Investigating the non-dichotomous possibility of thinking unity for a non-unitary subject
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Brief
Introduction

One
should sometimes grant oneself the privilege of an occasion of writing, without
assuming the scholarly responsible and erudite approach to the act of “textual
production”, but allow oneself the infantile audacity of daring to ask some of the itching fundamental questions. These
are precisely the questions about the fundamental ideological-theoretical
presuppositions of the line/lineage of Thought appropriated by the author
herself, which virtually situate themselves as a given for a certain discourse,
or as its (approximation of) an axiom. The very asking of these questions
should be, to a certain, consciously established extent - irresponsible, or
rather childishly inquisitive, produced in the naïve state of wonder;
persistent, but with an adult expectation of neither definite nor illuminative
answers. The expectation is reduced to the awakening of thought from the
rigidity of doctrine, and the emancipatory move of the stepping out, even for
an instant, from the enclosure of the discourse one conceives in. This
theoretical scratching on the surface of the deep down placed ideational
fundament (pace post-structuralism, and - still) can result in at least
hinting a critically different positioning of thought, in moving toward
something more radically different.



In
this vein, and indeed - for the sake of some genuine meditation, let us tackle
the widely accepted presupposition by the post-structuralist theory of gender of
the essentially (sic!) non-unitary nature of the Subject. In
doing so, I will be departing, and thus - stepping out, from the discourse that
I have appropriated and have been appropriated by, from the tradition of thinking
that has formed me, namely from that conglomerate of concepts and theories
called - post-structuralism. Therefore, I can assume - and I invite you
to follow me - that I am not criticizing from a position that can be labeled as
"reactionary" and I expect, and hope, that it will prove itself to be
such through the text itself.



Rather,
I shall speak more from the position of somebody who has already begun to feel
the malaise of her post-structurally ideologically constituted existence. And
it all rests within the horizon of preoccupations of the feminist
philosophical/theoretical thinking.



 



Section 1

So
here is the question: Is the idea of a non-stability or instability of the
Subject (always) already stabilized as a theoretical position? Moreover is it
possible that the stabilizing factor is contained in the very theoretical
presuppositions of the post-structuralist, constructivist or/and deconstructive
doctrine of the non-unitary, unfixed, non-metaphysical or post-metaphysical
Subject? Let us put it in other words that will announce the hypothesis of this
paper. Are there any underlying conceptual structures -- obscured by the very
regulations of the discourse they exist in/through -- that remain beyond the
reach of deconstruction contained in the concept of non-unitary Subject that
are themselves constitutive of the latter, precisely in its deconstructive
nature?



The
motive of asking such a question, for granting it relevance - and therefore,
legitimacy - is the binary nature (or dualism) of thought it both maintains and
imposes. Namely the (relentlessly self-declaring) post-metaphysical position on
the possible conceptualizations of the Subject as non-unitary only, allows but
one other possible different position – by way of constituting it as opposition
– which is that of the metaphysical unitary, stable and fixed Subject. In
spite of the inherently post-structuralist striving for non-monolithic
thinking, in all significant feminist writing professing the idea of the
non-unitary Subject, every other position, one allowing the possibility of a
Subject residing upon (any sort) of unifying principle is automatically, by
definition proclaimed as metaphysical, oppressively stabilizing and totalizing.
The problem lies precisely in that “automatically and by definition” logic.



However,
I shall not argue against the post-structuralist readings and deconstructive
critiques of subjectivity as unitary, from Cartesian legacy to positivism.
First and foremost, because – let me now declare my already given position,
without entering into scholastic polemics – I find them all convincing. My
thinking has been formed – just like so many of my generation, Ive been
“intellectually raised” - in accordance with the post-strucuralist academic and
intellectual tradition. Therefore, what I would like to problematize in this
paper is solely and precisely that very
situation of dualism, the binary and oppositional self-positing of the feminist
(and/or) post-structuralist thought arguing for the non-unitary nature of the
Subject. I will argue that the dichotomy of exclusively metaphysical or
non-metaphysical possibility of thinking the Subject creates the vicious circle
of the mutual production of its Other, by each of the two “authorized”
possibilities.



