On the Right and Left Discourses, the Anthropocene, and the Feminist Agenda
transl. by Ignas Gutauskas
original interview here
Alexander Smulansky is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, and the author of the first Russian-language monograph, where he describes Jacques Lacan’s contribution to the theory and clinic of obsessional neurosis. He is an author of the seminar “Lakan-likbez”. He has published three books, the most recent one is “The Paternal Metaphor and the Desire of the Analyst: Sexuation and Its Transformation in Analysis.
Nastya Kalita discussed with Smulansky the era of Modernism and its influence, the ecological catastrophe, and the contemporary intellectual scene, if such a thing exists.
Nastya Kalita: I want to start with the interview published in the latest issue of the “Art Journal” and your statement, “In the field of discussions about art, we inevitably find ourselves in the realm of problems and concepts formulated by the philosophy and publicism of the 19th century.” But what about the 20th century? There was Fauvism and many other -isms back then, say, Modernism, which provided many languages and methods. Why do you speak only about the 19th century?
Alexander Smulansky: The possibility of turning a concept into a current designated by its name was laid in the post-Hegelian era, thereby eventually forming what Lacan would later call the “discourse of science.” Seeing things from this perspective, the popular debate on whether the emergence of the scientific discourse should be traced to its philosophical inclinations or, on the contrary, should be seen as a fundamentally different type of knowledge, loses its meaning, because science is not something that has philosophy as its rejected origin or, conversely, something that successfully originated elsewhere. The scientific discourse is rather what represents the situation that refers to the subject who is engaged in the matter of self-consciousness. Here, it is necessary to stress the difference between self-knowledge and self-consciousness, because the confusion of these terms is ineradicable. In order to disentangle them at once, it should be said that no self-knowledge has ever led to the emergence of science. We must also point out that self-consciousness, which Georg Hegel undoubtedly derived from René Descartes, was substantially modified, and this modification gave rise to new types of language relations. If in Descartes, the claim of self-consciousness represents nothing other than a grammatical construction intended to performatively ensure reliability, then in the case of Hegel, it directly turned into a work with ideology. It is precisely here, in its intertwining with science, that ideology gives rise to a specific mode of employing speech.
This employment is proving so successful as a project that it starts functioning independently, as what might be called an “aggregate.” This aggregate is something that is embedded in all of the subject’s proceedings, and being embedded, creates a situation where he has no recourse to any other language.
We call this language “scientific” not in the sense that the subject who uses it is precise in his expressions or demonstrates heightened awareness. When it comes to this language, such precision and awareness are not required, meaning that the subject can be completely ignorant. Moreover, this ignorance is precisely what indicates the success of the embedding, for the subject is not expected to be somehow specially prepared. The requirements imposed on the subject in this regard are minimal because it turns out that this language is not limited to science and its disciplines, but is instead a language that is used in the broadest possible sense—the fact that it does not function constantly is another thing.
What kind of language is it?
It is a kind of parasitic analogue of the language that Martin Heidegger talked about, calling for—to the extent possible—a revival of the operations it performs. The intrigue lies in the fact that the language which Heidegger counted on as a means of returning the lost way of thinking about being can easily turn into something monstrous and stubbornly pursuing the subject, and, ironically, this is precisely what we are witnessing. This language is not only already at work; it also occupies a niche where it turns out to be the only option. At first glance, it is represented by raw but simultaneously schematic relations, in which the statement not only requires an object in a certain way, but also strives for a state in which this language underlies what we call “fantasm” today.
How does this fantasm which in its part is spliced with language manifest itself today? Its overt, extreme manifestations come to the forefront when the subject is, for example, in an agitated delirious state, in which everything boils down to brief and anxious observations of an invisible plan, which, as the subject sees it, people around him are unable to perceive. It is obvious that in such cases, what matters is not so much the traumatic impoverishment of the psyche, but the fact that the speech is reduced to certain definite operations. As a rule, these operations are concentrated around dynamic terms. Thus, the subject feels as though something is pursuing him or that collisions between objects, collisions he is unable to control, are taking place before his eyes. Being in such a state, he may claim that he is observing many petty objects in an aggressive relationship either with himself or with other objects, and this forces him to overcome the conglomerations of obstacles that those objects have created, it pushes the subject to sort them or, energetically trying to get rid of them, dispose of the most intrusive ones, the ones that cling to his body.
