Tarihin Uyanışı

by Alain Badiou, Murat Erşen (Translator)

Dağılmış ve alacakaranlığa gömülmüş Batı, kendilerini hala dünyanın efendileri sananların "uluslararası ortaklığı", daha ne zamana kadar tüm dünyaya düzgün idare ve doğru davranma dersleri vermeye devam edecek. Bizim için mitleşmiş cennetin yerini tutan kapitalist parlamentarizmin perişan askerleri olan birkaç görevli entellektüelin, Tunus ve Mısır'ın muhteşem halklarına, bu vahşi halklara "demokrasi" nin elifbasını öğretmek içim kendilerini paralaması gülünç değil mi? Kolonici küstahlığın ne acınası bir ısrarı!

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History, Nonfiction, Contemporary, Political Science, Sociology

187 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Alain Badiou, Ph.D., born in Rabat, Morocco in 1937, holds the Rene Descartes Chair at the European Graduate School EGS. Alain Badiou was a student at the École Normale Supérieure in the 1950s. He taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) from 1969 until 1999, when he returned to ENS as the Chair of the philosophy department. He continues to teach a popular seminar at the Collège International de Philosophie, on topics ranging from the great 'antiphilosophers' (Saint-Paul, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan) to the major conceptual innovations of the twentieth century. Much of Badiou's life has been shaped by his dedication to the consequences of the May 1968 revolt in Paris. Long a leading member of Union des jeunesses communistes de France (marxistes-léninistes), he remains with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel at the center of L'Organisation Politique, a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues (including immigration, labor, and housing). He is the author of several successful novels and plays as well as more than a dozen philosophical works.

Trained as a mathematician, Alain Badiou is one of the most original French philosophers today. Influenced by Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze, he is an outspoken critic of both the analytic as well as the postmodern schools of thoughts. His philosophy seeks to expose and make sense of the potential of radical innovation (revolution, invention, transfiguration) in every situation.

Reviews

[Tanuj Solanki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theoretical contributions

Classification of riots
Historical riots as events that reopen History.
The three traits of a Historical Riot - intensification, compaction, localization
The importance of organization for sustaining the Idea
An Event as that which dissolves the average identity, destroys separating names
An Event as that which presents (not represents!) a generic power
An Event as a political truth

Critique

While it aims to be topical, and it is, it is not rigorous in this topicality. One likes the book for the beauty and clarity of its ideas, but is unsure if they encapsulate the entire dynamic.

Conjecture

Can Badiou's framework and definitions be applied only retrospectively? Can the conditions and necessities of a political truth not aid us in making one. I grew interested, while reading the latter part of the book, on applying his concepts to the Maoist movement in India. And then on the general possibility of a political truth in the country.

[Yakup Öner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modern yaşam koşullarında Marksist gelenek bakış açışıyla yazılmış, son döneme ait güncel bir kitap diyebiliriz. Büyük usta Alain Badiou, ayaklanma dinamiğinin iç dengelerini ayrıntıları ile ortaya koymaya çalışmıştır. Ayrıca Arap baharı'nın kısa bir süre sonrasında yazılan bu eser, bu konuya geniş bir inceleme getirerek kendi düşüncelerini ayrıntılı bir şekilde ortaya koymuştur.

[Niel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is more than just an analysis of the recent uprisings that constitute the Arab Spring, it is a reminder to everyone that - contrary to what Francis Fukuyama proclaimed in the early 90s - history has not ended, and its rebirth is very much in the hands of the people, not the state.

This is ultimately an invective against parliamentary democracy, which Badiou sees as the political space that allows for a legitemised criminality, where "the universal rule today, no longer discussed by any of the powerful of this world, is profit". The popular uprisings in the Arab world are here used to remind us that we are not powerless in the face of our own corrupt forms of government, which safeguard the economic structures that allow for a minority to hold power and maintain control. He sees democracy as the system that pulls the wool over our eyes, that makes us think we can make a difference but which will ultimately just reinforce the structures of the capitalist mode of production as it is itself a part of the capitalist ideology.

