Dear Professor Badiou:
About the RCP Assault on Alain Badiou, Philosophy & (Ultimately) Communism Itself
By Bill Martin
Before we say more about this RCP polemic (“Why Alain Badiou is a Rousseauist… And Why We Should Not Be“) the first thing that needs to be said is that its guiding principle is:
“Who needs this shit? Bob Avakian has the New Synthesis, and that’s the end of the matter. Either get on board with that or you’re going down the wrong road.”
The second harsh thing that needs to be said is this polemic is an act of stupidity and irresponsibility against communism itself.
It is also an act of stupidity and irresponsibility against philosophy, theory, and critical thought. And we need to understand better how an act such as this, in being such an act against philosophy, etc., is an act against communism.
None of this, absolutely none of this, has anything to do with whether the polemic (or Bob Avakian) is right and Badiou is wrong on any particular point.
Neither should we get caught up too much in taking the polemic as setting any kind of agenda for the discussion of Badiou’s work and the ways that this work might help us in reconception and regroupment. There are plenty of good commentaries on Badiou’s work out there that do not deign to only, finally, notice the work of this outstanding philosopher and “post-Maoist” of our time when it comes time to knock him down, and with no appreciation whatsoever for the openings that he has created.
It may seem insignificant, or far less significant, to discuss this polemic, or Badiou’s philosophy, much further in light of the even more recent discussions around Nepal (basically, the Nepal material coming a couple of weeks after the polemic). But there is a sense in which this is all of a piece, the piece being not BA’s New Synthesis, and, furthermore, other things lighting up the sky, such as the Idea of Communism conference, and developments in Nepal, and, for that matter, the fact that the Bush regime was “driven out” without the central role being played by Bob Avakian (BA), the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), or World Can’t Wait (WCW), and none of these things are foregrounding the New Synthesis, either. The narrow world of the RCP is closing in upon itself even further, and there is an inability to ask why this happening; instead there is an essentially conservative, capitulatory reaction.
This polemic ought to make those of us who care about the future livid.
It’s just worse-than-worthless stuff when all you can do with contemporary philosophy is to jump out with a polemic that is motivated by no kind of actual intellectual or even political curiosity. Not all of us find Badiou’s ideas exciting, important, and even exhilarating, but some of us do (and I do). But what is more at stake is that the perspective behind this polemic is one where that would not even be a possibility, it is ruled out in advance. And that is deplorable, and it should be called out for being the complete crock of shit that it is.
As for lessons that we ought to learn from this, among those of us who are looking for the next steps in Marxism, and even the next steps in Maoism and post-Maoism, I want to take this moment to state this in a sharp and harsh form. Not everyone here is going to be convinced by my claim that we still have much to learn from Immanuel Kant. Not everyone here is going to be convinced by Badiou’s philosophy, and its sense that we still have a good deal to learn from Plato, Spinoza, and Rousseau. But for the people who simply dismiss this idea, that we still have much to learn from philosophers who came before Marx, these people in essence are dismissing the communist project.
Avakian’s Away With All Gods! is a fantastic display of contempt for intellectual work, an approach proudly defended in the recent excerpt of a talk by BA (“On the role of communist leadership …”) where he defends his “methodology” of self-referencing and talks about all of the books that he has read. This polemic on Badiou furthers this contempt.
I’ll just put things very simply: communism is good, and nothing good can come from such an approach, whether this approach is applied by the RCP or by other know-nothing, anti-intellectual “socialists.”
But I will save the larger development of these arguments for other posts. Among other things I will argue that “enough of Badiou is right” (and that we communists would be very irresponsible in not taking up these ideas), while I also have some questions for Badiou on points where I disagree with him or perhaps simply do not understand him.
One reason why I will save these arguments for other posts and other topics is that I think our main response to this polemic ought to be,
“Dear Professor Badiou, we hope that you will not think, if you even happen to see this RCP Polemic, that it represents the views of all revolutionary communists in the United States; unfortunately, however, the main trend of Maoism in the U.S. has come to this sorry state and dead end. Fortunately, there are some ideas in your philosophy that will help us understand this point of saturation and even ‘disaster,’ and we also are open to exploring your philosophy, and the theoretical work of others, in attempting to forge a path beyond this impasse. Thank you for your outstanding contributions.”
