from “You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves”
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6440
[...]
THE CHAIRMAN: This is legal. This is not only legal but usual. By a unanimous vote, this Committee has been instructed to perform this very distasteful task.
Mr. ROBESON: To whom am I talking?
THE CHAIRMAN: You are speaking to the Chairman of this Committee.
Mr. ROBESON: Mr. Walter?
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
Mr. ROBESON: The Pennsylvania Walter?
THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.
Mr. ROBESON: Representative of the steelworkers?
THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.
Mr. ROBESON: Of the coal-mining workers and not United States Steel, by any chance? A great patriot.
THE CHAIRMAN: That is right.
Mr. ROBESON: You are the author of all of the bills that are going to keep all kinds of decent people out of the country.
THE CHAIRMAN: No, only your kind.
Mr. ROBESON: Colored people like myself, from the West Indies and all kinds. And just the Teutonic Anglo-Saxon stock that you would let come in.
THE CHAIRMAN: We are trying to make it easier to get rid of your kind, too.
Mr. ROBESON: You do not want any colored people to come in?
THE CHAIRMAN: Proceed. . . .
Mr. ROBESON: Could I say that the reason that I am here today, you know, from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa. For many years I have so labored and I can say modestly that my name is very much honored all over Africa, in my struggles for their independence. That is the kind of independence like Sukarno got in Indonesia. Unless we are double-talking, then these efforts in the interest of Africa would be in the same context. The other reason that I am here today, again from the State Department and from the court record of the court of appeals, is that when I am abroad I speak out against the injustices against the Negro people of this land. I sent a message to the Bandung Conference and so forth. That is why I am here. This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America. My mother was born in your state, Mr. Walter, and my mother was a Quaker, and my ancestors in the time of Washington baked bread for George Washington’s troops when they crossed the Delaware, and my own father was a slave. I stand here struggling for the rights of my people to be full citizens in this country. And they are not. They are not in Mississippi. And they are not in Montgomery, Alabama. And they are not in Washington. They are nowhere, and that is why I am here today. You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers, and I have been on many a picket line for the steelworkers too. And that is why I am here today. . . .
[...]
Thursday, April 5, 2012
On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupančič
Cabinet Magazine
Issue 5 Evil Winter 2001/02
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/5/alenkazupancic.php
Christoph Cox and Alenka Zupančič
In the past several years, we have seen a marked return to "the question of evil" among philosophers and psychoanalytic theorists. Is there something about our particular historical moment that forces us to rethink what "evil" might mean? Or is the question of evil perennial, something repressed that continues to return and assert itself?
The theoretical necessity of rethinking the concept of evil is linked to the more general interest in the question of ethics. To a considerable extent, this interest is polemical: The way the word "ethics" has been used lately in public discourse is bound to provoke some theoretical and conceptual nausea. It is used either to back up some political or legal decision that nobody is willing to assume fully, or else to keep in check certain developments (in science, for instance) that seem to move much more quickly than our "morals" do. To put it simply, "ethics" is thought of as something strictly restrictive; something that, in the hustle and bustle of our society, marks a place for our intimate fears. In philosophy as well as in psychoanalysis, a conceptual revolt against this notion of ethics took place. The question of evil and its possible definitions arose in reaction to this broader conceptual frame.
The fact that something keeps returning usually means that we are dealing with a conjunction of the impossible and the necessary. Evil seems to be a perfect candidate for such a conjunction. Why is this return happening today? The best I can do to provide a general answer to this question is to point out that the political, economical, and technological events of the recent past have had an important impact on our notion of "the impossible." The impossible has, so to speak, lost its rights. On the economic level it seems as if what was once referred to as an economic impossibility (i.e. the limits that a given economic order sets to our projects, as well as to our life in general) is being redefined as some kind of natural impossibility or natural law, (i.e. as something that cannot be changed in any way). The explosion of new technologies inspires something that one could call a "desperate optimism." On this level, it seems that almost everything is possible, but in a way that makes us feel that none of these possibilities contains what Lacan calls a Real, an "absolute condition" that could catch and sustain our desire for more than just a passing moment. On the political level, the fall of Communism has made western democracies lose sight of their own contradictions and all alternatives are declared impossible. So, if we consider all this, what you call the return of the question of evil might be a way for the impossible to remind us that we have not yet done away with its necessity.
The philosophical category of evil can also introduce some distance and reflection into what is—and always has been—an inherent bond between evil and the Imaginary. Evil has always been an object of fascination, with all the ambiguity and ambivalence that characterize the latter. Fascination could be said to be the aesthetic feeling of the state of contradiction. It implies, at the same time, attraction and repulsion. "Evil" is not only something that we abhor more than anything else; it is also something that manages to catch hold of our desire. One could even say that the thing that makes a certain object or phenomenon "evil" is precisely the fact that it gives body to this ambiguity of desire and abhorrence. The link between "evil" (in the common use of this word) and the Imaginary springs from the fact that we are dealing precisely with something that has no image. This is not as paradoxical as it might sound. Strictly speaking—and here I am drawing more on Lacanian psychoanalysis than on philosophy—the Imaginary register is in itself a response to the lack of the Image. The more this lack or absence is burdensome, the more frenetic is the production of images. But also (and here we come back to the question of evil), the more closely an image gets to occupy the very place of the lack of the Image, the greater will be its power of fascination.
Within reality as it is constituted via what Lacan calls the Imaginary and the Symbolic mechanisms, there is a "place of the lack of the Image," which is symbolically designated as such. That is to say that the very mechanism of representation posits its own limits and designates a certain beyond which it refers to as "unrepresentable." In this case, we can say that the place of something that has no image is designated symbolically; and it is this very designation that endows whatever finds itself in this place with the special power of fascination. Since this unrepresentable is usually associated with the transgression of the given limits of the Symbolic, it is spontaneously perceived as "evil," or at least as disturbing. Let us take an example: When it comes to the stories that play upon a neat distinction between "good" and "evil" and their conflict, we are not only more fascinated by "evil" characters; it is also clear that the force of the story depends on the strength of the "evil" character. Why is this so? The usual answer is that the "good" is always somehow flat, whereas "evil" displays an intriguing complexity. But what exactly is this complexity about? It is certainly not about some deeper motives or reasons for this "evil" being "evil." The moment we get any kind of psychological or other explanation for why somebody is "evil," the spell is broken, so to speak. The complexity and depth of "evil" characters are related to the fact that they seem to have no other reason for doing what they are doing but the fun (or spite) of it. In this sense, they are as "flat" as can be. But at the same time, this lack of depth can itself become something palpable, a most oppressive and massive presence. In these stories, as well as in what constitutes the individual or the collective Imaginary, evil is usually precisely this: that which lends its "face" to some disturbing void "beyond representation."
The important point to remember here is that this "void" is structural and not empirical. It is not some empty space or no man's land that could be gradually reduced to nothing or conquered by the advance of knowledge and science. The fact that science itself can function as the embodiment or the agent of evil is significant enough in this regard. Take the recent example of Dolly, or of cloning in general. It is clear that here we are dealing with a striking transgression of the limits of our Symbolic universe. In this example, we can also grasp what makes the difference between image and Image. Dolly looks like any other sheep; her "image" is just like the image of any other sheep. And yet, her place in the Symbolic, or rather, the fact that there is no established place for such a being in the given Symbolic order, endows her image with a special "glow."
So, the first important thing that the philosophical (as well as psychoanalytical) perspective can bring to the question of evil is thus to establish and maintain the difference between this void, which is an effect of structure, and the images that come to represent or embody it. Not to confound the two is the first step in any analysis of phenomena that are referred to as "evil."
I'm interested in the idea that "evil has no image." In our reservoir of images, is there an adequate image of evil? Is there an image of evil that "occupies the very place of the lack of the Image"? Those images that spring to mind (monsters, the face of Hitler, representations of the devil) always seem somehow inadequate.
Let's start with Hitler. It is probably no coincidence that the two best movies about Hitler are comedies: Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be and Chaplin's The Great Dictator. The image of Hitler is funny. It is funny because it is so inadequate. In Chaplin's movie, the image of Hitler is the same as that of the Jewish barber, which is precisely the point. Images of monsters and devils are inadequate because they try to "illustrate" evil. The point is not that real evil cannot be illustrated or represented, but that we have tendency to call "evil" precisely that which is not represented in a given representation. As to the question of whether there is an image of evil that occupies the very place of the lack of the Image, I would say yes, there is. It is what we could call a "sublime splendor," "shine," "glare," "glow," or "aura." It belongs to the Imaginary register, although it is not an image, in the strict sense of the word; rather, it is that which makes a certain image "shine" and stand out. You could say that it is an effect of the Real on our imagination, the last veil or "screen" that separates us from the impossible Real.