Badiou wants to convey to us the message of the Arab Spring: "The representation of my country by its state is false! All of you - powerful Westerners or ascendant Chinese, or brothers from vilified countries - listen to us, look at us! In this square, on this avenue, we are presenting to you our real country, our authentic subjectivity!"

This is a great little book, and a reminder that it is in the people that we find the power to bring forth change, that it is the people who can alter the relationship between the possible and the impossible.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down one of the most important books to come out of the Left in recent times. Present a compelling analysis of global capitalism and the new wave of popular resistance movements that oppose it. A great summation with many lessons to be drawn for future practice.

[Redpoet · Rating 5 out of 5]

First time that I have actually read this guy, believe it or not. I liked this well enough to want to read more and I now have THE COMMUNIST HYPOTHESIS on my book pile.

[Andrés Gordillo López]

El despertar de la historia y las revueltas van juntas, sin por ello coincidir totalmente. A diferencia de la revolución cuya característica es la Repetición, la revuelta abre la posibilidad de otra sensibilidad, otra existencia. Para palpar otra entrada de la historia no puede hacerse desde el orden del sentido y las afecciones instauradas por la teleologia. Sólo desde un desajuste de los mismos y una economía venida de ello habrá intervenciones positivas.

El asunto está que pensar la revuelta exige hacer una revuelta de la teoría (Villalobos-Ruminott).

Las revueltas no pueden ser pensadas en retrospectiva sin caer en su racionalidad historicista.

Aquí una nota: https://elbuscapies.wordpress.com/202...

[Burak · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Badiou's most accessible book that I have read so far. Fairly easy-flowing read, and especially so if one has some background on the general traces of Badiou's philosophy. Such familiarity, at the end of the day, is not really required. This works as a self-contained package on its own.

It isn't clear whether Badiou (and many others) have been wrong in their -perhaps quick- assessment of the current-and-coming times as an "age of revolts," as the four years since this book's release has been quieter in terms of riots than such a prophecy could have implied. I am inclined to side with Badiou here, and note that many different, and many new forms of resistance and revolt are currently in incubation, and we should be prepared to see much more resistance and uprising in our generation (I am 35). History, I agree, has been re-awakened to possibility.

To anyone who is interested in revolts, revolutions, uprisings, the book is highly recommended; and to anyone who is in the process of revolt and uprising and rebellion, or is planning to revolt and up-rise and rebel some day, I'd say this is a must read. Just note that this is philosophy, and a bit of struggle with not-so-immediately-obvious abstractions may be ahead, though not so very very much. Good book.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Badiou is an optimist, remains one even now. He calls this an intervallic period, that difficult doldrums between great emancipatory movements. In this short book he carries out an analysis of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and beyond, and his excitement is infectious. Sure, these riots and protests don't yet have real shape or unified goals, but that is always the beginning, the gathering of people who agree, at least, that What Should Not Be Currently Is. Or, better: What Should Be Currently Is Not.

One other point I loved: the state, these days, spends much of its time carefully defining what is possible and what is not. Non-exploitative capitalism, of course, we're on the way there. Trust us. Care for the poor and the "undocumented worker"? Are you crazy? That's simply unsustainable.

Of course, Badiou explores this much more carefully and persuasively than I do here. He occasionally lapses into a *little* too much technical language, but if you're one of those that worry he'll bust out set theory on you, you're safe in this book.

[Maxy.kai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impressive and nuanced thinking about current political circumstances from a french philosopher in his 70's!

[William West · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alain Badiou's 2011 book “The Rebirth of History” offers the supposedly “neo-Communist” philosopher' thoughts on the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. The prose is very stirring but this work, in an underlining way, still rests on Badiou's strange and problematic idealism.

“The Rebirth of History” begins with an assessment of contemporary capitalism. Badiou believes that capitalism, in a world lacking any ideological alternative to it, no longer requires a well-fare state to disincline the working class towards radical change and has returned to the form it took prior to the socialist challenge. The vast majority of humanity, the working class or 99 percent, are granted only enough wealth to reproduce their labor for the capitalist class. Meanwhile, the agents of finance capital, seeking ever larger markets, launch imperialist wars to colonize or re-colonize independent states.

