Domingo Fernández Agis

Racism, Xenophobia and Post-politics

The public support to far-right political parties in Europe should

generate unrest instead of passivity. However, perhaps the risk to
democracy that this situation involves isn’t being perceived yet. We
need to know what we, by moral imperative, are obligated to fight.
It is easy to determine that the speeches that tend to encourage
racism and xenophobia have a direct impact on matters of a
biological source. In effect, a certain interpretation of life underlies
these discursive constructions. They all seek to find recurring
supporting points that derive from certain interpretations related to
the biological. This allows them to stand away from all base of
questioning that from the values on which modern society leans on
could be made.
Nonetheless, we can determine that it isn’t necessary to present
the xenophobic discourse with words that are explicitly racist, even
though the ideologies used are so implicitly.
Consequentially, there is also a concealed racism that is easier to
spread and more effective nowadays, with the competition of social
networks and other communicative resources. From all those
discourses a xenophobic statement is being spread, even though in
the first of them the racism is so explicit and brutal that it results in
immediate rejection from many people. Meanwhile, in the second
ideological version, the racist discourse is presented as the exercise
of self-defence of the social body, instead of the attack to others. In
this respect, what we are proposed to do in these versions is to not
allow ourselves to be infected by the harmful agents, to act in
legitimate defence against them. It consists of convincing us to think
that our collective and personal survival is at stake. We would be
cornered by waves of immigrants and in a situation like this only
attack or retreat would be left. Of course, those who construct these
discourses intend to convince us that our best option is to attack,
although this call to confrontation is disguised inside of a populist
argument, that appears to exclude resorting to extreme violence.

The Spanish version of this work was published in:

Claves de razón práctica, 260, pp. 72 - 79. (01/09/2018).
The outburst in politics is not an anodyne gesture.
We could start by analysing the way in which certain xenophobic
discourses have been generated. Specifically, the ones that have to
do with a radical nationalist policy, of which one of the most obvious
exponents was Hitler’s plan, which is usually referred to as an
example. Accordingly, we could raise Jacques Derrida’s comment
about the way Carl Schmitt presents in his work The Concept of the
Political, the meaning of the concept of humanism, considering that
this is an effective “ideological instrument of the imperialist
expansion”1. As if that wasn’t shocking enough, Schmitt added that
“in its ethical-humanitarian (is) a vehicle that is specific of economical
imperialism”2. With that the German author shows his attunement
with Nazi ideology, which doesn’t admit anything that can set limits
to the expansion of power of its supporters and makes the
demanding of German vital space a core element. Because that
concept is usually interpreted only in a geographical sense, forgetting
that it includes as well the demanding of a space in which to think, in
which to place a new way of thinking. It must be said, from this
perspective, that Heidegger’s sympathies towards Nazism couldn’t be
understood without taking into account this second meaning of the
concept of vital space and the role that he considered himself to have
in this area of domination.
Along this line, Schmitt presents the imperialism that is behind the
use of the concept of humanism. Again, we encounter with a
willingness to confront all that implies an obstacle for the
expansionism that characterises Hitler’s policies. Ultimately, this is
about subtracting the German vital space to the possible influence of
conceptual contents that could raise doubts on the Nazi ideology.
Having said that, it should be added that without a doubt it is striking
that the Nazi and Jihadist arguments coincides in the critic to
humanism and the fundaments of Human Rights. On the other hand,
Derrida frequently points out, in Politiques de l’amitié, the biblical tale
of Cain and Abel, to refer to how brothers can become enemies. In
effect, we know well that they can become blood enemies with the
same or more intensity with which they could become blood friends.
In any case, Derrida makes the elucidation of this matter an essential
part of his reflection, one of its cores we could say. He alludes to the
reference done by Carl Schmitt, who says in a lapidary way, as an
essential quote in the discourse he constructs in The Concept of the
Political: “Cain and Abel, that is how the history of humanity begins”.
Moreover, Derrida comments that Carl Schmitt refers to Aristotle his
point of view about society, pointing out that Aristotle considered that
friendship and war are the origins of all institution and all destruction 3.
The Spanish version of this work was published in:
Claves de razón práctica, 260, pp. 72 - 79. (01/09/2018).
 In the mentioned work, Derrida alludes to the relation between
proté philia, a concept that appears in the Nicomachean Ethics4, and
teleia philia, which we can find in the Eudaimonism Ethics. To him,
both ways of friendship share the same fundamentals, which is the
acknowledging and the practice of virtude5, in the most political sense
this term can adopt. On the second matter, it should be considered
the intellectual attraction a youngster can feel for someone older, as
well as the positive aspects of it in ethical and pedagogical level. It is
a way of friendship, confronting totalitarian indoctrination, which has
already been thematised by Plato in his dialogues and constitutes a
constant reason of reflection in the Greek way of thinking, in which
that form of friendship is seen as an important element of individual
progress and social cohesion. Nowadays we could see something
potentially abusive in that kind of relationship, but the Greek of
Plato’s and Aristotle’s time didn't think like that. In fact, to the
aforementioned thinkers, this is one of the perfect forms of friendship
when it is a pure expression of virtude6. For their part, the concept of
proté philia, allusive to the original form of friendship, demands
reciprocal respect and admiration as the fundamentals of virtuous
friendship. It is similarly a perfect friendship since in it friends are
loved without seeking through that love something other than mutual
improvement, the materialization of virtue and the permanence of
friendship. Thereupon, the intense intergenerational communication
and the mutual support in search of mutual full development are
recognisable in this approach as the basis of collective cohesion.
At the same time, and going with this in the most possibly
imaginable opposite direction to the aforementioned, Derrida states
that one of the points where Heidegger and Schmitt coincide is that
“to deduce the politics it is necessary to think about the enemy as is,
that is to say, the possibility of a properly political war”7. To express
this in a different way, of a war that isn't being done for religious or
economic reasons, but following pure friend-enemy dialectic, which in
his opinion has to be what determines political relationships. I wonder
if this isn't the clearest expression of the fascination that both of
them feel for violence in its purest state, without granting it an
instrumentality other than to mercilessly crush their opponents, the
ones who oppose their expansion of vital space. In other words,
leaving all discrepancy based on religious beliefs or all calculation of
strictly economical interest apart. Without a doubt, no other closer
than this to the exaltation of strength and the valuation of violence
which as we all know are the key elements of Nazi ideology. In that
sense, Derrida states that "if Schmitt determines the political from
the enemy instead of the friend, there isn't just an inconsequential

