Occupying Subjectivity: Being and Becoming Radical in the 21st Century by Chris Rossdale

Author:Chris Rossdale [Rossdale, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138125063
Google: BWQpjgEACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 27848938
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

There is no democracy without respect for irreducible singularity or alterity, but there is no democracy … without the calculation of majorities, without … representable subjects, all equal. These two laws are irreducible one to the other … political desire is forever borne by the disjunction of these two laws. (Derrida, 2000, p. 22)

It is important that Occupy faced the aporia between unity and singularity because it helped its participants dispel the fantasy that if it was not for the corrupted political system and greedy bankers, there would be some ideal union of all people. By practising direct democracy, the movement revealed the hidden underside of all concepts of democracy, highlighting and negotiating the essentially ambiguous nature of any and all judgements about what the content of democracy actually is.

All of those aspects of democracy were brought to light in a moment when there was a sudden crack in the dominant symbolic structures, when the movement was tapping into the disconnect between the system and its remainder. While occupying and trying to practise real democracy in the here and now, we cannot eliminate the possibility that it will be a messy and challenging endeavour with its own inconsistencies, deformations, and problems. This is exactly why I call it real democracy. Real democracy in this understanding does not merely signify ‘substantive’ as opposed to the void liberal representational form of democracy. Instead of idealistic or pragmatic content, real democracy in my usage affirms various inconsistencies and uncertainties that are revealed through people’s lived experience. It also points to the messiness, temporality, and singularity where others would see or wish for unity.

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