By Jake Bellone

One must be able to calculate the necessary consequences of a capitalist form of organization if one is to properly understand political measures within such a given economy.  In order to properly speak of politics we will have to preface this article with the given equation:

Politics = Politicization = Democracy

And likewise we will have to clarify the difference between abstract/formal freedom and concrete/substantive freedom.  Naturally philosophy and likewise politics are based on a particular fundamental axiom upon which everything else functions.  For our part we will have to propose such a presupposition in order to create a functional and universal polity.  The link posited between universality and politics as such, and for my part, that which escapes politicization, that which “must be passed over in silence,” functions within a fundamentally fascist framework.  In fact, that which “cannot be spoken about” must be spoken about.  Even though democracy, much like the task of Nietzsche’s “overman” is a constantly deferred goal, and even though any leader claiming their country to be the end of politics, of manifested democracy, immediately has always-already realized totalitarianism, the constant deferral of democracy cannot be used as an excuse for the complete absence of democratic components and contours—in fact, within history, this has been what fascism has meant.  And within current politics we can easily see how we are never that far from fascism (particularly in certain cases, which will remain nameless due to their rather obvious nature).  Here I will consider proper and legitimate venues for the changing of politics against ineffective, idealistic, sadistic, and fascist forms of politics.  The spectrum between Left and Right will be ineffective for getting my point across.  The spectrum in this case becomes the Moebius Band, where venturing far enough in one direction, we find ourselves on the opposite side; that is, in either case we find ourselves in similar forms of either ineffective or downright sadistic forms of political “change” which are forever cursed with never being able to mete out their goals.
        
On what is commonly referred to as the Left the experience of an overwhelming self-importance, self-righteousness, etc., has completely drowned out any chance for political engagement.  That is, the notion of being has precluded political advancement, vigilance, involvement.  This is what is meant by cynicism and its relation to the post-modern.  There are many forms of retreat discernible as cynical, and they all fall into a condition of postmodernity.  One can of course retreat from politics proper, and dismiss it as a degenerated realm, incapable of invoking any real forms of change.  There is also the desire to retreat, to move oneself to a place this is away from the “hustle and bustle” of politics, isolated from civilization.  Of course, such a place does not exist, anywhere.  In fact, now it actually now costs more to live by simpler means.  One can of course content oneself by eating only “natural” food, of course the prices are more expensive. 
        
Unfortunately, another form of withdrawal is discernible in NGOs.  NGOs function more on economic development rather than political mobilization.  I am indifferent at this point whether an NGO pushes a particular form of economic development, that seems anachronistic at this point.  What interests me is more the fact that NGOs are not point of fact capable of intervening politically, and posing a challenge to the quotidian role of politics.  Nevertheless, I must say that it is nonetheless a positive role that NGOs pose, and it is good that people do them.  Many are in dire need of clean water and food, and certainly housing.  One cannot reject or disagree with such claims.  However one cannot embrace simple victimization.  The means need to be put in place for self-sufficiency, especially since so many countries have historically been involved in fucking them over.  And it is inherently weak to ignore how certain economic conditions have polluted the food and water, the air and the ground, from the beginning.  In this sense, NGOs are interested in patching up the holes of the capitalist system.

In terms of political change and medium, old notions such as civil disobedience are simply inadequate and obsolete for current methods and means of politics.  I can’t think of any country for my part which will not hesitate to utilize its armed forces against its own people whenever it’s deemed “necessary.”  And it doesn’t matter who protests, from the old to the young, from the unemployed to the blue or even white collar, from those who stand to lose everything to the wannabe anarchists and (pre-yuppie) “communist youth”—either individual is easy fodder for the state and its various forms of guard-dogs.  And in each case, the media serves its function of fundamentally depoliticizing the event, rendering it completely subjective.  The notion of postmodernism is of interest here—we must make the genuine reversal—it is not that we are plunged utterly into the Real, and each must draw their own subjective interpretation of the event, it is rather that we are plunged into a multitude of subjective interpretations, and have to be able to discern the kernel of the Real within the event. 