The Spanish version of this work was published in:

Claves de razón práctica, 260, pp. 72 - 79. (01/09/2018).
dissymmetry (…) Schmitt surrenders to a necessity that he himself
determines dialectic"8. Evidently, contemplating like this and bringing
close to his line of thought the sharpest spurs of the said concept.

Post-politics and inter-passivity

The incidence of information and communication technologies is
unquestionable in the spreading of fake news and ultimately in the
expansion of ideologies that have a rejection of the different as their
defining element. Because of that, a key concept to understand how
the post-truth is created and spread would be "troll farms". In effect,
in those places, the individuals who are called "trolls" produce and
spread their deceptions with the help of social networks. This work is
a key factor in the expansion of post-politics but, how to understand
its roots?
Slavoj Zizek recounts in Organs without Bodies something that
happened in the city of Madrid during the filming of David Lean’s
extraordinary movie, Doctor Zhivago. When they were filming a
sequence in which a multitude of people had to sing “The
Internationale”, in the heart of the country and during the Franco
regime dictatorship, the director was surprised when he saw that the
Spanish extras knew the lyrics of the communist hymn by heart and
sung it with real enthusiasm. With such enthusiasm that Franco’s
police thought it was a real political manifestation, just like the people
who lived in the surrounding area of the filming. Because of that, the
neighbours started to celebrate what they thought was the
announcement of the death of the dictator Franco and the triumph of
socialism. Zizek talks about this happening as one of those “magical
moments of illusory freedom”9. What he wants to say with this, as it
is obvious, is that what we consider to be moments of freedom really
seem like so to us because we project ourselves in them and because
of the illusion that certain events produce on us, but not because the
freedom we believe to be enjoying in those instants is real. Starting
from such quotation, we should appeal to that in which it is still worth
it to dream about, to the impertinent pertinence of utopia. Let’s say
then from this perspective that it is possible that the difficulties to
make them be respected could make many think that the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights is as well part of those moments of
illusory freedom. However, our common task is to achieve that on
their base freedom can become real.
On the other hand, in his paper In Defense of Intolerance, Zizek
states that "the principal problem of post-politics is, definitely, that it

The Spanish version of this work was published in:

