n g is certa i n : no l o n g e r is it s o ci a l s t r u g g l e t h a t m e a s u res
up t o t h e evil that Grace e n c o u n t e r s . The w i l l to d o good n o longer
proves to be a n a ive t y t h a t n e e d s e n l ig h t e n i n g . T h e L o r d , G r a c e ' s f a t h e r,
w h o rese rves a l l venge a n c e for h i m sel f, is i d e n t i c a l to t h e k i n g o f t h u g s
wh o renders j u s t ice to h u m a n i t y i n t h e f o r m of a ra d i ca l p u rg i ng .
Th i s v i s io n of e v i l a n d o f j u s t ic e r a i s e d some h a c k l e s , a n d n o t o n l y
A me r i c a n ones . T h e p r e s i d e n t o f t h e F e s tiva l o f C a n n e s e x p l i c i t l y s a i d
t h a t a fi l m t h a t i s s o fa r removed f r o m h u m a n sent i me n t s c a n n o t b e
awa rded a p r i z e . Mystic River, no d o u b t , r e s p onds to t h e c r i t e r i a o f
h u m a n i s m s u c h a s t h e y o u g h t t o b e held b y t h e C a n ne s J u r y. B u t i t a l s o
shows u s t h a t ' hu m a n i s m ' i t s e l f h a s c h a n g e d . I n for m e r t i m e s , h u m a n ­
i sm was a fa i t h i n t h e h u m a n c a p a c i t y t o create a world a s j u s t a s was
p e r m it t e d by t he equ a l l y h u m a n capa c i t y for wea k n e s s . Today, i t r a t h e r
con s i s t s i n t e s t i f y i n g to t h e i mp o s s i b il it y o f a n y s u c h j u s t i c e . We engage
in too much wrongdoing to be able to a ff o r d the l u x u r y of being j u st ,
s uch i s the m e a n i ng of the m u t e g es t u r e s e x c h a nged a t the fi l m 's end b y
t h e u npu n i shed assassin a n d t h e cop t h a t s h a r e s h i s s e c r e t . S e a n and
J i lll m y a rc g u i lt y of h av i n g once l e d t h e t i m i d Dave a s t r a y w i t h t h e i r
s t r e e t games, g u i lt y of h a v i n g l e t g e t away those paedop h i l e s p o s i ng as

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policemen, who s e questered and rap e d him. The trauma suffered was
irrepa rable . And, according to the logic of this irrepa rabi lity, t h e adult
D ave would b e beset with presumptions of guilt in rel ation t o t h e mur­
der of Jimmy 's daughter and b e come a victim of Jimmy 's act of s u m ­
mary j u stice a g a i n s t h i m .
T h e whole structure of t h e fi l m s e e m s t o consist in the distending of
a small episode from one of the pioneer films of the America n way of
the last 3 0 yea r s : Once upon a time in America. The camera of Sergio L eone
has u s r e a d t h e decision of a killer i n the face of a powerless child whom
he will shoot dow n . It thus has u s enter into a confusing collusion with
the killer's enj oyment and the child's wait for the inevitable. Mystic River
similarly presents a long chronicle of a death announced long b e fore­
hand . The mental a nd p erceptual la ndscape of this putting to d e ath -
overthrowing the classic s cenario of the falsely accused by a s cenario of
the promised victim - is comp o s e d by the nocturnal atmo sphere in
which D avid turns - and the camera arollnd him - as if in an aquarium,
the gesticulations and howls o f Jimmy and his two acolyte s a n d the
fury of the orga n . The fi l m's moral - the mora l that it stage s and t h e
m o r a l of i t s staging - m i g h t b e s u m m e d u p thus: since we 've a l l killed a
child, it may as well be done properly. Clint E a stwood was compl i ­
mented for having avoided the variou s 'manicheisms' of Michael Moore
and Lars von Trier. O n closer e x a m i nation, this 'non -ma nicheism', t h i s
acceptance of inj u stice in the name of evil, we see a homogeneity
between it and the prevailing d i s course against the axis of E v i l . A s a l l
o f us a r e s avage s, a l l potential murderers, we ought to accept the work
of j ustice. But for the s a m e reason, we must not demand that j u stice b e
too j u s t . T h e struggle a g a i n s t i n finite e v i l will produce blunders, will
create victims, in the working class areas of B oston a s much as i n t h o s e
of A rab town s .
The film Eleph a n t dispenses with all considerations of j ustice and a l l
causal schema s . I f C lint E a stwood's ' Freudianism' resides i n its demon­
stration of i rrepa rable traum a , Elephan t 's lies in its a n a lysis of a psych­
osis: the a dol escents i n the film live in an 'inno cent ' world, a world
from which sin, the law and authority are radically absent . The a lcoholic,
depressed father, whose sons treat him a s a child, is the sole repre sent­
ative of the pa rental instance. But no psychological causa lity is implied
here . John, son o f t h e d i s g raceful father, is precisely neither c u lprit nor
victim . Throughout the film his presence functions only a s t h at of a

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w i t ness who a s s u res t h e c o n t i nu i t y t h ro u g h o u t t h e b r o k e n n a r ra t i o n .

A n d in comp a r i son w i t h t h e l i t t l e J a s o n , i t s t w o m u rderers appea r
rat h e r ca n d id . No psycholog y of f i l i a t i o n a n d i t s t roubles, n o r a ny t h e o ­
l o g y of e v i l com e s t o replace t h e va n i s h e d s o c i o - p o l i t i c a l h o r i zo n .
There i n r e s i d e s t h e fi l m 's e n t i re p r i n c i p l e . I n co n t r a s t to t h e h e a v i n e s s
o f t h e t ra u m a i n w h i c h C l i n t E a s t wo o d 's e x pre s s i o n i s t m ise-cn-scene
p\Jces LI S , G u s Va n S a n ! , l i k e La rs von T r i e r, e x h ibits a com m i t m e n t to
concept u a l a b s t ra c t i o n i n t u r n i ng t h e m ise-en -scene i n t o the rigoro u s
d e m o n s t ration o f a p o i n t of v i ew. T h i s p o i n t of v i e w i s t h a t t h ere i s n o
reason for c r i m e, o t h e r t h a n t h e v e r y a b s e n ce o f rea s o n s . H i s mise - c n ­
scenc is t h e long m a n i fe s t a t i o n o f t h i s a b s e n c e . T h e p r i m a ry school i s
s t r a ngely i n habited . T h e l a n g u age l a boratory where t h e k i l l e rs store
t h e i r equ ipment i s a s d e s e r t e d a s t h e g y m n a s i u m t h ro u g h w h i c h t h e
' u llcom for t able-wit h - h i m se l f ' a d ol e s c e n t c r o s s e s . T h e s e ro o m s present
i ll adva nce the void t h a t the m u r d e ro u s a d o l e scent w i l l c o n t e m p l a t e at
t h e e n d a s his own work . T h e ca m e ra fol l ows a t l e n g t h t h e t w i s t s a n d
t u r n s of bod i e s fi l med f r o m b e h i n d t h ro u g h a l m ost d e serted co r r i d o r s .
Th i s s p a c e without con s i s t e n c y - w h i c h i s a l s o often f u z z y - a l re a d y
re sembles t h e s p a c e of t h e s c r e e n o n w h i c h t h e t w o a d o l e s c e n t s order
t h e i r weapon s a nd o n w h i c h o n e of t h e m t e s t s h i m s elf o n a ga m e of
massacre w h ile t h e o t h e r contents h i m se l f with m a s s a c r i n g B ee t h oven
on the piano. And, in re t u r n , i t i s a s s o m e v i de o - ga m e c r e a t u re o n a
screen t h a t A lex w i l l a p p e a r a t t h e e n d i n t h e gaze o f t h e two a doles­
cents pro m i sed to d e at h . But t h e e n d of the fi l m w i l l leave t h e prom i s e d
dea t h h a n g i n g i n s u s p e n s e .
Th i s s uspended end i s e m b le m a t i c o f t h e fi l m 's e n t i re m e t h o d . I n t h e
cool room , A l e x i s f r a m e d b y s i d e s o f m e a t , enj o y i n g for an e t e r n it y
f r o m t h e delay g r a n t e d t o / i mp o s e d o n t h e t w o adolescents; a ll we h e a r
a re thei r plead i n g voi c e s . S e r g i o L e o n e , n a t u r a l l y, comes a ga i n t o m i n d .
B u t these q u a rters o f m e a t u s e d t o f r a m e t h e c h i l d - k il l e r t a ke us e v e n
f u r t her b a c k i n the h i s t o r y o f c i n e m a . T h e y b r i ng t o m i n d t h e a b a t t oi rs
that E i s e n s t e i n i ntroduced s y m b o l i c a l l y i nt o h i s fi l m Strike, t o wh i c h s o
m a ny ll l m m a kers h a v e p a i d m o r e o r l e s s e x p l i c i t v i s u a l h o m a g e . B ut
here the s y m b o l i c s ig n i fi c a t i o n ( m e a t / b l o o d / v i olence) i s a b s orbe d . A l l
that rema i n s i s t h e c o o l r o o m , w h i c h c o n d e n ses t h e cold o f t h e cor­
ridors a n d e m p t y r o o m s , l i ke t h a t o f t h e computer s c r e e n o r t h e
B e e thoven 'cl a i r de l u n e ' . Ult i ma t e l y a l l t h a t rema i n s i s c i nem a 's own
self- d e s i g n a t i o n , t h e comm i t me n t of t h e fi l m m a k e r a s t h e c o n s t r u c t o r

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of this cool room i n which nor m a l ity and monstrosity, r e a s on a nd

absence of reason enter into equivalence . The final shot tells u s : a l l this
is only a film.
The staging o f t h e killers a n d that o f t h e filmmaker, t h e n , are mir­
rored i n one a nother. The fi l mm aker, like the k i llers, puts into play a
principle of interruption. I n his cool room just like in the room and o n
t h e s c r e e n o f the t w o k i l l e r s , the endless wandering th rough the cor­
ridors and the interminable circulation of empty words - those of the
t h re e sma l l pa rakeets or of the a s sociation homo-hetero - b e come
blocked, fram e d , subj ect to a p r inciple of closure. The fi 1 m 's lesson
would lie here . It posits a good kind of interruption to respond to the
bad kind. 'Make love, not wa r ', p eople used to say in the times of viol­
ence . 'Make films, not m a s sacres ', such would be, with Gus Va n S a nt,
the formu la of a n ethics s u ited to those of evi l . Unfortunately not every­
body can make cinem a .

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 CHAPTER TWENTY- N I N E
Cri m i n a l D e m o c ra cy? March 2004

A few m o n t h s ago i n F ra nce, t h e re a p p e a r e d a work i nt r ig u i n g l y t i t l e d :

Us Pl'I1chants crimin els de I ' Eu rope democratique. 1 The a u t h or, Jea n - C l a u d e
M i l n e r, d i d n o t l e a v e rea d e r s i n t h e d a rk fo r l o n g a s t o t he c r i m e o f
w h i c h democracy w a s , accord i ng to h i m , g u i l t y. V i a t h e e x t re m e s u b ­
t l eness of a demon s t r a t i o n t h a t mobi l i ze s a l l t h e resou rces o f p h i l o ­
s ophy a nd l i n g u i s ti c s , o f p s y c h o a n a l y s i s a nd of h i story, t h e a rg u m e n t
a dva nced i s s i m p l e . The c r i m e t h a t E u ropea n d e m o c r a c y bea rs with i n
i t , q u i t e s i m ply, i s t h e e x t e rm i n a t i o n o f t h e Jews o f E u rope . There would
be little poi nt in respo n d i n g t h a t t h e Nazi reg i m e that had p l a n n e d t h i s
e x ter m i n a t i o n wa s not c l a m o u r i n g f o r d e m o c ra c y. The a rg u m e n t , p r e ­
c i sely, i s i nve rted : w h a t . accord i n g to M i l ne r, m a d e t h e construct i o n o f
a Eu rope resting on t h e p r i nciple of democracy possible a fter 1 9 4 5 is
prec i s e l y the fact t h at N a z i s m , in t h e ye a r s preced i n g , h a d e l i m i n at e d
t he el ement t h a t thwa rt e d i t s a dvent, n a mely the e x i s t ence of a s t rong
Jewish comm u n it y i n E u ro p e .
Th i s u nverifi able h i storica l a rg u ment c l e a rl y n e e d e d b a ck i n g u p by a
t heoretica l a rg u m e n t , w h i c h r u n s as follows : t h e reign of modern
democracy is one of a society that will consider no l i m it to i t s powe r s .
Th i s l i m i t lessness i s illustrated i n p a r t ic u l a r i n contempora r y drea m s of
genetic manipu l a t io n , w h i c h a b o l i s h the last d i f ference between n a t u re
a n d a rtifice a n d give c hildren created in vitro to homo s e x u a l couple s .
Now, t h e tendency of modern d e m o c ratic s o ciety to want t o take its
l i m itless power to the point o f a b o l is h i n g fi l i a tion encounte r s an irre­
ducible enemy : t h e people who gather under the principle of fi l i ation
and transmission, that i s , t h e J e w i s h people. The conclu s i o n followed as

