Post-Marxism Versus Cultural Studies: Preface

'Preface', Post-Marxism versus Cultural Studies (Edinburgh UP, 2007)

 

 

In an essay on 'university responsibility', Jacques Derrida said, 'I do not know if there exists today a pure concept of a university responsibility, [and] I do not know if an ethico-political code bequeathed by one or more traditions is viable for such a definition. But', he continues, 'today the minimal and in any case the most interesting, most novel and strongest responsibility, for someone attached to a research or teaching institution' is to make 'as clear and thematic as possible' the 'political implication' of the key and complex insight that all interpretation, 'the interpretation of a theorem, poem, philosopheme or theologeme is only produced by simultaneously proposing an institutional model, either by consolidating an existing one that enables the interpretation, or by constituting a new model to accord with it' (Derrida 1992: 22, 21). This is the same as to say that all interpretation – of anything – requires that the interpreter 'assume one or another institutional form'. 'This', Derrida adds, 'is the law of the text in general'. The book you are reading is concerned with this 'law of the text'. Derrida continues: Interpreters are not 'subjected passively' to the dictates of an institutional form, however; and all interpreters' 'own performance will in turn construct one or several models of community'. But nor is interpretation 'free': reading, or interpretation, cannot be extricated from the complex snares of the institutional practices and protocols of the contexts within which it occurs. Nor is reading or interpretation 'natural', or necessarily 'true'. Rather, it is always in some sense institutionally located and (over)determined. Indeed, Derrida goes further: institutions themselves are not simply free or unrelated, but they too are complexly ensnared, imbricated or reticulated within, and articulated to yet other institutions. There is a fundamental complexity and textile-like interimplication between institutions, the acts within and of them, and other contexts, sites and scenes. Derrida puts it provocatively: 'When, for example, I read some sentence from a given text or in a seminar … I do not fulfil a prior contract, I can also write, and prepare for signature, a new contract with an institution, between an institution and the dominant forces in society' (21-22). It is the 'political implication' of this complex textuality that Derrida demands should be made 'as clear and thematic as possible', in terms of 'the most classical of norms':

 

By the clearest possible thematization I mean the following: that with students and the research community, in every operation we pursue together (a reading, an interpretation, the construction of a theoretical model, a rhetoric of an argumentation, the treatment of historical material, and even of mathematical formalization), we argue or acknowledge that an institutional concept is at play, a type of contract signed, an image of the ideal seminar constructed, a socius implied, repeated or displaced, invented, transformed, menaced or destroyed. An institution – this is not merely a few walls or some outer structures surrounding, protecting, guaranteeing or restricting the freedom of our work; it is also and already the structure of our interpretation. (Derrida 1992: 22-23)

 

Derrida views this as a primary concern of deconstruction. In this sense, deconstruction is far from simply 'theoretical'. Rather, as Derrida continues to argue, if 'it lays claim to any consequence, what is hastily called deconstruction as such is never a technical set of discursive procedures, still less a new hermeneutic method operating on archives or utterances in the shelter of a given and stable institution; it is also, and at the least, the taking of a position, in work itself, toward the politico-institutional structures that constitute and regulate our practice, our competences, and our performances' (23). Moreover:

 

Precisely because deconstruction has never been concerned with the contents alone of meaning, it must not be separable from this politico-institutional problematic, and has to require a new questioning about responsibility, an inquiry that should no longer necessarily rely on codes inherited from politics or ethics. Which is why, though too political in the eyes of some, deconstruction can seem demobilizing in the eyes of those who recognize the political only with the help of prewar road signs. Deconstruction is limited neither to a methodological reform that would reassure the given organization, nor, inversely, to a parade of irresponsible or irresponsibilizing destruction, whose surest effect would be to leave everything as it is, consolidating the most immobile forces of the university. (23)

 

With this argument in mind, this present work engages with 'deconstructive' post-Marxist scholarship and 'deconstructive' cultural studies. What demands this engagement derives directly from Derrida's argument about university responsibility, in that it alerts us to the political implication of university academic and intellectual work. Indeed, as will be shown in Chapter 1, cultural studies is to be regarded as being precisely the same sort of ethically and politically motivated institutional practice as Derridean 'deconstruction', in this regard. Neither ought simply to be formal and procedural, but rather both seek to intervene into their immediate and extended institutional socio-political contexts, in the hope of making a difference 'that counts', in Stuart Hall's (1992) words.

