Radical Worlds: The Anthropology of Incommensurability and Inconceivability

Author(s): Elizabeth A. Povinelli

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Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 30 (2001), pp. 319-334
Published by: Annual Reviews
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 Annu. Rev. Anthropol.2001. 30:319-34
Copyright(? 2001 by AnnualReviews. All rightsreserved

WORLDS:The Anthropology of
RADICAL
and Inconceivability
Incommensurability
ElizabethA. Povinelli
Departmentof Anthropology,Universityof Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637;
e-mail: epovinel@midway.uchicago.edu

Key Words power, language, new social movements, liberal diaspora, ethics
* Abstract This essay seeks to provide an overview of the anthropology of radical
alterity and social commensuration. I begin with critical theoretical discussions of
incommensurability and undecidability in the context of radical interpretation.I then
resituate these theoretical debates in liberal ideologies of language-use and public
reason in order to suggest the delicate and dramatic ways in which institutionalized
conventions of risk and pleasure commensurate social worlds. How do incommensurate
worlds emerge and how are they sustained? In other words, how is the inconceivable
conceived? How are these new ethical and epistemological horizons aligned or not in
the complicated space and time of global capital and liberal democratic regionalisms
and nationalisms? How do publics interpret and decide between competing social
visions and practices in the shadow of the seemingly incompatible frameworks of
post-foundationalist and fundamentalist enlightenments?

INTRODUCTION
Street-dwellers in Mumbai and ferals in Australia (Appadurai 2000, Rajagopal
2002), indigenous activists in Sao Paulo and queer activists in Vienna, Cape
Town, and Jakarta (Bunzel 2000, da Cunha & Almeida 2000, Boellstorf 1999,
Hoad 1999); new religious fundamentalists in the Christian and Islamic worlds
(Mahmood 2001, Lattas 1998, Asad 1993, Harding 2000, Crapanzano 2000)1'-a

tAndtheircomplex interactions,"Anotherandsignificantgay & lesbianareacentresaround

the suburbof Newtown in Sydney's "InnerWest".This is an areajust west of the CBD.
Newtown is an area of old Victorian terraces, either under-goingrenovation,or falling
down due to neglect! It's an area in transition.There is a slow gradualprocess of gentri-
fication. As a result, fags & dykes, ferals, aging hippies, old conservatives,young fam-
ilies, and yuppie professionals are all neighbours.A healthy mix really."AUSTRALIA
Out and About in Sydney: Queer Capital of the S Pacific John-Canberra Australia.
<http://www.viajartravel.com/travsydn.htm> See also http://www.ferals.com.au/

0084-6570/01/1021-0319$14.00 319

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320 POVINELLI

significantportionof anthropologynow focuses on whatCharlesTaylorhas called

the emergenceof new social imaginariesandNancy Frazercalls subalterncounter-
publics, but what I will call the emergence of radical worlds in the shadow of
the liberal diaspora (Taylor 1999, 2002, Fraser 1993; see also Warner2002,
Negt & Kluge 1993). We might say that anthropologyhas now complemented
and complicated classical social questions about how actual social worlds are
reproducedand ruptured,by asking: How do incommensurateworlds emerge
and how are they sustained in their incommensurability?In other words, how
is the inconceivable conceived? How are these new ethical and epistemologi-
cal horizons aligned or not in the complicated space and time of global capital
and liberal democraticregionalismsand nationalisms?How do publics interpret
and decide between competing social visions and practicesin the shadow of the
seemingly incompatibleframeworksof post-foundationalistand fundamentalist
enlightenments?
The topic of incommensurabilityand interpretationhas occupied a wide range
of scholarsandartistsoutsideof anthropology,includingpoliticalscientists,econo-
mists,jurists,and artistsin the literaryandplastic fields (Cage 1992, Simon 1999,
Knapp& Michaels 1997, Flagg 1996, Chang 1997, Posner 2000, Perloff 2000).
Studiesinclude such disparatetopics as indeterminacyandinvestmentadjustment
costs; intentionality,linguistics,andthe indeterminacyof translation;andromanti-
cism and intimacy.And the authorsof these studiesincludeeveryonefrom the US
FederalReserve Board membersto postclassical musicians to political theorists
of multiculturalnationalism.
This essay seeks to providean overview of the anthropologyof radicalalterity
and social commensuration.I begin with criticaltheoreticaldiscussionsof incom-
mensurabilityand undecidabilityin the context of radical interpretation.I then
resituatethese theoreticaldebatesin liberalideologies of language-useandpublic
reason in order to suggest the delicate and dramaticways in which institution-
alized conventionsof risk and pleasurecommensuratesocial worlds-how they
make radicalworldsunremarkable.