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a matter of cou r s e : in a n n i h i l at i ng the Jews, Hitler realized t h e intim­

ate dream of democracy a nd a llowed it to prevail in E u rope .
A s extreme a s i t i s , t h i s demonstration h a s n o trouble blending into
the present-day landscape o f political and philosophical thought. This
landscape, we k now, endured a maj or change during the 1 9 8 0 s . Until
then, the s o - called western world laid claim to a certain idea of demo ­
cracy, conceived as a j u ridico - p olitical syste m . Accordingly some con­
trast its u n ive r s a l law and individual liberties to totalitarian coercion.
Others denounced the r e a l ity of economic exploitation and class dom­
ination concealed b e n e a t h its universal forms. Real democ racy aga inst
form a l democracy or, conve r s ely, the rights of democratic m a n agai n s t
totalitarianism - such was the landscap e . T h e opposition, doubtless,
authorized a few m e diations : the p a rtisans of real demo c racy could
show themselves t o b e more attentive i n the defence of formal liberties
than the champions of l i b e r a l democracy themselve s . And the latter,
from their side, would hlame democracy's weaknes s e s or excesses for
the advent of totalitarian r e g i me s . B u t i t was too f a r t o leap from there
to the idea that the extermination of the Jews was the direct realization
of the democratic pri nciple .
To overcome such a b a ffl i n g logical leap, the lands cape of politica l
thought had to u ndergo a serious upheava l . This upheava l h a s indeed
occurred, hut it also took a form at fi rst sight paradoxical. On the one
hand, since the b e g i n n i n g o f the 1 9 8 0 s, the denunciation of tota litari­
anism has b ecome more radical and more insi stent than ever b efor e .
B ut o n t h e other, the d i stinction b e tween t h e tot alita rianism denounced
and democracy h a s tended to b e come increasingly tenuou s .
O n t h e one h a n d , t h e end of the S oviet system h a s b e e n accompanied
by a meticulous inventory that turns the whole history of communism
into a long list of crimes, m i nutely detailed in thick 'black books'. At the
same time, a n entirely new sort of attention has b e en brought to bear
on the Nazi genocide. This foun d expression not only with the multipli­
cation of testimonies but also i n a current of thought for which the
death camps became a radical event i n whose l ight the whole history o f
t h e last t w o centuries had to b e re conceive d .
H e r e i s where t h e p aradox a pp e a r s . W e might have thoug h t that the
collapse of the S oviet a lternative and the new ledger of Nazi and S oviet
crimes might reinforce the fragile western faith in the virtues of demo ­
cracy. Nothing of the sort transpired, quite to the contrary. The more

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t h at these reg i m e s ' c r i m e s ca m e u nd e r a n e w sort of public l i g h t , the

more the for m e r cha mpions o f western a nd democratic h u m a n rights
t u rned against t h e i r idol o f y e s t e r d a y. The fiercest condemners of S o v i e t
c r i me s w e r e , l i k e the h i stori a n F r a ncois F u ret, the fi rs t to see it a s t h e
d i rect con s e quence of t h e F r e n c h R e v o l u t i o n . O n e wou l d s t i l l have b e e n
a b l e , it i s t r u e , to con d e m n t h e e x c e s s e s of t h e revol u t i on a r y 'gove r n ­
m e n t of the people' a nd opp o s e to t h e m t h e h u m a n r i g h t s p ro c l a i med
b y the A m erica n l i beral revol u t i o n . But t h e s e rights too q u i c k l y ca me
u nd e r s u spicion . These were t i m e s in which A m erica n sociolog i st s , in
t h e wake of D a n iel Bell, b e g a n t o cond e m n t h e d a m a g i n g effe c t s of
m a ss i nd iv i d u a l i s m for r u i n i ng of a l l for m s of p u b l i c a u t h o r i t y. Ta k i n g
up the baton, F rench pol i t i c a l s c i e n t i s t s , s u c h a s M a rcel G a u chet, then
c o n st r u ed h u m a n r i g h t s a s t h e pre c i s e e x pression of this m a ss demo­
c ratic i n d i v i d u a l i s m , h a r m f u l not only to a u t h o r i t y b u t to t h e very sense
o f pol i t i c a l com m u n ity.
So, st e p - by- step, t h e trad i t i o n a l o p p o s i t i o n s tended to va n i s h . The
revol u t i o n a ry c rowd s and t h e i r u n re s t c a m e to b e ident i fi e d with t h e
d i spersion c a u s e d by the ego t i stica l a n d n a rc i s s i stic i n d iv id u a l s of d e m ­
o c ra t i c society. And the d e m o c r a t i c e ffect of ' u n d o i n g b o n d s ' w e r e i d e n ­
t i fied w i t h tota l it a r i a n c a t a s t r o p h e . T h i s m a d e i t possible, with G i orgio
A gamben, to show that t h e R ig h t s of Man i nvolved a confu sion between
t h e citi z e n - i d e n t i t y a nd b a r e l i fe a nd t o fi n d i t s logic b e i ng c a rried o u t
b oth i n the Nazi g e n o c i d e a n d i n t h e everyd a y l i fe o u r d e m o c r a c i e s .
O ne cou l d , t h e n , with Jea n - C l a u d e M i l n e r, s e c democra c y a s t h e very
p r i nciple of genocide .
The remaining problem wa s to fi n d t h e g o o d f o r m of govern ment t h a t
counters t h i s democracy no longer d i s t i n g u ishable f r o m tot a l it a r i a n i sm .
S ome have called it a repu b l ic a n d so emphasized the virtue of t h e good
republ ican government a g a i n s t t h e a n a rc h y of democratic individuals
r e g ulated by their simple good ple a s u r e . Jea n - C la u d e M i lner, for h i s
p a rt, chose a blu nter ter m . He h a s c a l l e d it p a storal gove r n m e n t .
Thi s doing, he reca l l s t h e v e r y old o r i g i n s of c u r rent d i s c o u rses on
d emocra c y. It was Plato, i n t h e Republic, who p a i nted t h e picture of t h e
democratic c i t y s o e n d l e s s l y rep r i s e d b y o u r s o c iolog i s t s : democra cy, h e
s a id, is t h a t cha r m i n g r e g i m e i n which a l l a re f r e e and do e x a c t l y as
t hey ple a s e : not only men but a Iso women a nd ch i 1 d r e n a nd even horses
a nd a s s e s , whose democratic p r i d e pushes t h e m to occupy t h e street a n d
k nock passers-by over. T h i s is the indocile democratic ass t h a t we s t i l l

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find being discussed in the self- satisfied descriptions of t h e s o c i e t y of

g o o d , unlimited pleasure in which workers who a lways want more and
the j obless, d r u n k with new forms of enj oyment, ruin the republican
community with their senseless demands . But the condemnation of the
indocile ass, doubtless, conceals a more profound trouble . I n dem o ­
cracy, Plato tells u s , governors appear a s the governe d , a n d the gov­
erned the governors . We underst and, then, that the true scandal of
democracy does not reside in the u n rest of the masses or the licence of
individual s . It resides simply in the fact that in it governing comes to
appear a s an activity that i s purely contingent, not fou nded on any title
that is g ranted by birth, age, knowledge or a supposedly m a n i fest
supe riority. D em o c racy is the form of government that is b a s e d on t h e
idea that n o individual o r a n y group has a t i t l e to govern over other s .
T h i s contingent gove r nment of a nyone at all testifies, for Plato, to a
world which r u n s upside down. There was a time when the world
guided by divinity r a n a s it shou l d : a time when authority t o o k on the
a i r of the enlightened solicit ude o f t h e pastor who knows what is best
for his flock. It i s this p a s toral government - in which the e lites exhibit
paternal concern for their flo c k and protect it from its own reb e l l ious
spirits - that, in the We st. i s increa singly loudly d reamt of today. B ut
the matter of who is to e ducate these pa stors and by what signs we can
recognize their wisdom remains rather obscu re.

123
 CHAPTER TH I RTY
The Diff i c u l t Leg a cy of M i c h e l Fo u c a u lt,
June 2004

I n t h i s very month , M ic h e l F o u ca u l t w i l l have been d e a d for 2 0 ye a rs .

A new occa s i o n h a s t h u s a ri s e n f o r a com m e m o ration , popu l a r a s t h e y
a rc i n F ra nce. T h i s a n n iversa r y, h owever, is m o r e proble m a t i c t h a n that
o f Sa rtre's 4 yea rs ago. F o r t h i s latter o cca s i o n , i t wa s neces s a r y to
p ro d uce a m aj or opera t i o n o f reco n c i l i a t i o n i n order t o e x t ricate t h e
p rovocative p h i losopher from t h e ' e x t re m i s t ' c a u s e s i n which he h a d
compro m i sed h i m self, s o t h a t h e c o u l d b e i n t ro d u ced i nto the n a t i o n a l
p a ntheon of w r iters a n d t h i n ke r s , t h e f r i e n d s of l iberty. T h e c a s e o f
F o u c a u l t i s m o r e compl e x . T h e p h i l o s o p h e r a nd activi st h a s n o e x c e s s e s
t h a t m u s t b e pa rdoned i n t h e n a m e o f h i s v i rt u e s . F o r , preCisely, one
does not know what the a c t i v i s t s h o u l d b e reproached fof, n o r w i t h
w h a t the p h i l o sopher s h o u l d b e c r e d i t e d . M o r e r a d i c a lly, t h e r e i s a ser­
ious u ncerta i n t y in u nd e r s t a n d i n g t h e relation between t h e o n e a n d
t h e other.
Thi s u n certa i n t y rece i v e s e x p r e s s i o n i n t h e debates over Fouca u l t 's
l e gacy. One of them conce r n s h i s relation to t h e cau se of s e x u a I m i nor­
i t ie s . In La Volante de savoir, I i n fact. Foucault p u t forwa r d a provocative
a rgument: the notion of ' s e x u a l r e p r e s s i o n ' a c t u a lly works to mask the
i nverse operati o n , the effo r t s of power t o g e t u s to spea k about s e x , to
oblige i n d i v i d u a ls to over-i n v e s t i n t h e s e c r e t s and the prom i s e s that it
deta i ne d . S ome were keen , n o tably in t h e Un i t e d S t a t e s , t o i n fe r from
t h i s an i nvalidation of t h e for m s o f i d e nt i t y pol itics to which s e x u a l
m i n o r it i e s w e r e com m i tt e d . C onversely, w it h David Halp e r i n 's Saint
Foucault, 2 the p h i losopher was e n t h r o n e d as the patron s a i n t of t h e queer

124
 THE DIFFICULT LEGACY OF MICHEL FOUCAULT

movement for his denouncing of the game of sexual identities that the
homophobic tradition had set up. In France the polemic developed on
another terrain. Indeed, one of the editors of Foucault's Dits et B crits. '
Francois E wald, is today the appointed theoretician of a b osses union ,
and is committed, in the name of the morality of risk, to continuin g the
struggle against the French system of social protection . Hence, the
question that worked the p olemicists: can a programme of struggle
against social security be drawn from the Foucauldian critique of the
'society of control' ?
Some have aimed to rise above these debates and attempted to draw
out the philosophical foundations of Foucault's politics. The se are gen­
erally sought for in the analysis of biopower that he once sketched.
Others, with Michael Hardt and Toni Negri, have equipped him with
the substratum of a philosopher of life, which he himself never took the
time to elaborate, in a bid to assimilate biopolitics to the m ovement of
the multitudes breaking open the shackles of Empire. Others stilL like
Giorgio Agamben, have assimilated Foucault's description of 'the power
over life' to a generalized regime of the state of exception, com mon to
democracies and totalitarian regimes alike. And still others see Fou­
cault as a theoretician of ethics and enj oin us to discover - between his
scholarly studies on asceticism in antiquity and his small con fidences in
the contemporary pleasures of the sauna - the principles of a new
morality of the subj ect.
All these enterprises have one point in common. They hope to ascer­
tain in Foucault's traj ectory a principle of finality that would assure the
coherence of the whole and provide a solid basis for a new politics or a
novel ethics. They want to see in him a confirmation of the idea of the
philosopher who synthesizes knowledge and teaches us the rules of
action.
Now, this idea of the philosopher and of the concordance between
knowledge, thought and life is precisely the one that Foucault chal­
lenged, through his approach even more than his statements. What he
foremost invented was an origi nal way of doing philosophy. When phe­
nomenology was promising us - at the end of its abstractions - access to
the 'things themselves' and to the ' world of life', and when some were
dreaming of making this promised world coincide with the one that
Marxism promised the workers, he practiced a maximum distance. He
did not promise life. He was fully in it, in the decisions of the p olice, the