By
way of positing itself in our “world of ideas”, i.e. with respect to all other
possible discourses, solely and exclusively according to the logic of binarism,
the Thought/s of the non-unitary Subject situates itself politically as:
agonistic, oppositionary and exclusive. Is it possible to preserve the gains of
the post-structuralist, deconstructive critique of the -- primarily but not
exclusively Cartesian – unitary Subject, and yet allow the possibility of
conceiving a Subject residing upon some form or mode of immanent unity and
stability that would not be constraining, restricting and exclusive? Is it
possible to conceptualize a unitary Subject that would not be a totalitarian
one, Subject of unity that would be auto-transformative, of identitarian
mobility, in one word – multiple yet still of immanent unity? Methodologically
and politically -- inasmuch as we can think of a certain politics/distribution
of power of knowledge -- it should be permitted and pertinence should be
ascribed to this possibility. However the grave difficulty to think of this
unity in terms that are not metaphysical or totalizing, even, paradoxically, in
terms of the post-structuralist argument favoring the multiple, unfixed
Subject, remains.



 



Section 2
(Conceptualizing Unity after Its Deconstruction)

 



It represents a
true synecdoche where the notion of “unity” is
identified with its traditional attributions of “totality”, “fixity” and
“exclusiveness”, such as in our post-structuralist, deconstructive and
constructivist legacy of the critique of unitary Subject. These pars pro
toto identifications, or rather misidentifications, do appear as a rule in
the form of a totality of a concept, indebted entirely to the Derridean
deconstruction, that refuses itself any deconstruction. Thus, the structure of
the concept of the fragmented, unstable, multiple Subject itself has not been
subjected to a more radical deconstruction itself since the only position it
conceives of as the standpoint of its radical critique is its perennial Other –
the metaphysical position which in itself excludes the possibility. However, let
us suppose a deconstructive look upon this conceptual conglomerate that will
reside upon the immanently deconstructive epistemic presuppositions, and will
therefore engage into an analysis of the language economy of the discourse.
Namely, the power distribution in the key (discursive) acts of naming among the
crucial concepts constituting the non-unitary Subject position and its
discourse of post-structuralist critique of subjectivity is what needs to be
addressed. In other words, is there a term/s that hold/s a hegemonic position
among the other key words of the concept of
the “disrupted” Subject? I will argue that
there is such term, and it is the notion of the (dismantled) One that presides
over the subsidiary concepts of (again, dismantled, deconstructed, dismissed…)
totality, stability, autonomy, exclusiveness, etc., which are normally reduced
to the sinister consequences of the “reign” of the One. And inversely, the One
is normally identified, conflated with its own bad produce, most of all with
the act of totalizing, thus universalizing,
and with the autonomy inasmuch as the individualistic modernist self-exclusion,
and exclusiveness, with respect to the Other. I will try to explain this.



Defending
our discussion against any ambition
– at this point -- for ontological discussion over the One and the Multiple,
and the dichotomy they form, I would like to address the question of the
discursive exclusion of, and censorship over, the-Name-of-the-One. More
precisely, it seems that, in the entire post- and anti-metaphysical
philosophico-ideological legacy, there is a tacit aprioristic expulsion and
moral condemnation of any position from the perspective-of-the-One, and thus of-the-Unity,
automatically reduced – and degraded -- to the notions of Totality (and
totalitarian repressiveness) and Universality (and hegemonic universalization).
There seems to be an implicit self-censorship with respect to the notion/name
of the One with all of the critics of the metaphysical and the Cartesian,
prohibiting almost any argument in favor of any sort of Logic-of-the-One,
inasmuch as always already -- that is, a-priori, --
universalistic, totalitarian, exclusive, etc. Thus, the legitimacy of the place
of the “One” within the signifying chain or/and discursive, or rather of the
name – or just and simply the “word” – of the One within the up-to-date
politico-theoretical language, is something that needs to be retrieved. This
retrieval, moreover, should be accompanied – or even enabled – by the
simultaneous reclaiming of the “right” for the notion (of the One) not to be automatically identified
with the “universalistic” and the “totalitarian”.



My claim is, thus, that in the (not only) feminist discourses
of deconstructive critique of the unitary subject, the use of the term
“unitary”, inasmuch as (deconstructively) unexamined in its oppositional
relation to the favored “non-unitary”, is in a way formulaic. In other words,
it sometimes seems to be functioning as almost a magic utterance of
condemnation (sort of anathema of/for the non-absolutistic era), since, in the
discourse to which it pertains, the “unitary” automatically - or with no
critical stance, no intellectual pausing - entails also the notions of stability,
totality, fixity, etc.



