Emancipation(s)

by Ernesto Laclau

In Emancipation(s) , Ernesto Laclau addresses a central how have the changes of the last decade, together with the transformation in contemporary thought, altered the classical notion of “emancipation” as formulated since the Enlightenment? Our visions of the future and our expectations of emancipation, have been deeply affected by the changes of recent the end of the Cold War, the explosion of new ethnic and national identities, the social fragmentation under late capitalism, and the collapse of universal certainties in philosophy and social and historical thought. Laclau here begins to explore precisely how our visions of emancipation have been recast under these new conditions.

Laclau examines the internal contradictions of the notion of “emancipation” as it emerged from the mainstream of modernity, as well as the relation between universalism and particularism which is inherent in it. He explores the making of political identities and the status of central notions in political theory such as “representation” and “power,” focusing particularly on the work of Derrida and Rorty. Emancipation(s) is a significant contribution to the reshaping of radical political thought.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Sociology, Theory

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Ernesto Laclau was an Argentine political theorist often described as post-Marxist. He was a professor at the University of Essex where he holds a chair in Political Theory and was for many years director of the doctoral Programme in Ideology and Discourse Analysis. He has lectured extensively in many universities in North America, South America, Western Europe, Australia, and South Africa.

Reviews

[Alex Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Isn't everything politics, when you get abstract enough?

Especially if you are abstract about people.

Laclau's subject matter is freedom. He posits a Hegemony as the model for true democracy. He posits a world where leadership is done by "weak" minorities that must bow down to other minorities. He posits a world where cooperation is preferable to coercion but only because coercion will lead to conflict which is too uncertain to be embraced.

In doing so Laclau is able to justify this freedom through the absent universal. The empty place of this signification allows it to be anything and everything to anyone and everyone. In this sense, Laclau describes the network of abstraction that ties disparate groups together into coherency. He is describing neo-liberalism, but in a philosophic way. Financial and legal ties ARE the real-world abstractions that are used to justify the status quo.

Society is about justification. What we are, who we are, and the limits of our doings all revolve around the kinds of justification-isms which groups may find acceptable (or not). While Laclau doesn't go into the historicity of how these justifications were brought about, he is able to anticipate the Political Correctness that comes about as a necessary modality of Hegemonic freedom. He also does not anticipate that such an abstraction could engender so much injustice as to give cause to its downfall.

Laclau is able in this very short and terse book to wander into and back, the depths of philosophy. It's an impressive feat. One that lands him into the ideal community, making him a staunch Hegelian. In essence, Laclau is a 90's kind of philosopher, who anticipates the current Hegel craze which marks the end of modernity as people come to exceed the logic of modern super-structure, and its way of justifying coherency.

[David]

Apparently this book is supposed to be somewhat easier to understand than Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.

[Aljoša Toplak · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, at times intimidating collection of essays, exploring the possibility of a political view between universalism and particularism. Especially intimidating is the essay titled, "Why do Empty Signifiers Matter to Politics?", which took me a real headache to rougly understand. Here's what I got from it:

According to (classical) Saussurean structuralism, meanings are created through a differential logic -- signifiers have meaning exactly because they stand in relation to other signifiers that delimit what the first one signifies. Hence, each signification implicitly contains the totality of langauge. But with the necessity of system, comes a necessity of a limit (there's no meaning without its demarcation from nonsense). This limit can not be established through differential logic, for then what is outside would be part of the system too (since the system is exactly the set of differentiations). And yet, the system needs a grounding, an exclusion that splits the system from that which is not the system. If that can't be a positive characterisation (since, then it would be part of differential logics), it has to be characterized by virtue of pure negativity. But what can represent that which is exactly outside of the system in which signifiers can signify? Laclau says, the logic of equivalence that unites the signifiers in opposition to that which is not a signifier -- just like gold is initially just another metal, a particular, but comes to occupy a universal function of representing value, so does the empty signifier strip itself of its particular meaning and comes to represent the system as such.

Each signifier constitutes a sign by attaching itself to a particular signified, inscribing itself as a difference within the signifying process. But if what we are trying to signify is not a difference but, on the contrary, a radical exclusion, no production of one more difference can do the trick. As, however, all the means of representation are differential in nature, it is only if the differential nature of the signifying units is subverted ... it is only if the signifiers empty themselves of their attachment to particular signifieds … that such a signification is possible.

Why does this matter to politics? Because if society is a struggle for different particular struggles of particular groups, then unity only occurs when there's a sort of ideological hegemony, when one group -- either through institutional centralization, reference to pre-existing symbols, the occupation of a position of high concentration of social antagonisms ... - manages to occupy the universalizing function of the struggle of the society as such. One example he gives is that of Perónism, which became the empty signifier of Argentinian fight for a better future -- once Perón came to power, he nonetheless enacted concrete political actions that showed just how threatened and precarious the hegemonical position of Perónism really is, resulting in a bloody process of opposition and a following military dictatorship.

All in all, an absolutely brilliant and unparalleled (to my modest knowledge) political analysis.

[Alex Carlman · Rating 2 out of 5]

nice try