125
 C H RON ICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

c r ies o f the i m pri soned or the e x a m i n a t i o n of t h e bodies of the i l l . B u t

h e d i d not say to u s what we could d o w i t h t h i s ' l i fe ' a nd w ith its k now­
l e d ge. M u ch ra ther, h e saw it a s t h e refutation in act of d iscourses of
comc i o u sness [ conscience] a n d of t h e hu m a n that b a c k t h e n lI nd e r­
p i lll lt'd the hopes o f l iberated tomorrow s . More than a ny other 'struc­
t ll ra l i ';( ' t h eoreticia n , Foucau lt wa s accused of bei n g a t h i n ker o f
tl' c il n ocrat i s lll , of t u rn i ng o u r society a n d o u r t hought i n to a mach i n e
d e f i n e d by i n eluctable and a no n y m o u s fu nCl i o n i ngs.
We kn ow how the 6 8 yea rs would overt u rn t h i ngs. Between the Cfe­
, H ion of the Universite de Vincennes and the fou n d i ng of the Group o f
I n formation on P r i s o n s , the s t r u ct u ra l i s t 'tech nocrat ' fig u red a mong
t h e top ru ng of i ntellect u a l s i n w h i c h t h e a nt i - authorita r i a n movement
reco g n i zed itself. Everyth i n g suddenly became obvious: he who had
a n alysed t he b i rth of medica l power a n d the great con fi nement of t h e
Ill ad a n d t h e m a rg i n a l wa s p e r fec t l y pred isposed to symbol i z e a movc ­
Ill e llt wh ich attacked not only the relations o f product ion a nd t h e v i sible
i n stit ll t i o m of t he state, but a l l the form s of power that a re d i ssem i ­
n aIl'll t h roughout the socia l body. One photog raph would s u m up this
logic: in i t we see Fouca u lt, a rmed w i t h a microphone, a longside his old
e nemy Sa rtre, rousing some demonstrators who had gathered together
to conde m n a rac i st crime. Thc photo i s titled ' t he ph i losophers a rc i n
the s t reet '.
B u t a phi losopher's bei ng i n the street does not s u ffice for his ph i l o ­
sophy t o ground t h e movement, nor even his o w n presence there. The
p hilosophica l d isplacement operated by Foucau lt implied precisely
u psetting the relations between positive k nowledge, philosoph ical con­
s c i ousness a n d a ction . I n a b a ndoning itself to the examination of the
rca l f u nction i ng by which e f fe c tive thought a c t s on bod ies, ph i losophy
a b d icates its ccntral posit i on . But the k nowledge that it y ields does not
thus form a ny weapon of the masses in the M a rxist m a n ner. It simply
constitutes a new map on the terra i n o f t h i s effective a nd deeentered
t hought . It does not provide the revolt with a consciou sness . But it per­
m its the net work of its rea s o n s to Ilnd the net work of reasons of those
who, here or there, exploit their k n owledge and their own reason to
i ntroduce the gra i n of s a n d tha t j a m s the machine.
The archaeology of the relations o f p ower a nd of the workings of
t hought, then, fou nds revolt no more t h a n it does subj ugation . It redis­
t ributes the maps a nd the territori e s . In subtracting tbought from its

126
 THE D IFFICULT LEGACY OF MICHEL FOUCAULT

royal place, it gives right to that of each and all of us, that notably of the
' infamous men' whose lives Foucault had undertaken to write. By the
same token, however, it prohibits thought, restored to aIL from taking
any central position in the encounter between knowledge and power.
This does not mean that politics loses itself in the multiplicity of power
relations everywhere disseminated. It means, first of all, that it is always
a leap that no knowledge j ustifies and which no knowledge adminis­
ters. The passage f rom knowledge to an intervention supposes a singu­
lar relay, the sentiment of something intolerable.
' The situation in the prisons is intolerable', Foucault declared in 1 9 7 1
with the founding of the Groups of Information on Prisons. This 'intol­
erable' did not come from some self- evidence piece of knowledge and
was not addressed to some universal consciousness that would be com­
pelled to accept it. It was only a 'sentiment', the same one, no doubt.
that had pushed the philosopher to commit himself to the unknown
terrain of archives without knowin g where i t would lead him, and still
less where it might lead others. Some months later, however, the intol­
erable sentiment of the philosopher would be forced to encounter that
which the prisoners in revolt in several French prisons declared with
their own weapons based upon their own knowledge. Thought does not
transmit itself to action. Instead thought transmits itself to a thought
and action which provokes another. Thought acts insofar as it accepts
not to know very well what is pushing it and renounces to assert control
over its effects.
The paradox is that Foucault himself seems to have found it difficult
to accept this entirely. We know that he stopped writing for a long
while. It occurred right after La Volon te de savoir, the book around which
today's exegetes vie. This book aimed in principle to be an introduction
to a Histoire de la sexualite. whose signification it summed up in advance.
It seems that Foucault came to fear the path that he had mapped out in
advance. Before the imm inence of death pushed him to publish L" [Jsa,qe
des plaisirs and Le Souci de soi. he had not published anything save inter­
views.4 In these interviews, of course, he was asked to say what it was
that linked his patient investigations in the archives with his interven­
tions on the repression in Poland, his delving into the Greek techniques
of subjectivation and his work with a union confederation. All his
responses, as we clearly sense, comprise so many deceptions that rein­
troduce a place of mastery which his very own work had undermined.

127
 C HRONICLES O F CONSE NSUAL TI M ES

The " l in e h o l d s for a l l t hose ra t i o n a l i z a t i o n s t h a t pu rport t o d ra w from

his w r i t i ngs either the p r i n c i p l e of the q u e e r revolution, that of t h e
e m J nci pat ion of t h e lT1 u l t it u d e s o r t h a t of a n e w et h i es of t h e i n d ividua I .

T h erc is not a body of Fouca u l d i a n t hought t h at fou nds a n e w pol i t ics o r

<l new e t h ics. There a re b o o k s w h i c h p ro d u ce e f fects to t h e v e r y e x t e n t

t h at t h e y d o n o t s a y to u s wh a t we m u s t d o w i t h t hem . T h e emba l m ers

<l IT goi n g to have a t ough t i me of i t .

128
 CHAPTER TH I RTY- ONE
The N ew Reasons for the Lie, A ugust 2004

At the summer's start a news item shook France . A young woman trav­
elling in a suburb a n tra i n with her baby was robbed and battered by a
gang of black and Maghrebin adol e s cents . Seeing, as they stole her
papers, that she was born in the 'posh suburb s ', they concluded that she
was Jewish. C on s e quently, t h e robbery turned into a n a n t i - S em itic
attack: they scarred her face with a knife, painted swastikas over her
and cut her hair s avagely. None of the train's passengers had intervened
to defend the young woman and her baby, not even, simply, t o pull the
alarm signa l .
Within 48 hours, we saw declarations from politicians and com m ent­
aries in newspapers proliferat e . E ven more than the attack, it wa s the
passiveness of the commuters that provoked indignatio n . The mon­
strous behaviour of t h e s e yout h s appeared as a reality that was u n for­
tunately all too explainable : newspaper columnists did n o t cease to
evoke the wrongdoings o f small gangs of youths from the poor suburbs,
often with an immigrant background. The reality of tensions bet ween
the Jewish a nd Muslim communities is also very pre s e n t a s are the
attacks aga i n st Jewish persons and institutions that have occ u r re d over
recent months . But how are we to explain the compl icit pas s ivenes s of
the commuters? Le Monde thus ran two sorts of commenta r y side -by­
s i d e . A s o ciologist explained that the young Magh rebi of the poor sub ­
II rbs were sending back t o society the image that the lat t e r made 01
them : that of brutal. macho a n d fanatical youths. An editori a l i s t made
clear that the commuter s ' b e h aviour testified to someth i n g o f a far
more serious nat u r e : a phenomenon of col l ective coward ice, of the
collapse of the most traditional collective values . The event the reby

129
 C HRONICLES O F CONSENSUAL TIMES

reflected hack to societ y t he i mage of a twofold decomposition : on t h e

o n e h a n d , sma l l gangs of savages; on the other, a n apathetic m a s s of
egotistica l i nd ividu a l s .
Two d a y s l ater, w e lea rnt t h a t the whole a f fa i r wa s a pu re a nd si mple
fabrication . The you ng wom a n h a d done i t t o a t t ract the attention of a
companion who h a d not heen s e n s i t ive e n o u g h to her prohl e m s .
F a l s e news is as old a s t h e worl d , a s i s u s i n g i t i n t h e fra mework o f
i nter-com m u n i t y con f l i c t s . Th i s fa l s e n e w s , h oweve r, s e e m s to te st i fy t o
a new reg i m e of l y i n g . T w o t ra d it i on a l form s of m a s s l i e a re more t h a n

fa m i l i a r to u s . There is t h e form of the 'popu l a r r u m o u r ' whereby i n t h e

M id d l e Ages, for exa mple, Jews were acc u sed of k i d n appi ng c h i l d re n
f o r rit u a l m u rders. A n d t h e r e i s the for m of l i e tha t is del iherately made
u p by a n a u t hor i t y, state o r other, a s an e x ped ient way of s t i r r i n g u p
h a t red aga i n s t a com m u n i t y t ha t s e r v e s a s a scapegoa t .
T h e l i e t o l d b y t h e you ng M a rie L e o n i e d o e s n o t fi t i nto either o f t hese
t wo fra m e s . The i n form a t ion m a c h i n e of our ti mes goes q u icker t h a n
a ny popu l a r ru mou r. Mo reover, ou r conse n s u a l gove r n m e n t s have no
i nt e rest i n fuel l i ng wa rs b e t ween com m u n it i e s . So, i t i s not possible i n
t h i s case t o blame either the 'g u l l ibi l it y ' o f the popu l a r ma sses o r t h e
perverse imagi n a t ion of men of power. B u t t h i s l i e i s n o t , f o r a l l t h a t , a
p u rely individ u a l creation . B y t h e very way i n which it s i m u lates a
'societal phenomenon' for private e n d s , it testi fies to a new form of the
false . Th is form i s not linked to any e xcess o r lack but to the norma l
functioning of the i n formation m a c h i ne, to the norma l relation hetween
i n formation a n d power i n ou r societies. The ' i ndividual' i nvention of
this racist attack was possible and plausible because the social m a c h i n e
of fabrication and of the i nterpretation of events i n a c e r t a i n sense
e x p ected the event .
Let's be more specific. At stake here is not to say, with certain critics
of the media, that the televi s u a l screen has rendered reality a n d simu­
lacr u m equivalent, and that the events n o longer h ave any need of
r e a l l y existing because their i m ages exist without them . Regardless of
what the critics say, the i m age does not constit ute the heart of media
power and of its u t i l ization by the authorities . The heart of the i n forma­
t ion machine i s i nterpretation . No events, not even fal s e ones, are
needed hecause their i nterpretations a re a lready there, because they
pre- exist them and cal l them forth . F rom t h i s v iewpoint, the u n a n i m ­
o u s indig nation aga i n st the 'cowardice' of the witnesses i s sig n i fi cant.