Feminist
critique of the unitary subject, traditionally defined (also, by itself)
as marginal in the landscape of the intellectual power-network, is already
rigidified within its own position that can only produce the pure opposition of
its own constructed Other, which is always already fixed. This
theoretical Other is fixed, a priori assumed for, always already
diagnosed as one pertaining to the “mainstream autonomy theories.”



Feminist philosophers have criticized mainstream conceptions
of autonomy… those conceptions ignore the social nature of the self …
Mainstream autonomy theories assume that we should each be as independent and
self-sufficient as possible.” (Friedman, 1997: 41).



In
opposition to this, according to Friedman, we find Judith Butlers conception
of subjectivity presented as follows: “… feminist criticism of mainstream
theories of autonomy is that they presume a coherent, unified subject
with a stable identity who endures over time and who can ‘own its
choices. This presumption is challenged by postmodern notions of the subject as
an unstable, fragmented, incoherent assortment of positions in
discourse” [the underlining is mine] (1997: 42)



Here
one sees an example of that reductionist identification of several predicates.
It is detectable in the next quotation as well, where one can also notice the
inhibiting effect of this package of attributes that all must go together, as
one. Namely, the following lines, taken from Rosi Braidottis Metamorphoses,
display the aporic and inhibiting situation in which the argument for a
non-unitary subject puts itself by way of excluding the possibility for –
perhaps, some other, new form of – unity and coherence of the subject. It is
precisely the exclusion and the suppression of the thinkable One that creates
this situation. Braidotti embarks upon a courageous project to transcend this
aporia, to establish the substance and the ways of the “glue” that holds
together that Subject-which-is-not-One, without abandoning her post-structuralist
theoretical positioning. She is attempting to accomplish this by resorting to
the psychoanalytical means of critique and the notion of the unconscious, in
particular.



“Sexuality
is crucial to this way of thinking about the subject, but unless it is coupled
with some practice of the unconscious, …, it cannot produce a workable
vision of a non-unitary subject which, however complex, still hangs somehow
together… I would like to point out, however, that whereas in the
psychoanalytic tradition these internal crevices are often the stuff that
nightmares and neuroses are made of, they need not to be so. I would
like to take the risk of arguing that the internal or other contradictions
and idiosyncrasies are indeed a constituent element of the subject, but
they are not such a tragedy after all. ” [Italic underlining is mine]
(Braidotti, 2002: 39)



 



>Further
on, just one paragraph bellow, Rosi Braidotti is taking all precautions not to
betray the vision of the non-unitary subject, while she actually continues with
her search for that which holds together that “bundle” called subject.



 



“I
take the unconscious as the guarantee of the non-closure in the practice of
subjectivity. It undoes the stability of the unitary subject by
constantly changing and redefining his or her foundations.” (39-40)







However:



“Non-unitary
identity implies a large degree of internal dissonance, that is to say,
contradictions and paradoxes. Unconscious identifications play the role of
magnets, building blocks or glue.” (40), which leads her to the following
statement:







“Following Irigaray, the most adequate strategy consists in working
through the stock of cumulated images, concepts, and representations of women…
If ‘essence means the historical sedimentation of many-layered discursive
products, this stock of culturally coded definitions, requirements and
expectations about women or female identity – this repertoire of regulatory
fictions that are tattooed on our skins – then it would be false to deny
that such an essence not only exists, but is also powerfully operational.”
(41)



 



Following
the argumentative line linking these several citations together, we can see
that Braidotti not only pursues that which “glues”
together that “bundle” called Subject, i.e. some “unity” - or, more accurately,
its unifying “forces”, “principle” - but also grants legitimacy to the
notion of “essence”. Thus, by re-inventing the notion of the “essence”, she
takes the argument even further in the direction of some idiosyncratic
reclaiming of the instance of unity. It is a re-inventive and idiosyncratic
arguing for unity, since it is embedded in a position, which is that of a
defender of the notion of “non-unitary” subject. Some might find Braidottis
position contradictory. However, it is not – her line of argumentation and
inference is impeccably logical and highly
convincing: she is arguing for the existence of some unifying processes within
an instance that is ultimately non-unitary, and which is the Subject.
Moreover, her claim might not even be paradoxical, since it seems to be
perfectly compliant with the norms of the formal logic. Namely, Braidottis
argument, sublimated in the way I just proposed, consists in the claim that the
coexistence of unity and non-unity is made possible by the simple fact that the
existence of each of the two rests on a different ontological level, and
represents a different, distinct epistemological moment.



