Borradori, G. - Philosophy in a Time of Terror
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PHILOSOPHY IN
A
TIME OF
TERROR
DL DL GU GUS S WH JG HBS D JCQS DD
G io io v a n n a B or or r a d ori
THE UNIVERS ITY OF CHICAGO AND
CICAG O LONDON
PRES S
FO R
G I0 V A NN A BO R RADO R Iis associate professor of philosophy at Vassa Colege. She is the author of e American Philosopher: Conversations with Quine, Davion, Putnam, Nozick Danto, Rorty, Cavell, MacIntyre, Kuhn, pubished by the Universit of Chicago Press, and the editor of Recoding Metaphysics The New Italian Philosophy.
GE R A R D O
0-22606664-9 (cloth)
Librar of Congress CataoginginPubication Data Habermas,Jrgen Phiosophy in a time of terror: diaoges with Jrgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida / [interewed by] Giovanna Borradori p. cm Incudes bibiographica references. ISBN0-22606664-9 (coth ak. paper) 1 September 11 Terrorist Attacks 2001. 2 TerrorismPhiosophy. TerrorismPhiosophy. 3. Poitica sciencePhiosophy 4. Habermas,JrgenInteriews. Habermas,JrgenInteriews. 5. DerridaJacquesInteiews. I. Derrida,acques. I. Borradori Giovanna. II. Tite. 6432·7 .32 2003 3036'25dc2
2002043559
@ The paper used in this pubication meets the minimum requirements of the American
Nationa Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Librar Materas, ANSIZ3948-1992.
LU LUC I A
Z A MP AG AGL I O N E
M Y P R V A T E L T TL E
The University of Chicago Press Chicago 6067 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd, London © 2003 by The University of Chicago Al rights resered Pubished 2003 Printed in the United States of America 12 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN:
AND
H E R O ES
CONTENTS
P R E FA C E
Philosophy in a Tme of Terror Terror i A C KN KN O W L E D G E M E N TS
XV
I T T R O D UC U CT I O N
Terrorism an d the Legacy o f the the Enlightenment Habermas and Derrida PA R T O E
Fundametalism and Terror A Diaogue with Jrgen Habermas 25 Reconstructing Terrorism-Habermas 45 PAR T TWO
Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Symbolic Suicides A Diaogue with Jacques Derrida 85 Deconstructing Terrorism-Derrida 137 Notes
173
Index
99
PF PFA A
Ph i l so phy a im e e e
Phiosohy Phiosohy books are seldom sel dom conceived at a recise oint oin t in time or in a secic lace. Kant muled over he Citique Citiqu e Pue Pue Reaso Reas o for eeven years: he called it the silent s ilent decade." decade. " Sinoza worked most of his life at the Ethics, which was ubished osthumousy. Socrates never wrote a single ine. The case c ase of o f this book is dierent, dierent, for for it was conceived in the san of a few hours, in ew York ity, during the morning of Setember 1, 1 I lived /1 rsthand: I was searated from my children, who were stranded in their schoos at the oosite ends of town, and from from my husband, a reorter, who ran for his ife covering the attack on the Twin Towers. From my ersective, the unthinkabe broke out of a gorious late summer morning, which inexlicaby turned into something cose to aocalyse. Al communication was suddeny cut: the hone and the Internet Intern et were down, no ublic transortation transortation was available, the airports were closed and so were raiway stations and bridges. ike the rest res t of the word, I watched the th e tragedy unfold unfold on television; unlike the rest of the word, I knew that some fty blocks from my
X
Acknowledgements
for me a great source sou rce of hilosohical hilosohica l and human insiration insir ation throughout the years. James Traub, whose acute mind and imacable sense of humor made me laugh when laughterwas realy a I needed. need ed. And Brooke Kroeger, the strongest stron gest woman I kow, whose aection and belief bel ief in me I wil simy never forget. Among the eoe to whom I feel most indebted are my editor at the University of hicago hicago Press, David Brent, Bren t, and Giusee aterza from Editori aterza. Their condence in this book as wel as their kndness and friendshi have been recious. At the University of hicago Press I would like to thank aia Melissa Rigas for her excel lent coyediting of the manuscrit under extreme circumstances. owe owe a lot to uis Guzman, who did a wonder wonder job transating transating