130
 THE NEW REASONS FOR THE LIE

From the fact that no witness manifested himself, none of the comment­
ators d rew the simplest conclusion, if not a single witness to the event
did anything, perhaps this is because the event did not take place. What
is intolerable in the eyes of the mora listic journalist is the very idea that
nothing has happened. It is the lack of events. The interpretation must,
then, be turned upside down: if there was no witness, it is because the
witnesses made a show of their cowardice. And is it this cowardice
which becomes the heart of the event itself, the societal phenomenon
to be delved into.
For the machine to turn, there must always be events. This does not
simply mean that in order to sell papers there has to be a bit of sensa­
tionalism. At stake is not simply to scribble on paper. Material must be
furnished for the i nterpretative machine. This machine does not always
need somethi ng to happen. It needs a certain type of thing to happen,
things called 'societal phenomena': that is, particular events that hap­
pen to ordinary p eople at some point within society, but a Iso events
that constitute symptoms - events which invite an interpretation but
an interpretation that is already there in front of them . For, u ltimately.
the interpretation given always amounts to the same explanation ill
two points: first, that modern society is troubled because it is not mod­
ern enough, because there are groups which are not yet really modern,
which still carry the same traditional tribal values; and second, modern
society is troubled because it is too modern, because it too quickly lost
the sense of the collective solidarities which characterized traditional
societies and that in it everyone is indifferent to everyone else. The bar­
barism of yet-to-be-socialized youths inhabiting the poor suburbs, and
the indifference of the ordinary passengers of public transport. The
extraordinary nature of the imaginary attack suffered by Marie Leonie
is a mere repeat of the ordinari ness of the interpreting machine.
This is not just a simple matter of the constraint weighing on a media
prey to the hard law of sales and audience ratings. It is a matter of the
mode of exercise and of legitimation of the social and state machi ne.
This is what explains the celerity, indeed the imprudence, w ith which
the French leaders reacted. It is true that they have no interest in spread­
ing news liable to stir up quarrels between commun ities. B ut they do
have a vital interest in showing their vigilance with regard to every­
thing which can generate such quarrels, their attentive ear to all 'soci­
etal phenomena' that expresses some discontentment in the social body.

l31
 CHRON ICLES OF CONSENSUAL TIMES

O ll r govern m e n t s have no n e e d of l i e s to excite c rowd s . B u t t h e y do need

e ve n t s a nd i n terpre t a t i o n s b e c a u s e i t is t h e i r legitimacy itself t h a t i s con ­
s t i t u t e d b y t h i s con t i n u o u s col l e c t i o n o f fa c t s a n d i ncessa nt rea d i ng o f
s y mptom s . The consen s u a l order represents i t s e l f a s t h a t o f the great
fa m i l y i n which t h e l e a d e r s a re for e m o s t d o c t o r s w h o a t t e n d to a l l t h e
s y m pt olll s o f a n i n c u ba t i n g s i c k n e s s , i n d e e d e v e n of a n i l l -being l i able t o
e ngender fa n t a s i e s t h a t j eopa rd ize t h e col l e c t ive hea l t h . The r i s k o f s a n c ­
t io n i n g a fa l s e s y m p t o m i s , t h e n , l e s s t h a n t h a t o f m i s s i n g a t r u e o n e , a n d
a bove a l l to t h a t of n o t a p p e a r i ng to be i nterested i n t h e m . T h e patern a l
COI1 c e r n o f gove r n m e n t s i s t h ereby i n h a r m o n y w i t h t h e a c t i v i t y o f a
s o ci e t y t i relessly t a ken up w i t h t h e t a s k of i t s s e l f - e x a m i n a t i o n a n d s e I f­
i nt e rpretation . The e s se n t i a l t h i n g i s t h a t t h e re a re a lways eve n t s t o
i nt e rpret, symptoms t o deciph er. A fa m o u s t he a t re j o k e has i t that a ma n
i n good hea l t h is a sick p e r s o n who d o e s not yet k now it . Tod a y t h i s logic
has become the g l ob a l logic of a society where a n o n - event i s a lwa ys a n
eve n t t h a t h a s not yet cottoned onto t h e fact t h a t it i s one.

132
 CHAPTER TH I RTY-TWO
Beyo n d A rt? October 2004

The visitor entering the door of the Biennale de Sao Paulo is immedi­
ately enthralled: facing him is a 'Cauchemar de George V' showing a
tiger attacking an elephant; to his right extends a scenery of pyramids,
similar to the scale models of archaeology museums; to his left, there
are sewing machines on which women are weavi ng threads, as if they
are working on the scenery s urrounding them - squares in patchworks
on which urban or rustic decors are arranged on foam rubber covered
with coloured fabrics, evoking both stuffed toys for children and con­
struction games, to mark an interrogation into the economic trans­
formations and identity mutations occurring in contemporar y China.
C ontinuing further, the visitor will encounter, notably, a fi shing boat
from the Nordeste that evokes the crossing from Portugal to B razil, a
dream house made of fabrics , a Mongolian tent, a 'Puzzle Polis I I ', which
arranges, in the form of a town, lamps that have the shape of highrises
or of the cars of a shantytown arti st; one hundred and ninety eight por­
traits of C hinese peasants , placed side by side like a great fresco; an
assemblage of many tens of photographs representing a Mali Jiving room
for all social conditions, ethnicitics or religions; photographs of a sma I I
Polish town testifying to p ost-socialist misery; photographs of sordid
scenes from heartland America testifying to the underneath of capitalist
prosperity; some small photographs of ordinary Ukrainians stuck onto
grand kitsch decors of parks abounding with ponds and swans.
It is commonplace for nostalgics to claim that contemporary art is the
reign of 'anything goes'. The judgement is too global to teach us any­
thing. The putative 'anything goes ' is always a something, a determin­
ate mixture, testifying to a given state 01 relations between forms of art

133
 CHRONICLES OF CONSEN SUAL TIMES

J n d obj e c t s , i m ages or u s e s of o rd i n a ry l i fe . At t h e B ie n n a lc of S a o
Paolo, a s a t s o m a n y c on t e m p o r a r y e x h i b i t i o n s , it i s not the f a n t a s y of
a r t i s t s beholden t o t h e i r c a p r i c e t h a t reig n s . T h e v i s i tor i s r a t h e r s t r uc k
b y t h e s i m i l a r i t ics b e t w e e n t h e a rt i s t s ' preoccupat i o n s a n d c h o s e n
p roced u res, rega rd les s o f w h e t h e r t h e y a re C h i n ese or A me r i ca n ,
H ra /.i l i a n , I n d o n es i a n o r S l ova k . N o d o u b t t h e orga n i zer's c h oice of
t h c m l' - t h e c i t y - a l s o crea t e d pa rt of the u n i t y. B u t the t he m a t i c c h o ice
i t sel f r e f l e c t s a very broad t e n d e n c y : a sort of obsession w i t h , i nd e e d a
fa n a t i cism of. t h e rea l .
Th i s obsession w i t h t h e rea l t a k e s m a ny for m s . I t c a n reside i n a con ­
c e rn to b e a r w i t ness to t h e s t a t e of t h e world t h ro u g h the obj e c t iv i t y o f
t h e photograph ic appa ra t u s , re n d e r i n g e x a c t l y t h e scenery of ord i n a r y
l i fe a t t h e h o u r of g l oba l i z a t io n . I t ca n i nvolve t h e d e s i re to m i x t h e
i m a g e s of everyday c u lt u re or t he o bj e c t of p o p u l a r a r t w i t h t h e conce p ­
t u a l a r ra n g e m e n t s of a rt i st s . Ta k i ng p l a c e s i m u l t a n e o u s l y i n R io d e
J a n e i ro , a n e x h i b i t i o n ca l led Tudo e Brasil t e s t i fied t o t h e recu r re n t
d rea m o f a B ra z i l i a n a rt a b l e t o u n i f y con s t r u c t i v i s t m o d e r n i s m w i t h
for m s o f popu l a r a r t or c u lt u re : g re a t a b s t r a c t p a i n t i ng s compr i s i ng a
m u l t i p l i c i t y o f do mi nos or pieces of a footba l l . or v i d e o works i nv e n t ­
o r y i ng t h e a r t of t a g g i n g a n d o f s t r e e t p a i n t i ng . T h i s obsession c a n a l s o
r e s i d e i n t h e w i l l to c reate rea l obj e c t s , obj e c t s freed f r o m t h e i rr e a l it y
of t h e p a i nted ca nva s o r t h e m e d i a t i o n s of p hotographic repro d u c t io n
a nd a b l e promptly to i m p o s e the i r r e a l i t y i n t h e t h ree d i m e n s i o n s of
space : a house, a tent. a b o a t . . . It is as if t h e refu s a l of the s i m u l a c r u m
of repre s e n t a t i o n wa s proce e d i n g i n t h e opp o s i t e d i re c t i o n to t h a t w h i c h
s t a mp e d a r t i n the t i m e o f M a l e v i t c h o r M o n d ri a n : n o l o n g e r t h e
a bstract p a i nt i ng b u t i ns t e a d rea l ly e x i s t i n g o bj e c t s a s t h i n g s o f t he
worl d . I n the Cratylus, P l a t o e v o k e d t h e l i m it towa r d s w h i c h res emb ­
l a nce t e n d s , a t t h e r i s k of a b ol i s h i n g i t s e l f i n i t . Th i s l i m i t i s t h e o bj e c t
w h i c h i s a b s o l u t e l y s i m i l a r t o t h e m o d e l . t h e d o u b l e w h ich n o l o n g e r
dist i n g u ishes i t s e l f f r o m t h e r e a l t h i ng . The a bi d i n g n a me for t h i s
attempt to m a k e of t h e s i g n o r of t h e i m a g e n o t longer an i n d ice or a
c opy of t h e t h i ng, but t h e t h i n g i t s e l f, i s c r a t y l i s m . A n d h a u n t i n g t h i s
bien n a l e wa s i nd e e d a c r a t y li s m n o t u n l ike t h a t t o b e fou n d i n s o m a n y
other m a n i fe s t a t i o n s o f contempora r y a r t .
B u t t h e o b s e s s i o n w i t h t h e r ea l c a n a l s o emph a s i z e t h e a c t w h i c h
i nt e r v e n e s d i r e c t l y in social rea l ity. The w a l l s of contemp o r a r y
e x h ib i t i o n s o f t e n i nc l u d e photog r a p h s o r v i d e o s t h a t t a ke s t o c k o f

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such interventions : provocations s u c h a s Gianni Motti's placing him­

self, i n h i s staging o f a p olitical fiction, at the core of s t ate secrets, or
S a ntiago Sierra's paying Moroccan sub - proletarians to mime their
exploitation b y digging their own grave s . P rovocation, however, is not
what i s at i s s u e i n a work shown at the B iennale by C uban a rtist, Rene
Francis c o . With a g r oup o f artists, he devoted the money h e received
from a n artistic foundation to conducting a su rvey of the needs of
inhabita nts from a p o or suburb. It does not suffice, however, to con­
duct a s u r ve y o f n e e d s . The needs must also b e met. The v ideo Rene
Francisco thus shows us a r t i s t s / a r t i s a n s busy fixing the plu mbing and
p ainting the h o u s e o f a n old couple whos e shadows on the c a nvass are
watching the m .
' I s this art? ' t h e aesthetes w i l l a s k . The question is badly forme d . The
fact is that modern art a s a whole has been moved by the concern to
leave itself in order to transform the actual reality of things . The pion­
eers of abstract p a i nting, reduced to its e s sence a s a n arrangement of
coloured form s, a l s o championed a kind of art that would be art no
longer, that would transform itself into a form of common life . To make
'painting' no longer, not as sepa rate reality, but to construct the forms
of life and the furniture of a new life - such was the dream common to
both Mondrian and Malevitc h . And it provided the ground for the art­
istic avant-garde 's a d hesion to the creation of the S oviet 'new life ' .
What is n e w and significant is therefore n o t t h e w i l l o f a n a r t acting
directly on the worl d . It i s the form that this will take today : i ndividu a l
assistance to the m o s t destitute there were once rej ected b oth b y the
artistic avant-garde and the constructors of socialism. The d ream of an
art that builds forms for a new life has be come the modes t proj e ct of
'relational a r t ' : a kind of art that no longer strive s to create works but
instead situations o f relations, and i n which the artist, as a F rench the ­
oretician of t h i s a r t says, renders to society 'little services' d e signed to
repair ' the cracks i n the social bond ' . ! The i rony is obviously that at the
B iennale the repres entatives of this aesthetics of art qua social service
were artists from the last remaining countries that subscribe to Marxist
socialism.
There wou l d b e little interest i n accusing the naivety of a rtists or the
cunning of the exhibition organizer s . B ecause this obsession with the
real, this feverish will to 'make or do' something whether a s olid obj ect,
an effe ctive act or a testimony on the state of the world, also r e flects the

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s i ng u l a r sta nce of a r t i s t i c a c t i v i t y in a u n iverse i n which not o n l y do the

g reat revol u t io n a r y proj ec t s tend to d i sappea r but so a l s o the forms of
p o l i t ica l con fl ict themselves. The void of the pol itica l scene i ncites the
a rt i st s and the actors of the a rt world to put the mea n s and sites a t the i r
d is[losa l t o testi fy to a rea lity o f i n e q u a l i ties. o f contrad ictions a n d of
con fl icts wh ich consen s u a l d i scou rse t e n d s t o render i nv i sible a n d to
s u ggest ways of i nt e rven i ng aga i n s t t h e reig n i ng fat a l i s m . The probl e m
i s t h a t t he u n d e n i able e fforts of m a n y a rt i s t s to b rea k w i t h the dom i n ­
a nt consensus a nd u nd e r m i n e t h e e x i st i n g order tends to e n l i st i n the
f r a m ework of consen s u a l description and categories. ret u rn i ng t he
a r t i s t i c powers of provocation to the e t h i c a l tasks of witnessing a world
i ll [( )m mon a n d of provid i n g a ssista nce to t h e most d i sempowered .

