Loser Sons: Politics and Authority

Preface. Wrestling a Bad Object

Preface Wrestling a Bad Object Thisworkwaslongincoming.DuringthetimethatIwaspreparing its elephantine birth—I have stopped counting the years— otherworksandresponsibilitiescommandedmyattention,avertedmygaze, and gnawed at me like undeflectable energy vampires. It’s hard enough to set apart some sheltering space in order to write. In our age of deficit it is moreover hard but essential to justify the work that we do, to have writing even qualify for a prevalent concept of work or to get filed as part of some labor force. And maybe this is as it should be. Still, it is difficult not to lose couragewhensomanyareunderpaidorunemployed,andstillothers,closer to my own job description, are prevented from publishing and teaching, regardlessofhowwell-trainedandtalentedtheyprovetobe.IfImayregister acomplaint,Icansaythatinmycorner,Igiveupalotofenergy.Doesanyone know how exhausting it is to teach, write evaluations and letters of recommendation , administrate, participate in colloquia, stay close to the artistic pulse, travel, feign a life, push back the false unconscious—maybe I should leave it at that, before I trip into a memoir or pitch myself into a confessionalabyss .Ilookatmycolleaguesandseebrilliantscholarsgrounddown by the institutional praxeology, turned over to the bureaucracy of teaching, itsunendingevaluationsandbusinesslikedowngrades,asif“results”could be yielded in the traumatic precincts of learning. This type of consistent demotion to a result-oriented quotient belongs to the subject (and hell) I would want to raise here. I cannot seem to break away from the feeling that so much wracks the committed scholar, the artist, poet, and the burnt-out student body these days. I certainly do not want to ring up an inventory of excuses.Iamwellawarethatothersaretrulycompromised,draggeddownby x Preface material inequities, insult, distress, and they don’t even get to the starter’s position, much less to the purported finishing line. Ofcourse,manypeoplewouldn’twantthisjob—itsimplicationofsearing solitude,theharanguingdrillsofasolesentence’sfate,andtheinescapability of relentless autocritique. It may be pointless to indicate at the beginning ofaworkwhatagrandiosehassleitallwaswhentherhetoricofthesethings dictates that one should speak of its urgency and ineluctability, its sense of mission or accomplishment. Whom does that sort of opening statement reassure or convince—that you, too, could barely make it? When following Nietzsche’sstylesheet,youdon’ttakethelaurelsforhavinginitiatedawork, but say it seized or befell you, you were just in some outfield of thought whenitcameatyou.Youleaveoutthepartaboutstrugglingwithyourradical passivity, somehow sustaining the crushing overload that has one bowed in receptive anticipation. Let’s just say it the way I started off: this work was long in coming. In some respects, it sat out the Bush years over which it was watching. Stupefied yet receiving signals and taking hits, it was benched. Many friends and colleagues urged me to get the book out before the Bush-Cheney years were over, so that I could make a timely contribution to political thought. This perspective had its merits and scored some bullet points with me. Yet I decided (permit me the illusion of decision here) that in this case I would not produce a chiefly reactive text, but keep my vigil, absorb the damages, wait it out. Those years are not over. The damages are colossal,theindignitiesstilltoagreatextentuncounted.Eveninthepalpable sigh of relief that we call Obama, the corruption of historical narrative, the materialpovertyofmeans,andcorrosionofconstitutionalintegritycannot be easily repaired, much less recounted. Maybe I am bringing up the rear (like all latecomers, I am fated to rear-end history); maybe I’m speaking from a lookout point in the future, from the event of returns and revenants that have always borne down on my texts. Please allow me the ambiguous situation of staying close to a troubled past that swings over to the future, demanding that a serious analysis be attached to its stealthy gait. Somepointshanginsuspension,awaitingtheirtime,ortheyareallowed to vanish into the thin air of a speculative leap. Some leaps are calculated to land in something like an ungroundable anahistory that requires a different kind of approach—an alternative universe of writing, probing, and piercing.Anahistory,holdingusasfirmlyashistoryanditstallyoftraumatic punch-outs,callsforadifferenttenorofthe cri/écrit,thenocturnalexpanse of a thinker’s anguish. Partnered to history, it introduces different registers of thought that accumulate around inoccurrence and the subterranean maneuvers of eventfulness. It is not only a matter of discerning disavowed xi Preface horrors, though anahistory hunkers down with such unearthable narratives ,butalsorequiresustoscoursomethinglikethenationalunconscious, even when this turns out to be a “false unconscious.” Both Freud and Lacan makeallowancesforthefalseunconscious,arepositoryoftracesthatshadow unconscious receptors and create their own mess of jumbled surges. All this backlog of indeterminacy is hanging over our heads today. You canchoosenottogowithit,keepingyourselffromplungingintothedepths of near unintelligibility. In my case it’s not a matter of choice. I have to go in where things...