In To Be or Not To Be, Lubitsch provides a very good example of "the image that occupies the very place of the lack of the Image." At the beginning of the film, there is a brilliant scene in which a group of actors is rehearsing a play that features Hitler. The director is complaining about the appearance of the actor who plays Hitler, saying that his make-up is bad and that he doesn't look like Hitler at all. He also says that what he sees in front of him is just an ordinary man. The scene continues, and the director is trying desperately to name the mysterious "something more" that distinguishes the appearance of Hitler from the appearance of the actor in front of him. One could say that he is trying to name the "evil" that distinguishes Hitler from this man who actually looks a lot like Hitler. He is searching and searching, and finally he notices a photograph of Hitler on the wall, and triumphantly cries out: "That's it! This is what Hitler looks like!" "But sir," replies the actor, "this picture was taken of me." Needless to say, we as spectators were very much taken in by the enthusiasm of the director who saw in the picture something quite different from this poor actor. Now, I would say that there is probably no better "image" of the lack of the Image than this "thing" that the director (but also ourselves) has "seen" in the picture on the wall and that made all the difference between the photograph and the actor. One should stress, however, that this phenomenon is not linked exclusively to the question of evil, but to the question of the "unrepresentable" in general.
Why is it that evil captures the imagination but the good does not? Ethics would seem to be bound to the idea that the good is attractive, allied with the beautiful and, as such, something that solicits our desire. But, as you suggest, the opposite is perhaps more plausible. The combination of attraction and repulsion one finds in evil seems, perversely, more attractive to us. What does this tell us about our desire and about the nature of evil and the good?
Here I turn to Kantian ethics, which utterly breaks with the idea that the good is attractive and, as such, can solicit our desire. Kant calls this kind of attraction—this kind of causality—"pathological" or non–ethical. Moreover, Kant rejects the very idea that ethics can be founded on any given notion of the good. In Kantian ethics, we start with an unconditional law that is not founded on any pre-established notion of the good. The singularity of this law lies in the fact that it doesn't tell us what we must or mustn't do, but only refers us to the universality that we are ourselves supposed to bring about with our action: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law," goes the famous formulation of Kant's categorical imperative. The only definition of "good" in Kantian ethics is that of an action which, firstly, satisfies this demand of the universal and, secondly, has this demand for its only motive. The Kantian notion of the good has no other content. Only an action that is accomplishedaccording to the (moral) law and only because of the law is "good." If I act out of any other inclination (sympathy, compassion, fear, desire for recognition, etc.), my action cannot be called ethical (or "good"). The uneasiness that this aspect of Kantian theory often provokes springs from the fact that he rejects as "non-ethical" not only egoistic motives but also altruistic ones. Kant doesn't claim that altruism cannot be genuine or that it always masks some deeper egoism. He simply insists on the fact that ethics is not a question of lower or higher motives, but a question of principles.
Recall that, in Hannah Arendt's famous example, Nazi functionaries like Eichmann took themselves to be Kantians in this respect: They claimed to act simply on principle without any consideration for the empirical consequences of their actions. In what way is this a perversion of Kant?
This attitude is "perverse" in the strictest clinical meaning of the word: The subject has here assumed the role of a mere instrument of the Will of the Other. In relation to Kant, I would simply stress the following point, which has already been made by Slavoj Zizek: In Kantian ethics, we are responsible for what we refer to as our duty. The moral law is not something that could clear us of all responsibility for our actions; on the contrary, it makes us responsible not only for our actions, but also—and foremost—for the principles that we act upon.
Returning to the question of the good, what is most intriguing in Kant's conception of ethics is that, strictly speaking, there is no reason (or necessity) for the good being good. The good has no empirical content in which its goodness could be founded. The good is good for itself; it is good because it is good. With this conception, Kant revolutionized the field of ethics. By separating the notion of good from every positive content, preserving it only as something which holds open the space for the unconditional, he accomplished several important things. One that should interest us in this discussion is that he undermined the classical opposition between good and evil. In my reading of Kant, this is related to the fact that the moral law is not something that one could transgress. One can fail to act "according to the principle and only out of the principle"; but this failure cannot be called a transgression. This has some important consequences for the Kantian notion of evil. Let me briefly sketch this notion.
Kant identifies three different modes of "evil." The first two refer precisely to the fact that we fail to act "according to the (moral) law and only because of the law." One technical detail that will help us to follow Kant's argument: Kant calls "legal" those actions that are performed in accordance with the law, and "ethical" those which are also performedonly because of the law. Now, if we fail to act "ethically," this can happen either because we yield to motives that drive us away from the "legal" course of action, or because our course of action, "legal" in itself, is motivated by something other than the (moral) law. An example: Let's say that someone is trying to make me give a false testimony against someone that he wants to get rid of, and he threatens to hurt me if I refuse. If I give the false testimony because I want to avoid being hurt, this implies the first configuration described above. But it can also happen that I refuse to give the false testimony because, for instance, I fear being punished by God. Which means that I do the right thing for the wrong (Kant would say "pathological") reasons. My action is "legal," but it is not "ethical" or "good." One can see immediately that these two modes of "evil" have little to do with what we usually call "evil." In these instances, "evil" simply names the fact that the "good" did not take place.
Kant goes on to formulate a third mode of evil, which he calls "radical evil." A simple way of defining this notion is that it refers to the fact that we give up on the very possibility of the good. That is to say, we give up on the very idea that something other than our inclinations and interests could ever dictate our conduct. Here again, the term "radical evil" does not refer to some empirical content of our actions or to the "quantity of bad" caused by them. In my view, it is completely wrong to relate this Kantian notion to examples such us the Holocaust, mass murders, massacres, and so on. Radical evil is not some most horrible deed; its "radicalness" is linked to the fact that we renounce the possibility of ever acting out of principle. It is radical because it perverts the roots of all possible ethical conduct, and not because it takes the form of some terrible crime. I said before that the principal function of the Kantian notion of the good is to hold open the space for the unconditional or, to use another word, for freedom. Radical evil could be defined as that which closes up this space.
Is your conclusion, then, that our "contemporary ethical ideology" is "radically evil," insofar as it gives up on the idea of "the impossible," of anything beyond the empirical?
Precisely. It is noteworthy that in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), when Kant speaks of "empiricism in morals," he describes this empiricism with exactly the same words that he later uses to describe "radical evil" (Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone [1793]). A radically evil man is not someone whose only motive is to do "bad things," or someone who couldn't care less about the law. It is rather someone who willingly conforms to the law, provided that he can get the slightest benefit out of it. In Kantian theory (which has little to do with what I was speaking about earlier in terms of "the collective or individual Imaginary of evil") radical evil refers only to two things. It refers, firstly, to the fact that our inclinations are the only determining causes of our actions and, secondly, to the fact that we have consented to our inclinations functioning as the only possible motives of our actions. This consent or decision is, in fact, a matter of principle. But it does not imply that we do "bad things" (in the sense of actions that are not in conformity with the moral law) out of principle. It implies that, on principle, our inclinations are the exclusive criteria upon which we decide the course of our actions. These actions may very well be "legal" in the Kantian sense of the word. They may well be in conformity with the law. There needs to be nothing "horrible" about them.
I should, perhaps, point out that there is yet a fourth notion of evil that Kant speaks about: so-called "diabolical evil." Within the architectonic of practical reason, diabolical evil is the conceptual counterpart of the supreme good. Kant claims that diabolical evil is conceptually necessary, but empirically impossible. In my view, one should rather say that this notion is conceptually redundant, since, strictly speaking, it implies nothing other than what is already implied in the notion of the supreme good. Here I am, so to speak, going with Kant against Kant. Let me explain. According to Kant, "diabolical evil" would occur if we were to elevate opposition to the moral law to the level of a maxim. In this case the maxim would be opposed to the law not just negatively (as it is in the case of radical evil), but directly. This would imply, for instance, that we would be ready to act contrary to the moral law even if this meant acting contrary to all our inclinations, contrary to our self-interest and to our well-being. We would make it a principle to act against the moral law and we would stick to this principle no matter what (that is, even if it meant our own death).
The difficulty that occurs with this concept of diabolical evil lies in its very definition: Namely, diabolical evil would occur if we elevated opposition to the moral law to the level of a maxim (a principle or a law). What is wrong with this definition? Given the Kantian concept of the moral law—which is not a law that says "do this" or "do that," but an enigmatic law that only commands us to act in conformity with duty and only because of duty—the following objection arises: If opposition to the moral law were elevated to a maxim or principle, it would no longer be opposition to the moral law; it would be the moral law itself. At this level, no opposition is possible. It is not possible to oppose oneself to the moral law at the level of the (moral) law. Nothing can oppose itself to the moral law on principle (i.e., for non-pathological reasons), without itself becoming a moral law. To act without allowing pathological incentives to influence our actions is to do good. In relation to this definition of the good, (diabolical) evil would then have to be defined as follows: It is evil to oppose oneself, without allowing pathological incentives to influence one's actions, to actions which do not allow any pathological incentives to influence one's actions. And this is just absurd.
Earlier, in your discussion of evil and the image, you described "evil" as occupying the space of the impossible. Yet, on your view, "the impossible" is also precisely the space of ethics. What, then, is the relationship between evil and the impossible, evil and ethics?
All along, I have been speaking about evil on two different levels: One is the Kantian theory of evil; the other is the question of what we generally tend to call "evil." Your question is related to this second level.