my dialogue with Habermas, and ichael aas and PascaeAnne Brault, whose rendering of my exchange with Derrida into English isi s nothing short of a work of art. This book made me reaize how imortant it is to feel valued and suorted by ones home institution. I am very grate to Vassar Vassar olege and its resident, resid ent, Francis Fergusson; the chair of my my deartment, Douglas Winblad; and Kathy Magurno, the deartments administrative assistant. I aso wish to thank all my students at Vassar olege, who cheered for me and ket u my sirit. Secial thanks go to ax Shmooer, my marvelous research assistant, and Zachary Allen, whose assion assi on for hiosohy and dedication d edication to my rojec rojectt were really unforunforgettabe. y two chidren, Gerardo and an d ucia Zamagione, Zamagione , have been fabfabulous suorters suorters of this book. They understood that it meant mea nt a lot to me and endured my extended absences from from home and their ives. ves. For this, I wish to thank them. Finay,y, ast on o n this list but bu t rst in my heart is my husband, husba nd, Arturo Zamaglione. As we lived hand in hand through the tragedy and the trauma of, this is his book, too. That day, day, and every other day until today, he has oered me nothing ess than his unconditional love.
INTROUCTION S S M A H LGA Y
F H H
LGM
a b e m a s a d D e e i d a
One might wonder whether the discussion disc ussion of / and global terrorism terrorism needs to reach as far as a critical reassessment reassessm ent of the oitical oitical ideas of the Enlightenment. Enlightenment. The thesis of this this book is that it does. does . Both the at tacks of / and the range of dilomatic dilomatic and miitary reactions they have rovoked rovoked require a reassessmen reas sessmentt of the validity of the Enighten ment roject roject and ideals. Habermas and Derrida agree that thejuridical juridical and olitical system structuring international law and existing multilatera institutions grows out of o f the Western hilosohical heritage grounded in the Enlightenment, lightenment, understood as a general intellectual orientation orientation anchored on a number of key texts. If this this is true, who else but a hilosoher has the tools to critically examine the adequacy of the existing framework
Introduction
A condton for Russell's oltcal actvsm s that hlosohy be granted the same s ame negatve freedom freedom by hstory hsto ry that the ndvdua ctzen s granted by socety. By bndng knowledge to exerence, emrcsm seemed to hm to be the only orentaton that secures hosohy ts ndeendence from from hstorcal ressures. The only hlosohy that aords aords a theoretcal theo retcal justcaton jus tcaton of democracy n ts temer of mnd s emrcsm." emrc sm." Ths s arty because democracy democ racy and emrcsm (whch are ntmatey nterconnected) do not demand a dstorton d storton of facts n n the nterest nteres t of theory."6 theory."6 Take Take the contro con tro versy between between Ptolemy's geocentrc and oerncus's heocentrc systems. Through observaton, we smly know that Ptolemy was wrong and oerncus was rght. Phlosohy's resonsblty resons blty,, Russel argued, as ursued n the unverstes of the Western democratc world, s, at least le ast n ntenton, nten ton, art of the ursut of knowledge, amng at the same knd of detachment as s sought n scence, and not requred, by the authortes, to arrve at conclusons convenent to the th e government."7 For a oltcal actvst on the Russelean model, the seccty secc ty of a hosoher's hosoher 's contrbuton es n sharng wth the ublc ublc her anaytcal tools, heng t thnk lucdly about consng and multfaceted ssues, sortng good from from bad arguments, suortng the good ones and com batng the bad ones. In more recent years, Noam homsky's ubc ubc en gagement,whch ncludes a short book on 9/ contnues n ths Russelean tradton of oltcal actvsm. By contrast, the lfe lfe and oltcal commtment of Arendt rovde a derent derent denton of a hlosoher's ublc role. One of the foreforemost oltcal thnkers of the twenteth twentet h century, century, Arendt exerenced exerence d rsthand the uheava of azsm n Germany, from from whch she escaed esca ed to the Unted States States,, never to return as a resdent. resden t. The only