RADICALINTERPRETATION
Scholars in the philosophy of language have understoodincommensurabilityto
referto a statein which an undistortedtranslationcannotbe producedbetweentwo
or more denotationaltexts. The concept of incommensurabilityis closely related
to linguistic indeterminacy.Indeed,they are sometimesused interchangeably.In-
determinacyis also used in a more narrowsense to referto the conditionin which
two incompatible"translations"(or, "readings")are equally true interpretations
of the same "text."In other words, if indeterminacyrefers to the possibility of
describinga phenomenonin two or more equally trueways, then incommensura-
bility refers to a state in which two phenomena(or worlds) cannot be compared
by a thirdwithoutproducingserious distortion.W. V. Quine used as an example

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 OFINCOMMENSURABILITY 321
ANTHROPOLOGY

of this kind of problemthe translationinto the Aruntalanguage of a theory first

formulatedin English. AssumingthatEnglish sentenceshave "theirmeaningonly
togetheras a body, then we can justify theirtranslationinto Aruntaonly together
as a body.Therewill be no justificationfor pairingoff the componentEnglish sen-
tences with componentAruntasentences, except as these correlationsmake the
translationof the theoryas a whole come out right.Any translationsof the English
sentences into Aruntasentences will be as correctas any other,so long as the net
empiricalimplicationsof the theoryas a whole arepreservedin translation.But it
is to be expectedthatmanydifferentways of translatingthe componentsentences,
essentially differentindividually,would deliver the same empiricalimplications
for the theoryas a whole; deviationsin the translationof one componentsentence
could be compensatedfor in the translationof anothercomponentsentence.Inso-
far, there can be no groundfor saying which of two glaringly unlike translations
of individualsentences are right"(Quine 1960, p. 80).
Philosophers such as Gadamar,De Mann, and Derrida have vigorously ar-
gued about the degree of distortion in translations(and interpretations)across
incommensuratesemantic fields; about the risk of assigning and acting on these
translationsin ordinarylife; andaboutthe social productivityof foregroundingin-
determinacy/undecidability as a progressivesocial ideal (Wittgenstein1969, Quine
1969, Kuhn 1966, Putnam 1978, Steiner 1975, Gadamar1982, De Mann 1979,
Derrida1985, Caputo1993, Connolly 1999). The stakesof translationseem high,
given, as Jim Hopkins has argued, that the ability to "spontaneously,continu-
ally, and with remarkableprecision and accuracy"interpretone another"seems
fundamentalto our co-operativeand cognitive lives" (Hopkins 1999, p. 255).
But, as Quine suggests above, analytic philosophersseem hauntedby much
more thanthe ordinarystakesof orderingandgetting a coffee. The abilityto com-
mensuratetwo textual (and thus social) fields without distortionor the ability to
decide between these two translationson the basis of truthand accuracyputs more
than metaphysicsat risk (though as Derridaand Spivak have noted, it also puts
metaphysics at risk by dislocating it from its foundation;Derrida 1982, Spivak
1999). Indeed, Quine's student,Donald Davidson, has hinged the philosophical
problemof truthandincommensurabilityto representationsandunderstandingsof
colonial and postcolonial history insofar as his notion of "radicalinterpretation"
finds its purestexpression there. By "radicalinterpretation,"Davidson means to
ask how it is possible for speakersto interpretan utterancein the contextof radical
linguistic (and social) alterity(Davidson 1984d). How could the Hawaiianshave
understoodJamesCook, or Cook the Hawaiians,withoutproducingseriousdistor-
tions (Sahlins 1995, Obeyesekere1997)? As he puts it, "Hesitationover whether
to translatea saying of anotherby one or anotherof various non-synonymous
sentences of mine does not necessarilyreflect a lack of information:it is just that
beyond a point there is no deciding, even in principle,between the view that the
Otherhas used wordsas we do buthas moreor less weirdbeliefs, andthe view that
we have translatedhim wrong.Tor betweenthe need to make sense of a speaker's
words and the need to make sense of his patternsof belief, the best we can do