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 CHAPTER TH I RTV-THREE
The P o l itic s of Images, February 2005

Two contemp orary h i storical and cinematic topics have once aga i n
r a i s e d a recu rrent question . T h e first is t h e sixtieth anniversary of the
entry of the allied troops in Auschwitz, the second the release of the
film The Downfall which recounts the last days of Adolf Hitler in his
bunker. And the que stion : what must or must not b e shown of the great
Nazi enterprise a n d of its outcome - the extermination of the Jews of
E u rope?
The question obviously contains two questions . The fi rst is about h i s ­
torical fiction in g e n e r a l and asks: h o w are w e to reconcile t h e requ i s ­
i t e s of fiction and those of history? B e fore t h e a g e of modern revolutions,
this question was b a rely raised: h istorians recounted the high deeds of
princes and generals; grand poetry narrated the thoughts, sentiments
and actions of characters situated above commoners . For two centuries,
however, the maps of the fictional and of the historic have b e en redis ­
tributed, a s have those o f the great and the small. Fiction h a s decreed
the equality of all b e fore its law; history has found itself torn between
the decisions of s t ate and the slow and obscure life of the multitude s .
H istorical fiction h a s b e come t h e interweaving of these two logics . I t
shows u s the great deeds of history through the perspe ctive o f the small
people and the upheaval s of private live s . In this vein , The Downfall
based itself on a b o o k w ritten by a h istorian about Hitler's l a s t days and
the testimonies of it by one of the Fuhrer 's former secre t a rie s . Wim
Wenders strongly reproached the fi lmmaker for this mixture on the
grounds that it enables the author to dispense with having a point of
view. But the same reproach could be made to Hugo or to Tolstoy: Les
Miserables and War and Peace are formed around this exact o scillation. It

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 C H RONICLES O F CONSENSUAL T I M ES

wa, Tol 'itoy who elaborated i t s theory a nd t h e for m u l a h a s s u bsequently

bet' n reprised by cou ntle" novel ists a nd fi l m m a kers .
So, t he reproach h a s h a rd l y a ny sign i fica nee i n itself. In fact, it obscu re,
a n c n t i rely d i fferent problem . By becom i n g p a r t of the veri s i m i l it udes of
f i c t ion a nd t h e fa m i l i a ri t y o f e m bod i e d c h a racter" the deeds of fa mous
Illell a rt' brought closer t o us, a rt' related to t h e bod ies to which we a rc
semi t i ve, to syst e lll s of ex pla n a t ion t h at j u sti fy t hern . F iction must be
a cccpted; but how ca n it be w i t hout ren d e r i n g a cceptable t hat wh ich it
s h olYs, on t h i s occu rrence the m u rderous m a d ness o f a system? T o i nsist
t h ,l t t he a u t hor t J ke up a v i e w po i nt mea n s req u i ring him to cont rJd ict
t h i, n at u ra l logic of fiction, to i n t roduce t h e u n a cceptable i nt o t h e
a cccpt able.
W ha t form s must this u n a ccept a b l e t a ke? I n The Downfall we never
s t op h e a r i n g t h e m o n s t ro u s rem a rk s o f H it l e r o r his adepts, or s e e i n g
u ll bea rJble spectacles: a m putated b o d i e s , bra i n s blow n out by revolvers,
t he glacia l ceremon i a l of M rs Goebbcls poison i n g h e r s i x c h i l d re n one
a f t L' r t he other. B u t t h e Ill o n s t ro u s ra mbl i ng s a re t h o s e of a used man, a
m a ll con fi ne d t o h i s b u n ker a nd h i s d el i r i u m , a k i n t o one of those mad
k i ngs we see a t the theatre. M r, G o ebbels' m o n s t rous m e t i c u lousness
rev ives m emories of a ncient heroes protec t i n g them selves and thei r
f a m i ly from servitude. A l l t h e blood - d renched bodies belong to a va n ­
qu ished people, a n d there i s a lways some com m i seration for t h e
d e lcated . I f t h e everyday o r d i n a riness of t h e b u n ker works to triv i a l i ze
t h e Nazi crime, t h e extraord i n a ri ne s s of t h e words a nd of tht' mon ­
st rOllS acts tips it over into tragic terror.
Some w i l l say that t h e trial is a trap from the start: what i s repre ­
s ented i s the defeat of Na zism . Only, what must b e j udged i s n o t its
d e feat but its prior 'victories', the monstrous order that it set up. What
the fi l m i 'i missing a r e i t s ver i t able victi m s : not general s w h o h a ve their
brains blown out but fi rs t of all the six m i l lion dead of t h e e x termina­
tion ca mps .
Unfortu n ately, t h e same problem a r i s e s from this side . And t h e choice
of the films presented by t h e telev i s io n s t a t i ons to commemorate
Auschwitz restaged t h e same question : how a re the camps to be shown?
Obviollsly not by m e a n s of a c t u a l images: t h e y a re missi ng due to the
very logic of the process which effaced its own trace s . O r, then, by
means of a fic t ioIl of the type u sed i n Holocaust, tha t i s by recounting the
fate of some of the individuals caught i n the process, from the side of

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 THE POLITICS OF I MAGES

the henchmen o r that of the victims? But our empathy with the tragic
destiny of the Wei s s family is i mm e d iately dubiou s . Does sha ri n g i n t h e
m i s fortunes of a suffering family not imply forgetting what this fa mily
is suppo s e d to incarnate : the fate o f a n entire p e ople? D o e s n o t com­
miseration that we feel for those about to enter the gas chamber and
even our identification with the combatants of the ghetto produce a
counter- effect? They render present those whos e existenc e , and even
traces, the Nazi plan a im e d to eliminate. O u r commiseration t h e refore
prevents us from a ny level- h eaded consideration of the mon strosit y of
the ove rall plan to exterminate a collective and the silence with which
this process was accompl ishe d .
The second problem m ight thus b e formu lated a s follows : how a r e we
to give a fictional form to the exceptional crime of the extermination?
It has become com monplace to compare the Holocaust 's sentimental
trivia lization with the rigour of Shoah. C laude Lan zmann's film, in fact,
simultaneously refus e s all historical images and any fictiona lization of
history. He s t r ives to render the p a s t present only i n the speech of the
s urvivors b e fore the s i lence of the sites 01 extermination. He thereby
claims to have avoide d two forms of trivialization: that of the fiction
which effaces the extermination b y rendering bodies present; and t h at
of the historical document which fi n d s reasons that place it within a
more extensive chain o f causes and effects .
The good representation of the extermination therefore w o u l d b e one
that sepa rate s o u t the horror of the crime from every image t hat brings
it closer to our s e n sibility, from every explanation that provides it with
a reason makes i t acceptable t o o u r i n telligenc e . It would b e the repre s­
entation of the unrepresentabl e . But the following question immedi­
ately a ri s e s : what does the goodness of this repres entation con sist in?
An oft-repeated saying p rovid e s a prompt respons e : those who ignore
their past a r e d o o m e d to relive i t . It i s therefore necessary, we are told,
to observe a 'duty of memory' and t o examine the past closely to pre­
vent its recurrence. B ut what a r e we to understand by this exactly? The
expression c a n mean two thing s : fi rst, that the horror must b e shown
in its sensory r e a l ity s o as to induce the feeling of the i ntolerable that
brings us to repel the i d e a s t h a t spawned the horror; or else that we
must show how these i d e a s themselves were spawned s o t h at o u r
knowledge of the process in t u r n spawns the means to prevent it s repro ­
duction . O nly, the purism of the g o o d representation renders both t hese

139
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

d e d u l t io n s n u l l a n d voi d . To p u t b o d i e s s u f fe r i n g t h e i n tolerable i n t o
i m a ges a l s o m ea n s o f fe r i n g t h e m u p to s e n t i m e n t a l com m i s e r a t i o n o r
p e rverse voye u r i s m . T o p r e s e n t t h e r e a s o n s for t h e e x te r m i n a t i o n i s t o
p re s e n t i t w i t h a j u st i fi c a t io n . The h o r r o r o f t h e e x te r m i n a t i o n m ll s t
re m a i n w i t h o u t a n y c a u s e o t h e r t h a n t h e m o n s t ro s i t y o f i t s p ro p e r
p ro j ect . B u t t h e n no e f fe ct is to be e x p ec t e d f ro m k nowledge of t h e pa s t .
T h e p o l i t ics o f m e m o r y i s s e l f - c o n t r a d i c to ry. A n d t h e good represe n t a ­
t i o n is n o more certa i n of i t s e f fe c t t h a n t h e b a d o n e .
Here w e come t o t h e botto m o f t h e m a l le r . T h e o p p o s i t i o n b e t w e e n
good a n d bad ways o f repre s e n t i n g h i st o r y con fou nds t wo probl e m s . O n
t h e o n e h a n d , i t d e fi ne s n o r m s o f a c c e p t a b i l ity. So i t p ro t e s t s a ga i n s t
repres e n t a t i o n s t h a t t ra n s fo r m c r i m i n a l s i n to m e n l i k e o t h e r s . I t s u p ­
p oses t h at w e a re l e s s s e n s i t i ve t o H i t l e ri a n ba rba r i s m if w e s e e t h e
d i c t a t o r m oved by h i s d o g o r d i sp l a y i n g a f fe c t i o n towa r d s h i s s e c re t a ry.
B u t i t J l so s t rives to t u r n t h e s e n or m s of a c c e p t a b i l i t y i n t o p r i n c i p l e s of
u t i l i t y. Now, why wou l d In i m age o f H i t l e r pa l l i ng his d o g o r his s e c r e t ­
My be l1I ore u s e f u l t o t h e c a u s e o f c o m ba t i n g N a zism? Why wo u l d t h e
represent a t ion o f t h e e x t e r m i n a t i o n a s a d i se m b o d i e d m e c h a n i cs b e
m ore approp r i a t e t o fee d i n g h a t red of a n t i - S e m i t i s m t h a n t h a t o f t h e
su ffe r i ng o f t he v i ct i m s o r t h e i n n e r s t a t e s o f t h e e x e c u t i o n e r s ? W e ca n
a l ways fi n d some c r i t e r i a to s a y t h a t Shoah i s a more appro p r i a t e way
than Holocaust to t r a n s m it t h e m o n st r o s i t y o f t h e genocide a n d to respect
the memory of its v i c t i m s . D e d u c i n g f r o m t h i s t he i r respect ive a b i l i t i e s
to pro h i b i t e q u i v a l e n t fo r m s o f m o n s t r o s i t y i n f u t u re i s a n a ltogether
d i f ferent thing. B et w e e n t h e g o o d way o f s p e a k i n g a b o u t t h e p a s t hor­
ro r and the u s e f u l way of preve n t i n g t h e horror in t h e f u t u r e there i s n o
n e cess a r y l i n k . Th i s p i o u s way of t h i n k i ng , w h i c h a i m s to use its k now­
l e dge of the past to g u a ra nt e e t h e f u t u re, s t i l l c l i n g s p e r h a p s t o t h e
ti mes of p r i n c e s a n d o f t h e i r a d v i s e r s who wou l d t e a c h t h e m t h e
e x a mples to follow in order to gove r n p e oples and win b a t t l e s .