Badiou sees correlations between our age, the age of the “globalization” of capitalism following the fall of the Soviet Union and the socialist camp, and the mid-1800s, after the restoration of the French monarchy. The feudal class had, it seemed at the time, defeated the forces of republicanism. Feudalism was proclaimed throughout Europe as the only “natural order” and republicanism was demonized as an unthinkable evil.

This period was characterized by riots of unorganized workers who had no ideology, or Idea, as Badiou puts it, to guide their actions. Badiou calls the mid-1800s and our era “intervalic periods” during which there are pockets of resistance to the ruling ideology, but no unifying articulation of upheaval leading to a different world-order, such as Republicanism or Communism. The insurrections during an intervalic period are thus isolated and instantaneous. They can only take the form of a riot, such as the leaderless movements that ousted U.S-client dictators in Egypt and Tunisia. However, in the nineteenth century, these riots preceded the sweeping away of feudal power in Europe. Ironically, Badiou notes, workers began to effectively organize against feudal exploitation when the new Idea of Communism presented itself as a unifiying ideology. In this sense, communist ideology was instrumental in the consolidation of modern capitalism. Badiou hopes that the Idea of Communism can reassert itself and organize the rising opposition to the capitalist world order that has recently manifested itself in Egypy, Tunisia, and internationally in the form of the Occupy movement.

Badiou identifies three kinds of riots that can emerge during an intervalic period: immediate, latent, and historical riots. Immediate riots are characterized by violent unrest amongst traditionally oppressed people in the area in which they live after an act of coercion by the state. The recent uprisings in working-class sections of Anaheim after a series of police murders is a good example of what Badiou calls an immediate riot. Such actions respond to acts of oppression, but are localized in a given community and have difficulty spreading, except perhaps to other, similarly oppressed communities, and even this is the exception to the norm.

Latent riots are not literally riots at all but actions such as proxy strikes, in which people who do not work at a site picket for the rites of the workers while they work, or protests in which large cross-sections of workers come together and potentially have to confront the police. Such experiences prepare people for immediate riots and give hope that what starts as an immediate riot can escalate into what Badiou terms a “historic riot.”

Riots become historic in nature when a unifying mantra with a fixed goal (“Mubark! Out!”) politicizes the riot and inspires large cross-sections of the population to partake in the riot for the sake of the political goal. Historical riots, notes Badiou, become so large that they typically occupy a site- such as Tahir Square. Occasionally, such new configurations of people working together towards a goal create new modes of politics. When such a new politics asserts itself, a riot becomes properly Historic and brings an end to an intervalic period. A unifying articulation of upheaval leading to a different world-order again guides political action. Badiou's favorite examples of what he sees as historical riots are the Paris Commune and the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

As of 2011, when the book was written, Badiou viewed the upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia as immediate riots. The only unifying demand of the protests was the rejection of particular dictators. There was no affirmative goals or ideologies articulated. However, he thought that if a new political practice emerged from the protests that became an affirmative demand for a new order, the riots could become Historical.

Similarly, although Badiou does not address Occupy in his book, it could be said that the Occupy movement represented an immediate riot that for a time seemed to have the potential to escalate into a Historic riot. Occupy Wall Street was singular in that it captured the attention of the entire world and created not just one site, but sites across the globe offering negative critiques of capitalism. But the Occupy movement never put forth any affirmative goals or demands (such as “Seize the Banks”) that might have had the potential to galvanize it into a political force.

Badiou thinks that legitimately Historic riots not only create political demands that have the potential to change the world, but do themselves create a new world, a new “state of things.” Badiou defines the state as that which determines what is possible and impossible- what can be and what cannot be. Badiou argues that states generate imaginary identities such as “the French” or “the American people” who are referred to in opinion polls and capitalist media outlets as if they exist in real life. But what, Badiou asks, does it really mean when we are told that the “American people” think this or that? Who are these people and how are they defined? Badiou thinks the state offers up arbitrary articles of conformity that construct imaginary identities like the “American people” such as “patriotic,” “Christian” and “white.” Those who do not conform to such articles of conformity are afforded less existence, less meaning and power within a world, by being designated as outside the imaginary identity constructed by the state. They are referred to by what Badiou terms “separating names,” such as “Muslim,” “Black” or “Communist”.

