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In-dividual

I’ll return to Jeremy’s question about Foucault’s contribution to political theory and dividing practices in another post a bit later. For now, a short comment on the theme of division. It’s long been noted that liberal political theory is political  in name only, being primarily characterized by extensive de-politicalization. Some locate it the processes of representative democracy, the rise of the social, others with the diffusion of sovereignty, and so on. But, if we take dividing practices as one of the primary contents of politics, we quickly run into a problem: if politics takes the individual as the point of departure – that is, that which can (literally) not be divided or can no longer be divided – then liberal political theory is ‘always already’ a- or non-political. The basic unit of politics is itself un-political because it constitutively resists division. Hence, liberal political theory quickly dissolves into ethics and policy. Or, as the philosophy departments have it, “political and moral philosophy.”

This was written by Craig. Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007, at 2:07 pm. Filed under State, Sovereignty & Violence. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback.

4 Comments

  1. NotOften wrote:

    must admit, I’m confused.

    Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 7:05 pm | Permalink
  2. rob wrote:

    When you say “It’s long been noted that liberal political theory is political in name only”, are you accepting the argument that liberal political theory is political in name only, or do you mean that there are some who would want to represent “liberal political theory” in that way?

    Similarly, when you write, “if politics takes the individual as the point of departure – that is, that which can (literally) not be divided or can no longer be divided – then liberal political theory is ‘always already’ a- or non-political”, is the conditional (the “if”) registering the question of whether politics does take the “the individual” (i.e. as “the individual person”) as a departure point, or is it the question of whether “the individual” does indeed amount to the “no-longer-dividable”?

    I ask these questions because it would seem strange to me if a posting related to the question of Foucault’s contribution to political theory would travel in the direction of the first option in either case (i.e. accepting the argument that liberal political theory is political in name only and/or accepting the idea that the individual amounts to the “no-longer-dividable”). And if that’s indeed the direction in which you’re traveling, I would have to admit that I, too, am confused.

    Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 8:06 pm | Permalink
  3. tycho wrote:

    So politics are about what happens between people, and the how groups represent and further their own intersts to other groups in the persuit of power and resources. Production, means of production, etc. Or something like that. Individuals are part of this, but individuals aren’t political except as markers and signs for larger group signifiers. That’s pretty standardish marxist…

    Ok, I tend to buy this defintion….

    Liberal political theory is about individuals: the rights of individuals, the responsibilties of individuals, the represenation of individauls in politics.

    So to submit that liberal political theory, indeed liberal politics, aren’t really political, isn’t wholy absurd.

    I’m with you, what’s next? ;)

    Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at 2:29 pm | Permalink
  4. Craig wrote:

    Tycho, perhaps I wasn’t clear (other comments suggest that I wasn’t – it’s a topic I’ll return to eventually anyway), but I certainly don’t imagine politics as “interest maximumization” or any such thing. Most incarnations of politics have very little to do with interests, which is precisely the point of some of the more interesting (if you wish) things being written in contemporary political theory – Agamben, Brown, Butler, Zizek, etc.

    Furthering one’s own interests is inherently anti-political. It is, precisely, economic reasoning.

    Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at 5:57 pm | Permalink

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  1. Dividing the individual « Foucault blog on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    [...] 13th, 2007 by Jeremy Craig at theoria suggests that because an individual is indivisible, and that because politics is based on divisions, then [...]

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