 



Section 3

 



What is that, in Braidottis text, which
produces those rhetorical swings of overly alert vigilance over the possibility
of being misread as someone who does not propound the idea of the non-unitary
subject? In other words, we can trace an overt intention for identification
with a certain theoretical position. The open self-declaration of belonging to
a certain “line” of thinking about a particular issue, within a single
discursive/textual act (on virtually the same page) where a claim that is in
opposition with this position is purported, is but an ideological
identification. The repetition of this statement of self-identification is a
performative act of self-subjection to a certain ideology – the
post-structuralist tradition of thinking the question of subjectivity. The
defensive language of Braidottis argument for certain unity of the Subject,
reflected most saliently in those repetitive self-declarations, speaks of the
importance attributed to the question of theoretical-ideological belonging.
This cautious language is voiced most loudly in the little words such as
conjunctions, adverbs, etc. For example, in “however” and “still” from “it
cannot produce a workable vision of a non-unitary subject which, however
complex, still hangs somehow together”. (Braidotti, 2002: 39)



But it also speaks of its inhibiting
powers towards the potentially free course of argumentation, movement of
thought.



On the occasion of a seminar devoted to
her work and aimed for the younger feminist scholars from Eastern and Central
Europe, Judith Butler was asked by one of the students if the
non-unitary Subject, through its constant inconstancy, is not always already
facing the question of “survival”, the possibility of its death. At one point
in this dialogue, Butler says:



“And I do think that certain forms of social
transformation do involve passing through the fear of death. And I dont
think its a bad thing. And whats of course interesting about the fear of
death is about who I am. I could say at a certain point in time, that
this is who I am and I cannot imagine myself any other way. I will dissolve
if I do x, y and z. I will become undone fundamentally if I do x, y and
z. And then it turns out you do x, y and z, hopefully within a community in
which others are doing the same, and indeed something in you is undone, or
even dies. But there is some new possibility that also emerges in
its place…” [Italic underlining is mine] (Kolozova, 2001: 29)



In this quotation, the same tone of
cautious rhetoric can be detected that is preventing the speaker (i.e., Butler)
from falling into the (metaphysical) “pit” of allowing any possibility whatsoever
for a unity of the Subject. In a word, the transformative subject is but a
social one, and this subject is called “I” when it is spoken about its
possibility to “die”, to be “undone”, in other words – when it undergoes a
social change and, thus, expresses political engagement. When the existential
lacuna appears out of the absence of any (new) position (assumed), what
re-emerges in the place of the old “I” is not, in the discourse of Butler, some
new “I”, or different state or nature of the “I”, but “some new possibility.”
Thus, in the lacuna of crisis, it seems that there is no “I”. As if there is no
“I”-of-Crisis, no “I”-of-the-space-between, no “I” without the awareness of its
social (political) position. Because if there were any, it would be that thing
which, in Braidottis words, “glues” the subject together, there should be some
unifying principle presupposed. The a priori exclusion of any
possibility of allowing any mode of unity within a concept of a subject that is
in its ultimate instance non-unitary, is, through its dichotomous
restrictiveness, thought-inhibiting and pushes the discourse into the clench of
aporia.



This is how even Judith Butler could
find herself claiming something that might have the overtone of
oppressive and even discriminative speech:



“[…] think of the many years of Turkish
migrate workers in Germany, for instance. A population that
is not a citizen, that are not citizens, that are also not effaced from the
view. Not absolutely absent, there, but spectrally human. They do not
form part of the figure of what is human [Sic!]” [Cursive underlining is
mine] (Kolozova, 2001: 27-28).



It seems that in the
postmodernist/poststructuralist discourse there is some tacit, yet highly
sturdy prohibition against thinking - let alone granting any legitimacy
to the instance of – the unity and the One. The background of this prohibition
is constituted by the unquestioned/unquestionable synecdoche of the unity with
attributions such “domination”, “repression”, etc. Highly illustrative of this
theoretical practice is the following citation from Jane Flax:



“The postmodernists regard all such
wishes for unity with suspicion. Unity appears as an effect of
domination, repression, and the temporary success of rhetorical strategies.”
[Italic is mine.] (Flax, 1992: 454)



 



The final section



 



In order to enable that Exit of thought
from the grasp of (unitary/non-unitary Subject) dichotomy, one should perhaps
grant oneself the right to disloyalty to the school of thinking one adheres to.