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322 POVINELLI

is choose a theory of translationthat maximizes agreement"(Davidson 1984a,

p. 101).
Davidson answershis own questionaboutthe possibility of radicaltranslation
positively, by proppingthe possibility of radical interpretationon the "principle
of charity,"namely,that speakersand listenersassume thatthe otheris acting ac-
cordingto a set of rationallinguisticconventionslike theirown (Davidson 1984b,
p. 277). This conventionallows speakersand hearersconstantlyto readjusttheir
"passingtheories"aboutthe meaningof words as they realize that others are not
using them as the listener would. As a result, if our aim is to understandthe
speakeras she or he wishes to be understood,then we modify our own language
assumptionsin the directionof a speaker'sown as, in the course of conversation,
we realize thatthe two are divergent-that the semanticway the otheruses "hip-
popotamus"is the way we use "orange"(Davidson 1984c, p. 153). In otherwords
we negotiatecharitably.Charitybegins at home, however;and Davidson has also
arguedthat"if we cannotfinda way to interpretthe utterancesandotherbehaviors
of a creatureas revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our own
standards,we have no reason to count thatcreatureas rational,as having beliefs,
or as saying anything"(Davidson 1984d, p. 137, my emphasis; for a trenchant
critiquesee Cutrofello1999). ContraDavidson,criticaltheoristshave arguedthat
indeterminacy/undecidability is the normal condition of communicationand is
productivelyexploited in domestic and internationalnegotiationssuch as in the
standoffin early 2001 betweenthe United StatesandChinaover responsibilityfor
the downing of an American spy plane. Maximizing agreementin this case and
othersdependson the nonsynonymousnatureof lexemes and sentence-leveltexts
andthe uncharitable,performativenatureof the disseminationandexcess of those
texts (Bataille 1985, Derrida1972).
As the referenceto James Cook and his Hawaiianinterlocutorswas meant to
suggest, analytic philosophersand critical theorists are hardly the only scholars
of languageand cultureinterestedin the problemof incommensurabilityand un-
decidabilityin contextsof radicalinterpretation.Since BenjaminWhorfproposed
studyingthe ways that structuresof languagesinfluence(or, in its strongversion,
determine)the thoughtsof those who use them, anthropologistsandotherstudents
of culturehave struggledto understandthe significanceof the semanticdistortions
and gaps thatoccur in translationsacross social and sociolinguisticfields (for dis-
cussion of the legacies of Whorfianlinguistic relativity,see Schultz 1990, Lucy
1992, P Lee 1996).
The workof linguisticallymindedanthropologistsinitiallyfocusedon grammat-
ical categories-classically, the influence of overt and covert grammaticalmark-
ings on people's cognition. From this standpoint,precision and accuracy seem
vital indeed to our everydaylives, given that"empty"gasoline drumscould seem
like lesser fire hazards(Whorf 1967). But more recently, linguistic anthropolo-
gists have foregroundedthe problemthat metalanguageposes to efforts to close
semantic space in moments of radical translation(Lucy 1993, Jakobson 1962a,
Silverstein 1981). John Lucy put it this way: "Whorf'saccount makes clear that