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 CHAPTER TH I RTY- FOUR
D e m o c ra cy a n d Its Doctors, May 2005

Unrest hit the F rench a n d E u ro p e a n governmental staff a fter several

polls showed that the French might vote 'no' i n the referendum to rat­
ify the European C onstitution . How is such a thing poss ible, it was
asked, when both the conservative government a nd the socialist
oppo sition called to vote 'yes ' ? This i s because, came the response, the
French have not u nderst o o d . They want to express their discontent­
ment with the i r government, i n forgetting that they are not being asked
for their opinion about this govern ment but about a treaty t h at binds 2 5
E uropean state s . But i f they d o not understand the que stion b eing
asked, this i s no d o u b t due to the effect of a dis contentment, t h e discon­
tentment of a nation me l ancholically contemplating its irreversible
decline.
]) 0 the French feel worse today than they did 10 or 2 0 years ago? The
question is difficult to a n s wer. And it is perhaps not necessa ry. For the
diag nostic, in a ny case, precedes the disorder. There are no surprising
or disappointing electora l results that do not immediately give rise to
this ready expla n ation : p eople did not vote a s they should have because
they did not understand the choice they had been presente d . They did
not understa n d this choice b e cause they are su ffering a d i sorder. And
the discontentment that they feel is because they b elong to economic
groups, socia I classes or national states that are in decline.
So, more than the supposed disorder of the ill, what merits our atten­
tion is what is expressed by the reasoning of its doctors - this medical­
i z ation of opinion, this i nterpretation of every vote that does not con form
to the official expectations a s an expression of a pathologica l state. If an

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 C HRONICLES OF CONSENSUAL T I M E S

l' l ec t or a l b o d y i s a s ked t h e question of w h e t h e r i t is f o r o r aga i n s t a m e a s -

1I [t' p roposed by i t s govern m en t , t h e n t h e propos it ion must a c t u a l l y
i n c lude t h e possibi l i t y of a negative respon s e . Th i s is w h a t , t h e y say, d i s ­
t i ngu i s h e s ou r democratic cou n t r i e s f r o m t h o s e i n w h i c h govern ments
a re u n p ert u rb e d l y l'lected by a l i t t l e l e s s , o r even a l i t t l e more than 1 0 0
per cent o f t h e ele cto r s . S o why i s t h e re s o m u c h s u rp r i s e a n d desolat i o n
w il e n t h e free, u n p red i c t a ble c h o i c e i nc l u d e d i n t h e righ t s g r a n t ed t o
c i t i z e n s i s a c t u a l l y t ra n s lated i n a c t o r t h re a t e n s t o be a s a n u n foreseen
r e s p o n se? What is the m e a n i ng o f t h i s s t ra nge struct u re whereby t he
free choice a ccorded to popu l a r su ffrage a c t u a l l y t u r n s out to be a test of
its a b i l i t y to d i s cern t h e correct response a nd o f t h e s t a t e of health wh ich
e n J b les it to do so o r prevents it from d o i n g so?
H e a p i n g doubt on t h e va l id it y of popu l a r d e c i s i on d i d not b e g i n y e s ­
t e rday. What i s new t o d a y i s t h a t i t i s d e c r i e d b y t h o s e who e x u l t i t s
p r i n c i p l e . For a long w h i le , s u c h conde m n a t i o n was l e ft to t h e 'el i t e s ',
who bemoa n e d t h e fa c t t h a t t h e c h o i c e o f gove rn ment wa s l e f t to t h e
m e rc y of t h e ' ra bb l e ' . Th e n , t h e M a r x i s t s c a m e a l ong, d e n o u n c i ng t h e
i l l u sion of form a l d e m o c r a c y concea l i ng b e h i n d i t a rea l i t y of c l a s s
s t ruggle a n d d o m i n a t i o n . To d a y, i t i s t h e gove r n m e n t s of s o - c a l led
d e l110cra t i c reg i mes who fi n d t h i s p r i n c i p l e d i s q u ie t i n g . They c l a i m t o
b e repres e n t a t i ve of the free c h o i c e of t h e i r fel low c i t i z e n s . B u t t h e y
i m m e d i a t e l y b e m o a n t h e f a c t t h a t t h e i r p r o p o s e d m e a s u res a re a l s o at
the mercy o f t h i s free c h o i c e .
F o r t h e s e m ea s u res, accord i n g to them , a re n o t t h e preserves o f free
c h o ice but of t h e necessity o f t h i ngs . I f the electoral test doubles up a s a
t e s t of inte l l igence a nd of the hea lth of the e l e c t o r a l body, t h i s is because
we l ive u nder t h e regime of a twofo l d legitimacy. O u r govern ments base
their authority on two opp o s e d systems o f reasons: on t h e o n e hand, it
i s b a s e d o n t h e v i r t u e of popul a r decision; o n t h e other, on t h e a b i l i t y
t h at is t h e i r s , a n d which the p e ople who chose them a re in pri nciple
m issing: an a b i lity to choose the good solution s that will solve societa l
proble m s . O n l y, these good solutions c a n b e r e c o g n i z e d b y the fact that
t h e y didn't have to be chosen but rat h e r follow from a knowledge of t h e
objective stale of t h i ngs, which i s a matter for e x p e r t knowledge, not for
free choice . The virtue o f gove rnments, which distinguishes them from
t h e people t h at choose them, i s that they k now how to d istinguish
b etween what c a n be chosen - t h a t i s , themselves - a n d what c a n not be:
t he state of things a n d the solutions that they propose to bring to it.

142
 DEMOCRACY AND ITS DOCTORS

There was a time when harmony between the expert knowledge that
legitimates the action of governments a nd the free popular choice that
legitimates their exis tence was presupposed. Today these two prin­
ciples tend to d i ssociate themselves, albeit without being able to
divorce. And it is to fill up this gap that the electoral process adopts this
strange aspect of being a pedagogical test and a therapeutic process. On
the one hand, this process increasingly resembles the e xercises of
school maieutics, in which the schoolmaster who knows the right
response pretends not to know it a nd to be leaving it to the i nitiative of
the students to fi nd it out. But in pedagogical rationale the master wins
every time: he demons trates either the excellence of the students
educated by his method or their i nability to find the right response
without him. For our governors the exercise is more perilo us. It is the
inability of their students which establishes their competence but this
inability first risks working against them.
So the pedagogical exercise is transformed into the crude psychoana­
lysis of the sick social body. Hence the importance of these exercises of
simulation called polls a nd of t he enormous work of interpretation that
governments, experts and journalists expend in their regard to show to
the sovereign people that it is merely a sick population if it believes it
can really choose, and consequently adopt. the suicidal position involved
in refusing reality. The electoral process is then transformed into a psy­
choanalytic cure in which the population i s enjoined to fear itself at it
moves closer to the edge of the abyss of negation and by this means to
regain its mental equilibrium.
The E u ropean referendum has brought this logic out into broad day­
light. Those who want to conj u re away the risks of a negative popular
suffrage essentially employ two arguments. First. that this E uropean
Constitution does not change anything that was not already there. All
the clauses that provoke the cries of its opponents, decrying E urope's
'liberal' drift, were already effective in the extant framework. So it is
vain to protest against it today. Second, that there is no 'alternative
solution'. Those with twisted minds might respond that the t wo a rgu­
ments contradict one another: if everything is similar to what was
before, there i s no need for an alter native solution and perhaps no need
of a new Constitution . But to respond in this way they would denounce
themselves as twisted, as negative souls. For the argument is simply that
they must say yes to what is, since if they do not say yes to what is, they

143
 C H RONICLES OF CONSENSUAL TI M E S

say y e s t o i t s con t ra ry, n a m e l y n ot h i n g n e s s . T h e a rg u m e n t is t h a t t h e y

m us t b e a lfi r m a t ive a nd n o t n e g a t ive .
T h i s , i n fa c t , i s t h e o n l y way to make both p r i n c i p l e s o f l e g it i m a c y
co i n c i d e : t h e e x p e r t k n owledge w h i c h i d e n t i fi e s t h a t w h i c h i s a n d s e t s
t h e m e a n s t o a d apt t o i t , a n d t h e popu la r vote w h i c h i s pro c l a i m e d sov­
ereign ove r t h e c h oice of its gove r n o r s b u t i s u n a b l e t o b e over the d e t e r­
m i n a t i o n of t h e rea l i t y w h i c h for m s t h e s u bj e c t of t h e i r gove rn m e n t .
H e re i n resides t h e s t a ke s of a con s t i t u t i o n of s u p ra n a t i o n a l s p a c e s l i k e
E u ro p e : a bl u r r i n g of t h e r e l a t i o n b e t w e e n t h e sovereign people a n d t h e
s pan' of s ove reig n t y. Th i n g s wou ld be s i m p l e i f at i s s u e wa s o n l y t o
re place t h e s m a l l n a t i o n a l s t a t e s w i t h a l a rger o n e t h a t wou l d e n c o m ­
p a ss t h e m . B u t t h i s is n o t w h a t is at s t a k e . T h e E u ropea n C o n s t i t u t i o n i s
n ot , i n fa c t , a C o n s t i t u t i o n . I t i s n o t t h e e m a n a t i o n o f a ny people a n d
d o c s not fo u n d a n y s t a t e . B u t t h i s C o n s t i t u t io n w h i c h is not o n e d raws,
by t h e sa m e t o k e n , a new m a p of t h e r e l a t i o n s b e t w e e n a sove re i g n
people a n d a c o m p e t c n t s t a t e . I t d i s t e n d s t h e r e l a t i o n b e t we e n t h e s y m ­
b o l i c s p a c e i n wh ich sov e re i g n t y o f t h e fi rs t a n d t he m a t e r i a l space i n
w h ich s t a t e a n d i n t e r s t a t e c o m p e t e n ce i s e xe r c i s e d . I t completes t h e
e f fort o f ou r s t a t e s t o i n s t i t u t e t h e s p a c e o f a coe x i stence free o f con f u ­
s i o n between t h e l eg i t i m a c y of p o p u l a r s u ffrage a n d t h a t of e x p e r t
k nowl edge .
Here is i n fact t h e bottom of the probl e m . It d o e s n o t concern t h e i l l ­
b e i n g of s u ch - a nd - s uc h a p e ople o r s u c h - a n d - s u c h a g r o u p . I t conce r n s
t h e rel a t i o n between p a rl i a m e n t a r y s t a t e s w i t h t h e p o p u l a r s u ffrage t h a t
l e gitimates t h e m , t h e rela t i o n s of 'demo c r a c i e s ' with their own n a me .

144
 N otes

CHAPTER TWO

I . Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human

Sciences, New York: Vintage B ooks, 1 9 94 ( French original, 1 96 6 ) .

CHAPTER THREE

I. Walter Benjamin, 'Theses on the Philosophy of History' in Illu minations,

edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn,
New York: Shocken Books, 1 969, 2 5 3-64 ( German original, 1 9 5 5 ) .
2 . Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, New York: Bantam Books, 1 9 70.

CHAPTER SIX

I. E mile Zola, La Biite Humaine. translated with an introduction and

notes by Roger Pearson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1 996 ( French
original, 1 8 9 0 ) .

CHAPTER SEVEN

I. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment. ed.

Gunzelin Schmid Nerr, trans. E dmund Jephcott, Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2 0 0 2 ( German original, 1 947 ) .
2 . Friedrich von Schiller, L etters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, trans.
Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L.A. Willoughby, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1 96 7 ( German original, 1 79 5 ) .

145
 NOTES

CHA PTER EIG H T

I C la u d e Lev i - S trauss, Tristes Tropiques, trans . John and Doreen

Weightma n , New York : A t h e n e u m , 1 9 74 ( F rench o riginal. 1 9 5 5 ) .
2 C l a u d e Genou x , Memoires d 'un enfant de la Savoie: les carnets d 'un colporteur,
cd . Lu ciell C h a v o u t ier, Montmeli a n : la Fontai n e de Siloe, 2 00 1 .

CHA PTF R NINE

I
St C-pha n e C o u rt o i s ( ed . ) The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror,
Repression, tra n s . Jonathan M u rp h y and M a rk Kramer, C a mb ridge :
H a rvard U n i ve rs i t y Press, 1 9 9 9 ( F rench origi n a l ) .
A u t h or o f The Unknown Revolution, 1 9 1 7- 1 92 1 . New Yor k : Free Li fe
Ed i t ions, 1 9 74 ( French original. 1 947 ) .

CHA PTER ELE VFN

I
Roberto B e n i n gi 's fi lm wa s r e l e a s e d i n English as Life Is Beautiful.
G e ra rd Waj cm a n , " ' S a i n t Pa u l ' G o d a rd c o n t re ' M oi'se ' Lanzma n n ? " ,
L e Monde, 3 D ecember 1 9 9 8 .
, A 1 9 3 9 fi lm by J e a n R e n o i r, r e l e a s e d in E n glish a s The Rules of the Game
1 ( 950) .

CHA PTER TWELVE

I
J e an Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, trans. Pau l Patton,
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1 99 5 ( French original. 1 99 1 ) .

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I. Th i s title, Bruit de fond, comes from the French translation of the n ovel
by Don Delillo, White Noise, New Yor k : Penguin, 2 0 0 2 .
2. Th ierry de D u v e , Voici, 1 00 ans d 'a rt contemporaine, Pa ris: Ludion/
Flammarion, 2 0 0 0 .