One of the possible approaches to such
re-positioning of the thinker is François Laruelles non-philosophical critical
situating of thought: of radical stepping
outside of any sort of discursive auto-referentiality, that is, the enclosure
of thought within the tradition of a certain discourse and the
(epistemological, ideological) obligations of adherence. This, however, is not
possible without a radical step-back with respect to the narcissistic idea of
the self-sufficiency of philosophy, or, as Laruelle puts it, more precisely –
Principle of the sufficient philosophy (Principe de
philosophie suffisante: PPS).



This is an attempt to undermine
philosophys auto-positioning based on “its being animated and entangled by a
certain faith or belief in itself as the absolute reality, intentionality or
reference to the real that it pretends to describe or even constitute, or to
itself as the real itself.” (Laruelle, 1989: 17). Therefore, Laruelle
concludes:



“This is its fundamental
auto-positioning; that which one could also call its auto-factualization or its
auto-fetishization – all that we assemble under the Principle of the sufficient
philosophy (PPS)”. (17)



Without going
any further into an explication of the non-philosophical method of suspension
of the PPS, let us only suppose that there is this phenomenon of
“discursive/ideological” loyalty that might be inhibiting for the authentically
investigative thought, and move forward. In this vein, let us allow the
possibility that there might be a “good” One, “good” Unity and that it does not
necessarily has to exclude the non-unitarity, nor should they be considered as
mutually exclusive.



Thus,
where is this position of an outside of the dichotomy to be located, and what
is that which constitutes it? The position of non-dichotomy is located and
constituted by precisely – the One. Nevertheless, this is a One that is
liberated from its debts to the philosophical and metaphysical constitutions >, according to which it would be totalizing, universalizing,
or even particularizing. Let us conceive of this One as the instance of the
singular – emphatically, but within that very instance of singularity,
uniqueness and “phenomenological” solitude – relieved from any responsibility
to be relative (to), from any historical = discursive responsibility. That is,
to be relational, to establish relations – since, it is always already >, in its minimal instance,
establishing a couple with another notion, concept, instance, etc. Coupling is
binarism, binarism entails dichotomy. Therefore, let us permit ourselves an
utterly different possibility, described by Laruelle as follows:



“The
One is a non-thetic [non-thetique] Identity in general; that is
to say, at the same time non-decisional (of) itself and non-positional (of)
itself: without will for essence [sans volonté pour essence], without topology
for existence; without contest for movement forth [sans combat pour moteur],
without space or figure for manifestation… The One is the transcendental
minimum, the minimal petition of reality – that is to say, the reality
presupposed by any petition in general.” (Laruelle, 1989: 42)



Thus, let us
suppose a unity within the Subject that would be neither in an exclusive, nor
in a binary, nor in an oppositional relation to the Subjects instance of
non-unity. Moreover, let us permit ourselves to conceive of that instance of
unity that would be in no relation what so ever with that of the non-unity.



In
other words let us permit an instance where we would allow ourselves to
thematize the unity without being obliged to simultaneously think its relation
to the (ultimate, or some other) instance of
non-unity, that is – in its irrevocable singularity. Let us, conclude these few
pages with an invitation to allow ourselves such a consideration with the minimum
ambition of a mere over-coming of the self-inhibition of the ideological
loyalty of thought, accompanied by the intellectual desire for transcending the
logic of dichotomy. And to go only one step further – to identify the
permeability of the post-structuralist feminist discourse that might allow an
opening for the curious glance at that which “glues” together that incoherent
“bundle” called Subject.



 



References

Braidotti,
Rosi. 2002. Metamorphoses: Towards a Material Theory of Becoming. Cambridge:
Polity Press.



Flax,
Jane. 1992. The End of Innocence. In Feminists Theorize the Political,
eds. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott. Routledge.



Friedman,
Marilyn. 1997. Autonomy and Social Relationships: Rethinking the Feminist
Critique. In Feminists Rethink the Self, ed. Diana Tietjens Meyers.
Westview Press.



>Kolozova,
Katerina and Zarko Trajanoski (eds.) 2001. Conversations With Judith Butler:
Proceedings from the Seminar ‘Crisis of the Subject, held in Ohrid – >Republic of Macedonia 11-14 May
2000. Skopje: Euro-Balkan Press.



Laruelle,
François. 1989. Philosophie et non-philosophie. Liège –
Bruxelles: Pierre Mardaga.



Katerina Kolozova