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OFINCOMMENSURABILITY 323

there is a specific semiotic problem involved stemming from the formal char-
acteristics of reflexive uses of language. When using language reflexively (as
metalanguage)to characterizethe referentsof forms in the language (as object
language), speakerstypically use the very same set of categories to describe the
linguistic forms and to describe the reality to which those forms have reference"
(Lucy 1993, pp. 24-25). Distortionsarethennot merely acrosslinguisticphenom-
ena but across levels of "linguisticconsciousness"(Sapir 1949, Jakobson1962b).
Distortionssimply compoundas the structuralterrainof translationbecomes more
complicated.Lucy again:"Infact, the problemis doubly acute since the analyst's
own languagecategoriesmay be so stronglyfelt thatotherlanguageswill be inter-
pretedor describedin terms of them-effectively short-circuitingthe possibility
of developingclearly contrastingcases" (Lucy 1993, p. 25).
One of my favoriteexamplesof such distortionsis foundin T. G. H. Strehlow's
classic ArandaPhonetics and Grammar(1944). Strehlow'stext seems especially
relevant insofar as it shows the migrationof the distortionsproduced by met-
alinguistic problems into moral evaluation.Strehlow'stask is to outline the ma-
jor phonemic and grammaticalfeatures of Arunta.But Strehlow is significantly
botheredby one featureof Aruntagrammar,the supposedabsence of genderdis-
tinctions. Strehlowinitially presentsthis differencewith distinct neutrality:"The
Arandanouns know no distinctions of gender: masculine, feminine and neuter
are all meaninglesstermsto the CentralAustraliantribesman.Not even the com-
mon animals of the chase are differentiatedaccording to sex" (Strehlow 1944,
p. 59). However, linguistic difference quickly migrates to moral ascription.For
Strehlow,the Aruntado not merely lack genderdistinctions,the Arunta"refused
to acknowledge in its grammarthe primaldistinctionof the genders"(Strehlow
1944, p. 59, my emphasis).Puttingaside the questionof whetherand how Arunta
marksgender,we see the grammaticalpresuppositionsandentailmentsof English
motivatingwhat Strehlowconsidersthe basic conditionsof humanarticulateness.
Quine'squeryaboutwhetherit is possible to translatean English-basedtheoryinto
Aruntais apposite,though somewhatdifferentlyapproached.The metalinguistic
sense Strehlowhas of the necessity of nominalgenderin Englishbecomes a moral
insistence on what "primaldistinctions"humansmust acknowledgeto be human
as such.
The concept of linguistic and cultural indeterminacyand foreclosure has a
much broader scope than linguistic anthropology.A paradigmaticcase in the
anthropologicalliteraturewas the debate between feminist anthropologistsin
the 1980s over the relevance of the concepts of nature,culture, and capital to
other societies (Ortner1974, MacCormack& Strathem1980, Di Leonardo1991,
Gal 2001). Marilyn Strathem'sGender of the Gift is in many senses the ethno-
graphicapotheosis of this debate (Strathem1988). We see a renewed interestin
this problematicin the more recent generation'sinterestin the Foucauldiancon-
cept of "singularities,"the Derrideanconcept of "undecidability,"the Gramscian
focus on culturalhegemony, and perhapsmost influentially,WalterBenjamin's
invocation of translationin The Task of the Translator(Benjamin 1969). For

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324 POVINELLI

instance,in a study influentialin critical anthropology,William Pietz has argued

that the culturalfetish-we might include underthe sign of "culturalfetish" all
tradein and aroundculturaldifference-is the markof the foreclosurethatoccurs
in the process of radicaltranslation."Fetishis not of any one of the two cultures
coming into contact.It is a concept-thing(an idea and a materialthing at the same
time) thatarisesin the gap thatcomes aboutat the momentof contactbetweenthe
two cultures/languages.It becomes imbued with power to carrymeaning across
borders"(Pietz 1985, 1987, 1988; see also Taussig 1993, andfor recentfull-length
ethnographiesincorporatingthese criticaltraditionssee Ivy 1995, Rabinow 1999,
Rofel 1999, Morris2000).
Indeed, however interestingly,much of the post-Whorfianliteraturehas fo-
cused on the semanticand grammaticalfeaturesof languagethatlead to linguistic
and social distortionsin the proximity of alterity.But, in focusing on how lin-
guistic distortionsinfluence the apprehensionof the social world, these studies
have bracketedhow social interaction,and thus social power,determineslinguis-
tic distortion(commensurability,and incommensurability).And it is exactly the
issue of power that has interestedanthropologistsstudyingradicaland subaltern
worlds. Talal Asad noted some time ago that insofar as "the languages of the
ThirdWorldsocieties... are 'weaker'in relationto Westernlanguages(andtoday,
especially to English), they are more likely to submit to forcible transformation
in the translationprocess than the other way around"(Asad 1986, pp. 157-58;
see also Chakrabarty2000, Trouillot2000). To returnto Quine and Strehlow,if
genderwas not a featureof Aruntanounphrases,how did it become so, ratherthan
English losing this grammaticalmarking?A numberof scholarshave examined
just these types of questions,includingMiyakoInoue, who has studiedthe "birth"
and subsequenthistory and social effects of a discernible"woman'srole" and an
associated"women'slanguage"in post-MeijiJapan,and LydiaLui, who has de-
veloped Asad's point in the context of "translatedmodernity"in Chinaduringthe
first forty years of twentiethcentury(Inoue 1994, Lui 1995; see also Hart 1999,
Saussy 1999). More recently,Emily Apterand GayatriSpivakhave discussed the
impact of machine translationon the global politics of social intelligibility and
conceivability(Apter2001, Spivak2001).
To be sure, recentpragmaticallyinclined anthropologicalapproachesto semi-
otics resituateDavidson'sfocus on interpretivecommensurationawayfromseman-
tics and towardan interactivesociology (Daniel 1984, Urban 1996, Silverstein&
Urban1996, B Lee 1997, Irvine& Gal 1999). If Davidsonadvocatesa semantically
groundedtheory of translationthat maximizes agreement,pragmaticapproaches
groundagreementin real-timesocial contestationsover the presuppositionalun-
derpinningsof any interaction.By demonstratingthat Davidsonian adjustment
occursat the level of languageusage, these scholarsre-embedsocial andlinguistic
commensurationandde-commensurationin theirsocial andinstitutionalcontexts.
They demonstratethatevery domestic and foreign exchange is a struggleat mul-
tiple levels. At the simplest, the struggle is to characterizethe social natureof
the interaction(the socially inscribedwho, what, and where of any event, even