CHAPTER SE VENTEEN

I Jean-Jacques Delfour, ' « Loft S t o ry » , une machine totalitaire',

Le Monde, 1 9 May 2 00 1 .
2 'Pouvoirs e t strategi e s ' , i n t e rview with M i c h e l F o u c a u l t, Les Revoltes
logiques, no. 4, winter 1 9 77, p. 9 0 .

146
 NOTES

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

L The film was Hrst released in 2 00 1 , and was titled The Lady and the
Duke in English.

CHAPTER TWENTY
L Pierre Hadot, La Ph ilosophy comme maniere de vivre, interviews with
Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson, Paris: Albin Michel, 2 00 1 ;
Catherine Rambert, Petite Philosophie du matin, Paris: Le Grand Livre du
mois, 2002; Roger-Pol D roit, 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Every­
day Life, trans. Steven Romer, London: Faber & Faber, 2002; Michel
Onfray, Antimanuel de philosoph ie, Paris: Breal, 2 00 1 ; Alain de Botton,
The Consolations of Philosophy, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000 .

CHAPTER TWENTY- THREE

L The original French text is: Je suis tombe par terre,
C 'est la fau te a Voltaire
Le nez dans Ie ruisseau,
C' est la faute a Rousseau !

CHAPTER TWENTY-FO UR
L In question is the quarrel provoked by Daniel lindenberg's work Les
Nouveaux Reactionnaires.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
L Translator's note : This is my attempt at translating the well-known
French song 'J' ai fa memoire q u i flanche' . . .
2 . Robert Redeker, 'Les n eopacifistes en guerre . . . contre la paix',
Le Monde, 2 6 March 2 0 0 3.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
L A still more striking illustration has since been provided by the case of
Teri Schiavo, in which we saw the American C ongress, in a full period
of tax cuts and welfare system reform, sit as a matter of utmost urgency
on a holiday weekend and vote in a law of exception to order the
reconnection of an artificial feeding tube.

147
 NOTES

CHA PTER TWENTY-NINE

I Jean - C laude Milner. Les Penchants criminels de l 'Europe democratique

[The C riminal Ten d e n cies of D e mocratic E u rope ] , Paris: E ditions
Verdier, 2 00 3 .

CHA PTER THIR TY

I Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, Volume 1 : A n Introduction, tra n s .

Robert H u rley, Harmondswort h : Penguin books, 1 97 8 ( French
original, 1 9 7 6 ) .
2 David M . Halperin, Saint Foucault: Toward a Gay Hagiography, New York:
Oxford University Press, 1 99 5 .
\ Michel Foucault, The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1 954-84 ( i n
4 volumes ) , edited by Robert H u rley, J a m e s D . Faubion and Pa ul
Rabin ow, New York : The New Press, 2 00 0-2 0 0 6 .
I Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasu re: The History of Sexuality, Volume 2 ,
tra n s . Robert H u rley, H a rmondsworth: Penguin books, 1 9 92 ( French
origi n a l , 1 984) and Care of the Self" The History of Sexuality, Volume 3,
tra n s . Robert H u rely, H a rm o ndsworth : Penguin books, 1 9 90 ( French
original, 1 9 84) .

CHA PTER THIR T Y- TWO

I Nicolas Bou rriaud, Esthetique relationnelle, D ij on : Les Presses du reeL

1 99 8 .

148
 Ind ex

abstract painting 1 3 4, 1 3 5 cinematographic 2 1

Ackerman, C hantal 5 8
Adorno, Theodor 24, 2 5, 2 6 , 2 7,
40
aerial-strike war 47
Agamben, Giorgio 1 2 2 , 1 2 4, 1 2 5
Algerian demonstration in
Paris 3 4
Algerian insurrection 6 6
America I Africa encounter 2 9
American expressionism 3 8
American government
conflict with 'old Europe' I I I
American hegemony 7 7
American liberal revolution 1 2 2
anti-authoritarian
movement 1 2 4, 1 2 6
anti-imperialist mobilizations
( 1 960s-70s) 8 4
anti- Semitism 4, 6 , 1 4 0
anti-terrorist war,
US-launched 74
apocalypse 1 6 , 1 9
Arendt, Hannah 5 2
Aristotle 1 2 , 1 9, 5 3
art 40-3, 49, 5 2 , 5 7- 6 1 , 8 9, 9 5,
9 8 , 1 0 0 -5, 1 33 - 6
authenticity o f 2 6 -7
crisis of 3 6-9
of governing 2 1
art-archive, art-school 5 9
art o f living, philosophy as 7 9
A u - dela d u spectacle 5 8 , 5 9
paintings, contrasted with
media images 5 9
Auschwitz 40, 6 2 , 65, 1 3 8
allied troops, sixtieth
anniversary of 1 3 7
Aussares ( G eneral) 6 6
autobiography 1 0 5
autonomy 9 8
Barney, Matthew 97, 9 8 , 9 9,
100
Baudrillard, Jean 3 6 , 3 8
Beethoven 1 1 8
Benigni, Roberto 40
Benjamin, Walter 1 0, 2 4, 9 6 ,
102, 103
Beuys, Joseph 3 6 , 6 0 , 1 02
Biennale of Sao Paolo 1 3 3 , 1 3 4
bill, innocence and rights of
victims 49
photos of victims 49
Bin Laden 78, 82

149
 I N DEX

C h ristia n 5 8 , 60, 9 6 ,
B o l t a ll s k i , contempor a ry a rt 3 6, 5 8 , 5 9,
104 1 04, 1 3 3, 1 3 4
H o ro ro v i l lage, topography 3 0 contempora ry capitalism 1 0 0
H O'iIl i J li S 4 6 contemporary music 3 9, 9 8
\{ o " n i a n wa r 4, 5 contestatory a rt 37
dt'/i, C!o recog n ition, B o s n i J - con t i n gent gove r n ment 1 2 2 , 1 2 3
He rzegov i n J 4 'control society ' 6 8
(iL' mocracy 6 cor r uption 5 3, 5 5, 5 6
donos/ethnos 6 cou nter-revolution 54, 70, 7 3
e t h n ic clea n s i ng 5 Crash 2 0 , 2 1
gl'Opolitica l ration J l ity of cratylism 1 3 4
powers 5 Cratylus 1 3 4
J J pJ n in west 6 Cremaster cycle 9 7, 9 8 , 1 0 0
f3,1\diIl8 for Columbine 1 1 5 C ronenberg, David 20, 2 3
B raIiI, cou ntry of sociology 2 9, C r usoe, Robinson 3 1
30, 3 1
B resson, Ca rtier 52 dadaism 9 7
B n)()dthaers, M a rcel 60, 1 0 2 Dagen, Phi l ippe 3 6
f3 ruit d e fond 5 8 , 5 9 D a m ie n H i rst instal lation 39, 1 0 1
B liSh, George 74, 84, 1 0 6, 1 1 4 'dead o r a l ive ' principle 8 2
Debord, Guy 5 8
Cahiers du cinema 1 02 d e D uve, Thierry 5 9
C a l le, Sophie 1 04 d e Gaulle ( General ) 3 3 , 8 7
capitJl ism, contempora ry 1 0 0 Delillo, Don 5 8
catast rophe fi l m s 1 8 Demes 6
'C auchem a r de George V ' 1 3 3 democracy 5 , 6 , 16, 36, 55, 5 6 ,
Christ mort soutenu par les an8es 6 0 6 5 , 7 5 , 8 3 , 1 0 7, 1 1 1 , 1 2 0,
'CJair d e l u ne: Beet hoven 1 1 8 1 22 , 142
C lare, Jean 3 6 liberal 94, 1 2 1
C l isthenes 6 real again s t formal 1 2 1
communism 8, 3 3 , 7 5 , 8 5 , 9 3 , socia l 8 3
102, 1 2 1 D ialectik der A ufkliirung? 2 4
Communist Manifeste 1 02 dictatorship 38, 5 4, 1 0 7, 1 0 8
C omte, A u g uste 2 9, 3 0 Didi-Huberman, G eorges 96
C ondorcet, writings of 2 5 D ie Heilige Johanne der Schliichthofe
consensus I , 3 , 3 8 , 4 6 , 6 8 , 74, ( play) 1 1 5
86, 9 1 , I l l , 1 3 6 Dits et E erits 1 2 4, 1 2 5
The Consolations of Philosophy 78, Dogville 1 1 5
79 D oisneaus 5 2
constructivist modernism 1 3 4 Dostoyevsky 1 1 6

150
 IN D EX

The Downfall 1 37, 1 38 fetishism 2 7

Durkheim, E mile 2 9, 3 0 fiction and reality 8 1
Fin de siecle scepticism 8
E astwood, Clint 1 1 7, 1 1 8 Finkelstein, Norman 6 2 , 64, 6 5
' Elections, idiot trap' (slogan by Flaubert 1 5, 3 8 , 9 5 , 1 0 3 , 1 0 4
de Gaulle) 8 7 Flaubertian idea of absolute
Elephant 1 1 5, 1 17 work 1 0 4
Elliot, Grace 7 1 Foucault, Michel 4 , 6 8 , 1 2 4
Eloge de l 'amour 7 3 Francisco, Rene 1 3 5
emancipation 9 , 2 4 , 2 5, 2 6 , 2 7, French Revolution 1 0 , 1 7, 2 2 , 70,
65, 9 9, 1 2 8 7 9, 1 2 2
'epic theatre' 1 1 5 French strikes ( 1 9 9 5 ) 3
E picurus 7 9 ' Freudianism' 1 1 7
equivalence, principle o f 2 9 Fukuyama, Francis 7 5
equality 3 , 1 8 , 3 1 , 94 - 5, 9 7, 1 3 7 fundamentalism 7, 7 5 , 8 3
inequality 3, 2 3 Furet, Francois 70, 1 2 2
Esprit 3 6
ethical identity, litestyle and Gassings 6 2 , 63
values 8 4 Gaullist Republic 33
ethico-police symbolization 8 5 General Aussares (Algerian
ethnic cleansing 5 , 5 1 war) 66
ethnic conflicts in European General de Gaulle 33, 87
East 7 5 genocidal undertaking 4 5
ethnicism 4 5 genocide 4 5 , 5 1 , 6 2 , 6 5 , 6 8 , 8 5 ,
' Ethos' 8 4 1 2 1 , 1 2 2 , 140
European Constitution 1 4 1 , 1 4 3 , genocide, Jewish 65
144 Genoux, C laude 28, 2 9, 30, 39
European referendum , logic German Romanticism 3 7
of 143 Godard, Jean-Luc 40, 4 1 , 43, 60,
E vans, Walker 1 03 , 1 1 6 73, 1 0 2
evil and violence 1 14 Goebbels (Mrs. ) 1 38
101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Goldin, Nan 1 0 5
Everyday Life 8 0 government candidates 8 9
expert knowledge 1 4 2 , 1 4 3 , 1 4 4 governments, authority of
extraterrestrials 1 6, 1 8 action and existence 1 4 2
virtue of popular decision /
fanaticism 1 1 3 ability to chose 142
Fanon, Frantz 1 14 governors vs. governed 3
Feldmann, Hans-Peter 5 8 Gramsci 2 4
Festival o f Cannes 70, 1 1 6 Great D epression 1 16