Of course Badiou is not saying that those referred to by separating names actually only partially exist, but that their existence is not fully recognized within a particular world, or state of things. When a new political situation asserts itself it reveals the full existence, the equality, of those designated with separating names. It discovers a new reality, just as a mathematician or physicist discovers a new truth without inventing this truth. The articulation of such newly discovered truths is the role, according to Badiou, of philosophy. Badiou refers to such political discoveries as “radical events.”

In recent American history, the clearest example of what could be termed a “radical event” is the Civil Rights Movement. As a result of a series of what Badiou would term “historic riots” the full social existence, the equality, of ethnic minorities in the United States was affirmed, as least in theory. Of course, what Badiou terms “separating names”still make the real and full equality of ethnic minorities, and those who, in general, do not conform to the imaginary identity of the “American people,” a fiction under capitalism.

According to Badiou, the radical event of a historic riot does not create a new political system or state. It creates a potential for a new politics by offering an idea of what politics can be. To understand Badiou further, we must ask exactly what he means by an “idea of politics.” Badiou does not investigate this concept much in “Rebirth of History” so we must turn instead to another of his recent works, “The Communist Hypothesis,” published in France in 2008.

In “Communist Hypothesis,” Badiou acknowledges his indebtedness to Plato's “Republic” and its proposed “Form of the Good,” which, Plato argued, gives sense to all concepts of universality and justice. (Plato thought that “Forms” were concepts that pre-supposed our world and that humans could not access them through their senses but only through philosophical inquiry.) Badiou claims that, at least since the time of Marx, the idea of communism has been the most important and influential concept of political emancipation, of justice.

Badiou writes that there are three basic elements to an idea. The first is the political element, a period of human activity during which a new thought and practice of collective emancipation develops in people's minds as a result of their activity. They start to understand the Form of Good, even though they cannot see it or yet articulate it. The second element is historical, in which different articulations of the Form of the Good from different eras (different states or worlds) start to illuminate each other in people's minds and people start to recognize an eternal concept of justice and collective emancipation that transcends any state. The last is subjective, in which people start to become militant exponents of the Form of Good they recognize and start to collectively work towards bringing about collective emancipation. These militants then become the social representation of the Form. Badiou believes that the central demand of the capitalist state is to live without an Idea, without a concept that there is anything higher than oneself.

To return to “Rebirth of History,” Badiou says that historical riots, while by definition partaken in by only a minority of the population, come to represent entire populations through their sheer size and visibility. It's authority legitimized, the collective subject that is the historic riot can thus impose an expression of general will on the population. It can start to articulate newly discovered truths- the truths of its very, newly discovered, political existence.

After a historic riot, organization is needed to keep the spirit of the riot alive and potentially bring about the full realization of the political idea through the creation of a new system. Such organization must, says Badiou, stay true to the nature of the riot and maintain its multi-cultural, generic nature and bring that spirit into people's day to day lives, and in this way combat the “separating names” and imaginary identities of the capitalist state.

There are many criticisms of the “Rebirth of History,” and with Badiou's philosophy in general, that one could make. However, two points in particular need to be made. While riots can and have inspired radical change this has been the exception to the norm.

Badiou acknowledges that even “historic riots” do not themselves bring about a change in the state, and that organization after the riot is necessary to bring about the changes that the “ideas” of the riot inspire. Badiou writes that it is precisely the fact that a riot ends an intervalic period- one characterized by riots- that makes a riot historic. But then he writes as if such organization is only legitimate if it retains a “fidelity” to the spirit and nature of the riot. Badiou subordinates the logic of organization to the logic of the situation. History shows the limitations of such thinking. The Paris Commune, which could be considered a historic riot, inspired ideas about communism but resulted in nothing more than the slaughter of revolutionary workers. Organizing is not a necessary evil that results from the greatness of riots. Organizing is what transcends the impotence of rioting and brings about revolutionary change.

