Laclau and Mouffe: The Radical Democratic Imaginary
Gramsci versus Lenin: philosophy and common sense
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Gramsci versus Lenin: philosophy and common sense
Gramsci’s response to the fragmentation of the working class and the rise of trade union reformism differed sharply from that of Lenin. Inspired by the example of the Turin workers’ council movement of 1918–20, Gramsci favored the type of unification for working-class organizations that empowered the grassroots and preserved each group’s specific character and autonomy (Wright 1986:87). He argued that a counter-hegemonic leadership should be constructed out of “organic” popular traditions and value systems that are specific to a given historical formation, rather than imposed from above in the form of abstract scientific theory. The targets of counter-hegemonic struggle should include not only the state apparatus and the economic structures, but socio-cultural institutions as well, for cultural struggle is integral to socialism (Bobbio 1979:39). For Gramsci, democracy is not merely a mechanism, but a “force to be released” through the mobilization of “the people” (Wright 1986:74). The task of organic socialist activism is to achieve this mobilization by harnessing the most promising fragments of popular traditions. Radical democratic hegemony aims to construct a new collective will that is capable of institutionalizing its alternative conception of the world in the form of new state apparatuses, economic relations, social structures and cultural practices (Bobbio 1979:39, 40). Gramsci argued that counter-hegemonic leadership should be democratic in both its aim and its actual practice. Kautsky accepted a “stagist” Marxism in which democratic demands were regarded as inherently bourgeois. For Mouffe, Gramsci’s position is closer to that of the “young Marx” for whom democracy is a “terrain of permanent revolution begun by the bourgeoisie [and] concluded by the proletariat” (1979b:174). Gramsci insisted on the “unfixed” political meaning of democratic demands: the socialist struggle had to take democratic demands back from the bourgeoisie, radicalize them, and fuse them into the socialist project. In Laclau and Mouffe’s post-structuralist terms, Gramsci treats each ideological element or political demand like a “floating signifier” (1985:113). A demand for civil liberties, for example, does not have an intrinsic meaning outside of a concrete historical situation. It could be shaped in a pro-capitalist (“free speech for corporate lobbyists”) or an anti-capitalist (“freedom of assembly for striking workers”) manner; its actual value will depend on its precise definition in a specific historical context. Even where a given political demand has been so thoroughly claimed by one political group such that that group’s definition of the demand appears to be the only possible definition, alternative definitions are always logically possible. If the hegemonic bloc has to some extent incorporated the democratic demands of popular sectors into its collective will, the counter-hegemonic intellectuals must enter into a direct ideological struggle to represent themselves as the only leaders that can respond to these demands (Mouffe 1979b: 197). Political struggle therefore entails not only the incorporation of a wide range of demands into a new historical bloc, but also the deployment of strategic attacks against the dominant bloc’s discourse. The principle of unity that holds the dominant bloc together must be F R O M L E N I N T O G R A M S C I 51 attacked, such that the defining grip of the dominant bloc over its constitutive elements—movements, campaigns, values and symbols—can be loosened. As these elements become more open to redefinition, they can be re-articulated with the counter-hegemonic struggle. In a Gramscian sense, the actual probability of the successful institutionalization of an alternative definition depends on the configuration of power relations in a given historical context. The prevailing meaning of the demand for racial equality, for example, is not derived from anything intrinsic to the concept itself. It reflects, first, the contemporary balance of power between the political forces in question— such as the conservatives who strive to normalize an anti-affirmative action “equality of opportunity” definition versus the radicals who support a conception of substantial equality; second, the prevailing meanings of contiguous and analogous terms—gender equality, class equality, the equality of citizens, and so on; third, the trace-effects of meanings that have prevailed in the past; and, in some cases, the extent to which the term in question has been overtly or covertly articulated with popular demonizations. Clearly we are at a great distance from scientific Marxism, for whom the success of a strategy is supposed to depend on its correspondence with “correct” theory. Gramsci rejects Lenin’s conception of a distinction between “scientific” theory and the everyday discourse of workers at the grassroots level. For Gramsci, a historical formation has an overarching epistemological effect—like the horizon in phenomenology or Foucault’s “episteme” (1970)—such that every discourse within that formation shares the same basic “conception of the world” (Mouffe 1979a:8). An apparently abstract philosophy will have much in common with an everyday discourse if both are located within the same formation. Philosophy, then, should not be treated as an absolutely separate level of thought that obtains a superior rationality to that which is found in everyday discourse. Given his Hegelian influences, Gramsci insists that philosophical discourse cannot exist outside a historical context (Gramsci 1971:326; Hegel 1957). “The philosophy of an historical epoch is, therefore, nothing other than the ‘history’ of that epoch itself” (Gramsci 1971:345). Every world view is a “response to certain problems posed by reality, which are quite specific and ‘original’ in their immediate relevance” (1971:324). Even when a philosophical discourse pretends to exist apart from history, it actually draws the set of problems that it addresses from its specific historical conditions. Gramsci claimed that “all men are philosophers” (1971:323) in the sense that everyone participates in the formation of a more or less coherent worldview that in turn shapes practical activity (1971:344). Gramsci explicitly criticized, for example, Croce’s