Claves de razón práctica, 260, pp. 72 - 79. (01/09/2018).
is fundamentally inter-passive”10. This way he directs his critic
towards new political movements that act in favour of minorities,
such as homosexuals or ethnical minorities. Although he also
criticizes in the same quotations the ecologist movements. He
considers them all expressions of "post-modern ways of
politicization"11, in which in his opinion there is something fake. This
is like so because these ways of politicization simulate being in
permanent activity, when in reality what they pretend is that "what
really matters doesn't change and stays immutable"12. Here we find
another way to define postmodern politics as a drill, without real
activity or content. The “inter-passivity” would generate the illusion of
being acting politically, through the impulse and support to the action
of others, when in reality nothing is being done since they are staying
passive and installed in a comfortable social situation. The concept of
"inter-passivity" that Zizek introduces serves to pose the absence of a
political answer from a socializing perspective. The starting point in
any of Zizek’s papers is always an individual experience, a symptom
that he analyses seeking a way to generalize his conclusions. On the
level on which the concept of “inter-passivity” situates us, the poor
expectations of political action are the result of a co-experience that
is characteristic of individuals who don’t find the ability of reaction,
not in themselves nor in others. It’s not the accommodation to a
situation as much as the absence of approaches and expectations.
Because of this, it is an interesting concept, since it allows us to
describe a real situation and it constitutes an instrument that is
adequate to start reflecting about it.
The political subject shows its lack of basis, or better said, the
mythification there is to its basis, from the moment in which neither
electors nor eligible candidates believe in the real freedom of one
another. Being its reactions determined by fear, the weight that the
economic power or measly ideology exerts on it, the political subject
opens itself to the collective, starting from the merciless destruction
of its individuality, a chore in which it itself collaborates actively. In
any case, nobody believes that the one who sometimes manages to
speak with their own voice is speaking by themselves, nobody
believes that freedom is the basis of their actions.
Fear has settled in the core of social life. Fear to oneself, to taking
wrong decisions and having to pay for them. And also, the fear to
others, who is thought to force us to afront unsuspected risks,
thought to always be wrong, because their criteria, their opinion and
their actions are contaminated by their indomitable alterity. Overall,
the prejudice towards alterity and the “fear to error”, as José Ortega

The Spanish version of this work was published in:

Claves de razón práctica, 260, pp. 72 - 79. (01/09/2018).
y Gasset would say, paralyze us and ensure the perennial submission
to the established rules.
The conviction about there being an effective impossibility of
deciding, individually or collectively, about essential matters is
gradually gaining weight in our society. The climate of mistrust and
fear is doing no other thing than growing. So much so, that it seems
as if it can only be escaped from, momentarily, fleeing to some
artificial paradise. However, the hangover produced by that fleeting
and illusory reconciliation with what is desired will later become in the
best ally of the existing reality. The fear of breaking the mould,
ensures its effective functioning, the efficiency of the tutelage they
exert on us and the continuity. It is all linked to the construction and
effect of an ideology, in which the discourses of rejection to alterity
seek their socket, with the goal of being considered respectable and
in consequence defensible in the womb of each of the different
instances of power. It is an ideological and political exercise of
unquestionable effectiveness. Let’s not forget that, as Pierre Bourdieu
states, “the properly ideological effect consists in the infliction of
political classification systems beneath the appearance legitimate of
taxonomies that are philosophical, religious, juridical, etc.“13
From that line of interpretation, the strength of these discourses is
largely due to the efficient concealment they do on the relationships
of strength that are behind them. In this sense, it is revealed to us
clearly how such inexcusable labour continues to utilize the symbolic
power that Human Rights and their defence have, with the goal of
managing to impose all the political, juridical and ethical guidelines
that boost their materialization. There is no better flag than this to
coordinate efforts towards the discourses of rejection to alterity that
dominate a great part of post-politics.

The Spanish version of this work was published in:

Claves de razón práctica, 260, pp. 72 - 79. (01/09/2018).
NOTES
1 Schmitt, C, El concepto de lo político, Madrid, Alianza, 2009, pp. 83-4.
2 Derrida, J., Politiques de l’amitié, Paris, Galilée, 1994, p. 182.
3 Ibídem, p. 199. Cfr. Schmitt, C, El concepto de lo político, Edic. Cit., pp. 58 – 60.
4 Burger, R., Aristotle’s dialogue with Socrates on the Nicomachean Ethics, Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 2008, pp. 165-6.
5 Derrida, J., Politiques de l’amitié, Paris, Galilée, 1994, p. 257.
6 Zanetti, G., Political Friendship and the Good life, The Hague, Kluwer, 2002, p. 88.
7 Derrida, J., Politiques de l’amitié, Edic. Cit., p. 277.
8 Ibídem, p. 276.
9 Zizek, S., Órganos sin cuerpo. Sobre Deleuze y sus consecuencias, Valencia, Pre-
Textos, 2006, p. 16.
10 Zizek, S., En defensa de la intolerancia, Buenos Aires, Sequitur, 2008, p. 123.
11 Ibídem, p. 122.
12 Ibídem, p. 123.
13 Bourdieu, P., “Sobre el poder simbólico”, Annales 3, (1977), en Bourdieu, P.,
Intelectuales, política y poder, Buenos Aires, EUDEBA, 2012, p. 78.

The Spanish version of this work was published in:

Claves de razón práctica, 260, pp. 72 - 79. (01/09/2018).