I would agree that the space of ethics and the space of "evil" meet around the question of the impossible. However, the "impossible" shouldn't be understood here simply as something that cannot happen (empirically), although we (as ethical subjects) must never give up on it. I believe that one should reformulate this concept of the impossible, which is predominant in Kant, in terms of what Lacan calls the "Real as impossible." The point of Lacan's identification of the Real is not that the real cannot happen. On the contrary, the whole point of the Lacanian concept of the Real is that the impossible happens. This is what could be so traumatic, disturbing, shattering—but also funny—about the Real. The Real happens precisely as the impossible. It is not something that happens when we want it, or try to make it happen, or expect it, or are ready for it. It always happens at the wrong time and in the wrong place. It is always something that doesn't fit the (established or the anticipated) picture. The Real as impossible means that there is no right time or place for it, and not that it is impossible for it to happen. This notion of the impossible as "the impossible that happens" is the very core of the space of ethics.
There is nothing "evil" in the impossible; the question is how we perceive its often shattering effect. The link that you point out between the impossible and evil springs from the fact that we tend to perceive, or to define, the very "impossible that happens" as (automatically) evil. If one takes this identification of evil with the impossible as the definition of evil, then I would in fact be inclined to say, "Long live evil!"
Alenka Zupancic is a leading member of the Lacanian school of philosophers and social theorists in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She edits the book series Analecta and the journal Problemi. She is the author of Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan.
Christoph Cox teaches philosophy, critical theory, and contemporary music at Hampshire College. He is a contributing editor at Cabinet.
Issue 5 Evil Winter 2001/02
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/5/alenkazupancic.php
Christoph Cox and Alenka Zupančič
In the past several years, we have seen a marked return to "the question of evil" among philosophers and psychoanalytic theorists. Is there something about our particular historical moment that forces us to rethink what "evil" might mean? Or is the question of evil perennial, something repressed that continues to return and assert itself?
The theoretical necessity of rethinking the concept of evil is linked to the more general interest in the question of ethics. To a considerable extent, this interest is polemical: The way the word "ethics" has been used lately in public discourse is bound to provoke some theoretical and conceptual nausea. It is used either to back up some political or legal decision that nobody is willing to assume fully, or else to keep in check certain developments (in science, for instance) that seem to move much more quickly than our "morals" do. To put it simply, "ethics" is thought of as something strictly restrictive; something that, in the hustle and bustle of our society, marks a place for our intimate fears. In philosophy as well as in psychoanalysis, a conceptual revolt against this notion of ethics took place. The question of evil and its possible definitions arose in reaction to this broader conceptual frame.
The fact that something keeps returning usually means that we are dealing with a conjunction of the impossible and the necessary. Evil seems to be a perfect candidate for such a conjunction. Why is this return happening today? The best I can do to provide a general answer to this question is to point out that the political, economical, and technological events of the recent past have had an important impact on our notion of "the impossible." The impossible has, so to speak, lost its rights. On the economic level it seems as if what was once referred to as an economic impossibility (i.e. the limits that a given economic order sets to our projects, as well as to our life in general) is being redefined as some kind of natural impossibility or natural law, (i.e. as something that cannot be changed in any way). The explosion of new technologies inspires something that one could call a "desperate optimism." On this level, it seems that almost everything is possible, but in a way that makes us feel that none of these possibilities contains what Lacan calls a Real, an "absolute condition" that could catch and sustain our desire for more than just a passing moment. On the political level, the fall of Communism has made western democracies lose sight of their own contradictions and all alternatives are declared impossible. So, if we consider all this, what you call the return of the question of evil might be a way for the impossible to remind us that we have not yet done away with its necessity.
The philosophical category of evil can also introduce some distance and reflection into what is—and always has been—an inherent bond between evil and the Imaginary. Evil has always been an object of fascination, with all the ambiguity and ambivalence that characterize the latter. Fascination could be said to be the aesthetic feeling of the state of contradiction. It implies, at the same time, attraction and repulsion. "Evil" is not only something that we abhor more than anything else; it is also something that manages to catch hold of our desire. One could even say that the thing that makes a certain object or phenomenon "evil" is precisely the fact that it gives body to this ambiguity of desire and abhorrence. The link between "evil" (in the common use of this word) and the Imaginary springs from the fact that we are dealing precisely with something that has no image. This is not as paradoxical as it might sound. Strictly speaking—and here I am drawing more on Lacanian psychoanalysis than on philosophy—the Imaginary register is in itself a response to the lack of the Image. The more this lack or absence is burdensome, the more frenetic is the production of images. But also (and here we come back to the question of evil), the more closely an image gets to occupy the very place of the lack of the Image, the greater will be its power of fascination.
Within reality as it is constituted via what Lacan calls the Imaginary and the Symbolic mechanisms, there is a "place of the lack of the Image," which is symbolically designated as such. That is to say that the very mechanism of representation posits its own limits and designates a certain beyond which it refers to as "unrepresentable." In this case, we can say that the place of something that has no image is designated symbolically; and it is this very designation that endows whatever finds itself in this place with the special power of fascination. Since this unrepresentable is usually associated with the transgression of the given limits of the Symbolic, it is spontaneously perceived as "evil," or at least as disturbing. Let us take an example: When it comes to the stories that play upon a neat distinction between "good" and "evil" and their conflict, we are not only more fascinated by "evil" characters; it is also clear that the force of the story depends on the strength of the "evil" character. Why is this so? The usual answer is that the "good" is always somehow flat, whereas "evil" displays an intriguing complexity. But what exactly is this complexity about? It is certainly not about some deeper motives or reasons for this "evil" being "evil." The moment we get any kind of psychological or other explanation for why somebody is "evil," the spell is broken, so to speak. The complexity and depth of "evil" characters are related to the fact that they seem to have no other reason for doing what they are doing but the fun (or spite) of it. In this sense, they are as "flat" as can be. But at the same time, this lack of depth can itself become something palpable, a most oppressive and massive presence. In these stories, as well as in what constitutes the individual or the collective Imaginary, evil is usually precisely this: that which lends its "face" to some disturbing void "beyond representation."
The important point to remember here is that this "void" is structural and not empirical. It is not some empty space or no man's land that could be gradually reduced to nothing or conquered by the advance of knowledge and science. The fact that science itself can function as the embodiment or the agent of evil is significant enough in this regard. Take the recent example of Dolly, or of cloning in general. It is clear that here we are dealing with a striking transgression of the limits of our Symbolic universe. In this example, we can also grasp what makes the difference between image and Image. Dolly looks like any other sheep; her "image" is just like the image of any other sheep. And yet, her place in the Symbolic, or rather, the fact that there is no established place for such a being in the given Symbolic order, endows her image with a special "glow."
So, the first important thing that the philosophical (as well as psychoanalytical) perspective can bring to the question of evil is thus to establish and maintain the difference between this void, which is an effect of structure, and the images that come to represent or embody it. Not to confound the two is the first step in any analysis of phenomena that are referred to as "evil."
I'm interested in the idea that "evil has no image." In our reservoir of images, is there an adequate image of evil? Is there an image of evil that "occupies the very place of the lack of the Image"? Those images that spring to mind (monsters, the face of Hitler, representations of the devil) always seem somehow inadequate.
Let's start with Hitler. It is probably no coincidence that the two best movies about Hitler are comedies: Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be and Chaplin's The Great Dictator. The image of Hitler is funny. It is funny because it is so inadequate. In Chaplin's movie, the image of Hitler is the same as that of the Jewish barber, which is precisely the point. Images of monsters and devils are inadequate because they try to "illustrate" evil. The point is not that real evil cannot be illustrated or represented, but that we have tendency to call "evil" precisely that which is not represented in a given representation. As to the question of whether there is an image of evil that occupies the very place of the lack of the Image, I would say yes, there is. It is what we could call a "sublime splendor," "shine," "glare," "glow," or "aura." It belongs to the Imaginary register, although it is not an image, in the strict sense of the word; rather, it is that which makes a certain image "shine" and stand out. You could say that it is an effect of the Real on our imagination, the last veil or "screen" that separates us from the impossible Real.
In To Be or Not To Be, Lubitsch provides a very good example of "the image that occupies the very place of the lack of the Image." At the beginning of the film, there is a brilliant scene in which a group of actors is rehearsing a play that features Hitler. The director is complaining about the appearance of the actor who plays Hitler, saying that his make-up is bad and that he doesn't look like Hitler at all. He also says that what he sees in front of him is just an ordinary man. The scene continues, and the director is trying desperately to name the mysterious "something more" that distinguishes the appearance of Hitler from the appearance of the actor in front of him. One could say that he is trying to name the "evil" that distinguishes Hitler from this man who actually looks a lot like Hitler. He is searching and searching, and finally he notices a photograph of Hitler on the wall, and triumphantly cries out: "That's it! This is what Hitler looks like!" "But sir," replies the actor, "this picture was taken of me." Needless to say, we as spectators were very much taken in by the enthusiasm of the director who saw in the picture something quite different from this poor actor. Now, I would say that there is probably no better "image" of the lack of the Image than this "thing" that the director (but also ourselves) has "seen" in the picture on the wall and that made all the difference between the photograph and the actor. One should stress, however, that this phenomenon is not linked exclusively to the question of evil, but to the question of the "unrepresentable" in general.