One can, as physiologists do, attribute these operations to typical disorders of cerebral activity, thereby considering them to be common to all humans. But psychoanalysis forces us to see them as a consequence of the subject somehow picking up, extracting from the currently available language structure. One can see how judgments on the basis of this structure emerge even in the case of the most developed forms of statements. For instance, judgments of this sort can be observed when a critic ponders about contemporary art or politics. In such cases, he often makes a verdict in which things are organized in the above-described relations: phenomena collide, come into opposition, impend over or besiege a speaker. Art criticism, as a rule, involves the question to what extent a work of art breaches something, breaks into reality, critically pursues it, tells us how the things really are. Such observations are widespread among art critics. In discussions about politics, even the most elaborate analysis somehow revolves around the judgement which speaks about the extent to which the course of events might change in the near future by way of intervening into the current state. We are accustomed to attributing such conclusions to highly intellectual activity, but there is undoubtedly something delirious about them. On every such occasion, even if a speaker is deeply cultured and his observations are perfectly successful, the fate of the imaginary object is being described in the most primitive way, and this is essentially what has been derived from the language of science. That is to say, the subject does not analyze the situation, he rather sees a dream about the adventures of the fantasmatic object.
In this sense, one is justified to speak of Lacanian pessimism. Before Lacan, philosophers were convinced that if something can oppose modern alienation—which, in their view, was inflicted by technology and capitalism—it is precisely fantasm. We can detect this idea in its most uncompromising form in Herbert Marcuse’s work: what can save the subject from the alienation that takes increasingly insidious and subtle forms, including its disguising itself as liberation, is the radical element contained in fantasm, which finds expression in works of art, for example. This is what Marcuse says. Lacan manages to object to him, pointing out that such a project is pure utopia. If the fantasm of the modernist subject is woven of something, it is woven of the language of science.
Your words reminded me of Slavoj Žižek, who said that Modernism is one of the greatest periods in the history of art and culture. What is your take on this?
What matters is not so much its greatness, but rather the fact that Modernity is the only period that is discussed exclusively in terms of its boundaries. Here, a clash related to the rearrangement of premises takes place: for example, a critic may believe that the modernist project requires overcoming precisely because it is isolated, confined to certain boundaries. But the situation is actually the opposite—it is precisely the imperative of overcoming, retroactively inscribed in Modernity, that presupposes the existence of tight and uneasiness-inflicting boundaries of the period, boundaries that were never discussed in the preceding communities—for example, in the Middle Ages—where, as it seems to us from our contemporary perspective, they were much more rigid. In this sense, Modernity is similar to the Klein bottle—nothing hinders free movement on its one and only surface, provided the exit is not one’s priority. But the subject who makes predictions and expects to find an exit turns himself into an insurmountable obstacle that interferes with the movement he seeks.
This also concerns the question of “inventing a new language,” whatever is meant by this novelty. The invention of a language, the introduction of something new turns out to be something representing a new stage of the slippage towards the very same above-discussed regime of the functioning of science. For example, speaking of the contemporary consequences of Deleuzianism, where the claim for a change of foundation is expressed most uncompromisingly, one can see that this philosophical project involves a change in the language regime not beyond, but within the above-discussed fantasmatic dimension. The demand to actualize elusive, blurred, and thematicization-evading concepts, on the one hand, requires opposing everything static and hierarchical, that is, all that constituted the stylistics of the previous type of thought—the latter could be regarded as the realization of a fantasm built on the desire to capture the object while fearing the consequences of getting close to it. But by declaring opposition to this dimension, we only engage in another hypostasis of the fantasm, the fantasm of the disappearance of the object from sight, the slipping of it through fingers. This is precisely why Jacques Derrida objected to Gilles Deleuze and his projects, specifying that the opposition introduced in them was insufficient. We can proclaim a course towards what contemporary Deleuzians call “slime,” which is devoid of properties that would keep it as a form, but such an opposition cannot be a reason or a platform for any large-scale social and linguistic overturn. We remain within the boundaries of the same fantasm, the motor fantasm.
In Ukraine, we are currently witnessing many events related to certain issues, the most prominent of which are ecology, the Anthropocene, cyberwarfare, and Chernobyl. Why do you think humanity is raising questions related to these topics now, let alone the fact that we are obviously moving towards a catastrophe? What level can hysteria reach in society and what should we expect in this case?