Rearguard and Ugly
One assumes that this polemic was put together by a writing group; I suppose it doesn’t really matter, though I bristle a bit at the fact that it is put out there “anonymously,” that seems a bit smarmy to me. The timing of the thing is clearly meant to be coincide with the Idea of Communism conference, where Badiou was something of the centerpiece, though of course there were other important thinkers there as well. What an ugly thing to do, and what a rearguard sort of “contribution” to this whole scene. I have not yet heard any reports of the presentation that Raymond Lotta made in London at the time of the conference, does anyone know if what was presented was some version of this polemic? Again, very rearguard and ugly.
When I had my massive argument with the person I have previously referred to as a Leading Party Member at the end of May 2008 (as described in my first Kasama post, “Going forward from here”), I continually challenged this person to just come out and say that the history of philosophy prior to Marx is basically worthless, and that philosophy outside of the narrow MLM/BA canon is worthless. I was begging this person to come to his senses in terms of basic intellectual integrity. This polemic, unfortunately, is some kind of answer on these issues.
Certainly one could say, “they know not what they do”—or, again, to put it harshly, they don’t have a bloody clue.
But BA and the remaining members of the RCP, if they weren’t just sycophants to begin with (for it is very clear that the idea that “Communists are rebels” was dropped from the program some time ago), have willfully placed themselves beyond the possibility of getting a clue. I have respect for what some of these people used to be, and I still have some (sentimental perhaps) hope and wish that some of these people will break with their present, ever-deepening impasse, but perhaps those who have remained have just decided that all they know to do at this point is to go down with the ship.
As a general point, and in the context of some of the study some of us have recently undertaken on the work of Louis Althusser, we might discuss further whether the “polemical mode” is a good way to carry forward work in philosophy or in other intellectual endeavors. Ironically, Badiou defends the role of polemic, and he cites Kant in this. I recognize that sometimes it is necessary to engage in a “war of ideas” (polemos is the Greek word for “war”), and certainly I think it can be good to present certain ideas with a certain “edge.” At the very least, however, one might think that there is something wrong with the initial engagement with a major figure taking this form, starting with a typically ridiculous title of the form, “N is an x, and we shouldn’t be that.” Again, deplorable.
This polemic, however, is not only an initial engagement with Badiou, it is the first extended engagement with any major figure in the history of philosophy or contemporary philosophy in many years. This in itself is a statement on philosophy.
The term, “engagement,” is used loosely here, especially as the whole point of the polemic is to ensure that people who probably hadn’t even heard of Badiou until quite recently are inoculated against any impulse toward actual engagement with Badiou or any other major figure in philosophy.
This is also the whole point of the labeling (“Rousseauist”) in the title of the polemic—since we especially know there is nothing to be learned from any philosopher before Marx. Furthermore, how can there be an engagement, when the whole approach is “shut it down,” rather than “open it up”? Again, it is a very conservative reaction, and indeed it is also merely a “reaction.”
While I’m laying it on, let me characterize the foregoing in two further ways:
First, if you have to jack yourself up to believe that you are really the only person or group putting forward the only really new and revolutionary synthesis, then you will get into a mindset where, frankly, you wouldn’t be able to recognize something new and valuable even if it bit you on the ass. Indeed, other new things will appear merely threatening.
Second, one place where Bob Avakian is a lot like Stalin, and less like Marx, Lenin, and Mao, but also a lot like other trends of economistic Marxism, is in viewing the whole history of philosophy as one big pile of crap. Again, this is represented very well by the fact that Badiou is now being discussed with people who only recently heard of Badiou, by people and for people who wish they never had heard of Badiou. It is simply orthodoxy and economism, and we would do well, even those of us who don’t want to spend much more time discussing Bob Avakian or the RCP, understanding how this is the case and what sorts of dynamics lead in this direction.
Asked To Engage He Who Does Not Engage
With this polemic, we are once again being asked to engage with he who does not engage. There are two related points to be raised here, as concerns how the rest of us who are attempting to reconceive and regroup should proceed.