 

Given Stuart Hall's rightly influential status in cultural studies, Chapter 1 clarifies Hall's important and influential conception of cultural studies' raison d'être and modus operandi. It clarifies that the foundations of his views relate fundamentally both to deconstruction and, crucially, to the deconstructive post-Marxist political theory of Laclau and Mouffe (1985), et al. This 'post-Marxist' theory is a perspective which views history, culture, society and politics as being irreducibly 'discursive'. It was from the outset and continues to be characterised by taking a view of culture, society, subjectivity and even all intellectual and political categories that is enabled and informed by an irreducibly deconstructive optic: central to it are notions of the contingency, bias and politicality of construction, the 'impossibility' or 'constitutive incompletion' of identities, and so on. As Chapter 1 also clarifies, Laclau and Mouffe's (1985) theory that culture and politics are contingent and hegemonic has become strongly influential within cultural studies. The influence of Laclau and Mouffe's theory on cultural studies in itself has often been overlooked. But, rather than merely seeking to point up this relation, this work seeks to show that it is in this profound 'influence' itself that a first problem resides. This relates to the Derridean deconstructive complication or complexification of the idea of the political that we began with. As has just been seen, Derrida extends the consideration and conception of the political in such a way as to make it inextricable from the institutional and ultimately even the textual. In light of this contribution, the 'problem' of post-Marxism and cultural studies that this work engages relates to the question of academico-political responsibilities. What are the responsibilities of post-Marxism and cultural studies? To what are they to be responsible? What is it to be responsible and to intervene responsibly, significantly, effectively, anyway? Into what, and how? These are important questions, and as this work argues, they ought in fact to be regarded as a cortical problematic of cultural studies and post-Marxism. However, although it is 'theoretical', this problematic is not 'merely academic'. Rather, the conflict that arises between post-Marxism and cultural studies in light of the question of 'university responsibility' is ultimately a matter of political consequentiality. It is about what happens.

 

But, for many the more basic question is why they should be related together anyway; why post-Marxism and cultural studies should be articulated in terms of a Derridean emphasis on and problematisation of 'university responsibility' (of all things!). In this work I argue that relating these putatively discrete approaches is eminently justified and actually even called for, because both post-Marxism and cultural studies in a strong sense came into existence in response to a certain deconstructive 'crisis' in (and about) politics and knowledge. As will be argued, both post-Marxist theory and cultural studies as institutions initially and constitutively orientated themselves as interventional efforts, as wanting to challenge, dislodge, or at least develop, existing and often broadly Marxist models of political causality, of intervention, and of what determines the character of conjunctures, identities and objects. Both cultural studies and post-Marxism, that is, sought to establish precisely what effective and responsible, intellectually justifiable and rigorous ethico-political intervention could be. In other words, both sought to intervene. In this sense, both are of course obviously 'theoretical', yet guided by the aim of establishing ethico-politically responsible and effective 'practical' intervention. In both cases (to the extent that they are separable), this required and has resulted in an important and often refined rethinking of politics, theory, and institution. But this still needs to be taken further, both theoretically and practically. Ultimately, I argue, both rely heavily on the theoretical (broadly deconstructive) concept of 'articulation', especially as it has been theorised by Laclau and Mouffe (1985), as well as on the general sense that 'hegemony' – again, especially as theorised by Laclau and Mouffe – names and describes the logic of political and cultural articulation, and accordingly the movements and processes according to which meanings, values, relations, identities, orientations and institutions, are established. These insights offer the ingredients for a revivified theory and strategy of responsible intervention.

