Further Reflections on Conversations of Our Time

Author(s): Judith Butler

Source: Diacritics, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Spring, 1997), pp. 13-15
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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FURTHER REFLECTIONS
ON
CONVERSATIONS
OF
OUR TIME

JUDITHBUTLER

The exchange that ErnestoLaclauand I conductedthroughe-mail last year at this time

begins a conversationthatI expect will continue.And I supposeI would like to use this
"supplementary"reflectionto thinkaboutwhat makes such a conversationpossible, and
what possibilities might emerge from such a conversation.
Firstof all, I thinkthatI was drawnto the work of LaclauandMouffe when I began
to read Hegemonyand Socialist Strategyand realized that I had found a set of Marxist
thinkersfor whom discourse was not merely a representationof preexisting social and
historicalrealities,but was also constitutiveof the field of the social and of history.The
second momentcame when I realizedthatcentralto the notionof articulation,appropri-
ated from Gramsci, was the notion of rearticulation.As a temporally dynamic and
relatively unpredictableplay of forces, hegemony had been cast by both Laclau and
Mouffe as an alternativeto forms of staticstructuralismthattend to construecontempo-
rary social forms as timeless totalities. I read in Laclau and Mouffe the political
transcriptionof Derrida's "Structure,Sign, and Play": a structuregains its status as a
structure,its structurality,only throughits repeatedreinstatement.The dependencyof
thatstructureon its reinstatementmeansthatthe very possibilityof structuredependson
a reiterationthatis in no sense determinedfully in advance,thatfor structure,and social
structureas a result,to become possible, theremust first be a contingentrepetitionat its
basis. Moreover,for some social formationto appearas structuredis forit to havecovered
over in some way the contingencyof its own installation.
The theoreticalrearticulationof structureas hegemony markedthe work of Laclau
and Mouffe as consequentiallypoststructuralistand offered perhapsthe most important
link betweenpolitics andpoststructuralism in recentyears(alongwiththeworkof Gayatri
ChakravortySpivak). The move from a structuralistaccountin which capitalis under-
stood to structuresocial relationsin relativelyhomologous ways to a view of hegemony
in which powerrelationsaresubjectto repetition,convergence,andrearticulationbrought
the questionof temporalityinto the thinkingof structure,andmarkeda shift froma form
of Althusseriantheorythattakesstructuraltotalitiesas theoreticalobjectsto one in which
the insights into the contingentpossibility of structureinauguratea renewedconception
of hegemony as boundup with the contingentsites andstrategiesof the rearticulationof
power.
It is, of course, impossible in this context to reconstructthe particularway in which
Derrida's work and Foucault's work converge in the reconceptualizationof hegemony
thatLaclauandMouffe haveoffered.Oneof thepoints,however,thatbecamemostsalient
for me is the reintroductionof temporalityand, indeed, of futurityinto the thinkingof
social formations. Among many critical social theorists, the tendency has been to
underscorehow the systemic characterof capital tends to incorporateany instanceof
oppositionin the serviceof capital'sown self-augmentation.I wouldclearlyagreethatthe
incorporativeand domesticatingpossibilities of capital are immense. But I would also

