Abstract
Liebsch discusses various processes of becoming a human subject, which are taking place by a number of practical means that reflect the originary politicization of human subjects. In this sense, the chapter engages with the question what it means to become visible as a political subject that has not ‘always’ been there as subject. As Liebsch is arguing, the subject’s political existence must be proven through the com-passion of social responsiveness that is put at risk by acts of dissent when the livableness of human life with and among others is at stake.
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Notes
- 1.
I leave the question aside as to what extent these basic assumptions should be considered outdated, for example, the ‘apathy’ with which masses are charged and the indifference or saturation with regard to any motive for the search for ‘another’ or even ‘completely different’ life. It would be worth a separate study to see whether such saturation explains where political concerns are particularly acute in Europe, which was only reminded of its own political vitality as it observed the protests in Israel on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv because of the so-called ‘arabellions’. Europe also cast its eye in the direction of Egypt and Tunisia after the goings-on at Taksim Square in Istanbul, as well as Brazil. The popularity of an appeal by a wise old man like Stéphane Hessel to the ‘young people of today’ to finally show their indignation over various grievances, and which only required them to open their eyes, could also be a symptom of such a saturation—as if the widespread potential for indignation were not enough to explain the often diagnosed political paralysis.
- 2.
To speak of a specific form of subjection here means that non-submissive forms of subjectivation are also imaginable. For Foucault, it is not in any way about branding every form of subjection as a form of submission. In the literature on Foucault, ‘subjectification’ (French: assujettissment) and ‘subjectivation’ (French: subjectivation) are occasionally contaminated to the extent that makes differentiation impossible. Analytically, in my opinion, one has to ask what the starting point of subjectivation is, and one has to separate it from the question of whether, how, and in which respect it assumes a submissive form. In situations in which these issues are not differentiated, it is often suggested that submission is something that ‘we’ cannot possibly want, eo ipso, and therefore it should ultimately be criticized and repudiated for the sake of a ‘de-submissive’ de-subjectivation which would cancel out both the submission and being a subject in its course.
- 3.
These processes ultimately lead to what the German translation of Foucault calls ‘practices of subjectivity’ (Subjektivitätspraktiken; Foucault, 2005, p. 11).
- 4.
In this way, Foucault puts a type of ontology in play that explains what human life has always been about, as long as it is a subjective life. What Foucault calls a ‘historical ontology’ (Foucault, 1983) would then examine the practical, historically variable, and contingent forms that define the ‘meaning’ of subjective life.
- 5.
At a practical level, this could mean that change to another identity could perhaps cast doubt on the possibility of being recognized by others. If this does not only affect ipséité (distinct identity) but also an idem-identity (through sameness), those concerned could not even be re-identified based on their exterior.
- 6.
But can this be traced back to a (modern) form of subjectivation? Where does it stem from? Does it come from a somehow inherent drive in human life? Or are we persuaded not to insist on sameness or selfness under any circumstances? How can it be that we believe Foucault’s will to become another without much ado (and thereby assume that sameness and selfness cannot be dialectically conveyed with change and change to another identity)?
- 7.
However, a criticism of the economization of self-being (not yet specifically in the direction of the horizon of globalization), as in the case of the so-called Frankfurt School had undoubtedly long since become common.
- 8.
This rhetoric generally assumes the helplessness that should be corrected (Bröckling, 2007, pp. 17, 186–90), as we are told here. And nobody can escape this power. But the point lies in its no longer being experienced as external disciplining, although its imperative tone is noticeable (Bröckling, 2007, pp. 219).
- 9.
Though we ask ourselves whether self-optimization efforts under the conditions of comparative existence do not amount to the opposite of the work that Foucault had in mind (compare Bröckling, 2007, pp. 239, 242; Liebsch, 2013). But can the person who follows the laws of self-optimization and of the constant economic testing of one’s worth in a comparative society of life, even live their ‘own’ life? This issue is not settled by trying to present one’s life as being optimized in constant comparison to others, as if it were about the same in both cases (Bröckling, 2007, pp. 15, 42).
- 10.
The question of whether the author is merely aiming at a political rhetoric of economization and to which extent this has actually become effective shall be left aside here (see Alkemeyer/Budde/Freist 2013).
- 11.
Following this thought, we also have children with the expectation that they will have to make something of themselves in the manner of competence machines who optimize their human capital and, if necessary, have to find a way out of the lack of productivity for which they alone may be considered responsible.
- 12.
From that point of view, the golden age of so-called critical theory, which was based on the clear negativity of such experiences, may be over (see Oberprantacher, 2011).
- 13.
Which a negativist methodology certainly cannot merely remove from negative experience or define as normativism.
- 14.
In this instance, being subordinate is always caused by self-subordination and it is by no means implied that the questionable subordination is brought about by simple repression.
- 15.