First, I think there is a real question of “standing” that ought to be addressed. For one thing, it is clearly the point of this polemic that it doesn’t really matter what Badiou thinks, or what he has to offer, or what questions he opens up; the real deal is that BA has laid down the new science, there for the taking. Now, whoever wrote this polemic did a little more homework than BA generally does (which isn’t saying much, and there is more to this than just a long list of books one has read), but the point is the same: Badiou is wrong because Avakian is right.
But this leads to the second point:
If Badiou is wrong, he is wrong in his many systematically developed books, and in his systematic, rigorous, and expansive written work (this is a repetitive way of making the point, but I not only want to make the point, I want to rub it in).
If BA is “right,” he is right in his mostly non-systematic, non-rigorous, self-referential talks. I used to think this was acceptable (though not preferable) up to a point, when there seemed to be a context for it, a Maoist current that was opening itself up to learning from many sources.
To the extent that was ever a reality, it was shut down, and then one finds oneself going back to works such as the Democracy book and others from that period, and asking why we should spend any time with them when there are other works by figures such as Sartre, Althusser, Derrida, and Badiou (and many more) that give us more than enough to do.
So, now, it seems we need to have a discussion of the ideas of Badiou. And, for that matter, especially thanks to the ideas and provocations of Badiou and Zizek, here is the possibility for breaking through with the idea of communism! Who should get a seat at the table of these discussions? On what basis would we say anymore that BA or others from the RCP have anything to contribute? The way that they think they can just come into debates where they have made no substantive contribution and have shown no ability to learn from others (and to apply the “John Stuart Mill principle” and all of the stuff that at least looked good in those Skybreak essays) looks to everyone else to be simultaneously silly and authoritarian. Nothing good can come of this approach—and, again, communism is good.
For our part, let’s do engage with others and give them a good reason to engage with us.
Needing to Reconceive and Regroup
Simply in recognizing that revolutionary communism needs to reconceive and regroup an advance has been made.
The RCP reached a point where, in order to continue to make a contribution, it needed to make a fundamental advance, and it was not able to do this. The main reason for this is objective, in the sense that they were working from within a paradigm that was played out. But there are some subjective factors as well, which shaped the inability to break with an exhausted paradigm. In grappling with the “communist hypothesis” we need to go further in understanding these dynamics.
My point, regarding intellectual work, is that there is a model here that has to be negated—and I frankly wish that some of the people who post at Kasama would go further in negating this model. Certainly we don’t want to shut down the enthusiasm anyone, anyone whosoever, might have for contributing to the theoretical project. At the same time, we need to be able to carry forward theoretical work on a high level, informed by contemporary developments and analyses.
I still think there is something to Engels’s formula of the most advanced “socialist” experience—under which he also included syndicalism and utopian communitarianism, philosophy, and political economy, just leaving aside the French, German, and English parts; what he called “English” was for the most part actually Scots, anyway!
This is a hard nut to crack, it’s not clear that it’s ever really been done. We need to think more about why it might be significant that BA and the RCP did pretty well, and sometimes very significantly well, with at least some aspects of the “French” and “English” parts of this work (the summing up of experience and political economy), but for the most part very poorly with the “German” (philosophical) part, and indeed worse than poorly for the most part, seeing the work of historical or contemporary philosophers as mostly something against which to erect barricades. The present barricade, and its circumstances (where the polemic against Badiou is in some sense also a polemic against the Nepali Maoists), is again representative of foolishness and irresponsibility and a merely reactive mindset, but we would be remiss if we don’t take this opportunity to learn some lessons about methodology and the role of philosophy in anything that might really be a new synthesis.
Not a Deep Enough Break
By way of conclusion, we might spend a moment with at least one little part of the polemic, the part that sets out three possibilities for the next wave of revolutionary activity.
“What are the correct and incorrect lessons to be drawn from the rich experience of this first wave of socialist revolutions? What is the framework for the new stage of communism, for going forward in this project for the emancipation of humanity? Is Marxism, communism, still valid as a science? In the most fundamental sense, the question comes down to this: can you make revolution in today’s world, a genuinely emancipating communist revolution—or is that not possible, or even desirable, anymore?
