Posted: November 9th, 2022

Identity and Postmodernism | Essay

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Critically assess the competition that “…identities are, plural, unstable, situationally enacted, and websites of contestation.”

The steadiness or in any other case of identification has turn out to be a significant battleground for sociological theorists in current instances. The notorious ‘postmodern’ flip has rendered identification a deeply problematic phenomenon. On this paper I’ll examine the declare that identities are unstable websites of contestation. I’ll do that by analyzing the dissolution of identification inside postmodern principle earlier than analyzing each the unfavourable and extra importantly, the constructive penalties of this.^[1] This may allow a deeper understanding of exactly what is supposed by this fluid notion of identification, and the place attainable criticisms and inconsistencies could be positioned inside this principle.

The talk over the steadiness of identification is one that’s inseparably linked to postmodernism. This numerous group of theories centre round, in Lyotard’s (1984:xxiv) well-known phrase, ‘incredulity towards meta-narratives.’^[2] Postmodernists keep that the venture of modernity has failed, and that no single supply or physique of data can legitimise itself as a common measure of worth or identification. This clearly has some profound results on the methods during which we’d usually take into consideration the world. Postmodernism now not permits us to theorise society into homogenous identities which might then be totalised in a grand-theory or meta-narrative. That is additionally the case relating to the identification of the self. Slightly than the self sustaining a secure core of identification, from a postmodern perspective identification is fluid and is dependant upon the place the self is traditionally and culturally located. As Luntley (1985:185) notes, this conception of the self threatens the very risk of self-identity:

The lack of self-identity is threatened as a result of if we located the self in actual historic circumstances, we’d situate it in issues which can be contingent and continuously altering. Due to this fact, the self would even be continuously altering. It might be in flux and would haven’t any persevering with identification.

As soon as the very identification of the self comes below menace, then so does the opportunity of any coherency in social theorising. A postmodern society is one during which the identities of the social actors are present process fixed transformation. Identity then turns into open to contestation as there isn’t any longer any final referent (reality, science, God and so on.) to supply common legitimation. In Lyotard’s phrases, the impossibility of a grand or meta-narrative results in the social being constructed of small narratives, none of that are essentially extra legitimate than one other. Any principle that goals at totalising society ought to solely be seen as one constructed from a specific perspective (e.g. one that also stays within the logic of modernity), quite than a totalising principle as such. While postmodernism could be seen as liberating and opening up seemingly limitless alternatives for re-theorising society, it does on the identical time impose new issues. Firstly, there appears to be an inconsistency within the postmodernist stance, because it could possibly be argued that the idea of the dissolution of meta-narratives is a kind of meta-narrative itself. This criticism will also be utilized to the postmodernist tackle identification, for in arguing that identification is in the end unstable and fluid postmodernists inadvertently present a sure inflexible construction during which identification operates (i.e. that each one identification should be unstable). So while postmodernism is liberating on the one hand, on the opposite it units limits to the very risk of any significant social principle or observe. That is exemplified within the disparity between postmodern theorists, a few of which view postmodernism as opening up enormous alternatives for eliminating authoritarian grand theories, others view it as primarily debilitating as the one factor that may prevail in postmodern societies is a way of meaningless flux. Inside this disagreement the postmodern Assessment of identification stays affordable intact, each side of the argument largely settle for that identification is fluid and unstable. By analysing this disagreement we will subsequently acquire a greater understanding of the assorted points of fluid identification.

Jean Baudrillard (1990:160-164) for instance, argues that the dissolution of identification is a course of that began within the nineteenth century and was exacerbated within the twentieth. Within the postmodern period, historic processes have undermined the steadiness of identification, in order that it turns into not possible to meaningfully theorise about social identification. Inflexible identification and that means are destroyed as a result of rise of worldwide capitalism and the demise of the referents from modernity (reality, objective, that means and so on). ‘Gone are the referentials of manufacturing, signification, have an effect on, substance, historical past, and the entire equation of “actual” contents’ (Baudrillard 1988:125). Identity now turns into a radically fluid and empty vessel, which turns into quickly stuffed with content material that has no basis or final that means. While for Baudrillard this can’t be considered a very constructive or unfavourable phenomenon, as ‘good’ or ‘dangerous’ now not have any actual that means in postmodernity, it does render theoretical and political motion largely impotent.^[3] Because of this in postmodernism we’re offered with quite a few texts heralding the tip of principle, historical past, that means and so on.^[4] The dissolution of identification means for a lot of postmodernists that principle and significant political motion are now not attainable:

