We're pleased to finally post video from our Communism, A New Beginning? conference from back in October in the debut of our incredibly novel YouTube page. It's an interesting look back to a weekend of what was the first month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street; around when Étienne Balibar spoke on "Communism as Commitment, Imagination, and Politics," peaceful protesters just uptown at Times Square were arrested and en route to Central Booking.
Here is a guide to the talks given at this conference:
DAY 1
Alain Badiou: Politics and State, Mass Movement and Terror (presented by Bruno Bosteels)
'Before the Election', from The Meaning of Sarkozy by Alain Badiou: originally written in the context of the 2007 French election, it remains vital reading ahead of the first round of the 2012 election this Sunday, 22 April.
We are now in the midst of an election campaign to appoint the president. How can I avoid speaking of it? A tricky one that . . . Philosophy may resist the content of opinions, but that does not mean it can ignore their existence, especially when this becomes literally frenetic, as it has done in recent weeks.
I discussed voting in Circonstances 1, with regard to the presidential election of 2002. I emphasized on that occasion that little credence should be placed in such an irrational procedure, and analysed in terms of this concrete example the disastrous consequences of that parliamentary fetishism which in our society fills the place of 'democracy'. The role of collective affects could not, I said, be underestimated in this kind of circumstance, organized from one end to the other by the state, and relayed by its series of apparatuses - precisely those that Louis Althusser aptly named 'ideological state apparatuses': parties, of course, but also the civil service, trade unions, media of all kinds. These latter institutions, notably of course television, but more subtly the written press, are quite spectacular powers of unreason and ignorance. Their particular function is to spread the dominant affects. They played a good part in the 'Le Pen psychosis' of 2002, which, after the old Pétainist - a knackered old horse from a ruined stable - had passed the first round, threw masses of terrified young lycéens and right-minded intellectuals into the arms of Chirac, who, no longer himself in his heyday as far as political vigour was concerned, did not expect so much. With the cavalcade headed by Sarkozy, and the Socialist Party choosing as candidate a hazy bourgeoise whose thinking, if it exists, is somewhat concealed, we reap the fatal consequence of this madness five years down the road.
Following on from our announcement of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek's New York conference, Communism, A New Beginning?, we have brought together the numerous reports, responses, commentary and resources relating to the first Idea of Communism conference in London.
If there's anything missing, please add in the comments below.
Verso will LIVE STREAM the conference on this website, from Friday, Oct 14th at 6pm. The video will be on this discussion page—you’ll need to log in to access it, so please register now if you don't yet have an account.
A new conference with leading thinkers to discuss the continued relevance of the communist idea.
“The long night of the Left is coming to a close” wrote Slavoj Žižek and Costas Douzinas in their introduction to The Idea of Communism. The continuing economic crisis, the shift away from a unipolar world defined by American hegemony, and the ecological crisis mean that growing numbers of people are keen to explore an alternative, and to rediscover the idea of communism. With the advent of the Arab Awakening, millions have sought new ways to overcome corruption and dictatorship—and they’ve now been joined by the wave of occupations in the US, challenging runaway inequality and the power of corporations and the super-rich.
Responding to Alain Badiou’s proposition of the ‘communist hypothesis,’ the leading thinkers of the Left convened in London in 2009 to discuss the persistent notion that, in a truly emancipated society, all things should be owned in common. Now Slavoj Žižek is hosting a new discussion, at Cooper Union in New York.
Alain Badiou joins Tzvetan Todorov and Jean-Luc Nancy, amongst other intellectuals, in the debate over allied intervention in Libya sparked by Bernard-Henri Lévy's key role.
‘You wouldn't deny,’ my friend the street philosopher said to me the other day, ‘that the underlying principle of everything nowadays is profit —no one with any power in the world challenges that.’
‘Very true,’ I replied. ‘But what are you driving at?’
‘If someone openly says: "I only live for my personal profit, and I'd kill off any former friend if it was a question of keeping or improving my lifestyle," what are they then? ... Come on, make an effort.’
‘A bandit. It's the mind-set of a bandit.’
‘Exactly!’ exclaimed the street philosopher. ‘Our world very clearly is a world of bandits. There are hidden bandits and official bandits, but that's only a minor difference.’
‘Agreed. But what conclusion do you draw from this?’