argument that religious faith was appropriate for the masses since only an elite group of superior intellectuals could develop a truly rational conception of the world (1971:132). Gramsci did admit that popular religious mobilizations tended to leave the masses immersed in a “primitive” form of common sense discourse. He envisioned, however, socialist mobilizations that would educate the masses and raise them to a “higher conception of life” (1971:332–3). The F R O M L E N I N T O G R A M S C I 52 intellectuals should even strive to produce a new intellectual cadre by training individuals who were themselves part of the masses (1971:340). This pedagogical relation, however, should flow in both directions, for the intellectuals must learn valuable lessons about the specificity of historical conditions from the masses’ local traditions. If the intellectuals’ philosophy can teach the masses to achieve a higher form of rationality in their worldview, the masses’ everyday discourse can make the intellectuals’ philosophy historically relevant (1971:350, 352). Gramsci was able to insist on the reciprocal pedagogical exchange between the intellectuals and the masses precisely because he grasped the rational character of the masses’ everyday discourse. No individual participates in a common-sense discourse that is so narrowly solipsistic, particularistic and ahistorical that it cannot become the basis for dialogue across differences. Through the development of her worldview, every individual expresses her identity as a social being. “In acquiring one’s conception of the world one always belongs to a particular grouping which is that of all the social elements which share the same mode of thinking and acting” (Gramsci 1971:324). Although Gramsci is sharply critical of what he calls “irrational superstitions” and narrowly-defined “provincial” perspectives, he maintains that common-sense discourse has a “healthy nucleus” or “good sense” (1971:328). Gramsci’s expansion of the concept of rationality laid the groundwork for a theory of political practice that is based on a fundamental respect for commonsense discourse. Intellectuals and activist leaders should look for the wisdom that has been accumulated through traditions of local resistance against domination in even the most eccentric everyday discourses. If a folklore tale, for example, is understandable for at least one other person in one other place and time in the sense that she knows “what to do with it”—if, for example, she knows how to read the tale’s constellation of animals and spirits as an analogy for social structures and historical phenomena—then that tale is a coherent philosophical discourse. African-American resistance, for example, has often drawn on folklore tales as a political resource in this manner (Hurston 1978). The recuperation of local wisdom for radical democratic pluralism is not, however, a straightforward operation. There is nothing inherently progressive in a popular tradition simply because it is popular; to paraphrase a famous marketing slogan, the fact that “billions have been served” is not in itself a sufficient political guarantee. Indeed, many popular traditions are profoundly anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic. One of the principles that radical democratic pluralism borrows from liberal democracy is the concept that democratic minorities must be protected against the tyranny of anti-democratic majorities. At the very least, however, a dialogical engagement with popular traditions will force an intellectual leadership to reassess its theoretical framework with respect to the specificity and hybridity of the structures of oppression and exploitation that prevail in a given historical formation. Gramsci was not purely “spontaneist,” for he did not accept the validity of the people’s everyday discourse simply because it was popular. He held that the F R O M L E N I N T O G R A M S C I 53 intellectuals had to subject the masses’ common sense to a democratic and socialist critique, to bridge the particularities between disparate groups, and to raise the masses’ worldview to a higher, more universal form of rationality (1971:198–9). While the intellectuals test the discourse of the masses, the intellectuals are tested in turn by the masses and by the historical situation (1971:346). The best theory is not just popular; it must resonate with the masses and provide them with compelling solutions to their everyday problems, but it must also move them to engage in democratic and socialist struggles (1971:326, 341). The new worldview that the intellectuals construct through their negotiations with the masses acts as the ideological “cement” (1971:328) that unifies the dispersed democratic fragments into a single collective will or historical bloc (Hall et al. 1977:51). Intellectuals should not see themselves as the privileged agent that discovers the truth outside popular struggles and then carries it to the people. They should instead see themselves as strategists who “organize consent” (1971:125–35, 259) by raising to a more coherent level the fragments of good sense that are already implicit in local everyday discourse. Where theory does not fit the actual material conditions, it is theory that should give way: “it is not reality which should be expected to conform to the abstract schema” (1971:200). In a particularly suggestive metaphor, Gramsci states that the intellectuals’ relation to the masses is analogous to the “whalebone in the corset” (1971:340). Here the masses are compared to passionate feminine bodily excess, the surplus voluptuous flesh that fills out the potential of otherwise abstract forms, but ultimately needs the addition of a cyborg apparatus—the Party—to achieve a practical shape. It is true that Gramsci often positions the “masses” as an unruly otherness that is so dependent upon the intellectual elite for discipline and rational thought that if it were left to its own devices, it would remain trapped in spontaneist, “primitive,” fragmentary and above all particularist discourse (1971:152–3, 155, 328). When measured against Leninism, Gramsci’s respect for the historical rationality of common’ sense discourse nevertheless comes to the fore. I will return to the problem of Gramsci’s residual elitism and to the theme of universalism and particularism in the Conclusion. Download 0.72 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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