 

Now, it should be clear that something very like this notion of hegemonic articulation is strongly at work in Derrida's understanding of the relations and effects within which academic work finds and constitutes itself. So, this movement of rethinking that can be seen in the impetus to and of deconstruction, cultural studies, and post-Marxism can also be said to oblige the rethinking of the nature of intellectual institutional practice itself. Derrida is most clear on this point. In light of this, I argue that post-Marxism in particular – as well as many tendencies within and styles of cultural studies – have yet to fully acknowledge the importance of, let alone actually to undertake and act upon, such a rethinking and reorientation. Nevertheless, both post-Marxism and cultural studies encounter and, in their best moments, try to negotiate the problems introduced by an acknowledgement of the uncertainty or undecidability of 'university responsibility'. That is to say, the undecidability of responsibility that Derridean deconstruction identifies suggests the failure of any straightforward causal notion of politics and (accordingly) of intervention. The logic of political causality and therefore the answer to the question of how to intervene 'successfully' must be engaged. This book argues that cultural studies and post-Marxism are constitutively orientated by the aim of intervention when what intervention should and could be is undecidable. Its aim is to clarify the extent to which both remain unclear about precisely how to intervene: this central 'concept', or impulse, remains under-theorized. Post-Marxism versus Cultural Studies seeks to help reactivate the theory and orientation of intervention.

 

However, and in a sense that Derrida's argument helps to draw out, there are many aspects of an uneasy and problematic conflictual relationship between post-Marxism and cultural studies. The nature of this conflict is established in Chapter 1, after some key dimensions of the historical, ethico-political, and conceptual imbrication of cultural studies and post-Marxism are laid out. First, the historical and conceptual coincidence of post-Marxism and cultural studies is considered, and the post-Marxist paradigm of 'discourse analysis', as elaborated by Laclau and Mouffe (1985), is explained. The importance of this paradigm for politicised cultural analyses of all kinds, and indeed for all efforts to understand the political, is emphasised as being extremely important and productive for cultural and political studies. Next, the specificity of the problematic of cultural studies is mapped out and engaged. From this position, it becomes possible to begin to clarify the character and stakes of the conflict between post-Marxism and cultural studies. What must be emphasised, though, is that this conflict is neither merely academic, nor merely theoretical, nor is its significance limited to this 'case study'. It is rather, I argue, crucial to an understanding of the matter of political intervention itself, as intervention is a fundamental raison d'être of cultural studies and post-Marxism. It is the most important thing to be theorized.

 

Chapter 2 deepens the consideration of the conflict, by examining the differends between the post-Marxist notion of 'discourse' and the deconstructive notion of 'text' in relation to problems of knowing (and) the political. It explores the problems of establishing what is political, what the political is, and the political dimensions of all establishment (with 'establishment' read as both noun and verb). Organised by an analysis of Stuart Hall's exemplary politically-inflected concerns with post-Marxism's 'textualism' and its theory of 'discourse', this chapter is supplemented by John Mowitt's important re-theorisation of the importance of what he calls the 'textual paradigm' (1992). This paradigm is deemed by Mowitt to be of immense ethico-political consequence when it comes to the question of 'university responsibility', and specifically the responsibility of post-Marxism and cultural studies. Crucial here is Mowitt's notion of the 'disciplinary object', or the productions (or, indeed, inventions) of disciplinary knowledge that are effective institutionally and that are circulated or disseminated discursively. This approach, I argue, offers a uniquely important way to make sense of the political dimensions and ramifications of academia within hegemony, as well as providing a key way to read the post-Marxist theory of hegemonic politics, as it were, 'against itself' and towards a more generative politicised paradigm. Informed by both the post-Marxist theory of hegemony and the concept of the disciplinary object, the chapter considers the hegemonic, institutional, academic and ethico-political position of cultural studies and other such subjects constituted through reference to 'interdisciplinarity'. Derrida (2002) suggested that cultural studies and interdisciplinarity may quite often be 'confused' and 'good-for-everything' concepts. Nevertheless, the chapter argues, Derrida's own readings, in Dissemination (1981) and elsewhere, provide a clear way to make sense of the institutional, structural, discursive, and political 'plight' – and importance – of a subject like cultural studies. With the matter of hegemonic and institutional location firmly foregrounded, the chapter goes on to interrogate some key (problematic) conceptualisations of intervention and politics, with a view to reconceptualising and reorientating notions of what academico-political intervention might possibly be. These relate to a 'microscopic', 'micropolitical' antidisciplinary strategy of interdisciplinary intervention, derived directly from deconstruction (Derrida: 1996; Mowitt: 1992).