“As described in Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, A Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA there are three main and essential responses to this moment.
“First, there are those who religiously cling to the experience and theory of the first wave of socialist revolution of the 20th century—not summing up problems and shortcomings, not moving forward, but circling the wagons.
“Second, there are those who reject real scientific analysis of the contradictions of the socialist transition and distance themselves from the unprecedented breakthroughs in human emancipation represented by the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions. They look for inspiration and orientation even further back into the past–to the 18th century and the proclaimed democratic and egalitarian ideals and social models of the bourgeois epoch and to theorists like Rousseau, Kant, and Jefferson. In some cases, they discard the very term communism; in other cases, they affix the label “communism” to a political project that situates itself firmly within the bounds of bourgeois-democratic principles.
“Third, there is what Bob Avakian has been doing. He is not only the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which has its sights set on the revolutionary seizure of power and the radical transformation of society, but is also a visionary theorist. Since the defeat of the Chinese revolution in 1976, he has been applying himself to the challenges of making revolution in today’s world, acting on the understanding that communist revolution is the only way out of the madness and horror that is social existence on this planet. (pp.2-3)”
Let’s take this in the order first, third, and second; in other words, first the dogmatists, then BA, then Badiou.
The problem is not really that there are a lot of people out there simply clinging tenaciously to the Soviet and Chinese experiences (or Cuban, Algerian, etc., for that matter). The way this first category should have been framed is that there are many socialists who sum up the first wave of proletarian revolutions as showing us that it is a mistake to try to break with an economist perspective, and that what we need instead is a better worked-out version of such a perspective.
I’ll deal with these questions at length in a discussion of economism, but let us say that we know this perspective well in the interventions here at the Kasama site, most eloquently developed by Carl Davidson and most systematically developed in the work that Carl repeatedly recommends, that of David Schweickart. I know Prof. Schweickart fairly well, he is not a dogmatist, in fact he is a very sophisticated thinker—and I want to add that he is, in my experience, a kind and caring person. I could see some of his economic models as playing a helpful role in a socialist society, but, again, I will take that up at length in my post on economism. But the point is that Prof. Schweickart is an avowed utilitarian, he affirms many John Stuart Mill principles.
Apart from discussing these issues more directly, the main point is that BA’s New Synthesis doesn’t really break with it.
In terms of continuity and discontinuity, the NS is more continuous with the experiences of the first wave (as is said directly in the polemic: “principally continuity”), and it doesn’t give us enough that is either new or a synthesis. Again, I would say that BA was up against an objective arc or trajectory and its exhaustion, and up against certain subjective factors, including a certain anti-intellectualism and intellectual laziness hiding behind a shallow critique of “academic niceties.”
If BA really had a new synthesis, he ought to be able to enter into fruitful conversation with others who are also attempting to forge ahead, but clearly he is not able to do this. Instead, he clings tenaciously to what he knows or thinks he knows, and after awhile it is all so swirled up in a sea of self-references that no one ought to consider what is coming out of the process a “theoretical project,” quite apart from academic niceties.
More to the point—because I do think Avakian is a smart guy, that’s not what’s at issue—is a certain habit of mind, reinforced over many years of experience in the RCP, and many decades of experience in the ICM, that prides itself on narrowness in the name of materialism. Not to get all psychoanalytic or even new-agey here, but there is a pathology to grabbing too hard, and there is a need, for the sake of both materialism and emancipatory projects, to let go a bit.
It has been pointed out to me by Kasama Project people who were closer to the RCP than I was that this mindset is also linked to failure, and that it represents a kind of capitulation:
“If we can’t do anything else, we must at least promote the work and leadership of Bob Avakian well.”
Is Our Needed Synthesis a Philosophy or a Science?
Once again let us underline two questions about science, or perhaps three.
What would Marxism be as a “science,” especially given how much science has been done since the time of Marx? (Incidentally, it is important that, among the figures mentioned in the polemic that Badiou is “going back to,” we do not find Georg Cantor; perhaps this will be found in a subsequent installment of the polemic, but surely this would complicate simply summing up Badiou as a “Rousseauist”?)