Political Love/Oedipal Love vs. Political Hate/Oedipal Hate

A distinction must be drawn between political love and political oedipal love, and likewise between political hate and political oedipal hate.  Political love proper is a form of ethical inquiry whereas political oedipal love reveals the very failure of politics.

When we speak of political love proper we are interested in the notion of the political as that which legislates the Good-as-such.  Political love is an interest in the mode of relations between people, and how the Good manifests itself in relations which are ultimately of political nature (and with this one cannot leave out the religious, the economic, the social).  Political love properly understood is universality, that is, universal political love.  The concern of political love means, in accordance with universal notions, the particular, that is, the individual has the means to actualize itself.  This means that each individual is not merely subject to, but also subject of the law, and as such, has the means to fulfill, realize, to manifest itself.  As love is ever in a condition of overflow, one must realize the nature of love as the ability to exceed its boundaries.  Love is life (Eros is Eros), and for politics, love is often times the ability to lose, to let go.  A potent form of political love is able to love that which does not love itself and that which is incapable of returning love.  Love means the ability to acquit, the ability to reprieve.  Political love properly understood is the acceptance and moreover the love of what which is not the same as the Self, as the loving being.  Political love means utilizing the concept of humanity and extending the category of humanity to all human subjects, regardless of race, religion, gender, etc.  In short, this political love is universality.
        
The oedipal form of political love spells danger for politics, moreover since the oedipal form of political love means the end of politics proper.  A prime example of this meager and impotent form of political love is symbolized by Mobutu, the self-proclaimed “father” of the nation of Zaire.  The falling back on love in the failure of political moves expresses his inability to assert the political.  This form of love is an excuse when politics fails.  Under Mobutu there was a massive violation of environmental, health, labor, and human factors and their regulation.  His interest was filling his own pockets (which seems to be the latest craze these days) at the expense of politics.  Rather than assert the common will, his interest remained particular.  One can see by his fleet of Mercedes driving through starving villages the expense of the lack of politics.  Yet his rebuttal against the degeneration of Zaire was based on a familial love, of a father for his children.  As in Freud, no doubt a situation like this is better overcome when the people as a whole identify themselves not with, but AS the father, effectively dissolving this political oedipal complex.  This can be viewed similarly in the figure of Stalin and Mao, as well as other political figures who engage in the “cult of personality.” 

Likewise two forms of political hate must be properly explained and understood.  Political hate proper manifests itself in the form of division, conflict, and a particular mode of intolerance.  The division precisely introduced in political hate is actually analogous to political love—it is its complement—it is the division of universality, the division that cuts through all forms of division: religious, ethnic, etc.  This is the form of political hate that wills division, and to play on Nietzsche’s words, understood properly, political hate is the “division that cuts into division,” the division of universality in the form of Law.  In some cases this form of political hate is considered as “diabolical evil,” but political hate is not merely a form of transgression (that is reserved for more oedipal forms of political hate).  This diabolical evil is the transgression which changes the coordinates of politics, which changes the coordinates of reality and universality (there being no definite and absolute criteria of universality).  [This is explained better in “Revolution Directions for Use”]  Political hate can be understood in terms of the death drive which seeks to “clear the space,” to create a void which in turned can be filled.  Political hate of this kind exists against the latter form of political oedipal hate in that it is a political hatred of national-identity, a political hatred of nationalism and tradition (which means less and less in a world that is more and more globalized and universalized).  The division of political hate of this type is the division of universality against the division along national and ethnic lines.
        