Another regime of the functioning of science is at play here, and it relates not so much to the language-construct but rather to what can be called the ethical ambition of science. From the moment of its formation, science has laid in the subject—provided he does not digress from its path—the grounds for moderate optimism. If there was anything that functioned inexorably in science during the still intact modern era, it was what could be called the struggle against the subject’s anxiety. Science, with the emergence of technologies that previously were unavailable, not only promised significant progress and improvement in the quality of life, but also spread a broader message that there was a certain increment in the subject himself that guaranteed the reduction of anxiety to its phantom, to zero. Heidegger later called this the “subject+”—this increment may concern the advantages stemming from the subject and its surrounding infrastructure, as well as what points to the ability in him to influence the situation—especially, to change the current state of things.
Though the successes of science at different times were diverse and not always in line with predictions, it nevertheless constantly asserted that the subject can change the world. It is curious that the philosophy of Modernity managed to join this promise only later, in the person of Marx alone and with a number of reservations.
After the Modernity entered a state of confusion—in fact, this confusion started long before the discussions about the so-called “postmodern” era began—the subject lost the affect that responds to the calls of science. This fact in itself did not weaken the pace of scientific achievements at all, which once again proves how little science depends on the arrangement and mood of the society as a whole. Nevertheless, the subject of the immediate present is sensitive to entirely different things: he acquired a taste for the rights and freedoms of particular groups, he began to carefully register the traces of irreparable harm inflicted on the subject by progress and power. Marks of transcendental damage—the object of today’s philosophy of traumatic memory—appear in this subject.
At this moment, something also happens to the message emanating from science: it begins to assert that the subject’s intervention in the state of things and his achievements in mastering the world not only do not result in increment but can undermine and weaken it. This is what, for example, the environmental agenda says, literally proclaiming, “the more goods you produce, the worse you feel.”
In this sense, science occupies a completely different position. If previously it was customary to associate it with unrestrained progressivism and the gain that followed it, the gain in the form of mastering knowledge aimed at changing the environment, then after World War II, it began to oppose the subject and his gains. The pairing of science and the instance of the Super-ego starts taking place. As is known, the Super-ego relates to the subject extremely strictly, pursuing all his undertakings and attacking his enthusiasm, which is now completely associated with the obtainment of punishable satisfaction, for which, in one way or another, one has to pay.
Thus, science now sharply questions everything the subject can enjoy with its help. This questioning first became noticeable in the scientific and medical propaganda, which from the late 1950s was stubbornly clung to the conviction that an improved lifestyle aided by scientific achievements—adequate nutrition, the use of transportation infrastructure, and pleasant leisure activities—creates the conditions for the emergence of systemic diseases and premature death. At this stage, one could still rely on the impression that this was a matter of certain non-systemic costs of scientific propaganda, and that the social consequences of scientific knowledge were called into question more by a social critic-humanitarian than science itself. Even today, some still hold this view, believing that science requires ethical criticism from the outside, and that this criticism should be carried out, for instance, by a learned subject, say, a philosopher.
In my view, this impression is false, because at a certain point, science is perfectly capable of generating alarmism on its own. Today, in virtually all areas, it tells the subject that every time he enjoys using its achievements, he acts to his own detriment. What can be called the critique of the Anthropocene—an anticipation of a catastrophe provoked by consumption policy, an apocalyptic mood associated with climate change, whether we fully trust scientists on this issue or not—indicates that scientific data aims to besiege the subject in expectations that are already formed in him. However reliable the teaching about climate change and its imminent consequences is, its ethical message is obviously repressive, because it suggests that counting on scientific achievements is no longer meaningful: now each subject must pay for the previously obtained comforts by what is called “responsible behavior”: sorting waste, collecting bottle caps, refraining from using certain consumption items, etc.
Is there a way out of this situation?