The tip of historical past is, alas, additionally the tip of the dustbins of historical past. There are now not any dustbins even for disposing of previous ideologies, previous regimes, previous values … Conclusion: if there are not any extra dustbins of historical past, it is because Historical past itself has turn out to be a dustbin. It has turn out to be its personal dustbin. Simply because the planet itself is turning into its personal dustbin. (Baudrillard 1994b:26)

The unfavourable points of the shortage of fixity and grounded that means in identification are thus very evident. Laclau and Mouffe alternatively, in Hegemony and Socialist Technique, positively embrace the fluidity and instability of identification. Certainly, they argue that the impossibility of the closure of identification is what makes the social attainable (1985:112). Society as such is subsequently an not possible object for Laclau and Mouffe, as the sector of identities is rarely fastened, however the persevering with try to do that renders the opportunity of the social. Society resists closure and stays eternally negotiable because the meanings produced to bind the social collectively are solely quickly fastened at nodal factors by articulation (1985:11). Articulation is the place social relations and identities are modified. Many different types of articulations (political, cultural, scientific an so on) are able to doing this, however the necessary factor for Laclau and Mouffe is that nobody specific articulation totalises and restricts the power for different articulations to function freely. Laclau and Mouffe (1985:13) argue that their idea of hegemony recognises the plurality of struggles and makes an attempt to interact with it:

The idea of ‘hegemony’ will emerge exactly in a context dominated by the expertise of fragmentation and by the indeterminacy of the articulations between completely different struggles and topic positions.

Hegemony for Laclau and Mouffe refers back to the ‘battleground’ of identification. Because the identification of the social is fluid and open to negotiation, various kinds of social articulations and struggles will try to hegemonise society to achieve recognition. Whereas this try at hegemony in itself just isn’t a unfavourable observe for Laclau and Mouffe, efficiently achieved hegemony is. It’s subsequently crucial robust egalitarian and democratic framework is in operation for this web site of social hegemony. The appearance of democracy is subsequently a pivotal second in social historical past. Right here Laclau and Mouffe (1985:186-187) concur with Claude Lefort’s analyses of the ‘democratic revolution’. Society previous to democracy was considered a unified physique with energy being embodied by that of a sovereign monarch, who was the consultant of a god or gods. After the democratic revolution, energy turns into an empty area regardless of a transcendental guarantor or a illustration of considerable social unity. A break up happens between the situations of energy, information, and the foundations of regulation that are now not absolute. With out these foundations, no regulation could be fastened and every little thing is open to questioning. Society can’t be apprehended or managed, the folks turn out to be sovereign however their identification can by no means be completely given. However as soon as we’re in a democratic society, we’re at risk of totalitarianism. It’s because a purely social energy can emerge after democracy has destroyed extra-social powers, which presents its energy as whole and extracts from itself alone the ideas of regulation and information. As there are now not any foundations or a centre to political energy, it turns into essential to bind collectively political areas by hegemonic articulations. However these articulations will at all times stay partial, as they haven’t any final basis. Any try to deny the radically open nature of the social will result in totalitarianism, be it a politics of the ‘left’ in accordance with which each and every antagonism could be eradicated and society rendered clear, or a fascist authoritarian fixing of the social right into a inflexible hierarchical state system. The democratic logic of equivalence can subsequently be hegemonised into totalitarianism.