Why is it that evil captures the imagination but the good does not? Ethics would seem to be bound to the idea that the good is attractive, allied with the beautiful and, as such, something that solicits our desire. But, as you suggest, the opposite is perhaps more plausible. The combination of attraction and repulsion one finds in evil seems, perversely, more attractive to us. What does this tell us about our desire and about the nature of evil and the good?
Here I turn to Kantian ethics, which utterly breaks with the idea that the good is attractive and, as such, can solicit our desire. Kant calls this kind of attraction—this kind of causality—"pathological" or non–ethical. Moreover, Kant rejects the very idea that ethics can be founded on any given notion of the good. In Kantian ethics, we start with an unconditional law that is not founded on any pre-established notion of the good. The singularity of this law lies in the fact that it doesn't tell us what we must or mustn't do, but only refers us to the universality that we are ourselves supposed to bring about with our action: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law," goes the famous formulation of Kant's categorical imperative. The only definition of "good" in Kantian ethics is that of an action which, firstly, satisfies this demand of the universal and, secondly, has this demand for its only motive. The Kantian notion of the good has no other content. Only an action that is accomplishedaccording to the (moral) law and only because of the law is "good." If I act out of any other inclination (sympathy, compassion, fear, desire for recognition, etc.), my action cannot be called ethical (or "good"). The uneasiness that this aspect of Kantian theory often provokes springs from the fact that he rejects as "non-ethical" not only egoistic motives but also altruistic ones. Kant doesn't claim that altruism cannot be genuine or that it always masks some deeper egoism. He simply insists on the fact that ethics is not a question of lower or higher motives, but a question of principles.
Recall that, in Hannah Arendt's famous example, Nazi functionaries like Eichmann took themselves to be Kantians in this respect: They claimed to act simply on principle without any consideration for the empirical consequences of their actions. In what way is this a perversion of Kant?
This attitude is "perverse" in the strictest clinical meaning of the word: The subject has here assumed the role of a mere instrument of the Will of the Other. In relation to Kant, I would simply stress the following point, which has already been made by Slavoj Zizek: In Kantian ethics, we are responsible for what we refer to as our duty. The moral law is not something that could clear us of all responsibility for our actions; on the contrary, it makes us responsible not only for our actions, but also—and foremost—for the principles that we act upon.
Returning to the question of the good, what is most intriguing in Kant's conception of ethics is that, strictly speaking, there is no reason (or necessity) for the good being good. The good has no empirical content in which its goodness could be founded. The good is good for itself; it is good because it is good. With this conception, Kant revolutionized the field of ethics. By separating the notion of good from every positive content, preserving it only as something which holds open the space for the unconditional, he accomplished several important things. One that should interest us in this discussion is that he undermined the classical opposition between good and evil. In my reading of Kant, this is related to the fact that the moral law is not something that one could transgress. One can fail to act "according to the principle and only out of the principle"; but this failure cannot be called a transgression. This has some important consequences for the Kantian notion of evil. Let me briefly sketch this notion.
Kant identifies three different modes of "evil." The first two refer precisely to the fact that we fail to act "according to the (moral) law and only because of the law." One technical detail that will help us to follow Kant's argument: Kant calls "legal" those actions that are performed in accordance with the law, and "ethical" those which are also performedonly because of the law. Now, if we fail to act "ethically," this can happen either because we yield to motives that drive us away from the "legal" course of action, or because our course of action, "legal" in itself, is motivated by something other than the (moral) law. An example: Let's say that someone is trying to make me give a false testimony against someone that he wants to get rid of, and he threatens to hurt me if I refuse. If I give the false testimony because I want to avoid being hurt, this implies the first configuration described above. But it can also happen that I refuse to give the false testimony because, for instance, I fear being punished by God. Which means that I do the right thing for the wrong (Kant would say "pathological") reasons. My action is "legal," but it is not "ethical" or "good." One can see immediately that these two modes of "evil" have little to do with what we usually call "evil." In these instances, "evil" simply names the fact that the "good" did not take place.
Kant goes on to formulate a third mode of evil, which he calls "radical evil." A simple way of defining this notion is that it refers to the fact that we give up on the very possibility of the good. That is to say, we give up on the very idea that something other than our inclinations and interests could ever dictate our conduct. Here again, the term "radical evil" does not refer to some empirical content of our actions or to the "quantity of bad" caused by them. In my view, it is completely wrong to relate this Kantian notion to examples such us the Holocaust, mass murders, massacres, and so on. Radical evil is not some most horrible deed; its "radicalness" is linked to the fact that we renounce the possibility of ever acting out of principle. It is radical because it perverts the roots of all possible ethical conduct, and not because it takes the form of some terrible crime. I said before that the principal function of the Kantian notion of the good is to hold open the space for the unconditional or, to use another word, for freedom. Radical evil could be defined as that which closes up this space.
Is your conclusion, then, that our "contemporary ethical ideology" is "radically evil," insofar as it gives up on the idea of "the impossible," of anything beyond the empirical?
Precisely. It is noteworthy that in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), when Kant speaks of "empiricism in morals," he describes this empiricism with exactly the same words that he later uses to describe "radical evil" (Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone [1793]). A radically evil man is not someone whose only motive is to do "bad things," or someone who couldn't care less about the law. It is rather someone who willingly conforms to the law, provided that he can get the slightest benefit out of it. In Kantian theory (which has little to do with what I was speaking about earlier in terms of "the collective or individual Imaginary of evil") radical evil refers only to two things. It refers, firstly, to the fact that our inclinations are the only determining causes of our actions and, secondly, to the fact that we have consented to our inclinations functioning as the only possible motives of our actions. This consent or decision is, in fact, a matter of principle. But it does not imply that we do "bad things" (in the sense of actions that are not in conformity with the moral law) out of principle. It implies that, on principle, our inclinations are the exclusive criteria upon which we decide the course of our actions. These actions may very well be "legal" in the Kantian sense of the word. They may well be in conformity with the law. There needs to be nothing "horrible" about them.
I should, perhaps, point out that there is yet a fourth notion of evil that Kant speaks about: so-called "diabolical evil." Within the architectonic of practical reason, diabolical evil is the conceptual counterpart of the supreme good. Kant claims that diabolical evil is conceptually necessary, but empirically impossible. In my view, one should rather say that this notion is conceptually redundant, since, strictly speaking, it implies nothing other than what is already implied in the notion of the supreme good. Here I am, so to speak, going with Kant against Kant. Let me explain. According to Kant, "diabolical evil" would occur if we were to elevate opposition to the moral law to the level of a maxim. In this case the maxim would be opposed to the law not just negatively (as it is in the case of radical evil), but directly. This would imply, for instance, that we would be ready to act contrary to the moral law even if this meant acting contrary to all our inclinations, contrary to our self-interest and to our well-being. We would make it a principle to act against the moral law and we would stick to this principle no matter what (that is, even if it meant our own death).
The difficulty that occurs with this concept of diabolical evil lies in its very definition: Namely, diabolical evil would occur if we elevated opposition to the moral law to the level of a maxim (a principle or a law). What is wrong with this definition? Given the Kantian concept of the moral law—which is not a law that says "do this" or "do that," but an enigmatic law that only commands us to act in conformity with duty and only because of duty—the following objection arises: If opposition to the moral law were elevated to a maxim or principle, it would no longer be opposition to the moral law; it would be the moral law itself. At this level, no opposition is possible. It is not possible to oppose oneself to the moral law at the level of the (moral) law. Nothing can oppose itself to the moral law on principle (i.e., for non-pathological reasons), without itself becoming a moral law. To act without allowing pathological incentives to influence our actions is to do good. In relation to this definition of the good, (diabolical) evil would then have to be defined as follows: It is evil to oppose oneself, without allowing pathological incentives to influence one's actions, to actions which do not allow any pathological incentives to influence one's actions. And this is just absurd.
Earlier, in your discussion of evil and the image, you described "evil" as occupying the space of the impossible. Yet, on your view, "the impossible" is also precisely the space of ethics. What, then, is the relationship between evil and the impossible, evil and ethics?
All along, I have been speaking about evil on two different levels: One is the Kantian theory of evil; the other is the question of what we generally tend to call "evil." Your question is related to this second level.
I would agree that the space of ethics and the space of "evil" meet around the question of the impossible. However, the "impossible" shouldn't be understood here simply as something that cannot happen (empirically), although we (as ethical subjects) must never give up on it. I believe that one should reformulate this concept of the impossible, which is predominant in Kant, in terms of what Lacan calls the "Real as impossible." The point of Lacan's identification of the Real is not that the real cannot happen. On the contrary, the whole point of the Lacanian concept of the Real is that the impossible happens. This is what could be so traumatic, disturbing, shattering—but also funny—about the Real. The Real happens precisely as the impossible. It is not something that happens when we want it, or try to make it happen, or expect it, or are ready for it. It always happens at the wrong time and in the wrong place. It is always something that doesn't fit the (established or the anticipated) picture. The Real as impossible means that there is no right time or place for it, and not that it is impossible for it to happen. This notion of the impossible as "the impossible that happens" is the very core of the space of ethics.
