{"id":6254,"date":"2011-01-19T13:41:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T17:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=6254"},"modified":"2011-01-19T14:56:14","modified_gmt":"2011-01-19T18:56:14","slug":"6254","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2011\/01\/19\/6254\/","title":{"rendered":"retroversive act"},"content":{"rendered":"

[For] \u017di\u017eek … an act becomes a properly political Act when it leads to its own politicization\/legitimation after the fact<\/em><\/strong>. Explaining that the “Act occurs in an emergency when one has to take the risk and act without any legitimization, ” \u017di\u017eek adheres to his sense that strategizing for success or making claims about being able to foresee and bring about a desired future \u2014 in short, the whole apparatus of political fulfillment \u2014 are illusory routes to political practice.\u00a0 It is a fantasy to imagine that a procedure or political form could guarantee a promised result \u2014 or, perhaps more importantly, guarantee that no unforeseen, horrible consequences will occur.\u00a0 Such people want “an Act without an Act” (Rothenberg citing Welcome to Desert <\/em>153).\u00a0 \u017di\u017eek is decisive on this point: “there is no guarantee against the possibility of excess \u2014 the risk has to be assumed, it is part of the very field of the political” (WDR 153-154 in Rothenberg 166).\u00a0 Not even democracy can furnish such a guarantee. Since we cannot know in advance what will happen, our only criterion for the Act must come after the fact, in a retroversive movement of politicization<\/strong>. (166)\u00a0 “we have to take a risk, a step into the open with no big Other to return our message to us,” (169).<\/p>\n

Rothenberg replies:<\/p>\n

every single act that anyone might undertake whether the act is large or small and whether it is enacted by someone authoritative (for example, de Gaulle) or not (for example, Rosa Parks), carries with it a significative excess \u2014 that is, a potential for appropriation, misunderstanding, and causing unforeseen consequences<\/strong>.\u00a0 We can recall here that Butler makes the error of proposing a distinction among types of actions on the basis of some imagined ability to assume a risk (for example, taking a risk in order to keep signification open). The risk is part and parcel of all<\/em> signification, not just “the political field itself.”\u00a0 Does \u017di\u017eek think that there is some quality that makes an Act inherently political or not? (168)<\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek’s preferred example of an Act is not Park’s nonviolent refusal to take a seat at the back of the bus, an act which was prepared for in advance by political organizing and a discourse of legitimation, and which resulted in further politicization and ultimately changes in laws and social insitutions<\/strong>. Instead he nominates the heroic action of the “famous Jewish ballerina” who shot the Nazi guards for whom she was forced to dance, effectively committing suicide in the process. The difference between these two incidents is striking: a nonviolent act that achieves politicization in Parks’ case versus a violent one that does not. Nonetheless, \u017di\u017eek specifically designates the example of the ballerina as “the way of the act” (Rothenberg 172, citing \u017di\u017eek in Revolution at the Gates<\/em> 249).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[For] \u017di\u017eek … an act becomes a properly political Act when it leads to its own politicization\/legitimation after the fact. Explaining that the “Act occurs in an emergency when one has to take the risk and act without any legitimization, ” \u017di\u017eek adheres to his sense that strategizing for success or making claims about being … Continue reading “retroversive act”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,20],"tags":[143],"class_list":["post-6254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-act","category-zizek","tag-excessive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6254"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6262,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6254\/revisions\/6262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}