Levinas believes he has found the innermost core of a radical, indispensable, and unavoidable subjectivation of the subject in the appeal to assume responsibility, which forces us to answer to the other—sans engagement préalable (see, e.g., Levinas, 1998, p. 166). A ‘pre-original receptiveness’ is discussed, which ‘subordinates’ the subject to the claims of the other without the possibility of previous objection or reservation. Consequently, we become subjects who will never be able to create an ethical relation to the other based on our own strength alone. We are ethical subjects thanks to the other who engages us. Hence, ethical subjectivity arises from an experience of passiveness, which, however, does not make a separate behavior toward such passiveness superfluous. In this light, subjectivation that can be understood as subordination cannot be considered an issue here, as becomes evident with regard to the discussion of this concept by Louis Althusser, Ernesto Laclau, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler.
- 16.
This ‘between’ quite simply refers to an interpersonal process.
- 17.
I understand ‘listening’ as an elementary form of political hospitality, which gives others the chance in the first place to assert their claims as being possibly justified (compare Nancy, 2007).
- 18.
A closer look reveals that such a process reveals different things. For Foucault, subjection explicitly implies the creation of underlings (sujets), hence a specific political form of subjectification (French: assujettissment); not the genesis of human subjectivity as such. I believe the same can be said for Althusser, who, above all, focused on how someone is ‘called to order’ (by an authorized person, such as a policeman, who calls ‘Hey, you there’). In Althusser’s view, this happens within an established (to use Rancière’s terminology) ‘police order’. For Laclau, it is a matter of subject positions as effects of structural determinations. Foucault, in contrast, prefers to concentrate on the introduction into a political order, and Levinas considers the extra-ordinariness of the claim of the other, which is not at all subject to any police or political order (compare Foucault, 2003, pp. 43–4; Butler, 1997, p. 33; Laclau, 1996, pp. 59–60).
- 19.
Also not by the claim, in reference to Heidegger’s later work in the quest of a direct ontology, that the sense of that responsiveness is a differentiating, antagonistic, or polemical one. In essence, the pólemos of Heraclitus is a strife that allows differences to come to the fore in the first place, as argued by Heidegger (compare Liebsch, 2005b). But he surely did not intend to herewith specify the concrete form of ‘against each another in with each other’ (Miteinander im Gegeneinander) in which, for example, political conflicts are to be played out. Without doubt, we also cannot simply conclude from the unavoidable dimension of power of any debate that it is power itself that is being fought over. The latter would finally culminate in declaring any policy a power struggle, without being able to take into account impotence in and regarding power and an obsession with power, from which one can finally distance oneself politically (compare Liebsch, 2010, 2012, chapter IX).
- 20.
But in no way does this economy manifest itself only in a restrictive manner. Especially, the erosion of its global boundaries opens up perspectives of transnational attention to claims, which hardly seem to receive attention at home. We only have to think of fracking in the USA or of nuclear power technology in Japan, which the country continues to pursue regardless of the nuclear catastrophe, and which cost many lives, especially among regional inhabitants.
- 21.
And it is never in a sovereign authority’s power to do so, as was once thought of an absolute ruler, who was likewise granted the power to appear as a sovereign by those who were supposedly only subordinate to them (compare Starobinski, 1989, pp. 46–54).
- 22.
Previous to this point, I have by no means presupposed that we are—possibly for ontological reasons such as an attachment to a Foucaultian care of the self—primarily or even solely concerned with the livability of our own lives. Whose life ‘counts’ and how our (political) life can also open itself up to the claim of the lives of outsiders—from the Arab Spring protesters to those shot on Kiev’s Maidan Square and the anonymous people who have lost their lives trying to flee from Mexico to the USA—or how it proves to be politically sensitive from the outset—is not only the subject of Butler’s thoughts on precarious life, criticism of ethical violence, and a so-called politics of mourning, but has also been examined this side of the Atlantic (compare Butler, 2006, 2009; Liebsch, 2006, 2008, 2014b).
- 23.
I do not agree with such diagnoses (as partially encountered in the works of Alain Ehrenberg, Luc Boltanski, Colin Crouch, and Giorgio Agamben) which conclude that an extensive exhaustion of this sensitivity can be ascertained and that, as a result, the potentials of sensitive forms of subjectivation must be critically analyzed.
- 24.
This question at least alludes to a teleonomic moment of political subjectivation, which is also touched upon in the conception of Andreas Oberprantacher’s project Political Abilities (1). As radically and unpredictably the question of livability, also on an individual basis, might be raised, it can hardly avoid being confronted with already widespread perceptions not only of the minimally livable life but also of the good life. Out of obvious fear of being all too quickly re-embroiled in a teleological, neo-Aristotelian ethics, apologists of dissensus and of belligerent and antagonistic conflict have so far avoided this moment. The same applies for Rancière, who primarily focuses on the claim to equality, but by far and large does not mention a positive coexistence in fair institutions (compare in contrast Ricœur, 2000, 2007).
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Liebsch, B. (2016). On Theories of Subjectivity and the Practices of Political Subjectivation: Responsiveness, Dissent, and the Precarious Livability of Human Life. In: Oberprantacher, A., Siclodi, A. (eds) Subjectivation in Political Theory and Contemporary Practices. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51659-6_4
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