There is nothing "evil" in the impossible; the question is how we perceive its often shattering effect. The link that you point out between the impossible and evil springs from the fact that we tend to perceive, or to define, the very "impossible that happens" as (automatically) evil. If one takes this identification of evil with the impossible as the definition of evil, then I would in fact be inclined to say, "Long live evil!"
Alenka Zupancic is a leading member of the Lacanian school of philosophers and social theorists in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She edits the book series Analecta and the journal Problemi. She is the author of Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan.
Christoph Cox teaches philosophy, critical theory, and contemporary music at Hampshire College. He is a contributing editor at Cabinet.
Alenka Zupančič QUOTES
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/alenka-zupancic/quotes/
I would agree that the space of ethics and the space of “evil” meet around the question of the impossible.
Zupančič, Alenka.
The theoretical necessity of rethinking the concept of evil is linked to the more general interest in the question of ethics.
Zupančič, Alenka.
...the “impossible” shouldn't be understood here simply as something that cannot happen (empirically), although we (as ethical subjects) must never give up on it. I believe that one should reformulate this concept of the impossible, which is predominant in Kant, in terms of what Lacan calls the “Real as impossible.” The point of Lacan's identification of the Real is not that the real cannot happen. On the contrary, the whole point of the Lacanian concept of the Real is that the impossible happens. This is what could be so traumatic, disturbing, shattering—but also funny—about the Real.
Zupančič, Alenka.
The Real happens precisely as the impossible. It is not something that happens when we want it, or try to make it happen, or expect it, or are ready for it. It always happens at the wrong time and in the wrong place. It is always something that doesn't fit the (established or the anticipated) picture. The Real as impossible means that there is no right time or place for it, and not that it is impossible for it to happen.
Zupančič, Alenka.
In Lacan's seminar L'angoisse one finds the following, rather peculiar statement: Only love-sublimation makes it possible for jouissance to condescend to desire. What is peculiar about this statement, of course, is the link it establishes between love as sublimation and the movement of condescending or descending.
Zupančič, Alenka. "On love as comedy." in: Lacanian Ink. Vol. 20, 2002, pp. 62-79. (English).
It is well known that Lacan's canonic definition of sublimation from The Ethics of Psychoanalysis implies precisely the opposite movement, that of ascension (that sublimation raises, or elevates, an object to the dignity of the Thing, Freudian das Ding). In this last definition, sublimation is identified with the act of "producing" the Thing in its very transcendence, inaccessibility, as well as in its horrifying and/or inhuman aspect (e.g. the status of the Lady in courtly love, which is, as Lacan puts it, the status of an "inhuman partner"). Yet, as concerns this particular sublimation that is called love - which is thus opposed to courtly love as worshiping of a sublime object - Lacan states that it makes it possible for jouissance to condescend to desire, and that it "humanizes jouissance."
Zupančič, Alenka. "On love as comedy." in: Lacanian Ink. Vol. 20, 2002, pp. 62-79. (English).
The theoretical necessity of rethinking the concept of evil is linked to the more general interest in the question of ethics. To a considerable extent, this interest is polemical: The way the word "ethics" has been used lately in public discourse is bound to provoke some theoretical and conceptual nausea. It is used either to back up some political or legal decision that nobody is willing to assume fully, or else to keep in check certain developments (in science, for instance) that seem to move much more quickly than our "morals" do.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
To put it simply, "ethics" is thought of as something strictly restrictive; something that, in the hustle and bustle of our society, marks a place for our intimate fears.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
The fact that something keeps returning usually means that we are dealing with a conjunction of the impossible and the necessary. Evil seems to be a perfect candidate for such a conjunction. Why is this return happening today?
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
Kant identifies three different modes of "evil." The first two refer precisely to the fact that we fail to act "according to the (moral) law and only because of the law." One technical detail that will help us to follow Kant's argument: Kant calls "legal" those actions that are performed in accordance with the law, and "ethical" those which are also performedonly because of the law. Now, if we fail to act "ethically," this can happen either because we yield to motives that drive us away from the "legal" course of action, or because our course of action, "legal" in itself, is motivated by something other than the (moral) law.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
Kant goes on to formulate a third mode of evil, which he calls "radical evil." A simple way of defining this notion is that it refers to the fact that we give up on the very possibility of the good. That is to say, we give up on the very idea that something other than our inclinations and interests could ever dictate our conduct. Here again, the term "radical evil" does not refer to some empirical content of our actions or to the "quantity of bad" caused by them.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
In my view, it is completely wrong to relate this Kantian notion to examples such us the Holocaust, mass murders, massacres, and so on. Radical evil is not some most horrible deed; its "radicalness" is linked to the fact that we renounce the possibility of ever acting out of principle.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
I should, perhaps, point out that there is yet a fourth notion of evil that Kant speaks about: so-called "diabolical evil." Within the architectonic of practical reason, diabolical evil is the conceptual counterpart of the supreme good. Kant claims that diabolical evil is conceptually necessary, but empirically impossible. In my view, one should rather say that this notion is conceptually redundant, since, strictly speaking, it implies nothing other than what is already implied in the notion of the supreme good.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
This notion of the impossible as “the impossible that happens” is the very core of the space of ethics.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
In other words, one cannot attain the realm of the ethical by means of gradual elevation of the will by pursuing more and more refined subtle and noble goals by gradually turning away from one's 'base animal instincts.' Instead, we find that a sharp break, a 'paradigm shift,' is required to move from the pathological to the ethical. Here we must resist the temptation of the standard image of Kantian ethics, according to which its ethics demands a perpetual 'purification' (from everything pathological) and an asymptotic approach to the ethical ideal. Even though this image is not without some support in Kant's texts, it is nevertheless misleading - first because it involves a considerable simplification of the logic of Kant's argument; second because it obscures another very important line of argument; the claim that the Atkus der Freiheit, the 'act of freedom', the genuine ethical act is always subversive; it is never simply the result of an 'improvement' or a 'reform' ...
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
What kind of monstrous 'inhuman' subject does Kantian ethics presuppose?
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
The second question that must be dealt with concerns what we might call the 'ethical transubstantiation' required by Kant's view: the question of the possibility of converting a mere form into materially efficacious drive.
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
The crucial question of Kantian ethics is thus not 'how can we eliminate all the pathological elements of the will, so that only the pure form of duty remains?' ...
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
One of the main reasons for the irreducibility of the pathological thus resides in the fact that the ultimate point of the subject's pathology 'lodges' in the Other, and that consequently, a successful act is never without consequences for the Other.
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
I would agree that the space of ethics and the space of “evil” meet around the question of the impossible.
Zupančič, Alenka.
The theoretical necessity of rethinking the concept of evil is linked to the more general interest in the question of ethics.
Zupančič, Alenka.
...the “impossible” shouldn't be understood here simply as something that cannot happen (empirically), although we (as ethical subjects) must never give up on it. I believe that one should reformulate this concept of the impossible, which is predominant in Kant, in terms of what Lacan calls the “Real as impossible.” The point of Lacan's identification of the Real is not that the real cannot happen. On the contrary, the whole point of the Lacanian concept of the Real is that the impossible happens. This is what could be so traumatic, disturbing, shattering—but also funny—about the Real.
Zupančič, Alenka.
The Real happens precisely as the impossible. It is not something that happens when we want it, or try to make it happen, or expect it, or are ready for it. It always happens at the wrong time and in the wrong place. It is always something that doesn't fit the (established or the anticipated) picture. The Real as impossible means that there is no right time or place for it, and not that it is impossible for it to happen.
Zupančič, Alenka.
In Lacan's seminar L'angoisse one finds the following, rather peculiar statement: Only love-sublimation makes it possible for jouissance to condescend to desire. What is peculiar about this statement, of course, is the link it establishes between love as sublimation and the movement of condescending or descending.
Zupančič, Alenka. "On love as comedy." in: Lacanian Ink. Vol. 20, 2002, pp. 62-79. (English).
It is well known that Lacan's canonic definition of sublimation from The Ethics of Psychoanalysis implies precisely the opposite movement, that of ascension (that sublimation raises, or elevates, an object to the dignity of the Thing, Freudian das Ding). In this last definition, sublimation is identified with the act of "producing" the Thing in its very transcendence, inaccessibility, as well as in its horrifying and/or inhuman aspect (e.g. the status of the Lady in courtly love, which is, as Lacan puts it, the status of an "inhuman partner"). Yet, as concerns this particular sublimation that is called love - which is thus opposed to courtly love as worshiping of a sublime object - Lacan states that it makes it possible for jouissance to condescend to desire, and that it "humanizes jouissance."
Zupančič, Alenka. "On love as comedy." in: Lacanian Ink. Vol. 20, 2002, pp. 62-79. (English).