What is “science,” exactly, and does it give us everything, in every way, that we need for revolutionary communist theory and practice? For example, are there real ethical questions, and is there a science or a purely scientific mode of inquiry that gives us the answers to such questions? What about questions of art? Is art a substantive part of the human experience and possibilities for liberation and flourishing? Can questions of art and aesthetics be sorted out in a purely “scientific” way?
Lastly (among these questions), and the only point in having to say this once again is that the RCP keeps putting it forward as if they are really saying something, you don’t get to science, systematicity, rigor, or vision by declaration or fiat. There have been many insights over the years from Bob Avakian and the RCP, and some good historical analysis, some of it even pathbreaking, and some good work in political economy; I don’t see the point in minimizing these things, though they meant one thing in the context of an organization and activism that had some vibrancy to it, and they mean another thing in the context of an organization and leadership that was not able to make the necessary transition to a new level of theoretical and practical activity.
Does anyone doubt that the reason for “science and vision by declaration” is that this whole “new synthesis” hasn’t really come together?
Furthermore, and perhaps again to wax a bit psychoanalytic (superficially so, I realize), isn’t this the real motivation for tearing Badiou down, that BA doesn’t really have the new synthesis, combined with an abiding faith on the part of BA and those who remain in the RCP that only BA could have it.
Thus this dismal, grind-it-out-to-the-verdict, prooftexting and cherry-picking polemic against Badiou. This should make us angry, livid even, but it is also just sad.
However, even while we are correctly expressing anger at this stupid irresponsibility, let us underline one methodological point that needs much more discussion, and again it has to do with philosophy.
In the final analysis, is our Marxism, or better our revolutionary communism, our needed new synthesis (or even simply our new patchwork or “crazy quilt” of analyses that speaks to the way the world is today) that is going to help us radically change the world, a philosophy or a science?
We need science, we need scientific work and many avenues of scientific investigation (in other words, we need not only science, we need the many different sciences, plural)—does anyone really dispute that? But do we need art (and, again, the many different fields of artistic endeavor, and even the many fields of art theory and criticism)? Do we need love? Do we need politics, especially where the emergence of a true event in politics is something in the manner of an intervention, one that is essentially (if also in some sense not “absolutely”) underdetermined?
We could have a very fruitful debate around whether these are the only categories where events are possible, and so on, though of course we won’t have any such discussion in the case where our only interest in Badiou’s philosophy is to shut it down. Badiou’s work does a great deal more to help us with these issues than does chanting the mantra of “science” with very little (if any) real science to go with it.
The larger point is that the core of a truly new synthesis needs to be philosophy, not “science,” and, if you do it the other way around, you will not only be anti-philosophical and dismissive of the contributions of philosophy and philosophers (including, ultimately, the philosophical contributions of Marx, Lenin, and Mao — because, once you have the new science, you can kick away the old science), you will not understand the contributions of science in the proper context, either.
Bad Methodology
In the paragraph that goes more directly to Badiou, we see the usual use of the term “like.” This betokens very bad methodology. “Theorists like Rousseau, Kant, and Jefferson,” as with other non-helpful groupings such as “postmodern philosophers like Derrida” (or is it like “the Derridas”?), is just a way of not having to do some philosophical work and grapple with ideas.
Of course, it all works fine if we’ve already got the assurance that no thinkers before Marx have anything to teach us, and especially no philosophers since Marx have anything to teach us if they are outside of the narrow MLM/BA canon.
Anyone who has read Badiou knows that he hasn’t distanced himself from the Bolshevik Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, or Lenin or Mao.
Indeed, some of his ideas are very helpful for understanding what it might mean to say that these contributions are “saturated” and that it is time for a new synthesis, without setting aside a basic fidelity to these experiences. There is still a difference between what can be carried forward in our present efforts, and that which was not revolutionary to begin with.
As for analyzing the experience of the first wave, sure, I have some questions for Badiou’s particular claims and his broader framework, but there is a lot to be learned from it, too—just as, for instance, there is a lot to be learned from Sartre’s analysis of the Stalin period in Critique of Dialectical Reason, Vol. 2, and in the remarks on “survivals” in Althusser’s For Marx and Reading Capital. And there is a lot to be learned on this point from Mao’s Critique of Soviet Economics and Avakian’s Conquer the World?