151
 I N DEX

The G reat Dictator 42, 4 3 i n d i v i d u a l i s m 55, 94, 9 9, 1 0 0,

G re e n berg, C l ement 6 0 1 02 , 1 0 3, 1 2 2
G roups of I n fo r m a t ion o n ' i n fi n it e j u st i c e ' 82, 8 3, 85, 1 0 9
Prisons 1 2 7 I ra q c a m p a i g n 1 1 0, 1 1 3
Gua n t a n a m o B a y, p r i s o n e r s o f 8 5 I s ra e l i - A ra b wa r 65
G u l f wa r 1 8, 44
J e f fe r s o n , T h o m a s 9 4
H a i ns, Raymond 60 J i h a d 74
H alperi n D a v i d 1 2 4
, jospin, Lionel 8
H a rri s , E ric 4 8 Jo urnal d 'u n e femme de
H e a r t fiel d , J o h n 5 9 chambre 1 0 4
H i l l , David O c t a v i u s 1 0 3 Jules et Jim 1 0 6
His/oire(s) d u Cinema 4 1 , 60, 1 02 j u r i d i c o - p o l itica l c o m m u n it y 84,
h i storical evol u t i o n , l i n ea r 86, 1 2 1
conce p t i o n of 76
H i t l e r 42, 47, 'i l , 5 9, l 2 1 , 1 37, K a n t a n d t h e E n l ig h t e n m e n t 5 3
1 3 8, 1 4 0 'Kant with Sade ' 2 2
' H i t leri s m ' 4 7 K e l l e y, M i ke 1 0 5
H i tl e r i t e F ra nce, t h reat o f 9 1 K le b o l d , D y l a n 4 8
Hobb e s i a n t h e o r y 9 0 K o sova r 4 5 , 46, 5 1
Holocaust 62, 1 3 8, 1 39, 1 4 0 Kosovo wa r 45, 47, 5 0
Holocaust i n d u s t r y 6 4 Krisis 3 6
Horkhci mer, M a x 2 4, 2 5, 2 6 , 2 7,
40 L a c a n , Jacques 1 2, 1 3, 2 2
H ugo, Victor 9 2 , 93, 94, 9 5, 9 6 , Lanzm a n n , C laude 40, 4 1 , 42, 1 39
1 37 L 'A nglaise et Ie Duc 70
' h u m a n i t a r i a n ' 46, 5 1 , 8 4 La Societe du spectacle 5 8
m i l i t a r y a nd a s s i stential 4 6 L a vier, B ertrand 5 8 , 1 0 1
ta rgets, i l l -identi fi e d 4 6 L a vita e bella 40, 4 1
huma n it a r i a n wa r 4 5, 46, 47, 84 L a Volo n te de savoir 1 24, 1 2 6, 1 2 7
h u m a n i t y 2 1 , 22, 2 7, 2 9, 45, 47, law in t e r m s of rights 8 3
5 1 , 9 9, 1 1 6 L e Debat ( j ou rnal o f hard line
and a n t i - h um a n it y 4 5 l i b e r a lism) 3 6
h u m a n rights 2 4 , 4 6, 9 4 , 1 2 2 L e Fab u leux Destin d 'A m elie
h y perrea l i s t photogr a p h s 60 Poula in 8 1
legal indeterminacy 85
' i mage rights: p olemics o n 49 Le Mon de ( d aily newspap er) 4 0,
i m p e r i a l i s m 74 6 7, 1 08, 1 2 9
Independence Day 1 6, 1 8 L e n i n 2 4, 3 3
i nd ignation 6 6 , 6 7, 1 2 9, 1 3 0 Leone, S ergio 1 1 7, 1 1 8

152
 IN DEX

Le Pen 9 0 Maupassant 38
Les Miserables 9 2 , 9 3 , 9 4 , 9 5 , 9 6 , McDonalds chain, farmers
1 37 against 5 0
Gavroche's song 9 3 'mecanomorphic' paintings
L es Mots e t les Choses 4 ( P icabia) 98, 99
Le Souci de soi 1 2 7 Mekas, Jonas 5 8
Les Penchants criminels de l 'Europe Memoires d 'un enfant de la
democra tique 1 2 0 Savoie 2 8
Levine, Sherry 1 0 3 Merleau-Ponty 39
Levi- Strauss, C laude 2 8 , 2 9, 3 0 Messager, Annette 1 0 5
Lewinsky, Monika 5 6 Michaud, Yves 36, 38, 39
liberal democracy 94, 1 2 1 Michelet 93
'liberals' 7 Milner, Jean- Claude 1 2 0, 1 2 2
Liberation (daily newspaper) 3 6 minimalist sculptures 6 0
liberty 1 0 7 Mitterand, Fran<;ois 8
political liberty 1 0 8 modernism
Livre noir d u communisme 3 3 constructivist 1 34
Loft Story ( French reality T V Manet's 5 9
programme) 6 6 , 6 7 Mondrian 1 3 4, 1 35
Luis Borges, Jorge 4 Montaigne 7 9
L ' Usage des plaisirs 1 2 7 Montana University 3 0
Moore, Michael 1 I 5, 1 1 7
Macqueen, Steve 9 6 Moretti, Nanni 1 0 5
Malevitch 43, 1 3 4, 1 3 5 Morozov, Pavel 5 4
Mallarme 5 7, 1 0 3 , 1 0 5 Motti, Gianni 1 3 5
Malraux's imaginary Mou ron rouge, stories of 7 0
Museum 1 0 2 music, contemporary 38, 3 9, 9 8
Manet 6 0 Mystic River 1 1 6
Marxism 8, 1 2 , 1 4 , 2 4 , 2 6 , 2 7, and 'humanism' I I 5
92, 1 2 5
Marxist 1 2 , 6 5 , 1 2 6 , 142 Nambikwara, death of 3 1
A merican Jewish 64 narcissism 5 9, 69, 1 0 0
anti- 93 NATO 45, 47
critique 2 5, 2 6 , 27 Nazi genocide 6 5 , 85, 1 2 1 , 1 2 2
identification, scientific Nazism/Nazi 33, 37, 40, 4 2 , 5 0 ,
theory and practice of 5 9, 6 3 , 65, 67, 85, 1 2 0 , 1 2 1 ,
emancipation 2 5 1 2 2 , 1 37, 1 3 8, 1 39, 1 4 0
literature 1 3 negationism 14, 6 2 , 63, 6 4
socialism 1 35 neo - Gothic 9 7
theory 24 neo - liberal politics 26

153
 I NDEX

New Wave fi l m m a kers 7 3 p o r no - fi c t i o n 2 0, 2 2

N ie l lscile 2 5, 7 9, 1 0 0 p o r n o g raphy 2 3
Nillfil modenza 9 6 p o s t m o d e r n socio l o g y 1 4
n o n - i n ference, p r i nciple o f 8 4 p o s t-Rega n America I I I
' I1 on - m a n i c h e i s m ' 1 1 5 p o s t-Thatcherite E ng l a n d I I I
N ()v i c k , Pe t e r 6 2 , 6 5 p r i n c i p l e o f n o n - i n ference 8 4
' p rotest ' / ' protestors ' 8 9
Objet du SU:c1e 40 ' P u zzle Polis I I ' 1 33
Ono: upon a time in America 1 1 7
O p era t i o n Iraqi Freedom 1 0 7 r a c i st a n d xenophobic right 7 5 ,
88
p a i n ted i m age, power o f 3 9 R a m bert, C h ri s t i ne 8 0
P a p o n , M a u rice 3 2 , 3 3 , 3 4, 3 5 R a s s i n i e r, Pa u l 6 3
t r i a l a nd verd ict 32 Reaga n , R o n a l d 3
Pa r i s i a n i n t e l lectu a l s 9 7 rea l is t s / re a l i s m 8, 9, 1 0, 1 1 , 6 8 ,
p a storal govern m e n t 1 2 2 , 1 2 3 73, 75, 9 7
Pau l ( Sa i n t ) 43, 60 Rez'chsbahn 4 2
Paysan de Paris 9 5 ' relation a l a r t' 1 35
p eace agre e m e n t for Republic 1 2 2
ex-Yugosla v i a 4 Republ i c a n idea l i s m 94
p eople v i i i , 1 - 6 , 9 - 1 0, 1 4 , 1 7- 1 8 , Republica n politics 37
2 1 , 3 0 -3, 4 6 , 5 2 - 3 , 5 5 , Republ i c a n v i rtue 55
70-3, 9 3 , 9 5 , 1 0 3 , 1 0 7- 1 0, Republic o f G enera l d e Gau lle
1 1 6 , 1 2 2 , 1 3 7-4 5 33
a s demos 6 , 4 5 'republic o f judge s ' 5 3
a s ethnos 6, 4 6 revolution
p essimism 8 0 American liberal 1 2 2
Schopen h a u erian 2 5 ' b o u rgeois 1 02
Petai n , Marsh a l l 3 2 'counter-revolution' 7 3
Petite Philosophie d u matin 7 8 , 8 0 fi l m 7 0
photography 3 7, 5 1 , 9 5 , 1 0 3 French 1 0, 1 7, 2 2 , 7 9, 1 2 2
P icabia exh ibition 9 7 i n formation 1 0 1 , 1 02
Plato 2 , 3 5 , 7 9 , 1 2 2 , 1 2 3 , 1 3 4 literary 1 0 3
P latonic legislator 2 p ostmodern 1 0 3
P l atonic utopia I Rossellinian 7 3
p olitics, neo -liberal 2 6 technical 1 0 2
popular suffrage 142, 143, 1 4 4 ' r ight o f humanitarian
population viii, 1-2, 5-6, 1 2- 1 8, inte rference ' 8 4
3 1 , 3 5 , 46-7, 7 1 , 84, 1 07, R ights o f M a n 1 2 2
1 1 2-1 3 ' r ight to disobedience' 34

154
 INDEX

'right to humanitarian Soviet empire, fall of 1 7, 65, 7 5 ,

interference' 1 0 7 83
The Rock 1 8 S t a l i n (istlism) 3 3 , 3 7, 54, 67
Rohmer, E ric 7 0 , 7 1 , 7 2 , 7 3 Stock E xchange 3
Romanticism 1 0 2 Strike 1 1 8
German 3 7 submission, mechanism of 9 0
via symbolism 3 7 surrealists 3 0 , 9 5 , 1 0 3
RosIer, Martha 5 9
Rossellinian realism/ technocratism 1 2 6
revolution 7 3 technological revolution, effect
Rousseauism = glasshouse = of 1 0 2
totalitarianism 5 4 terrorism 8 2 , 1 1 2 , 1 1 3
Rousseau, J e a n - Jacques 52, 5 4, Third French Republic 3 1
93 t hreat, preventative protection
against 1 1 3
Saint Foucault 1 2 4 Toffler, Alvin 1 1
S a i n t Paul 4 3 , 60 totalitarianism 24, 5 5 , 6 8 , 6 9, 8 5 ,
Salle des Martin ( e x h ibition ) 9 3 , 1 0 9, 1 2 2
101 denunciation of 1 2 1
Sa rtre, Jean-Paul 3 4 , 9 2 , 1 1 4, Rousseauism = glasshouse =

124 totalitarianism 5 4
S c h legel Brothers 1 0 3 'soft totalitarianism' 5 4 , 6 7,
S ch open hauer 2 5, 7 9, 8 0 , 8 1 68, 75
second denunciation of S ov i e t Traite d e fa servitude volontaire 1 0 8
crimes 85 transparency 54, 5 6, 6 8
Seneca 79 Tristes Tropiqu es 2 8 , 2 9, 3 1
S eptember 1 1 7 5 Tudo e Brasil 1 3 4
S erbs 4 6 , 47
Sherman, C i ndy 1 0 5 Ober den Begriff der Geschichte 1 0
Shoah 4 0 , 4 1 , 1 3 9, 1 4 0 Ober die dsthetische Erziehung des
situationism 5 8 Menschen 27
S o cialist Party 8 7 U S - launched anti-terrorist
socialists 7, 9 3 war 74
sociology 1 4 , 2 9, 3 0 , 3 1 U S policy of s upport 6 4
S o c rates 2 5 , 7 9, 8 0 , 8 1
'soft totalitarianism' 5 4 , 6 7, 6 8 , Va lj e a n , Jean 9 2 , 94
75 Van S a nt , Gus 1 1 8, 1 1 9
sophists 4 4 Vichi n sky 68
Soviet crimes, s econd victim of absolute wron g /
denunciation of 8 5 right 1 0 8

155
 INDEX

Vietnam Wa r a n d Peace 1 3 7
c h i ld ren b u r n t b y n a p a l m 6 2 Wa r h o l , A nd y 3 6 , 6 0
Wa r 8 4 Wei ss fa m i l y, t r a g i c desti ny
v i olence of 1 3 9
d o m e s t i c a t i c a t i o n of 1 1 4 We n d e r s , W i m 1 3 7
s y m bol ic 3 weste r n m e t a p h y s ics,
s y m b o l i c s i g n i fi c a t i o n 1 18 H e i d egge r i a n c r i t i q u e
of t e rror 1 7 of 2 5
Voila : L e lvlonde dans la tere White Square on a White
( e x h i b it i o n ) 5 7 Background 4 3
Vo l l J i re 9 3 ' Work o f t h e d i a le c t i c '
von S c h i l ler, F r i e d r i c h 2 7 t h e o r i z a t i o n on 9 6
von T r i er, L a r s 1 1 7
Xenophobia 12
Waj c m a n , Gera rd 4 0 , 4 1 , 4 3
Wa l l , J e f f 6 0 Zola, E m i le 2 1 , 9 3

156
 taught at the
University of Paris V I I I , France, from

1 9 69 to 2000, oc cupying the C hair of

Aesthetics and Politics from 1 990 until

his retirement.

, the translator

of this volume, is the editor and

tra nslator of Alain Badiou's Polem ics

(Verso, 2006) and Jacques Ranciere's
Dissensus (Continuum, 20 1 0) .

J a cket i l l ustration : E r · I r' la

http://www , del I com/

.\\
continuum