 

Chapter 3 follows on from this by examining some key ways that post-Marxist and related intellectual work (such as that of Judith Butler and Richard Rorty) conceives of itself as intervention. This is a different issue to that of how post-Marxism theorises intervention as such. Indeed, theorising intervention in general is something that it can all too easily do, by invoking 'articulation', for instance (as in: 'intervention is successful motivated articulation'). Rather, this chapter pursues the matter of how institutional intellectual work construes itself whenever it seeks to be or affect an intervention (How and with what is it actually 'articulated'?). The chapter explores this by considering some exemplary encounters at the borders of post-Marxism that take us to the heart of the problem. These encounters and accounts, I argue, reveal the form, orientation, hopes, and often less than explicitly declared or avowed metaphysical rationales, fantasies and presuppositions of much theory about political practice. The chapter explores the way theory and practice are thought (or left unthought), examining the way that certain of Laclau's key engagements with other approaches have been orientated, organised and executed. So, although it explicitly only looks at encounters at the borders between post-Marxism and other paradigms, the chapter is actually an engagement with works to be taken as representative of a wide spectrum of conceptualisations of intervention, conceptualisations that can be discerned widely throughout cultural and political studies. The chapter examines Laclau's engagements with Richard Rorty's unapologetic anti-theoretical pragmatism, Žižek's equally unapologetic 'high theory', and Butler's attempt to negotiate between such positions, and it is supplemented by Derrida's comments on the encounter between Laclau and Rorty (1996). The chapter thereby seeks to delineate and engage with the limits, problems and possibilities of such paradigms, and with the ethico-political implications of such styles of thinking and orientation. The contention is that the limits, problems and possibilities seen here are exemplary illustrations of the paradigms of a great deal of works of both 'anti-' and 'high' theory circulating in cultural studies, political studies (post-Marxism included), and academia generally.

 

But where does such a project take us, or leave us? The concluding chapter, Chapter 4, reiterates what is at stake in the 'versus' of Post-Marxism versus Cultural Studies, by clarifying that the question of the 'paradigm' or of the theoretical orientation is something that is far from being of merely theoretical or 'merely academic' consequence. It argues that post-Marxist political theory in particular must now attend to the challenge and criticisms laid down by deconstruction and cultural studies if it is not, paradoxically, to disengage from the possibility of intervening politically in anything like the way that was its own initial raison d'être. In light of this consideration of post-Marxism and cultural studies as interventional efforts, Chapter 4 takes issue with the agenda proposed by the most recent work of Laclau, as well as with the arguably rudderless drift of cultural studies away from engaging with political responsibility, and proposes a rearticulation with the shared and constitutive problematic of both and a reorientation vis-à-vis the demands of any project of responsible intervention. Responsible intervention today requires an explicit problematisation of disciplinarity as 'enclaving', and an interdisciplinary strategy that is antidisciplinary. (This paradox is engaged in Chapter 4.)

 

If this work primarily identifies and explores an 'academic' conflict between post-Marxism and cultural studies, it seeks to show that this conflict is not merely academic, in the pejorative sense; nor merely inconsequentially abstract, theoretical or intellectual; but rather that it is a conflict that has more than one political implication (Derrida 1992: 21-22). In order to argue this, it is first necessary to establish more fully what post-Marxism and cultural studies are, what the nature of their relationship is and what their wider importance or significance may be. So, the first chapter will delineate the key features of the post-Marxist political theory of discourse and hegemonic politics, and indicate the ways that this approach to understanding culture and politics is an invaluable resource not only for cultural studies, but also for many other academic and political projects more broadly.