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 OFINCOMMENSURABILITY 325
ANTHROPOLOGY

those that happen "nowhere"),and thus the terms of how and what are say-able
in this context and how it relates to questions of social and subjectiveworth, and
livability.If a listener orients her conventionsof interpretationtowarda speaker,
we can now ask what institutionsof capital, subjectivity,and state influence the
degree of this orientation(Povinelli 2002a).
Insofar as pragmaticapproachessocially saturatecommunication,they help
us ask questions about the emergence and foreclosureof socially inconceivable
and incommensurateworlds. For, whether implicitly or explicitly, interactional
signals indicate to persons how they should calculate and calibratethe stakes,
pleasures, and risks of being a certain type of form in a certain type of formed
space. Drawninto the semiotic process are the formaland inform(ation)alinstitu-
tional forces that dictate the varyingdegrees of pleasureand harmvaryingtypes
of people face breakingframe-of having the wrong body, or wrong form of a
body, or wrong attitudeabout that formed body in a (informed)formed world.
Davidson's worry over interpretationin the context of radical interpretationis
displaced from a semantico-logicalproblem into a social problem;namely, the
delicateanddramaticways in which institutionalizedconventionsof risk andplea-
sure commensuratesocial worlds-make radicalworlds unremarkable(Povinelli
2001).

POWERAND THE PRACTICEOF COMMENSURATION

Others have already begun moving in this direction. In "Commensurationas a
Social Process," Wendy Espeland & Mitchell Stevens note that although it is
evident in routinedecision-makingand a crucial vehicle of rationalization,com-
mensurationas a general social process has been given little considerationby
sociologists (Espeland & Stevens 1998). Drawing on Marxist analysis of capi-
tal forms of commodificationand Weberiananalysis of modem bureaucracies,
Espeland& Stevens arguethatthe efficiencyof bureaucraciesandeconomic trans-
actions depends on a standardizationbetween disparatethings that reduces the
relevanceof context-or, as they putit, "commensurationtransformsqualitiesinto
quantities,differenceinto magnitude"(Espeland& Stevens 1998). They call for a
sociology of commensurationthatwould ask, Whatmotivatespeople to commen-
surate?Whatforms of commensurationdo they use? What are commensuration's
practicaland political effects? Whatare the tensions between ethical systems and
the formal rationalityof commensurationsuch as, though not their example, the
body organtrade(see Cohen 1999, Scheper-Hughes2000, Comaroff& Comaroff
1999). Indeed,the emergentscholarshipon bioethics in anthropologyand science
studies is an excellent site for studyingthe practicaland political effects of social
commensuration(see Kleinmanet al 1999).
The questions Espeland & Stevens propose are nowhere more vital than in
the anthropologyof radical worlds and, more specifically,the study of the chal-
lenge radicalworlds pose to the liberaldiaspora.Philosophicalworriesaboutthe