The subject is restricted in that, partially responding to the changed requirement and having exhausted his objections, he falls into a state of waiting. As a rule, defending himself, he generally develops a skeptical attitude, focusing not on general predictions, but on particular mistakes and exaggerations of the scientific ideology. The society has witnessed quite a few inconsistencies on the part of science: for example, almost the entire history of medical dietetics—what I have in mind are not individual paramedical experiments, but large-scale fluctuations of trends regarding “balanced nutrition” that reach the state or even international level—turned into confusion and changed its vector several times. All of this leads to the emergence of an ironic attitude similar to that observed today regarding climate change. But this attitude itself is practically never related to substantive doubts—the masses have no data on these issues, they react solely to what they read as the “new morality” of science, its claims to a position of the Super-ego in regulating consumption and implementing new ascetic forms of it. Seeing things in this light, one is justified in talking about an approaching and already strength-gaining wave of new “scientific Victorianism,” a special rigor in the requirements imposed on the way of life and the use of the environment. Such Victorianism will always have opponents subverting its claims, and their position will grow stronger the more successful this new rigor becomes. Thus, many will be tempted to seek a way out precisely in this sense.
The same processes are already taking place in the area of regulation which is related to a completely unique consumption, the sexual one. Sexuality is the sphere in which most positions will be vetoed. The regulations in this domain may seem far removed from the realm of scientific ideology, but in reality, it is dictated by the same type of intervention.
Speaking of those who are already against it: right-wing forces, it seems, are gaining momentum in many European countries, and we are also observing this in Ukraine. Why do you think this is happening? Could it be that the left is failing today because of its inefficacy?
In order to not to get confused about what is right and left and not to enter into a dispute on this matter—which is outdated, while the situational-political definitions of these concepts are even more obsolete—it makes sense to resort to a psychoanalytic distinction that allows for a precise, albeit somewhat alternative way of determining the places occupied on the contemporary scene by the so-called rightists and leftists.
If we continue and develop Lacan’s thinking on this matter, we can define the left as suspecting in the direction of truth, and the right, accordingly, as leaning towards the suspicion in relation to enjoyment. It does not mean at all that the source of the most unbiased knowledge is behind the leftist—who, curiously enough, has now merged with the conventional “liberal”—and that the strength of the rightist lies in his impregnability in religious and ethical matters. Rather the opposite: the leftist does not know in the name of whom he questions the truth, while the conventional conservative does not realize precisely what enjoyment he is critically pursuing. Here, it is probably necessary to give a warning so these terms are not understood in a common way: enjoyment does not imply that only pleasures are sought here, just as truth should not be perceived as a philosophical virtue.
What the leftist is interested in emanates from his interaction, as Lacan calls him, the “non-learned”—the left extracts enjoyment precisely from this interaction, that is, from the action of informing the non-learned that he must question what is presented to him as truth, that is, that he ought to relearn. Therefore, every time the leftist is suspected of being paid off, this suspicion must be reformulated. On the one hand, it is obvious that in its vulgar form, it has a conspiratorial, even delusional character. At the same time, there is no doubt—and here the rightist critic may be right in his own way—that nevertheless the left takes something for its enlightenment services, although not goods, but enjoyment, and not its own enjoyment, but that of the subject it is watching over. And it is precisely here that the coalition that brings left-oriented movements into universities arises, since the university is initially aimed at treating the ignoramus, the student. But for the leftist, the ignoramus appears differently: it is someone in need of enlightenment about his own enjoyment. It can be a subject of a national, sexual, economic, or gender minority, someone with psychological peculiarities, or an addict, that is, a subject clearly marked, as it is called in psychoanalysis, by some sort of lack. The leftist, being engaged in his enlightenment activities, takes the damaged subject under his wing.
Looking at things this way, it is necessary to point out, on the one hand, a certain justification of the conservative’s suspicion regarding the presence of this unsanctioned enjoyment. This, and nothing else, explains the growing popularity of right-wing movements. In this sense, they are no longer strongholds of the old regime, nor guarantors of preserving the previous social state, and the very designation of them as “conservative” loses its meaning. What makes the rightist secretly appealing—even for those who hold moderately progressive views—is his willingness to sensitively detect and pursue the enjoyment produced by the leftist intellectual, activist, or human rights defender up to its very limit.
On the other hand, we must point out a flaw in the conservative’s position, because, from his perspective, the enjoyment produced by the left completely coincides with the enjoyment of the minorities which it patronizes. So, if the leftist is concerned with, say, the illegitimacy of repression of “non-traditional” sexual orientations, the rightist critic literally suspects him of being interested in the enjoyment that, from his point of view, stems from following these orientations, from concrete sexual practices that such orientations presuppose. In this sense, the conservative starts fuming when he observes the leftist teaching the representatives of the minorities how to defend their rights, because he believes that the activist’s sole interest is to spread the enjoyment generated by his wards who are engaged in their specific practices. Whence the conservative’s suspicion that the activist assists the subjects he cares for in some obscene enjoyment, the suspicion that has gained national scope today and that manifests itself in the form of political persecutions.