 

Focusing first on the influential post-Marxist work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, especially their groundbreaking co-authored work, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (1985), the chapter stresses the importance not only of Marxism but also deconstruction for this post-Marxist theory. This is because post-Marxism proceeds from a deconstruction of Marxism, a deconstruction aimed at reconstructing and revitalising Marxism so as to re-affirm Marxism newly construed, and to revivify it as a relevant and active force within today's 'postmodern' or indeed 'deconstructive' world. Post-Marxism, then, is shown to be a deconstructed and deconstructive version of Marxism, a political theory whose validity is held to be more clear, demonstrable and appropriate within the context of the contemporary world. As Nicholas Royle argues, 'deconstruction' is a term that should not be limited to describing the work of a few academics, but should rather be understood as a term that actually indicates 'what is happening today in what is called society, politics, diplomacy, economics, historical reality, and so on' (Royle 2000: 11). Indeed, Royle's point here can perhaps most readily be understood in terms of post-Marxist deconstruction: for, the reason why the world is construed as one of 'discourses' in post-Marxism is because, within this theoretical paradigm, 'history and society are an infinite text' (Laclau 1980: 87) – a perspective clearly related to Derrida's important argument that 'there is nothing outside of the text' (Derrida 1974: 158). For reasons that will return regularly throughout this work, deconstruction is cortical to post-Marxism's understanding of the political. It is also cortical to cultural studies' understanding of culture. However, it is in their differing relations to or appropriations of deconstruction that the nature and stakes of their conflict congregate.

 

As will become clear, though, deconstruction is always a double-edged sword; never simply a 'medicine' but also a poison; never simply a 'solution' but also the deepening and radical development of any problem. Thus, even though post-Marxism as a project is enabled by a simultaneously controversial and productive deconstruction of Marxist categories, values, assumptions and rationalities, this does not mean that post-Marxism itself cannot be deconstructed and be shown to be limited, partisan, incomplete, 'constitutively impossible', and indeed perhaps even what Derrida (1995) would have called 'violent'. So, after spelling out the immense importance and value of post-Marxist theory, this work undertakes a deconstruction and critique of post-Marxism. This process also takes up Derrida's injunction always to invert and displace a problematic (1977; 1982), not simply for reasons of intellectual or academic rigour, or as an upshot of any reading's thoroughness or fidelity, but as a way of identifying ethical and political stakes and consequences. Accordingly, one thing that is inverted and displaced in this process is the commonly held assumption that post-Marxism 'teaches' and cultural studies 'does'; or, that is, that the political theory expounded by post-Marxism is merely a 'tool' to be 'applied' by cultural studies (see also Hall 1996d: 149). In other words, the argument is that whilst it is true in one sense that post-Marxism is indeed primarily a political theory, and that cultural studies does in a similar sense aspire to be a politically significant intellectual practice (Hall 1992; 1996), this schema in which the one is theory while the other is practice is a perspective that is actually facile, partial, limited, limiting, and arguably even debilitating for cultural studies, and indeed, even for political or politicised practice of all orders. It is vital to think about theory and practice, to think about what (we think) theory is and does, and what (we think) practice is and does. For there is no escape from 'theory', and it is of course a kind of practice in its own right, one which moreover orientates any practice. But this work does not intend merely to upturn the commonsense assumption that 'theory informs practice but proper practice is more important than theory' into an easy 'theory is a more important practice than other kinds of practice' – as provocative and challenging as this might be. (This is a proposition which will return and be examined in terms of the analyses of Slavoj Žižek's idiosyncratic post-Marxist thinking on politics and political action, and in the examination of Laclau's attempts to articulate his theory as practice, in chapter 3.) Rather, Derrida regularly reiterates the important political stakes and consequences of the displacement of the terms, assumptions and focus of any debate (See Protevi 2001). So here, in deconstructing easy notions of theory 'versus' practice, the aim is not point-scoring, score-settling or one-upmanship for or against cultural studies or post-Marxism, or for or against 'theory' or 'practice'. Rather, the aim is for a revaluation and a reconceptualisation of the ways in which such intellectual work is construed and orientated as politicised practice. This is about responding to the demand of taking on the political. It is an interdisciplinary intervention with antidisciplinary aims.