The second criticism that must be made is a philosophical one. Badiou relies on a Marxist-materialist notion of historical contradiction and struggle. Without pre-supposing a Marxist analysis of history, most of Badiou's arguments don't make a lot of sense. However, Badiou's idealism locates the realization of the Form of Good that is the Idea of Communism in a transcendental collective subject that can recognize an eternal “truth” that pre-supposes materialist relations and indeed the material world. This is profoundly at odds with the spirit of the Marxism of which Badiou claims to be a disciple. According to Marxism all things, including human individuals, are shaped by the systematic relations of production in which they socially exist. Even “individuals” are, under capitalism, products of capitalism. While Marxist think that such individuals can, through experiencing exploitation, come to understand that capitalism is not in their interests, it is not from meditation on some eternal ideal. This understanding results from experiencing first hand the contradictions of capitalism.

Many of Badiou's mentors of the “structuralist and post-structuralist” generation, including the philosopher Louis Althusser, developed influential theories on the materialist construction of the subject.. Badiou's idealism is a step away from a materialist evaluation of the subject developed in the major works of structuralism and post-structuralism even though, ironically, many of the post-structuralists were fervently anti-Marxist. It is for this reason that some of Badiou's critics on the left have described him as being a “communist without even being Marxist.”

It remains true, however, that Badiou's comparison between the current moment and the mid-nineteenth century “intervalic period” remains convincing. And Badiou is an excellent writer of agitational prose.

[Gerardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

La primavera araba diventa occasione per calare nella situazione le teorie dell'evento di Badiou. Il testo è una riflessione sulle rivolte e la loro possibilità di cambiare le cose.

La rivolta è il tentativo da parte di una categoria di persone, fino a quel momento "inesistente", di esistere, di essere riconosciuta. La loro inesistenza derivava dal loro peso politico pressoché nullo. Affinché la rivolta diventi "storica", c'è bisogno di alcuni fattori: l'intensificazione, cioè la capacità della rivolta di diffondersi; la contrazione, cioè la capacità di una rivolta di rappresentare la totalità, nonostante alla rivolta partecipi una minima parte della popolazione; localizzazione, cioè la capacità di occupare spazi ben riconoscibili da cui la rivolta si dirama e in cui la rivolta agisce.

La rivolta è un evento, cioè un accadere che apre a nuove possibilità di esistenza, possibilità che prima d'allora non erano mai apparse. Affinché la rivolta possa cambiare le cose, deve restare fedele all'evento e può farlo soltanto se produce un'Idea: l'Idea è il modo con cui la rivolta si organizza e, organizzandosi, diviene reale e riesce a cambiare le cose. Infatti, la rivolta non può restare allo stato energico iniziale: deve produrre un ordine, il quale deve restare fedele all'Evento che lo ha prodotto.

Il mondo contemporaneo è dominato dalla visione capitalistico-democratica occidentale: essa è la griglia di interpretazione della realtà di gran parte del mondo. Tale visione vede nelle rivolte sempre il tentativo di aspirare alla libertà occidentale, senza capire che molte rivolte nascono per liberarsi da qualcosa: nel caso della Primavera Araba, dai governi corrotti e sotto il gioco delle potenze economiche. Quindi, la rivolta ha sempre un punto di partenza negativo, dal quale, poi, può costruire il suo ordine. Tale nuovo ordine è possibile poiché, con la rivolta, vengono meno i nomi divisori, cioè quelle categorie promosse dallo Stato che contravvengono a quella che è l'identità del Paese. Questo "uomo medio", in realtà, è una mera costruzione teorica che serve a irregimentare il comportamento dei cittadini all'interno di una griglia ben riconoscibile: gli altri sono potenziali sovversivi e quindi criminali. In democrazia, in realtà, vige questa dittatura della medietà e non una reale coesistenza di molteplici visioni del mondo.