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326 POVINELLI

possibility of commensuratingvarious variantmoral and epistemological fields

become national and internationalconcerns. The Islamic diasporainto western
Europe,the emergenceof queersexualitiesthroughoutthe world, and otherolder
forms of social life in new places or emergentforms of social life in any place
push against the previously tacitly held understandingsof a shareddeontic and
epistemichorizon(Handler1988, Povinelli 2002b). Nationalconcernsdo not stop
at the doorstepof culturaland social movements. The emergence of new forms
of economic association-adapting to and resisting globalizing capital--equally
may challenge the groundsof older forms of liberalcivil society (Gilmore 1999,
Wright1999, Nancy 1991, Agamben 1993). Primarilyfocusing on the emergence
of new financial instruments,Lee and Lipuma have described a much broader
anthropologicaltask of studying"culturesof circulation"(Lee & Lipuma2002).
And yet, put crudely, the liberal national form seems continually to reconsti-
tute some nominal, and normative,we-horizon out of these publicly celebrated
or scorned, but in any case seemingly economically vital, flows of people, im-
ages, and things (Ong 1999, Malkki 1995, Rouse 1991). The question of how
radicalworlds emerge in this context is displacedby a seemingly more pressing
question: How are these disparatesocial and culturalworlds made commensu-
rate with the social idea(l) of nationalism and/or civil society without the use
of repressiveforce? The problemof radicalinterpretationonce again reappears.
But now we ask what social practices and forms of social power are used to
commensuratedisparateethical and epistemological systems in liberal national
forms.
One answer seems clear enough. The power of a particularform of commu-
nicationto commensuratemorallyand epistemologicallydivergentsocial groups
lies at the heart of liberal hopes for a nonviolent democratic form of govern-
mentality.Since Kant, great faith and store has been placed in public reason as
a means of diluting the glue that binds people unreflectivelyto moral or epis-
temological obligations and, at the same time, as a means of fusing, defusing
and refusing deontological and epistemological horizons (Foucault 1997). Pub-
lic reason-a form of communicationin which free and equal citizens present
truthclaims to other free and equal citizens who accept or reject these claims on
the basis of their truth,sincerity,and legitimacy has been grantedthe power of
refashioningsocial institutionsby continuallyopeningthemto the currentconsen-
sus about what constitutesthe most legitimate form(s) of public life (Habermas
1989, Rawls 1993). In this view, the proceduresof reason andjudgmentare seen
as determiningsocial epistemologies and moral obligations, of bending moral
sensibilities and making them pliable; and, in so doing, making a shared cul-
tural and moral community. Through public reason perspective becomes per-
spectival; moral obligation and its conditioning of freedom opens to a broader
moral horizon, the I-you dyad to a we-horizon,most notably the we-horizons of
the nation and the human, the national and the cosmopolitan.Orientingjustifi-
cations to this horizon detaches the social from the bonds of particularpersons
and groups;it makes membersfreer.It universalizeshistoricalreason and moral

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 ANTHROPOLOGY
OFINCOMMENSURABILITY 327

