Adventures of the Symbolic: Postmarxism and Democratic Theory

Marxism's collapse in the twentieth century profoundly altered the style and substance of Western European radical thought. To build a more robust form of democratic theory and action, prominent theorists moved to reject revolution, abandon class for more fragmented models of social action, and elevate the political over the social. Acknowledging the constructedness of society and politics, they chose the "symbolic" as a concept powerful enough to reinvent leftist thought outside a Marxist framework. Following Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Adventures of the Dialectic, which reassessed philosophical Marxism at mid century, Warren Breckman critically revisits these thrilling experiments in the aftermath of Marxism.The post-Marxist idea of the symbolic is dynamic and complex, uncannily echoing the early German Romantics, who first advanced a modern conception of symbolism and the symbolic. Hegel and Marx denounced the Romantics for their otherworldly and nebulous posture, yet post-Marxist thinkers appreciated the rich potential of the ambiguities and paradoxes the Romantics first recognized. Mapping different ideas of the symbolic among contemporary thinkers, Breckman traces a fascinating reflection of Romantic themes and resonances, and he explores in depth the effort to reconcile a radical and democratic political agenda with a politics that does not privilege materialist understandings of the social. Engaging with the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Cornelius Castoriadis, Claude Lefort, Marcel Gauchet, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Slavoj Žižek, Breckman uniquely situates these important theorists within two hundred years of European thought and extends their profound relevance to today's political activism. Contents......Page 8 Foreword......Page 12 Acknowledgments......Page 18 Introduction......Page 24 CHAPTER ONE: The Symbolic Dimensionand the Politics of Young Hegelianism......Page 47 The Symbol from Classicism to Romanticism......Page 52 Hegelian Spirit from Symbol to Sign......Page 58 Left Hegelian Desymbolization......Page 64 Feuerbach’s Naturalist Symbol......Page 72 Ambiguity and Radical Democracy......Page 77 CHAPTER TWO: The Fate of the Symbolic from Romantic Socialism to a Marxism in extremis......Page 80 Leroux and the Aesthetic Symbol......Page 83 The Style Symbolique and the Question of Society......Page 89 Marx and the Symbolic......Page 97 Marxism in extremis : Merleau-Ponty, Althusser, Baudrillard......Page 105 CHAPTER THREE: From the Symbolic Turn to the Social Imaginary......Page 119 Arrival Points......Page 123 The Imaginary in Context......Page 127 Castoriadis Contra Lévi-Strauss......Page 135 Starting Points......Page 141 CHAPTER FOUR: Democracy Between Disenchantment and Political Theology......Page 162 Two Turns and a Twist......Page 164 The Thought of the “Political”......Page 170 The Religious and the Political......Page 181 Marcel Gauchet and the Birth of Autonomy from the Spirit of Religion......Page 189 Democracy Against Itself?......Page 198 CHAPTER FIVE: The Post-Marx of the Letter......Page 206 The International Career of Hegemony......Page 208 Mourning or Melancholy?......Page 214 The National Contexts of Marxism’s Crisis......Page 218 Placing the Post-Marxist Intellectual......Page 226 Trauma and the Post-Marxist Subject: Žižek’s “Beyond Discourse-Analysis”......Page 230 CHAPTER SIX: Of Empty Places......Page 239 Žižek the Radical Democrat......Page 242 Politics Needs a Vacuum......Page 255 Partisan Universality......Page 261 Religion Without Religion......Page 272 Holding the Place or Filling It? Yes, Please!......Page 280 Epilogue......Page 285 Notes......Page 312 Index......Page 364 Marxism's collapse in the twentieth century profoundly altered the style and substance of Western European radical thought. To build a more robust form of democratic theory and action, prominent theorists moved to reject revolution, abandon class for more fragmented models of social action, and elevate the political over the social. Acknowledging the constructedness of society and politics, they chose the "symbolic" as a concept powerful enough to reinvent leftist thought outside of a Marxist framework. Following Maurice Merleau-Ponty's "Adventures of the Dialectic," which reassessed philosophical Marxism at mid-century, Warren Breckman critically revisits these thrilling experiments in the aftermath of Marxism. The postmarxist idea of the symbolic is dynamic and complex, uncannily echoing the early German Romantics, who first advanced a modern conception of symbolism and the symbolic. Hegel and Marx denounced the Romantics for their otherworldly and nebulous posture, yet postmarxist thinkers appreciated the rich potential of the ambiguities and paradoxes the Romantics first recognized. Mapping different ideas of the symbolic among contemporary French thinkers, Breckman traces a fascinating reflection of Romantic themes and resonances, and he explores in depth the effort to reconcile a radical and democratic political agenda with a politics that does not privilege materialist understandings of the social. Engaging with the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, Cornelius Castoriadis, Claude Lefort, Marcel Gauchet, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Slavoj iek, Breckman uniquely situates these important theorists within two hundred years of European thought and extends their profound relevance to today's political activism.