La riflessione di Badiou è molto interessante, anche se ha più valore teorico che effettivo: infatti, la primavera araba ha mostrato tutte le sue ombre. Ciononostante, il ragionamento di Badiou è utile per interpretare tutti i movimenti di rivolta, quale che siano le conseguenze. Infatti, la rivolta apre a nuove possibilità, ma queste non sono necessariamente positive: tuttavia, il fatto che alcune rivolte siano andate male non significa che quelle successive non possano andare meglio. Infatti, è la fedeltà all'Evento a determinare la riuscita del nuovo ordine.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short book provides a useful synthesis of Badiou's theoretical work with a contemporary event- the 2011 Arab spring. Badiou writes that local riots, often demonised by the Western state and authorities, carry within them the potential to become something more, historical riots such as the Arab Spring which carry across a number of sites and make previously "inexistent" populations "existent". This is relevant as riots are fast becoming a core feature of our time (in 2011).
They do this by ending the state's process of "separating names", whereby we are divided into categories- "white", "muslim", etc. It is a universal truth that separating names must be ended and that the inexistent must be made existent. This is why political protests are reflections of truth.
A revolutionary minority can create a new political order, but only if they follow the symbolism and purpose of the street protests. To do anything else would be to betray the revolution and maintain previous structures of power.
My worry with Badiou is that he does not help us to safeguard our new world once the fires of the revolution have faded. Will not the revolutionary leaders simply create new separative terms, e.g. by proclaiming that some are true to the legacy of the street protests and some are not? And what fate is in store for those poor souls who have been declared to be against the "truth" of the revolution? Will we see their "existence" stripped from them?

[Slow Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

You will never look at a riot the same way again ...great concise philosophical template for Badiou's politics and completely without vagueness--he is precise, explicit, detailed, and ultimately very pursuasive, especially concerning the failings of parliamentarian democracy, state-employed identitarian subterfuge, and the stages and significances of riots. His prediction about the reawakening of history seems to be coming true. The intervallic period is over. We are climbing out of the rut in which "humanized" capitalism, since at least the 1970s, has tried to entrench us

[jt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ten years later, was 'History" reborn in the Arab Spring? Probably not, and maybe it's not even being restarting now, amid the riots of our day. Perhaps history never stopped, and the new world is always struggling to be reborn.

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as easy of a read as I expected, but quite fascinating. The classification of riots, the nature of truth, the role of the Idea, and how the minority can be the will of the majority were fascinating.

[Kai · Rating 2 out of 5]

mostly says what you'd expect it to say, still not altogether ungratifying as a 100 pg read

[Monokl Kitap · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alain Badiou, tarihteki ayaklanmaları derinlemesine inceliyor.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

alain badiou ive grown quite fond of you

[Austin]

maybe a bit dispiriting to read 13 yrs later seeing the lasting failure in Egypt but still interesting and good to remember power is in the people etc etc

[Andrew Otway · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very useful book for anyone who wants to spot a meaningful and properly communist revolution approaching on the horizon. Badiou goes to the trouble of explaining all of his unique terminology and how his ideas fit together into his main argument in this short, powerful, optimistic and inspiring book.

[Michael Ledezma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basic overview of the mass uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011. Doesn't go into theory too much. Interestingly situates the current regime of techno-capitalism as the true heir to the conditions of unrestrained capitalism proposed in Kapital by Marx, in opposition to the Deleuzo-Guattarian schizoid characterization of the current manifestation as other than, or trans-(classical)capitalist.

As most others who are cozy and self-satisfied in their complicity, the notion of the authority of a vocal minority that is legitimated by its very existence and 'genericity' in bringing to existence an inexistent group or class was a little unsettling to me. Then again, when you look at the alternative ie 'liberal' democracy, it seems as though we the readers would do well to shake off our apprehensiveness and start taking seriously what is happening around us.

The most salient point in my opinion, which is something that has been repeated to the point of presupposing it in any overtly political uprising aiming to change the nature of its system, is that the current round of historical riots such as those occuring in Egypt and Tunisia do not and must not make demands within the scope of our 'western' imperialist political institutional norms. No one is saying "Democracy!" The people rally around one objective: Mubarak, clear off! This may be the lesson which these uprisings have to offer to the rest of the world. In sharp contrast, the Spanish indignados, although sincere and brave in their striving, are still caught within the ontological horizons of the pre-established political order in the articulation of their demands; a reinforced order against which demands from within are always already negated due to their being posited in terms of the internal logic of the regime itself. Who better to rationalize and reinscribe the unpopular action of the regime onto a surface of rhetorical subdual and acceptance than the regime itself...