The theoretical necessity of rethinking the concept of evil is linked to the more general interest in the question of ethics. To a considerable extent, this interest is polemical: The way the word "ethics" has been used lately in public discourse is bound to provoke some theoretical and conceptual nausea. It is used either to back up some political or legal decision that nobody is willing to assume fully, or else to keep in check certain developments (in science, for instance) that seem to move much more quickly than our "morals" do.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
To put it simply, "ethics" is thought of as something strictly restrictive; something that, in the hustle and bustle of our society, marks a place for our intimate fears.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
The fact that something keeps returning usually means that we are dealing with a conjunction of the impossible and the necessary. Evil seems to be a perfect candidate for such a conjunction. Why is this return happening today?
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
Kant identifies three different modes of "evil." The first two refer precisely to the fact that we fail to act "according to the (moral) law and only because of the law." One technical detail that will help us to follow Kant's argument: Kant calls "legal" those actions that are performed in accordance with the law, and "ethical" those which are also performedonly because of the law. Now, if we fail to act "ethically," this can happen either because we yield to motives that drive us away from the "legal" course of action, or because our course of action, "legal" in itself, is motivated by something other than the (moral) law.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
Kant goes on to formulate a third mode of evil, which he calls "radical evil." A simple way of defining this notion is that it refers to the fact that we give up on the very possibility of the good. That is to say, we give up on the very idea that something other than our inclinations and interests could ever dictate our conduct. Here again, the term "radical evil" does not refer to some empirical content of our actions or to the "quantity of bad" caused by them.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
In my view, it is completely wrong to relate this Kantian notion to examples such us the Holocaust, mass murders, massacres, and so on. Radical evil is not some most horrible deed; its "radicalness" is linked to the fact that we renounce the possibility of ever acting out of principle.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
I should, perhaps, point out that there is yet a fourth notion of evil that Kant speaks about: so-called "diabolical evil." Within the architectonic of practical reason, diabolical evil is the conceptual counterpart of the supreme good. Kant claims that diabolical evil is conceptually necessary, but empirically impossible. In my view, one should rather say that this notion is conceptually redundant, since, strictly speaking, it implies nothing other than what is already implied in the notion of the supreme good.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
This notion of the impossible as “the impossible that happens” is the very core of the space of ethics.
Zupančič, Alenka and Christopher Cox. "On Evil: An Interview with Alenka Zupancic." in: Cabinet. No. 5, Winter 2001. (English).
In other words, one cannot attain the realm of the ethical by means of gradual elevation of the will by pursuing more and more refined subtle and noble goals by gradually turning away from one's 'base animal instincts.' Instead, we find that a sharp break, a 'paradigm shift,' is required to move from the pathological to the ethical. Here we must resist the temptation of the standard image of Kantian ethics, according to which its ethics demands a perpetual 'purification' (from everything pathological) and an asymptotic approach to the ethical ideal. Even though this image is not without some support in Kant's texts, it is nevertheless misleading - first because it involves a considerable simplification of the logic of Kant's argument; second because it obscures another very important line of argument; the claim that the Atkus der Freiheit, the 'act of freedom', the genuine ethical act is always subversive; it is never simply the result of an 'improvement' or a 'reform' ...
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
What kind of monstrous 'inhuman' subject does Kantian ethics presuppose?
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
The second question that must be dealt with concerns what we might call the 'ethical transubstantiation' required by Kant's view: the question of the possibility of converting a mere form into materially efficacious drive.
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
The crucial question of Kantian ethics is thus not 'how can we eliminate all the pathological elements of the will, so that only the pure form of duty remains?' ...
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
One of the main reasons for the irreducibility of the pathological thus resides in the fact that the ultimate point of the subject's pathology 'lodges' in the Other, and that consequently, a successful act is never without consequences for the Other.
Zupančič, Alenka. Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. Verso. 2000. Hardcover, 266 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1859847242.
from "Against the Populist Temptation"
Slavoj Žižek
http://www.lacan.com/zizpopulism.htm
[...]
What, then, is Europe's predicament today? Europe lies in the great pincers between America on the one side and China on the other. America and China, seen metaphysically, are both the same: the same hopeless frenzy of unchained technology and of the rootless organization of the average man. When the farthest corner of the globe has been conquered technically and can be exploited economically; when any incident you like, in any place you like, at any time you like, becomes accessible as fast as you like; when, through the TV "live coverage," you can simultaneously "experience" a battle in Iraqi desert and an opera performance in Beijing; when, in a global digital network, time is nothing but speed, instantaneity, and simultaneity; when a winner in reality TV-show counts as the great man of a people; then, yes, there still looms like a specter over all this uproar the question: what for? - where to? - and what then? [25]
There is thus a need, among us, Europeans, for what Heidegger called Auseinandersetzung (interpretive confrontation) with others as well as with Europe's own past in all its scope, from its Ancient and Judeo-Christian roots to the recently deceased Welfare-State idea. Europe is today split between the so-called Anglo-Saxon model - accept the "modernization" (adaptation to the rules of the new global order) - and the French-German model - save as much as possible of the "old European" welfare-state. Although opposed, these two options are the two side of the same coin, and our true is neither to return to any idealized form of the past - these models are clearly exhausted -, nor to convince Europeans that, if we are to survive as a world power, we should as fast as possible accommodate ourselves to the recent trends of globalization. Nor is the task what is arguably the worst option, the search for a "creative synthesis" between European traditions of globalization, with the aim to get something one is tempted to call "globalization with a European face."
Every crisis is in itself an instigation for a new beginning; every collapse of short-term strategic and pragmatic measures (for financial reorganization of the Union, etc.) a blessing in disguise, an opportunity to rethink the very foundations. What we need is a retrieval-through-repetition (Wieder-Holung): through a critical confrontation with the entire European tradition, one should repeat the question "What is Europe?", or, rather, "What does it mean for us to be Europeans?", and thus formulate a new inception. The task is difficult, it compels us to take a great risk of stepping into the unknown - yet its only alternative is slow decay, the gradual transformation of Europe into what Greece was for the mature Roman Empire, a destination for nostalgic cultural tourism with no effective relevance. [26]
And - a further point apropos which we should risk the hypothesis that Heidegger was right, although not in the sense he meant it - what if democracy is not the answer to this predicament? In his Notes Towards a Definition of Culture, the great conservative T.S.Eliot remarked that there are moments when the only choice is the one between sectarianism and non-belief, when the only way to keep a religion alive is to perform a sectarian split from its main corpse. This is our only chance today: only by means of a "sectarian split" from the standard European legacy, by cutting ourselves off the decaying corpse of the old Europe, can we keep the renewed European legacy alive. Such a split should render problematic the very premises that we tend to accept as our destiny, as non-negotiable data of our predicament - the phenomenon usually designated as the global New World Order and the need, through "modernization," to accommodate ourselves to it. To put it bluntly, if the emerging New World Order is the non-negotiable frame for all of us, then Europe is lost, so the ONLY solution for Europe is to take the risk and BREAK this spell of our destiny. NOTHING should be accepted as inviolable in this new foundation, neither the need for economic "modernization" nor the most sacred liberal and democratic fetishes.
So although the French and Dutch NO is not sustained by a coherent and detailed alternate vision, it at least clears the space for it, opening up a void which demands to be filled in with new projects - in contrast to the pro-Constitution stance which effectively precludes thinking, presenting us with an administrative-political fait accompli. The message of the French NO to all of us who care for Europe is: no, anonymous experts whose merchandise is sold to us in a brightly-colored liberal-multiculturalist package, will not prevent us from THINKING. It is time for us, citizens of Europe, to become aware that we have to make a properly POLITICAL decision of what we want. No enlightened administrator will do the job for us.
[...]
http://www.lacan.com/zizpopulism.htm
[...]
What, then, is Europe's predicament today? Europe lies in the great pincers between America on the one side and China on the other. America and China, seen metaphysically, are both the same: the same hopeless frenzy of unchained technology and of the rootless organization of the average man. When the farthest corner of the globe has been conquered technically and can be exploited economically; when any incident you like, in any place you like, at any time you like, becomes accessible as fast as you like; when, through the TV "live coverage," you can simultaneously "experience" a battle in Iraqi desert and an opera performance in Beijing; when, in a global digital network, time is nothing but speed, instantaneity, and simultaneity; when a winner in reality TV-show counts as the great man of a people; then, yes, there still looms like a specter over all this uproar the question: what for? - where to? - and what then? [25]
There is thus a need, among us, Europeans, for what Heidegger called Auseinandersetzung (interpretive confrontation) with others as well as with Europe's own past in all its scope, from its Ancient and Judeo-Christian roots to the recently deceased Welfare-State idea. Europe is today split between the so-called Anglo-Saxon model - accept the "modernization" (adaptation to the rules of the new global order) - and the French-German model - save as much as possible of the "old European" welfare-state. Although opposed, these two options are the two side of the same coin, and our true is neither to return to any idealized form of the past - these models are clearly exhausted -, nor to convince Europeans that, if we are to survive as a world power, we should as fast as possible accommodate ourselves to the recent trends of globalization. Nor is the task what is arguably the worst option, the search for a "creative synthesis" between European traditions of globalization, with the aim to get something one is tempted to call "globalization with a European face."
