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URBANOMICLONDON
ALAINBADIOU
POLITICS: A NON-EXPRESSIVE DIALECTICS
 
Saturday 26 November 2005, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, London.Transcribed by Robin Mackay.
Ithink we can speak [?] today, after the last century, ofa classicalrevolutionary politics. And my thesis is that we are beyond thisclassic revolutionary politics. Its most important characteristic inmy conviction is what I name the expressive dialectics. Certainly,as Slavoj Zizek was saying this morning, political struggle andinsurrection, revolution, and so on, are not structural effects – inthe classical conception too: they are moments, and we have tograsp the moment, name the circumstances, and so on. but final-ly, the moment, the political struggle expresses, concentrates, thesocial contradictions. And it is why an insurrection can be pure-ly singular and universal: purely singular because its a moment,the pure moment, and universal because finally this momentexpresses the generality offundamental contradictions.In the same way–and it’sanother part ofthe expressive dialec-tics – the revolutionary party, the revolutionary organisation rep-resents the working class. And finally we have the famous sen-tence ofLenin about the very heart ofMarxism: “the masses aredivided into classes,classes arerepresented or expressed by par-ties, and parties are [hold] by chiefs. So finally we have something whichgoes from historical action or historical [?] ofmasses tosome proper names. The name ofa big chiefis the symbolicexpression ofall the becoming ofthe political process.Technically we can say that to go from the moment ofcreativityofmasses to a real consideration ofcontradiction ofclasses wehave to be under the potency ofthe proper name. And it is whyall the political tendencies ofthe last century are under propernames: Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Castroism, and so on.And it is why also the question – which was also a question of Slavoj’sthis morning – the question ofleadership,the question of 1
 
the place ofproper names in the political field today is a veryimportant question. Because this conception ofmasses, classes,proper names – which is also the conception ofthe relationbetween singularity and universality, singularity ofproper nameand absolute universality ofaction ofmasses – is a very strong one. But probably it’s saturated, or finished. So my goal today is just to try to open the way for a non-expressive conception of political dialectics, for a conception ofpolitical dialectics withoutprobably that sort ofbecoming-proper-name ofthe action of masses. And in this new conception, revolutionary politics is notthe expression ofconcentration ofsocial contradictions, it’s a newway ofthinking and doing collective actions.In this way, ifyou want, political process is not an expression, asingular expression, ofthe objective reality but it is in some senseseparated from this reality. The political process is not a processofexpression, but a process ofseparation. Exactly like in thePlatonic vision ofdialectics, a truth is separated from opinions.Or, also, like we saw this morning, in the Lacanian conceptiontruth is separated from knowledge. It’s not a contradiction, it’snot a negation, but it’s a separation.So, as you can see, I’m really speaking ofa politics oftruth,because I am speaking ofthe possibility – the logical and real pos-sibility – ofa politics ofseparation. In the real field ofpoliticstoday,which is a sort ofdestroyed field, or a battlefield withoutarmies, we often oppose a reactionary politics – liberalism and soon – the crucial concept ofwhich in the political field is law andorder, which are the protection ofpotency and richness, and onthe other side a revolutionary politics the crucial concept ofwhichis collective desire, the desire for a new world ofpeace, justice,and so on. And the expressive dialectics today is the relationbetween the conservativedimension ofthe lawand the creative2
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