obligations not by finding some transcendentalreference, but by recalibrating

the scope of currentconsensus. At no time in history have these proceduresof
public reason seemed so necessary and so valuable as when they were emerging
in the midst of the religious carnageof seventeenth-centuryEurope and as they
are now called upon to mediate moral co-presence in an increasinglydiasporic
world.
In liberal democracies,the correctivefunction of public reason is not merely
located in the give and take of discourse, but in the give and take of formal and
informal institutions. In other words, the dynamic among the domains of lib-
eral society-between the public sphere,civil society, variousformalinstitutions
of government-should ideally mimic the self-correctingmovementof reasoned
public debate.Takefor instancethejuridicalbranchin Australia.Juristsmay well
representthemselves as basing decisions on precedentand other genre-specific
proceduresof the juridical domain. But they also understandthemselves to be
continuallyrealigningthe relevanceof the common law to contemporarypublic
opinion of what constitutespublic understandingsof the good, the tolerable,the
abhorrent,and the just (Povinelli 1998). Indeed, the actions of each "estate"are
representedandunderstoodto be liableto correctionby another,andall, ultimately,
to the franchisedpublic.
Habermashas perhapsgone furthestin seeking to integratethe embeddeddy-
namic of discursive and institutionalself-correction.For him, the proceduralism
of the democraticpublic sphere understandsthat the truthclaims made by free
and equal citizens arerefractedagainstthe "objectiveworld (as the totalityof en-
tities aboutwhich true statementsare possible),"the "social world (as the totality
of legitimately regulatedinterpersonalrelations,"and the "subjectiveworld (as
the totality of experiences to which a speakerhas privileged access and which
he can express before a public)" (Habermas1989, p. 120). The end-pointhow-
ever is roughlythe same, some nonviolentmeans of commensuratingdivergentor
divergingmoral and epistemologicalworlds.
And yet, in the real-timeof social life, democraticnations contain the violent
suppressionof Islamic fundamentalisms,David Koresh and Move members are
burntto the ground,queersare stakedout in all senses of the term,andmany,even
voluntary,social practicesareoutlawed.Even publicpracticesthatseem alignedto
reasonedpublic debateare the targetof sometimes severe forms of governmental
control (Hirschkind2001, Daniel 1996, Feldman 1991, Aretxaga 1997). In other
words,ratherthanedging towarda horizonof sharedepistemic and moralvalues,
these discursive and institutionalgaps could be seen as always alreadyallowing
repressiveacts. By the time the legislative branchcatches up, the law has already
sentenceda generationto death.Whatseems to be at stakethen is how we come to
characterizemomentsof social repressionand social violence directedat left and
rightradicalworldsas moving forwarda nonviolentsharedhorizon,as the peaceful
proceduralismof communicativereason,ratherthanas violent intolerance,i.e., the
pragmaticaspects of communication.To do this we have to shift our perspective.
We do not ask how a multiculturalor plural nation (or world) is suturedat the

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328 POVINELLI

end of some horizonof liberal,institutionallyembedded,communication.We ask

insteadhow the incommensuratenessof liberal ideology and practiceis made to
appearcommensurate.
The temporalizingfunctionof the horizon of successful self-correctionseems
an essential part of the means by which the practice of social violence is made
to appearand to be experienced as the unfurlingof the peaceful public use of
reason. Characterizationsof liberalgovernmentalityas always alreadystretching
to the futurehorizon of apologetic self-correctionfigure contemporaryreal-time
contradictions,gaps, and incommensurabilitiesin liberal democraticdiscourses
and institutionsas in the process of closure and commensuration.Any analysis
of real-timeviolence is deflectedto the horizonof good intentions,and more im-
mediately,as a welcomed partof the very process of liberal self-correctionitself.
RichardRorty's discussion of liberal irony is interestingon this point. Rorty's
ideal liberalis not a dispassionatephilosopherin searchof the holy grail of Truth,
Goodness,andJustice,buta poet privatelyplaguedby self-doubtaboutherdeepest
moralconvictions,aboutwhat appearsto her as a set of commonsenseintuitions.
In his words, "the process of socializationwhich turnedher into a humanbeing
by giving her language may have given her the wrong language, and so turned
her into the wrong kind of humanbeing" (Rorty 1989, p. 75). Her doubt is bor
from the knowledge that all truthsare the contingent values of linguistic func-
tions; that no one "vocabulary"is closer to reality than another;and that the
values one cleaves to most dearly may well be harmfulto others. Nevertheless,
althoughRorty's ideal liberal subject privatelysuffers her anxieties and doubts,
she publicly passionatelydefendsher values until the organicphilosophers,poets,
ethnographers,andliterarycritics-the minorphilosophersof latemodem times-
demonstrateto her, not so much what she can gain by incorporatinganotherset
of values into her own, but how she can avoid inflictingpain and humiliationon
others.
For Rorty, the pragmaticapproachto the problem of metalanguageand rad-
ical interpretationis essential to his liberal eschatology. Because of the type of
metalinguisticfeedback discussed by Lucy and others, reflection on one's final
vocabularyand its interpretivegrounds simply binds a person more deeply into
the structuresof thatlanguage.So deep and wide are these final vocabulariesand
so saturatedand miredis subjectivitywithin them thattheircommonsenseappeal
cannot be escaped throughcritical reflectionon the propriety,validity, and truth
of their interpretivegroundings.Only an encounterwith an Othercan breakthe
hermeticseal of linguistic subjectivity(Rorty 1989, p. 80).
It is importantto note thatthe externalcry of the painedsubjectis the necessary
supplementof Rortianliberalism, producingnot only the liberal subject's own
sense of her good, but also nontotalitarianforms of propositionaltruth.For Rorty,
new semantic world disclosures "providefresh grist for the argumentativemill"
providingthe "novelties"thatforestalla collapse into totalitarianregimes of truth
(Rorty1998,p. 319; Bakhtin1986). Unfortunately,the gristRortyfeeds the mill are
those multitudinousotherswhose pain we might be unintentionallycausing.They