Every crisis is in itself an instigation for a new beginning; every collapse of short-term strategic and pragmatic measures (for financial reorganization of the Union, etc.) a blessing in disguise, an opportunity to rethink the very foundations. What we need is a retrieval-through-repetition (Wieder-Holung): through a critical confrontation with the entire European tradition, one should repeat the question "What is Europe?", or, rather, "What does it mean for us to be Europeans?", and thus formulate a new inception. The task is difficult, it compels us to take a great risk of stepping into the unknown - yet its only alternative is slow decay, the gradual transformation of Europe into what Greece was for the mature Roman Empire, a destination for nostalgic cultural tourism with no effective relevance. [26]
And - a further point apropos which we should risk the hypothesis that Heidegger was right, although not in the sense he meant it - what if democracy is not the answer to this predicament? In his Notes Towards a Definition of Culture, the great conservative T.S.Eliot remarked that there are moments when the only choice is the one between sectarianism and non-belief, when the only way to keep a religion alive is to perform a sectarian split from its main corpse. This is our only chance today: only by means of a "sectarian split" from the standard European legacy, by cutting ourselves off the decaying corpse of the old Europe, can we keep the renewed European legacy alive. Such a split should render problematic the very premises that we tend to accept as our destiny, as non-negotiable data of our predicament - the phenomenon usually designated as the global New World Order and the need, through "modernization," to accommodate ourselves to it. To put it bluntly, if the emerging New World Order is the non-negotiable frame for all of us, then Europe is lost, so the ONLY solution for Europe is to take the risk and BREAK this spell of our destiny. NOTHING should be accepted as inviolable in this new foundation, neither the need for economic "modernization" nor the most sacred liberal and democratic fetishes.
So although the French and Dutch NO is not sustained by a coherent and detailed alternate vision, it at least clears the space for it, opening up a void which demands to be filled in with new projects - in contrast to the pro-Constitution stance which effectively precludes thinking, presenting us with an administrative-political fait accompli. The message of the French NO to all of us who care for Europe is: no, anonymous experts whose merchandise is sold to us in a brightly-colored liberal-multiculturalist package, will not prevent us from THINKING. It is time for us, citizens of Europe, to become aware that we have to make a properly POLITICAL decision of what we want. No enlightened administrator will do the job for us.
[...]
SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK & BORIS GUNJEVIC
http://www.cityarts.net/event/slavoj-zizek-boris-gunjevic/
Philosopher *God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse **
Croatian Theologian * Crucified Subject: Without Grail
In Conversation with Roy Eisenhardt
Monday, April 23, 2012, 8:00 pm
Venue: Palace of Fine Arts
Series: Social Studies
Buy Tickets | 415.392.4400
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. His books include Living in the End Times, In Defense of Lost Causes, and four volumes of the Essential Žižek. The forthcoming God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse is a brilliant dissection and reconstruction of Christianity, Islam, and Judiasm where, along with co-author Boris Gunjévic, Žižek employs Hegelian and Lacanian analysis to show how each faith understands humanity and divinity — and how the differences between them may be far stranger than they may at first seem. Last summer, the Marxist theorist even managed to bridge the gap between intellectual discourse and the gossip of the New York Post’s “Page Six” when it was reported that he and Lady Gaga spent time discussing feminism and collective human creativity. The rumors were false, but Žižek’s popularity outside traditional academic circles is undeniable thanks to his interest in contemporary issues and keen sense of humor. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The Croatian Theologian Boris Gunjevic serves as a lecturer in ethics at the Biblijski Institut in Zagreb, Croatia. He is the author of Crucified Subject: Without the Grail and co-author with Žižek of “God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse.”
Philosopher *God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse **
Croatian Theologian * Crucified Subject: Without Grail
In Conversation with Roy Eisenhardt
Monday, April 23, 2012, 8:00 pm
Venue: Palace of Fine Arts
Series: Social Studies
Buy Tickets | 415.392.4400
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. His books include Living in the End Times, In Defense of Lost Causes, and four volumes of the Essential Žižek. The forthcoming God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse is a brilliant dissection and reconstruction of Christianity, Islam, and Judiasm where, along with co-author Boris Gunjévic, Žižek employs Hegelian and Lacanian analysis to show how each faith understands humanity and divinity — and how the differences between them may be far stranger than they may at first seem. Last summer, the Marxist theorist even managed to bridge the gap between intellectual discourse and the gossip of the New York Post’s “Page Six” when it was reported that he and Lady Gaga spent time discussing feminism and collective human creativity. The rumors were false, but Žižek’s popularity outside traditional academic circles is undeniable thanks to his interest in contemporary issues and keen sense of humor. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The Croatian Theologian Boris Gunjevic serves as a lecturer in ethics at the Biblijski Institut in Zagreb, Croatia. He is the author of Crucified Subject: Without the Grail and co-author with Žižek of “God in Pain: Inversions of Apocalypse.”
Impeach the Supreme Court Justices If They Overturn Health-Care Law
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/03/impeach-the-supreme-court-justices-if-they-overturn-health-care-law.print.html
The Roberts Court’s rulings appear to be a concerted effort to send us back to the Gilded Age. If they dump the Affordable Care Act, writes David Dow, we should dump them.
by David R. Dow
You think the idea is laughable? Thomas Jefferson disagreed with you.
Jefferson believed Supreme Court justices who undermine the principles of the Constitution ought to be impeached, and that wasn’t just idle talk. During his presidency, Jefferson led the effort to oust Justice Salmon Chase, arguing that Chase was improperly seizing power. The Senate acquitted Chase in 1805, and no Justice has been impeached since, but as the Supreme Court threatens to nullify the health-care law, Jefferson’s idea is worth revisiting.
The problem with the current court is not merely that there is a good chanceit will strike down a clearly constitutional law. The problem is that this decision would be the latest salvo in what seems to be a sustained effort on the part of the Roberts Court to return the country to the Gilded Age.
During that period—which ran from the years after of the Civil War to the start of the 20th century—wealth became highly concentrated and corporations came to dominate American business.
At the close of the Gilded Age, the U.S. infant mortality rate was around 10 percent—a number you find today in impoverished Central African nations. In some cities, it exceeded 30 percent. Women could not vote, and their lives were controlled by men. Blacks lived apart from whites and comprised an economic, social, and political underclass. Corporations exerted an unchecked and deleterious influence on the lives of workers.
If the Supreme Court Justices dump the Affordable Care Act, writes David Dow, we should dump them., Tim Sloan, AFP / Getty Images
All these ills were ultimately addressed by the federal government, but the strongest and most sustained resistance to fixing them came from the court. One exception was the great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who argued that where economic regulations are at stake, judges must respect legislative decisions aimed at protecting society’s most vulnerable members. Our Constitution,Holmes famously wrote, does not enact social Darwinism. If the legislature acts to protect the poor and less powerful, its actions must be respected by the judicial branch.
That idea doesn’t appear to hold much water with the current court. Justice Clarence Thomas, in particular, has a well-known affinity for the values of the Gilded Age. But he has quietly gone from being an outlier to being only one of five consistently regressive votes.
The pattern began with the court’s 2007 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, a case involving a rarely used, late-term abortion procedure. In holding that the government can prohibit abortion even where a woman’s life or health is at risk, the court overturned a decision that was not yet 10 years old.
To justify the ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy—an ostensibly staunch believer in individual liberty—explained that some women who might otherwise undergo it would come to regret their decision. Ah, fickle women! Since Roe v. Wade the abortion debate has always involved male-dominated legislatures enacting laws telling women what they can and cannot do. The Roberts Court, it seems, is similarly not averse to helping protect women from themselves.
A decision striking down the health care law would be a statement that the only people entitled to health care are the people who can afford it.
Also in 2007, the court ruled that a Seattle school district’s plan to achieve racial balance in its public schools was unconstitutional. Reasonable people can of course disagree about whether using race to arrive at a diverse student body is good policy or bad. But there is an unquestionable moral distinction between using race to encourage racial integration versus using race to keep the blacks away.
The latter is, of course, what the court allowed in 1896, when it upheld the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson. Justice Harlan famously dissented in Plessy, insisting that the Constitution is colorblind. In a perverse rhetorical move, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court in the Seattle case, suggested that Harlan's phrase applies equally where the government is trying to promote the blending of the races rather than maintaining their separation.
And then came Citizens United, in which the court struck down a popularly supported, bipartisan effort to place limits on the ability of the wealthy to dominate political discourse. Income inequality is a fact of life in a capitalist system. But when it comes to choosing our elected representatives, the people are supposed to stand on equal footing. Your right to control your destiny by electing people who share your visions and values is not supposed to depend on the fatness of your wallet. But now, thanks to five justices, it does. In ruling that corporations have a First Amendment right that precludes Congress from regulating how much money they can spend to support political candidates or causes, the court propped up a regime where the voices of the wealthy drown out all the rest.
Each of these cases was decided by a 5-4 vote, along predictable and ideological lines. Each overturned comparatively recent precedent. Each paid obeisance to a 19th-century norm. And while any individual ruling can always be justified or explained away, a larger truth emerges ineluctably from the whole. A decision overturning the Affordable Care Act will fit snugly into this narrative.
The vacuity of the arguments against the health-care law has been well covered (see especially Akhil Amar’s analysis in Slate). I will add only two points.