diacritics / spring 1997 diacritics 27.1: 13-15 13

arguethatany theorythatfails to thinkthepossibilitiesof transformation fromwithinthat
"systemic" formationis itself complicit with the idea of the character
"eternal" of capital
that capital so readily produces. Hegemony also marksa limit to the totalizing terms
within which social formationsare to be thought.For whathegemony attendsto are the
momentsof breakage,of rearticulation,convergence,and resistancethatare not imme-
diately coopted by social formations in their past and present forms. That no social
formationcan endurewithoutbecomingreinstated,andthatevery reinstatementputsthe
"structure"in questionat risk, suggests thatthe possibilityof its own undoingis at once
the conditionof possibility of structureitself.
Before I knew the work of LaclauandMouffe very well, I came close to this kindof
insight in my work on gender.' There I arguedthatgenderis not an innercore or static
essence, but a reiteratedenactmentof norms, ones which produce, retroactively,the
appearanceof gender as an abiding interiordepth. My point as well was that although
genderis constitutedperformatively,througha repetitionof acts (which arethemselves
the encoded action of norms), it is not for thatreasondetermined.Indeed,gendermight
be remadeandrestagedthroughthe reiterativenecessity by which it is constituted.Here
I focused on the transpositionof two Derrideaninsights into gender theory, mirroring
whatLaclauandMouffe weredoingwithinthetheorizationof hegemonicpolitics:(1) that
the termthatclaims to representa priorrealityproducesretroactivelythatpriorityas an
effect of its own operationand (2) thatevery determinedstructuregains its determination
by a repetitionand,hence, a contingencythatputsat riskthe determinedcharacterof that
structure.Forfeminism, thatmeans thatgenderdoes not representan interiordepth,but
producesthatinteriorityand depthperformativelyas an effect of its own operation.And
it means that "patriarchy"or "systems" of masculine domination are not systemic
totalitiesboundto keep women in positions of oppression,but,rather,hegemonicforms
of power that expose their own frailty in the very operationof their iterability.The
strategictask for feminism is to exploit those occasions of frailtyas they emerge.
But more recently, Laclau has offered another set of insights that converge in
interesting ways with my own thinking. The first has to do with his enormously
provocativeclaim that"theessentiallyperformativecharacterof namingis the precondi-
tion for all hegemony and politics" [xiv] (prefaceto TheSublimeObjectof Ideology by
Slavoj Zizek). What is meant by "performative"here is of the utmostimportance.For
names do not merely bring into existence what they name, as divine names do. Names
within the sphereof politics producethe possibility of identification,but also foil that
possibility.To the extent thatthey are not descriptive(and,hence, for Laclau,not tied to
establishedcontents), they become the sites for a hegemonic rearticulationof subject
positions.A namedoes not fully describethe subjectthatit neverthelessinauguratesinto
social space and time. But in what does its productivepower consist, and what are the
conditionsof possibilityfor such power?Laclaurefersto whatremainsundeterminedin
the subjectthroughthe power of the name, the referentiallimits of interpellation.What
is it thatconstitutesthe limitationsof the performativepowerof naming?Whatis it, as
it were, thatholds the name open as a site of hegemonic articulation?
We might say that names functionto the extent thatthey are used within language
games in whichtheirfunctionsarealreadyestablished.Orwe mightarguethatnamesseek
to capturea referentthatalways eludes the nominationby which thatcaptureis sought.
We might say thatthereis something"in"the psyche as thatwhich resistsinterpellation,
as Mladen Dolar has argued,and we might call this "the Real" accordingto Lacanian
protocol. On the other hand, is thereperhapsan abyss opened by the name that makes
possible thecontestover its "right"and"proper"function?Andif so, how mightwe begin

1. The workofAnna-Marie Smithhelped me to understandmore clearly the links between

our positions.

14
to approachthe thinkingof such an abyss?Is the Heideggeriannotionof the "ontological
difference"the primaryway in which Laclau understandsthis persistentnecessity of
indetermination?Is the indeterminationthat renders all decision contingent (in the
relative sense) the same as thatwhich producesthe name as an infinitesite of contest (at
the level of description)?

These seem to me to be one set of questions thatI would hope to pursueas I thinkabout
furtherconversationswith Laclau,conversationsthatwe will surelycontinue.Inthespirit
of this exercise, then, I leave it open-ended.

WORKS CITED
Derrida,Jacques."Structure,Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the HumanSciences."
Writingand Difference. Trans.Alan Bass. Chicago. U of Chicago P, 1978.
Laclau, Ernesto,and ChantalMouffe. Hegemonyand Socialist Strategy:Towardsa
Radical DemocraticPolitics. Trans.Winston Moore and Paul Cammack.London:
Verso, 1985.
Laclau, Emesto. Preface. The SublimeObject of Ideology. By Slavoj Zizek. London:
Verso, 1989.

diacritics / spring 1997 15