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 ANTHROPOLOGY
OFINCOMMENSURABILITY 329

providewhat the liberal subjectrequiresto thinkand change since the knowledge

of the contingency of all moral vocabulariesis not enough to cause him to flee
his particularmoralvocabulary.He could not flee even if he so chose because, in
Rorty's pragmaticdeconstruction,to be a human subject is to be and become a
value throughand of language.Linguisticvalues (semantic,logical forms) cohere
the self. They constitutethe subjectand society as such and as specificallyvalued
beings-in-the-world-of-others. Listeningto the articulatedcry of a painedminority
subjectis the only meansby which liberalscan knowwhen they areinflictingharm,
pain, and tortureon others,and why this pain is unjustified;i.e., of the type, scale,
andqualitythatmakesit systematic.In effect Rortydifferentiatestwo distinctand
distinctivesocial roles within multiculturalliberal nationalsociety. Liberalswill
listen to and evaluate the pain, harm, torturethey might unwittinglybe causing
minorityothers.Nonliberalsand otherminoritysubjectswill presenttheirpained
subjectivityto this listening,evaluatingpublic (see Connolly 1983 for a trenchant
critique).
But note, those radical worlds that turn inwardor away or refuse to dilate to
the sympathyof the Same are treatedas Durkheimonce describedthe treatment
of those who seek to free themselves from the norms of all thought. "Does a
mind seek to free itself from the norms of all thought?Society no longer con-
siders this a humanmind in the full sense, and treatsit accordingly"(Durkheim
1995, p. 16). Any political theoristworthher or his salt knows that liberals work
withinthe space between the currentlytolerableand the truthand acknowledgesa
crucial-the critical-distinction betweenthe trueandthe conceivable.In a recent
short book Michael Walzer,who has thought long and hard about liberal poli-
tical forms, remindsus of a certainset of commonplacesamong liberal political
theorists:that all liberals acknowledge that "we choose within limits"; that few
would ever be so daring as to advance "an unconstrainedrelativism";and that
not every act should be tolerated (Walzer 1997). Having said this Walzer does
what theorists of liberal pluralism, multiculturalism,and diasporic nationalism
often do, he urges readersto set aside the intractableproblems facing national
and internationallife-both within liberalism and across liberal and nonliberal
societies-and concentrateinstead on levels and types of disagreementthat can
be resolved withoutphysical violence. Begin with the doable and the conceivable
will follow.
Absent however from Rorty and Walzer's discussion is the dual orientation
of this message of liberal sympathy.If we take liberal theoristsof liberal worlds
seriously, the anthropologicalstudy of radical emergences and incommensurate
social imaginariesis faced with a numbingrecognition.If the message addressing
the liberalpublicmightbe "beginwith the doable,"the message addressingradical
worlds is "be other so that we will not ossify, but be in such a way that we are
not undone, that is make yourself doable for us." And the message conveys the
stakesof refusingto be doable, and, thereby,the stakesof forcing liberal subjects
to experiencethe intractableimpasse of reason as the bordersof the repugnant-
actuallegal, economic, and social repression.It is in this way that the late liberal

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330 POVINELLI

diaspora shifts the burden for social commensuration from the place it is generated
(liberalism) to the place it operates on.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the members of the Late Liberalism faculty group at the Uni-
versity of Chicago for conversations stimulating much of the content in this essay
and E. Valentine Daniel and Michael Silverstein for their careful and insightful
reading of this essay.

Visit the Annual Reviews home page at www.AnnualReviews.org

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