But isn’t the point that we need all the help we can get in understanding the horrible mess that socialism became under Stalin, and that people of good will should come together on this work? We need to understand better why it is significant that this polemic contains not the least bit of good will.
The approach of this polemic instead reminds me of those so-called “Christians” who are mostly concerned with identifying the people who are going to hell, and I can’t help but recall BA’s bizarre piece on how “most of the time, even communists aren’t communists.” He didn’t mention himself in that regard, and the implication is that, all alone in this world Bob Avakian is the one communist who is a communist all the time, and he is the thread by which communism hangs in our time. It should go without saying that, if you begin with such a standard, no one else is going to measure up. But then you find yourself saying “we” shouldn’t be “Rousseauists” to people for whom the question means nothing, because it is ruled out in advance that there might be some reason to read Rousseau today. Nothing good can come from this.
It’s silly, anyway, to mainly identify Badiou with Rousseau—for the crime of thinking we might still learn a thing or two from Rousseau (and as if Marx didn’t)—when he is most often identified with Plato and the fulfillment of a certain “dream” of Plato by Cantor and the development of set theory and the idea of infinity.
How Badiou’s view that “mathematics is ontology” could be materialist or Marxist is an interesting question. It’s a question that I’m still trying to understand myself—and when I encounter some of these very smart people who are working in a concentrated way in Badiou’s philosophy, or, for that matter who have worked in set theory and mathematics more generally, I ask for their help in getting some insight into this question.
One important point is that W. V. Quine (no Marxist, for sure!) argued that sets have to be accepted into ontology because sets are necessary for doing scientific work. However, one thing that I would say is materialist about what Badiou is doing here (and Quine for that matter) is that his proposals open many questions, whereas Avakian’s half-baked, fragmentary, positivist, “truth is correspondence with reality” line not only shuts down questions, that is its aim.
We can argue with Badiou’s ideas, that’s part of what makes them materialist. There’s no arguing with BA’s crude notion of truth, with which he is “intoxicated” (as he put it), that’s what makes his theoretical enterprise “idealist,” and not in any good way. There is nowhere to go from there, and the people who are persisting in this line are indeed going nowhere.
Is Badiou a “Marxist”?
Well, members of L’Organisation Politique, of which Badiou is a leader, are referred to as “Modern Marxists.” It’s true that Badiou’s Marxism might be called one of “pure politics,” as Slavoj Zizek puts it in The Parallax View. Badiou’s rejection of economism goes so far as to reject the whole language of “interests,” a language that motivates most of what calls itself Marxism, including that of Bob Avakian. But wouldn’t we want to engage with this argument in a non-sectarian way, especially if we are interested in a non-economistic Marxism?
Is Badiou a “Maoist” or “post-Maoist”?
Bruno Bosteels makes a convincing case for the latter in his article, “Post-Maoism: Badiou and Politics.” Certainly Badiou continues to refer to various points in his philosophy that he takes to be “profoundly Maoist,” and his philosophy gives us a philosophical basis for both retaining a fidelity to Mao and the experience of Maoism and for recognizing that “it is absolutely necessary to invent a new political discipline.” This last is from the conclusion to an interview with Tzuchien Tho, conducted for the 2007 publication of The Concept of Model, in English translation, almost forty years after its original publication in French; the entire interview is very good, but of particular significance to our present concerns is this concluding section, where Badiou goes from discussing mathematics as ontology to answering the question, “Is there a Maoist theme there?” Badiou responds, “Yes, Maoist in a very deep sense.”
But again, the point is not simply whether we agree or not at every point with how Badiou develops these themes; there are many, Maoist or otherwise, who would take issue with the analysis that follows Badiou’s affirmation of a very deep Maoist theme. However, the real question is this: beyond Marxism or Leninism or Maoism, Badiou is working toward a renewal of the communist hypothesis. If we care about communism, we need to engage productively and critically with this work. Why would we not want to do this?
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