The novel openness of identification is subsequently impinged with the hazard of totalitarianism for Laclau and Mouffe.^[5] To keep away from this, the various and fluid nature of identification needs to be embraced inside an egalitarian and democratic framework, so no specific articulation could hegemonise social identification. That is tough nonetheless as the final word lack of closure for identification results in a essentially antagonistic community of social relations. Antagonism is triggered when a discursive type of one kind of identification interrupts one other’s discursive body (1985:154). The shortcoming of a specific identification to efficiently assimilate the articulations of one other results in an inner antagonism that turns into the catalyst for an extra modification of itself. Therefore there isn’t any secure core to any specific identification, identification is at all times shifting and altering. However that is additionally how a democratic framework could be constructed. As all identification is open, then democratic and egalitarian beliefs can permeate completely different articulations to keep away from totalitarianism:

[I]t is barely from the second when the democratic discourse turns into accessible to articulate the completely different types of resistance to subordination that the situations will exist to make attainable the wrestle in opposition to various kinds of inequality. (1985:154-155)

The openness of identification, as soon as included right into a democratic framework, is subsequently a constructive and progressive phenomenon for Laclau and Mouffe. The impossibility of totalising society is embraced as a possibility for brand spanking new fields of considered created, free from the tyranny of authoritarianism. We are able to subsequently see an ideal disparity between Baudrillard’s and Laclau and Mouffe’s notions of the openness of identification. Each views absolutely settle for the shortage of stability in identification, but for Baudrillard this results in sociological and political impotence, whereas for Laclau and Mouffe that is seen as a possibility for sociological and political creativity and motion.

For a lot of theorists nonetheless, the obvious variations or similarities between varied postmodern theories of unstable identification are merely superficial.^[6] They declare that there are deeper issues and inconsistencies inside this notion of identification itself. Zizek (2000:106-107), for instance, claims that while Laclau and Mouffe are vehemently against all types of essentialism, and search to affirm the novel contingency of the political and irreducibility of the social, they nonetheless need to depend on a proper existential a priori, comparable to ‘the logic of hegemony’. In different phrases, one of many foremost issues with this kind of discourse is that in sustaining that identification and the social is radically open, it has to depend on a sure formal logic. Laclau and Mouffe need to depend on a ‘logic of hegemony’ because the pure state of identification formation and articulation, as they deny that the fluidity of identification is a historic phenomenon:

Solely in up to date societies is there a generalisation of the hegemonic type of politics, however for that reason we will interrogate the previous, and discover there inchoate types of the identical processes which can be absolutely seen; and, when they didn’t happen, perceive why issues have been completely different. (Laclau 2000:200)

This proposes that each one social identification was always-already the results of hegemonic struggles, while it’s only in our ‘postmodern’ world that we will recognise this. So whereas the sustaining of the openness of identification is a type of anti-essentialism, it’s nonetheless solely operable inside a inflexible essentialist framework. Zizek criticises this method for its lack of historic Assessment. For Zizek (2000:95) it’s the course of of latest international capitalism that has created the situations for the demise of essentialist politics, and has led us to the ‘recognition’ of the irreducible plurality of identities.^[7] Zizek argues that Laclau and different proponents of this postmodern notion of identification don’t analyse the logic that makes this attainable, and subsequently don’t interact with any theoretical confrontation with it. The truth is Zizek (1993:216) and different notable theorists argue that postmodern theories of identification are merely a product of capitalism and late modernity:^[8]

Removed from containing any sort of subversive potentials, the dispersed, plural constructed topic hailed by postmodern principle merely describes the type of subjectivity that corresponds to late capitalism.’

Slightly than postmodern identification being a liberating and revolutionary new manner of rethinking the social, from this angle it’s merely a response of late modernity which fails to significantly interact with the foremost problematic of our time. It’s on this sense that Hardt and Negri (2000:138) argue that ‘the postmodernist and postcolonialist methods that look like liberatory wouldn’t problem however the truth is coincide with and even unwittingly reinforce the brand new methods of rule.’ Postmodern notions of the fluidity of identification carry us to a political and theoretical deadlock.^[9] Nevertheless it could possibly be argued that that is solely the case if we settle for postmodernism itself as a kind of totalising principle. The notion of the fluidity of identification is beneficial and does open up new avenues of theorising and politicising. However as Zizek and others argue, the social and historic processes which have lead as much as this could play a better position in understanding fashionable or postmodern identification. Some postmodernists comparable to Baudrillard settle for these historic processes, however insist that they’re irreversible below a banner of the tip of historical past. Others comparable to Laclau and Mouffe insist on the constructive points of the instability of identification, and certainly even insist that it’s unavoidable. However what each these positions share is the unavoidability of groundless identification, and the final word impossibility of making constructive content material for identification. Laclau and Mouffe could argue that constructive identification is feasible, inside a democratic framework. However the issue of failure stays unavoidable; all identification is both a failed try at hegemonising the social, or if profitable then it’s essentially totalitarian because it denies the novel openness of identification as such. Even on this constructive use of fluid identification, negativity continues to be very a lot inscribed into its operation. The dearth of fixity in identification does certainly appear to correlate with fashionable or postmodern subjectivity, as Zizek argues above, however claims that make this a common and mandatory phenomenon are fraught with difficulties.