As a matter of fact, while correctly identifying that the leftist is engaged in the production of enjoyment, jouissance, the rightist is mistaken in assuming that this jouissance coincides with the jouissance of those the activist protects. In fact, what the leftist produces—and this is the unobvious meaning of his activism—is an entirely new form of enjoyment, jouissance that has never existed on the public stage before. In order to extract it, the activist needs to come into contact with a subject that is somehow oppressed, but the latter’s condemned, repressed enjoyment, which the leftist patronizingly legalizes, does not coincide with the enjoyment which the activist himself extracts from this situation and which will ultimately become public property. In other words, to enjoy relations, say, with subjects of one’s own sex and to enjoy the mere existence of subjects whose love practices subvert the traditional combination of sexes are not one and the same thing.
It is necessary to keep this discrepancy between these two types of enjoyment in mind: the ability of the masses to extract something from the existence of a homosexual, queer, or, for example, autistic people who have retained their creative abilities, entirely depends on the mediation of the left-oriented intellectual. In this sense, the left is indeed selfless, but only due to its monopolizing the right to engage in production in a field that remains unproductive and tautological without it—without the mediation of the leftist, lacking subjects are unable to produce any other enjoyment apart from that which is already available to them.
In this sense, the insights of the subject whom we take to be a conservative always extend only up to a certain point: he clearly sees that the enjoyment is being extracted, but he is unable to distinguish what is historically new in it from what relates to what has already been produced. In this perspective, the right-oriented subject will constantly occupy the position which many people are ready to stand in solidarity with, as the recent discussion between Žižek and Jordan Peterson shows. Nevertheless, at the same time, looking at things from a broader perspective, one can say that the rightist subject will eventually lose, since he is incapable of making this distinction [between what in enjoyment is historically new and what has already been produced]. But this distinction is key: if there is any matter today that could serve as a guarantee of what we call reproduction in the broadest sense of the word, including the reproduction of the system as such, it is the matter of enjoyment, and refusal of it in the short term seems impossible. In this sense, in the long run, the bigger part of the scene will be occupied by the leftist intellectual and activist, and their influence will continue to grow.
What is a possible resolution of this confrontation, or is there none?
The answer is provided by Lacan: he points out that every left movement is very closely, almost intimately linked to the University discourse, which he sees as a particular slice of the condition of the contemporary society and defines it referring to the consequences that regulate the relations between truth, knowledge, and enjoyment. The perspective is visible up to that indistinguishable limit to which we are able to see the operations of this discourse. It is not yet possible to imagine a scenario in which right-wing views would prevail, at least not among intellectuals. But it is possible to imagine how the right will take over the scene on a pointwise basis, and how the agenda that the left has produced in the 2000s—specifically, the gender agenda, because it has since received the greatest emphasis—will face increasingly active criticism. And it will be criticized not only by those who view gender conservatively—it will also be attacked by those who will have doubts about the methodology on the basis of which gender and its freedom is defined.
Likewise, the right will gradually win on the territory that is now occupied by the social critical theory, which the left has almost completely let go of. Apparently, we are talking here about a fundamental turning point in the situation which has long been defined by two major historical sources, the Frankfurt critical theory and the surge of intellectual activism in the 1960s. The rightist subject will contribute to critical philosophy, which, being based on Marxist sources, has long been questioning the human right’s discourse. This is also how Derrida acted, for example, in his work “Specters of Marx”: there, he says that it is necessary to address as soon as possible the well-founded doubt about what might be called “humanitarian initiatives” that are not based on the analysis of the situation and are grounded in the notion of some primordial weakness of groups of subjects who need help through propaganda so they can alter the prevailing social attitude towards them. We see that the representation of this weakness is now becoming a regulator of social change—the lacking subject of a pseudo-ontological (primordial and implicit) character becomes the hero of contemporaneity and the main focus of progressivist efforts.
