New Philosophies for Change

Dr. Mary Zournazi

Senior LecturerSchool of Social SciencesThe University of New South Wales

Hope, Passion, Politics

Ernesto Laclau (1935 – 2014): Argentine political theorist

● Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory● Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (with Chantal Mouffe)● Emancipation(s)● Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (with Judith Butler and

Slavoj Žižek)● On Populist Reason● The Rhetorical Foundations of Society"

Chantal Mouffe (1943-): Belgian political theoristEssex School of discourse analysis (Gramsci, post-structuralism and identity theories) to redefine Left politics in terms of radical democracy.

● Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (with Ernesto Laclau)● The Return of the Political. ● The Democratic Paradox● On the Political. Abingdon● Agonistics: Thinking The World Politically

Hope for everyone

View Current Future Implication

Pessimistic Bad can only go worse no better future

Optimistic Good cannot be any better no better future

Empty Terms

The meaning of Empty Terms

Vague

Variable

Unspecified

Non-existent

Geography

Patriotism

Governmental policies

Ideologies

Equality

Freedom

Justice

Hegemony

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) Italian Marxist philosopher

Hegemony is the set of social norms by which the ruling class impose their

world view and the social, political, and economic status quo as natural,

inevitable, and beneficial to every social class, while they are artificial

social constructs beneficial solely to the ruling class

Hegemony

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe:

Hegemony: a political relationship of power wherein a sub-ordinate society perform social tasks

that are culturally unnatural and not beneficial to them, but that are in exclusive benefit to the imperial

interests of the hegemon, the superior, ordinate power; hegemony is a military, political, and

economic relationship that occurs as an articulation within political discourse.

Hegemony: Articulating an empty term, such as ‘justice’, to concrete contents which can give a precise reference in a particular context.

Hegemonic Struggle

● To universalise a principle beyond the particular contents

● To give those particularities the role of representing a universality transcending it.

The task of the Left

➢ To present its own aims as the global emancipatory aims of society

as a whole

➢ To provide some more global notions of emancipation

➢ To construct them around a particularised item

➢ Not to use them in terms of an ultimate fulfilment of a post-human

society

Morality

Hegemonic struggle is not a matter of rational and moral argument

RacismNot a moral disease

Rooted in specific economic and social conditions

‘moral majority’ – the Right has a clear priority.

Class struggles

● Fight against racism and sexism, etc.

● Not lose sight of class and the socialist struggles for economic equalities

● Need a critique of the capitalist system

● The Left is in great part responsible: for not giving people hope by thinking

another alternative to the (neoliberal) capitalist system.

For example:

‘The market economy, yes. But market society, no’

Radical Democracy

perfectly realised

everyone agree

No differences Not pluralist

Totalitarian

Be enthusiastic about political struggle

Know there is no final goal

Know democracy is a continuous processes (‘democracy to come’)

Difficulty: Mobilisation of Passion

A pluralist democracy

Identity

● The condition for identity: the ‘constitutive outside’

● The other is the condition of my identity

The identity can be constructed in opposition to the other

Abuse of hope

Right-wing movements

Religious fundamentalism