Another of his interesting ideas, is the mathematizing of the principle of average citizen. Numerous polls are taken and diluted to arrive at an average French citizen (F) Individuals are then paired against F on a scale from 1-10 (10=indentical exactitude and 1 being wholly other) The state then proceeds to weed out those below a certain identity rating, which are always those less well off (Arabs, Blacks, the poor, youths from the banlieus) in order to restate the position of the State: integrate or piss off.

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Rebirth Of History, Alain Badiou offers an explanation of why so many uprisings have erupted across the globe, from the Arab spring to the riots in London last year.

While the author sees a potential for change in this period of revolt, he is also realistic about the shortfalls of a riot as opposed to a revolution.

A riot, Badiou contends, is an "event" - the opening of a possibility of a new world - and he outlines three types.

Last year's London riots fall into the "immediate" category, spearheaded as they were by youth in their local area. Almost invariably, such riots are in reaction to an injustice committed by the state.

The French petrol refinery blockades of 2010 are an example of a "latent" riot - an underlying resistance and mobilisation which has the potential to become tumultuous.

It crosses boundaries of location, bringing varied groups from across society together on a protest site.

While being peaceful, it is powerfully resistant. It is controlled without being controlled.

The progression of both immediate and latent riots might create what Badiou terms an "historical" riot, illustrated by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia from 2010 onwards, in which a siege in a central location assembles a multiplicity of voices and creates a unification of people.

Yet Badiou claims that none of these three types of riot can lead to change without a shared idea - the "event" itself is not enough to present an alternative to the dominant order.

It must have the means within itself, the idea and the resources, to immediately seize power and assert a new order, one which Badiou declares must be communism.

While representing a departure from Marxist dialectics - for which he is often criticised - this book demonstrates that Badiou's ideas make an important contribution to the materialist tradition.

His writing is engaging and follows a clear system of thought which he illustrates with current examples.

But his idealism, which sometimes overlooks the objective and scientific reality of social structures, sees Badiou leaping from revolt to rebirth on a tightrope that might not quite hold.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/co...

[Micah · Rating 3 out of 5]

History begins with the riot, says Badiou. Fair enough. It's a phenomenon of intensification, contraction, and localization. A universal truth emerges, dissolving identitarian labels and exclusions. There's something to all of this. But perhaps Badiou has too much fidelity to his concept of fidelity - some of his favorite Events didn't have much truth to them when you look more closely, and someone who maintains fidelity to Lenin, Mao and the idea of "dictatorship" will have a hard time squaring that with the idea of the state withering away. It's not enough to say the party-form is "obsolete," as Badiou does, since it was never the presentation of communism but always a hierarchy of representation.

[Bob Reutenauer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great short book from Badiou surveys Arab Spring and situates these as moments in an "interval" period of world history... similar to 1848 uprisings in Europe. Two great quotes:

“What is happening to us in the early years of the century—something that would not appear to have any clear name in any accepted language?”

"Some commentators have regarded the role of ‘youth” in the riots in the Arab world as a sociological novelty and have linked it to the use of Facebook or other vacuities of alleged technical innovation in the post modern age. But who has ever seen a riot whose front ranks were made up of the elderly?"

[Zeina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perpetual optimist reads in the Arab Spring a return of emancipatory universalism. 4 years after the book was published it's hard not to be skeptical. But sometimes skepticism is just short sightedness.

I particularly enjoyed the connections Badiou makes between European revolutions of the 19th century and how they constituted a return of political agency, with the uprisings in the Arab World, echoed for some time around the world, which bring back hope in the resurgence of the liberating force of the masses, despite the attempts of the ‘international community’ to neutralise its power.

[Rob Stuglik · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice short piece, distilled to the point where upon a re-reading(which will need to happen when I am more savvy with his philosophy) there will only be several definitive, authoritative pages to go over.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was interesting. It's relevant to understanding the revolutionary climate which is growing around the world. The author is easy to read, the writing is straight forward, and the ideas are laid out in a logical manner.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointingly shallow, even for 120-whatever pages.

Meh.

Happy New Year!

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

this very much feels like badiou's just shitted out 120 pages on a vague current topic, but the fact that it's still largely engaging / interesting is enough to make it a good read.

[Rallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, to the point monograph from one of my favorite people. Should probably be read alongside The Communist Hypothesis.