The point is not that the struggle to improve this subject’s situation should be discontinued, say, by literally terminating human rights and charitable initiatives—this is not what Derrida has in mind, and, regarding this issue, he is unlikely to be on the side of today’s conservative statehood). The important thing is that the language of this initiative and the way it uses it to define the situation directly indicates what Friedrich Nietzsche called resentment. The language of today’s adherents of the human rights agenda is problematic. In this sense, the right will be providing a service that is considered invaluable by many, because today, the production of doubt is on their side—whereas previously critical doubt was produced by the left.
Why has this shift taken place?
Solely due to the above-mentioned escalation of the production of jouissance, enjoyment, which, as was predicted by Lacan in his last seminars, has become the main product today. As long as the product that defined contemporaneity was surplus value, the left occupied key critical philosophical positions that allowed the powerful sociocritical direction of philosophy to remain relevant—this philosophical stream began to develop in the era of the Young Hegelians and ended with the followers of the Frankfurt School, the last representative of which is Jürgen Habermas. Now, the main product being surplus enjoyment, the production of which has been taken up by those who previously represented criticism, positioned (or imagined themselves positioned) outside of commodity production, the torch of criticism has passed to the adherents of the protective agenda, activists who are not involved in the production process.
Do you think that philosophy and psychoanalysis are powerful voices in today’s world? How influential are they and how relevant is Lacan for all of us at the moment?
This question poses some difficulties because it can only be asked on the basis of a certain logic of recognition of certain figures. Today, this logic is approaching its end, and if we talk about the scene where the domination of powerful figures of thought would be possible, where their prevalence would not be disputed by anyone, it seems that it no longer exists—in any case, we are using it at the moment of its rapid dismantling. Now, referring to a certain set of names, one has to realize that this list is relevant not in every circle of intellectuals. It is evident that this incomplete relevance has existed before, but speaking of, for example, “key” figures of the 20th century, there was indeed something like an intellectual scene then regarding which every new intellectual inevitably had to orient himself, to decide whether it made sense to belong to it. It could be said that Žižek is the last representative of this intellectual scene. Interestingly, he does not occupy it with the same means as the authors that worked before him, that is, he does not strive to approach it from the perspective of extensive erudition or a good classical education. Moreover, he teases his audience saying that education is of no use to him, he even declares that he is undereducated. Anyway, even if we write it off as coquetry, it is obvious that Žižek is the last philosopher who holds together rapidly spreading edges: he deals with contemporary politics in the light of the consequences of the structuralist doctrine, meaning he is the last figure insisting on the existence of a unified field of thought.
It seems that this unified field of thought no longer exists, just as there is no symbolic capital that could be accumulated with confidence that it will work in the long run. This affects the fate of the doctrines of the figures that were left behind: today, French structuralists are not as influential as before, and not because, as happens with successive waves of thinkers, they have lost their relevance, but despite the fact that their agenda was never fully mastered. Here, a paradoxical situation arises in which what was only envisaged by Derrida continues to demand embodiment in critical thought and has become even more relevant over time in light of his predictions that turned out to be true. But it seems that no one can continue this critique, since Derrida turns out to be unreadable. And it is not so much statistics that show the level of interest in his work that matter here; this inability to read Derrida is related to the loss of the capacity for prolonged reading. This is especially noticeable far from philosophical metropolises, where waves of interest and exploration depend solely on translation initiatives—for example, in our country [Russia], Derrida’s “Politics of Friendship” has not yet been translated, and no one can explain why.
Is this loss of influence a negative trend or rather meaning it is the way it should be?
There is a reason for this rupture, and it is connected with a series of minor crises undergone by the intellectual field. The fact is that in the 1970s, there was a strong consensus regarding the place of what could be called the philosophical, theoretical contribution and, on the other hand, the contribution of activism, which occupied another social and symbolic field. This regulation is illustrated, for example, by the history of feminist authors who attempted to assault Lacanian theory, among whom was Luce Irigaray, who was dismissed from the university because of her sharp critique of psychoanalysis. At that time, a clear signal was given to these authors that they should stop criticizing Lacan because this is not a sphere in which they were truly influential and competent. This protective mechanism worked quite successfully, and to some extent it still works today, as evidenced, for example, by the debarment or squeezing out of radical feminist women thinkers from the academic field, even where the latter is fairly progressive and pro-Western.
