Theorizing the Emergence of the Rabble: A Genealogy of Redemptive Violence in Late Capitalism
Date
2014-01-02
Authors
Elliott, Kevin
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Abstract
Seizing upon G.W.F. Hegel’s unresolved problem of poverty, and more generally, of politics, in his Philosophy of Right, I theorize the emergence of Hegel’s “irrational” rabble in ostensibly incomprehensible violent riots. Specifically, I argue that such violence functions redemptively by latently symbolizing a Hegelian demand for recognition and, via Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, as a catalyst in a lineation of riots that gestures towards transformative possibilities. Violence compels self-reflective thought to interrogate the hegemony of immaterial labour that excludes the rabble under late capitalism, a speculative game with winners and losers: financial capitalists and society’s underclass. I conclude by explicating an implicit connection between Hegel’s political theory and Walter Benjamin’s philosophy and argue that this connection responds to Hegel’s own political impasse. In the context of contemporary politics, I contend that the rabble’s emergence in a Benjaminian light illuminates new means for critique against the system of late capitalism.
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Keywords
Divine Violence, Hegel, Late Capitalism, Political Theory, Rabble, Riots