Douailler,
S. (2011) 'The patient cannot last long'.
Translated by Emiliano Battista. Radical
Philosophy 170: 32--4
Dave Harris
The very titles of the contributions to the
debates between Althusser (Reply…)
and Rancière (...Lesson)
mislead about the nature of the debate.
There is already a theatrical note in the Reply,
referring to the medical analogy to refer to
Lewis' critique of Althusser - examining the
patient, and predicting severe dogmatism and
imminent demise. It is both playful, and a
reminder of Althusser's actual illness. It
represents what Althusser saw as a long series of
dramatized philosophical and political
struggles. However, it is also a way of
using Althusser's great authority, and ending the
long wait for his reply, 'this mix of expectation
and frustration'(32), produced, apparently by
Althusser spending a lot of time publishing his
students' works with few contributions for
himself.
We see depicted 'the political imaginary of an
entire period', with growing hostility towards
Althusser. There was emerging criticism, but
it was not unified. Some wanted new theory
to end the long silence of the Party about current
events, or to see some signs of progress instead
of the constant requirement to just keep
going. Althusser's metaphor offered a
'falsely pathetic scene' to stage his
return. It was aimed at winning sympathy,
but it also sidestepped 'the real issues at stake'
(33), the new mass movements, the new developments
in knowledge: Lewis could be particularly depicted
as cut off from these, while the Party could show
itself to be still actively involved, at least in
publishing theoretical controversies in Marxism
Today.
However,
disappointment ensued. R saw it as a mere
reenactment, an example of a frozen 'dispositif',
revived to meet the 'plainly political' needs to
address 1968 and to stave off any emergent left
wing movements, especially those in
universities. R addressed this
'"positivity of the functioning"'of Althusser's
intervention, its 'simple and practical
gestures', and this is why he used the term
lesson. [I thought there was some other
reason, a reference to a Marxist text as
well?]. Instead of a great renewal, we
were left with a lesson. The notion of the
autonomy of theory in particular was depicted
through 'the relationship of the learned to the
ignorant, to the exclusivity of expertise', with
a typical pedagogue's 'policing of words and
phrases'.
The power of the Party became fused with the
power of the university, and that was the only
source of theory. Thus ideas became mere
academic theses, and words became concepts, with
the affects of being able 'to disqualify the
overblown prattle and disorder of free revolts'
(33). R demonstrates the effects by
reviving many other texts of social theory, as
well as the writings of workers in the 1830s and
in the Lip occupation, which suggests quite a
different and more rich programme. May '68
had enabled voices to proliferate; Foucault had
shown how to incorporate diversity in works of
philosophy. Althusser himself had shown
that he was capable of extending his interests
by writing the ISAs Essay.
R added a supplement in the form of 'Althusser,
Don Quixote, and the Stage of the Text' (in The
Flesh of Words 1993) . This returned
to the issue of symptomatic reading which traces
the answers in the text to questions which do
not arise in it. Apparently, Althusser's
own students were encouraged to use this
technique, and practiced it on Lacan, responding
to his formal invitation for questions after a
lecture by insisting that he addressed unasked
questions in his own thoughts, offering to make
them explicit if Lacan wanted to ask them about
them [!] (34). Althusser found these both
amazing and amusing.
R' own chapter in Reading Capital also
showed the technique as he subsequently
explained, addressing the epistemological
break, still with pedagogic intent.
Certain concepts are lacking, as in the work of
the student, but these are known to the
scholarly community who have mastered the
necessary 'seeing and knowing (the episteme)'.
So symptomatic reading is another way of
managing 'the great disorder and unruly chatter
of the world', a substitute for discussion.
In this text, R announces that he no longer
needs to address the work opened up by terms
such as ISA, or any other Althusserian
concept. Instead, the Althusserian text
can be clearly seen for what it is, not
something addressed to particular audiences [to
correct errors and galvanise political
action]. R 'finds a way of allowing it to
exist, at last, as literature'.
back to Rancière page
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