However, this distinction gradually ceased to work, and the feminist agenda, including the part of it that is associated with the criticism of male dominance and violence, in a way, became predominant over the critical-philosophical agenda. It does not mean there should be grounds for arrogant “intellectual panic” that requires shielding high theory from “barbaric attacks”— this would be a wrong strategic move which would lead to further elimination of academic philosophy from the current scene. It is enough to acknowledge the change that has taken place, the change which will undoubtedly determine the future intellectual program, which entails further reshuffling of the agents of this scene. We will have to pay for the opportunity to criticize male power in our contemporary society employing feminist thought quite subtly, not so much with the possibility of the emergence of new gender and power theories (although with it, too), but with what was previously outlined by thinkers not yet bound by ethical guidelines stemming from activism. There is an indirect but strong connection between the activist—feminist, environmental, etc.—agenda and the fact that the work of structuralist philosophers such as Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Lacan will increasingly disappear from view, despite their not having tainted themselves with any politically incorrect criticism of the feminist initiatives.
In short, the immediate and already-occurring consequences of this elimination can be traced if we rely on the tasks for the near future (in relation to the time he wrote it) that were outlined by Derrida in his “Specters of Marx,” where he points out the need to solve the following issues: the first task is to carry out a critique of progressivism; secondly, it is necessary to perform a critical analysis of the population care, from the sides of both social state policies and grassroots activist initiatives; and thirdly, the Marxist perspectives must be examined, indicating that contemporary Marxism involves something that is not inherited from Marx’s thought. These tasks cannot be accomplished yet because we are unable to rest on Derrida’s legacy today: there is no school, no disciples, no communities that would continue raising these questions on a scale that is broad enough to attract attention.
In which direction might intellectual influence turn, in whose hands can it end up if philosophy steps down? Who would be the most influential in such a case?
I believe that for some time, perhaps even for several decades (which coincides with the ongoing conservatization of the leading political regimes), the human rights consensus, which is associated with the care for the oppressed, will prevail and its influence will be strengthened from the bottom up. There are many indications that it has potentials that are not directly related to its practical agenda. For example, it is doing well in the literary or poetic niche, where new cultures that revolve around the themes of oppression, lack of speech, and unequal access to publicity are quickly developing. Ten years ago, this niche was considered insignificant and would constantly be cast aside during competitions for, say, literary, poetic, or artistic awards. Interestingly, its fate was such precisely because of its active political engagement. Today, works that are generated in the framework of the activist agenda have a better chance not only of being integrated into competition procedures, but also of receiving full-fledged attention from critics. It very well might be that soon this activist type of creation will abandon the framework of literariness and contemporary art as mediums that are not sufficient for its tasks and will propose another type of legitimation, turning into something else, into something that critics will not be able to comprehend, something that will be generated within the framework of pre-activist literature and art. We have already missed the moment to carry this criticism out and are missing it more and more.
How come we are missing it?
Certain transformations took place which led to the situation where philosophy and critical inquiry no longer prevail over the voice of the activist. This is why the toolkit for analyzing and criticizing the new agenda is no longer being developed.
Interestingly, there are centaurs here who have already become classics, that is, researchers of the transitional period when activist voices were not yet predominant. One of them is Judith Butler, who is extremely versed in structuralist philosophy and skillfully uses its toolkit. But the goals to which she subordinates structuralism have led to an acceleration of the shift from philosophical analysis towards activism.
What other women thinkers could you name?
On the one hand, one has the impression that Butler’s art has not yet been surpassed, but it is obvious that there is a multiplicity of active female authors in today’s intellectual scene, and their number will grow.
It must be noted that a certain shading is taking place here: we see that Butler’s followers are choosing activism over further theoretical inquiry, that is, their desire is not to explain what is happening, but rather to influence the situation, to fight what they recognize as the injustice related to the current state of things as quickly as possible. It is precisely female researchers who are most sensitive to this injustice, and structuralism carefully warned us about this, demonstrating that in these exceptional conditions, thought will have to make do with much more meager means. This is another significant difference between activist and, for example, classical Marxist thought, in which pointing out injustices, no matter how emergent they were, did not impede the nascency of a sophisticated and demanding theory.
Perhaps, women rely on some unconscious process in this case?
This is something clearly related to desire, because in psychoanalysis, we do not consider the term “unconscious” to be an indulgence. Today, the woman with her desire finds herself on the side of activism, this is indisputable.
The questions were prepared by David Chichkan, Hanna Tsyba, Nastya Kalita, and Volodymyr Vorotnov.