Political oedipal hate is more a form of pathological hate than manifests itself in xenophobia and indifference.  Indifference in this sense is contrasted with political love in this precise sense: political love is able to love that which is different from the subject of law, that is, political love is able to love that which doesn’t love the subject of political love, or itself.  Political love asserts difference and differentiation, while political hate falls back into tradition and the reassertion of outdated, obsolete, and anachronistic forms of politics.  Political pathological oedipal hate is regressive, pre-modern.  Political hate is the destruction and hatred of the different.  Political hate is transgression, but transgression reduced to (politically speaking, mind you) mere illegality.  Political hate in this sense is the transgression which sustains the Law, not the redefining of the contours of the political-as-such.  Understood in difference and distinction to political love, political oedipal hate is precisely the Bad.  It is a degenerate form of transgression which merely reaffirms the Law.  This form of political hate and the oedipal form of political love fall hand in hand.  Within political hate of this kind the subject withdraws his ego, leaving in place the “father” as the ego-form, creating a concrete bond between the Id as the undomesticated impulses and the Superego injunction for social order.  The father/political-figure serves as the Ego for the individual, thereby bypassing any form of real subjectivity.  Oedipal hate then appears in a sublimated form whereby the nation, the race, the religion serves as the form of father-ego, that which creates identity, and that which the subject falls back on in cases where it cannot deal with its own separation.  In political hate we are left with an undifferentiated ego-mass.
        
Oedipal hate is always fascist.  Hatred of this type rests on libidinal investment opposed to individual reason.  Oedipal hate is so called because it is a hatred towards the possessor of the (sacred) object.  It is jealousy sometimes, and other times it is ressentiment and revenge.  In either case, it is a matter of impotent acting out.
        
There are those of us who are interested in authentic political change, and then there are those of us who are interested in bullshit notions like “self-improvement,” tai bo, and pilates, organic meats and vegetables, farmhouses, or new-age obscurantisms like meditation and yoga, ancient healing techniques and herbs.  In short, there are those interested in broad political gestures, and those who, in their cynical attitude towards capitalism, choose to retreat from politics altogether, insisting that their “rebellion” boils down to their refusal to participate in politics, based on a falsified notion that anything “political” or “democratic” means the current form of the nation-state, or a reduction of politics to some nonsensical Democrats vs. Republicans bullshit.  These people have been gargling with shit for the past three decades, all these useless burnt out hippies who cultivate their Zen gardens while shopping at “Whole Foods” without the slightest regard for what ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN THE WORLD ON A DAY-TO-DAY BASIS.  They give their money to “feed the children” to keep the poor at bay, to stop them at their own borders in their contempt for any form of universality.  That or they dick around with their contrived notions and opinions (as if anyone gives a shit) on the “topic of the day,” the modern day ambulance-chasers of the nightly news, concerned with plastic antagonisms like pro-life vs. pro-choice, or the death penalty, chatting it up in online chatrooms or email correspondences with equally banal vapid individuals from every corner of the planet always willing to put in their two cents on every topic that comes their way without any REAL regard to concrete and real conditions of political and economic struggle.  They never hesitate to give their opinion, even when it’s conveniently considered “leftist” and with empathy towards people struggling on the other side of the world, though, conveniently, when everything lands on their doorstep they sing a quite different tune, allowing them to play the “holier-than-thou” game long enough to create some sort of contrived reputation, while they play the voting game every 4 years, getting behind every partner of their particular political camp, choosing to defend their own and attack the others without coming to any real political conclusion about anything outside of the choice enforced upon them. 
        
All of these small issues, truly small, even something like the current immigration debate in the United States, only serve to take one’s mind off of problems that concern universality, problems that are ultimately global.  There is no political issue that can truly be divorced from the whole of world politics (with the exception of putting up a stop sign at that dangerous intersection on 3rd and Main streets – see my point?), and in this sense all politics must focus itself on global or universal issues, which all politics always-already are.

Of course, this has been easy to say, I haven’t truly given any recommendations or possible solutions.  But I have no intention of playing the guru or the leader.  I want to clear the space, and hold the place open.  Large, broad, political gestures need to be formulated if we are to see the change we want in the world.  Of all the questions, the major questions, who, where, when, why, the only question I don’t have an answer to is WHAT, I don’t know what the political gesture is.  But I want desperately to be able to talk about it.