References

Baudrillard, J. (1988) Chosen Writings. Cambridge: Polity Press

Baudrillard, J. (1994a) Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: College of Michigan Press

Baudrillard, J. (1994b) The Phantasm of the Finish. Cambridge: Polity Press

Bauman, Z. (1992) Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge

Brockelman, T. (2003) ‘The failure of the novel democratic imaginary’, Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol 29 no2, pp 183-2

Butler, J., Laclau, E. and Zizek, S. (2000) Contingency, Hegemony, Universality. Modern Dialogues on the Left. London: Verso

Grillo, R.D. (1998) Pluralism and the Politics of Distinction State, Tradition, and Ethnicity in Comparative Perspective. Oxford : Clarendon Press

Fukuyama, F.(1992) The Finish of Historical past and the Final Man. London: Hamish Hamilton

Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2000) Empire. London: Harvard College Press

Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Technique. In direction of A Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso

Lefort, C. (1988) Democracy and Political Principle. Cambridge: Polity Press

Lyotard, J-F. (1984) The Postmodern Situation: A Report on Data. Manchester: Manchester College Press

Sim, S. (1986) ‘Lyotard and the Politics of Antifoundationalism’, Radical Philosophy, Autumn no 44, pp Eight-13

Zizek, S. (1993) Tarrying with the Damaging. Kant, Hegel and the Critique of Ideology. Durham: Duke College Press

Zizek, S. (1999) The Zizek Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers

Zizek, S. and Daly, G. (2004) Conversations with Zizek. Cambridge: Polity Press

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Footnotes

^[1] Because the unfavourable points of postmodern identification are clearly evident (lack of that means, stability and so on), I’ll subsequently focus extra on the constructive points of fluid identification to achieve better perception.

^[2] See Hardt and Negri (2000:139-140): ‘It’s tough to generalize in regards to the quite a few discourses that go below the banner of postmodernism, however most of them draw at the very least not directly on Jean-Francois Lyotard’s critique of modernist grasp narratives … [P]ostmodernist theories are outlined by a lot of their proponents as sharing one single widespread denominator, a generalized assault on the Enlightenment.’

^[3] ‘The dialectical stage, the vital stage is empty. There isn’t any extra stage … – no extra stage both of psychological or political solidarity.’ (Baudrillard:1990:164)

^[4] See for instance Fukuyama (1992)

^[5] Right here we will see parallels with Lyotard’s antagonism towards meta-narratives.

^[6] Grillo (1998:219) apparently claims that there’s one other downside with postmodern principle: ‘There’s an ambiguity in postmodernist writing within the social sciences: are we coping with an mental stance (on language and so forth) or kind of tradition and society whose options are captured by the phrase ‘postmodern’? Or each?’ In different phrases, postmodernists are typically confused of their theorising, as they can’t adequately account for the origins of the dissolution of identification and that means.

^[7] Zizek just isn’t alone on this view. See for instance Brockelman (2003:191): ‘[A]t the core of all social techniques producing identities is a sure construction, a construction that alone makes attainable the formation of diacritical or articulated identities.’

^[8] See additionally Arduous and Negri (2000:137-143)

^[9] Stuart Sim (1986:11) for instance reproaches postmodernism for its political ineptitude, arguing that antifoundationalist political approaches are ‘uncoordinated guerrilla campaigns carried out by alienated solipsists – and one wonders how profitable that could be.’