First, Congress’s authority in passing the law rests on an elementary syllogism: You don't have to drive, but if you do, the government can make you buy insurance. The logical structure at work here is that if you are going to do something (drive, for example), the government can make you purchase a commercial product (insurance, for example), so long as it has a good reason for doing so (making sure you can pay for any damage you do). That logic is obviously satisfied in the health-care context. You are going to use medical care, so the government can make you buy insurance in order to make sure you can pay for it. Liberty, like every other human and constitutional right, is not absolute. Under some circumstances, it can be regulated.
Which leads to the second point: critics of the health-care law say the only reason the rest of us have to pay for medical services used by people who have no money is that laws require hospitals to treat people who come in for emergencies regardless of their ability to pay. In other words, the critics say, the only reason there is a social cost—the only reason the syllogism works—is because of the underlying laws requiring hospitals to treat the poor.
Unlike silly examples involving broccoli and cell phones, that so-called “bootstrap” argument is sound. But here the critics drop their ideological mask as surely as the court dropped it in the Gonzales ruling. Their argument can be restated thusly: if you repeal laws requiring hospitals to treat the poor, you eliminate the constitutional basis for mandatory insurance coverage.
You don’t have to pull the analytical thread of that reasoning very hard to see that it boils down to an argument for allowing the poor to die. And if the Supreme Court strikes down the health-care law, that is exactly the ideology it will have to embrace. It will be saying that Congress cannot guarantee medical coverage for the poor and then implement a system to pay for it. In other words, the only people entitled to health care are the people who can afford it.
The last time the court went down this path, saner heads prevailed. Oliver Wendell Holmes’s view was historically and constitutionally correct, and the court finally acknowledged this in a pivotal 1937 case, West Coast Hotel v. Parish. In West Coast Hotel, the court ruled that the Constitution safeguards not just individual liberty but community interests as well; and in matters of economics, it is the legislature’s job to strike the appropriate balance between those two. If the Roberts Court overturns the Affordable Care Act, it will be mimicking the discredited court of 1935.
We can argue about whether President Jefferson was right to try to impeach Justice Chase. But there’s no question that he was right to say that impeachment is an option for justices who undermine constitutional values. There are other options, as well. We might amend the Constitution to establish judicial term limits. Or we might increase the number of justices to dilute the influence of its current members (though FDR could tell you how that turned out). In the end, however, it is the duty of the people to protect the Constitution from the court. Social progress cannot be held hostage by five unelected men.
The Roberts Court’s rulings appear to be a concerted effort to send us back to the Gilded Age. If they dump the Affordable Care Act, writes David Dow, we should dump them.
by David R. Dow
You think the idea is laughable? Thomas Jefferson disagreed with you.
Jefferson believed Supreme Court justices who undermine the principles of the Constitution ought to be impeached, and that wasn’t just idle talk. During his presidency, Jefferson led the effort to oust Justice Salmon Chase, arguing that Chase was improperly seizing power. The Senate acquitted Chase in 1805, and no Justice has been impeached since, but as the Supreme Court threatens to nullify the health-care law, Jefferson’s idea is worth revisiting.
The problem with the current court is not merely that there is a good chanceit will strike down a clearly constitutional law. The problem is that this decision would be the latest salvo in what seems to be a sustained effort on the part of the Roberts Court to return the country to the Gilded Age.
During that period—which ran from the years after of the Civil War to the start of the 20th century—wealth became highly concentrated and corporations came to dominate American business.
At the close of the Gilded Age, the U.S. infant mortality rate was around 10 percent—a number you find today in impoverished Central African nations. In some cities, it exceeded 30 percent. Women could not vote, and their lives were controlled by men. Blacks lived apart from whites and comprised an economic, social, and political underclass. Corporations exerted an unchecked and deleterious influence on the lives of workers.
If the Supreme Court Justices dump the Affordable Care Act, writes David Dow, we should dump them., Tim Sloan, AFP / Getty Images
All these ills were ultimately addressed by the federal government, but the strongest and most sustained resistance to fixing them came from the court. One exception was the great Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who argued that where economic regulations are at stake, judges must respect legislative decisions aimed at protecting society’s most vulnerable members. Our Constitution,Holmes famously wrote, does not enact social Darwinism. If the legislature acts to protect the poor and less powerful, its actions must be respected by the judicial branch.
That idea doesn’t appear to hold much water with the current court. Justice Clarence Thomas, in particular, has a well-known affinity for the values of the Gilded Age. But he has quietly gone from being an outlier to being only one of five consistently regressive votes.
The pattern began with the court’s 2007 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, a case involving a rarely used, late-term abortion procedure. In holding that the government can prohibit abortion even where a woman’s life or health is at risk, the court overturned a decision that was not yet 10 years old.
To justify the ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy—an ostensibly staunch believer in individual liberty—explained that some women who might otherwise undergo it would come to regret their decision. Ah, fickle women! Since Roe v. Wade the abortion debate has always involved male-dominated legislatures enacting laws telling women what they can and cannot do. The Roberts Court, it seems, is similarly not averse to helping protect women from themselves.
A decision striking down the health care law would be a statement that the only people entitled to health care are the people who can afford it.
Also in 2007, the court ruled that a Seattle school district’s plan to achieve racial balance in its public schools was unconstitutional. Reasonable people can of course disagree about whether using race to arrive at a diverse student body is good policy or bad. But there is an unquestionable moral distinction between using race to encourage racial integration versus using race to keep the blacks away.
The latter is, of course, what the court allowed in 1896, when it upheld the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson. Justice Harlan famously dissented in Plessy, insisting that the Constitution is colorblind. In a perverse rhetorical move, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court in the Seattle case, suggested that Harlan's phrase applies equally where the government is trying to promote the blending of the races rather than maintaining their separation.
And then came Citizens United, in which the court struck down a popularly supported, bipartisan effort to place limits on the ability of the wealthy to dominate political discourse. Income inequality is a fact of life in a capitalist system. But when it comes to choosing our elected representatives, the people are supposed to stand on equal footing. Your right to control your destiny by electing people who share your visions and values is not supposed to depend on the fatness of your wallet. But now, thanks to five justices, it does. In ruling that corporations have a First Amendment right that precludes Congress from regulating how much money they can spend to support political candidates or causes, the court propped up a regime where the voices of the wealthy drown out all the rest.
Each of these cases was decided by a 5-4 vote, along predictable and ideological lines. Each overturned comparatively recent precedent. Each paid obeisance to a 19th-century norm. And while any individual ruling can always be justified or explained away, a larger truth emerges ineluctably from the whole. A decision overturning the Affordable Care Act will fit snugly into this narrative.
The vacuity of the arguments against the health-care law has been well covered (see especially Akhil Amar’s analysis in Slate). I will add only two points.
First, Congress’s authority in passing the law rests on an elementary syllogism: You don't have to drive, but if you do, the government can make you buy insurance. The logical structure at work here is that if you are going to do something (drive, for example), the government can make you purchase a commercial product (insurance, for example), so long as it has a good reason for doing so (making sure you can pay for any damage you do). That logic is obviously satisfied in the health-care context. You are going to use medical care, so the government can make you buy insurance in order to make sure you can pay for it. Liberty, like every other human and constitutional right, is not absolute. Under some circumstances, it can be regulated.
Which leads to the second point: critics of the health-care law say the only reason the rest of us have to pay for medical services used by people who have no money is that laws require hospitals to treat people who come in for emergencies regardless of their ability to pay. In other words, the critics say, the only reason there is a social cost—the only reason the syllogism works—is because of the underlying laws requiring hospitals to treat the poor.
Unlike silly examples involving broccoli and cell phones, that so-called “bootstrap” argument is sound. But here the critics drop their ideological mask as surely as the court dropped it in the Gonzales ruling. Their argument can be restated thusly: if you repeal laws requiring hospitals to treat the poor, you eliminate the constitutional basis for mandatory insurance coverage.
You don’t have to pull the analytical thread of that reasoning very hard to see that it boils down to an argument for allowing the poor to die. And if the Supreme Court strikes down the health-care law, that is exactly the ideology it will have to embrace. It will be saying that Congress cannot guarantee medical coverage for the poor and then implement a system to pay for it. In other words, the only people entitled to health care are the people who can afford it.
The last time the court went down this path, saner heads prevailed. Oliver Wendell Holmes’s view was historically and constitutionally correct, and the court finally acknowledged this in a pivotal 1937 case, West Coast Hotel v. Parish. In West Coast Hotel, the court ruled that the Constitution safeguards not just individual liberty but community interests as well; and in matters of economics, it is the legislature’s job to strike the appropriate balance between those two. If the Roberts Court overturns the Affordable Care Act, it will be mimicking the discredited court of 1935.
We can argue about whether President Jefferson was right to try to impeach Justice Chase. But there’s no question that he was right to say that impeachment is an option for justices who undermine constitutional values. There are other options, as well. We might amend the Constitution to establish judicial term limits. Or we might increase the number of justices to dilute the influence of its current members (though FDR could tell you how that turned out). In the end, however, it is the duty of the people to protect the Constitution from the court. Social progress cannot be held hostage by five unelected men.
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