chld of a secuarJewsh secuar Jewsh famly, at twentythree she had her dssertaton aready n rnt. After the burnng of the Rechstag n Berln Berln n 1933 she was arrested aong wth her mother, held, and questoned by the olce for over a week. Released, she escaed va zechosovaka and Swtzerland to nally and n Pars, where she sent s ent seven years workng for for Jewsh organzatons that facltated the channelng of chdren to Palestne. In 940 she marred her second seco nd husband, a German eftst eftst Gentle who hadjust hadjus t been released from a twomonth twomonth detenton n an nternment cam. Yet, before before the th e year was over Arendt herself was n
orism and te t e egac egacy o te nligte nment
7
terned wth her mother n an enemy alen" cam for women, from whch she eventualy escaed. Reunted wth her husband, she boarded a sh from sbon to ew York. York. Whe n the Unted States she became crtcal of the Zonst movement's focus on Paestne rather than Euroe: one of the causes she suorted was the formaton of a Jewsh army to ght aongsde the Ales. From 933 untl obtaned U. S. ctzensh, she soke of herself herself 195 when she naly obtaned as a stateless stat eless erson." She S he ded d ed at age sxtynne, havng havng taught at varvarous U.S. unverstes and contrbutng to the ress as a ublc ntellectua. If for Russel hlosohy's rst commtment s the ursut of knowledge knowledge over and beyond beyon d the mact ma ct of tme, for Arendt, Arend t, hloso hy's rst commtment s to human laws and nsttutons, whch by denton evove over tme. Such laws, for for her, desgnate not only the boundares between rvate rvate and ublc nterest but also the descrton of the reatons between ctzens. ctzens . In her two major major books, The Human Condton (944) and The The Ogns o taltaransm ( 958) Arendt underlnes the need for hosohy to recognze the extreme agty of human laws and nsttutons, whch she sees dramatcaly dramatcaly ncreased by the onset ons et of modernty, modernty, taken as a cultural and hstorcal aradgm. In ths sense, sens e, she understood unde rstood her hosohcal resonsblty resonsblty n terms of a crtque of moderntyan moderntyan evaluaton of the ecular chalenges re sented to thought by modern Euroean hstor. hstor. In t, the concet of totataransm features as the ultmate chalenge. Unlke tyranny, whch romotes lawlessness, the two totaltaran regmes of the mdtwenteth century, century, Stalnsm and azsm, were not awless awless.. Rather, they romoted nexorable laws that were resented as ether laws of nature (the (th e bologcal laws of racal suerorty) or laws of hstory (the economc econo mc aws of cass cass struggle). In I n Arendt's readng, totaltaransm s a dstnctly mode otcal danger, whch whch combnes combn es unrecedented seralzed ser alzed coercon wth a totalzng secular deology deolo gy.. The tota terror" ractced n the extermnaton cams and the gulags s not the means but the essence of totataran government." In turn, the essence esse nce of terror s not the hyscal elmnaton of whomever s erceved to be derent but the eradcaton of derence n eoe, namey, namey, ofther the r ndvdualty and caacty for for autonomous autono mous acton ac ton.. The monooly of ower sought by totaltaran regmes can be acheved and saf sa feguarded ony n a world of condtoned reexes, of maronettes
8
Intoduction
without the slightest trace of o f sontanety sontanety Precisely because man's resources are so great, he can be y dominated only when he becomes a secmen of the animaseces man" The objectcaton Arendt set as the denng core of totaltaranism was not restrcted to the vctims of the mass murders carred out n the concentraton concentr aton cams and the glags but was required of the eretrators, too In 19, 19 , Arendt was asked by the New Yrker Y rker to cover the tral of the fugitve az crimnal Adolf Echmann, catured n Argentina by the Mossad, the Israel secret servce, and brought to stand tral n Jerusalem, where he h e was eventuallyly executed Arendt's corresondence from Jerusaem broke her long selfimosed silence on the J ewsh queston" that dated to the establishment of the state of Israel and the falure ofJudah ofJudah Magnes's eorts to establsh a bnatonal democratc federaton n Palestine ater revsed and ublshed as a book,2 Arendt's reort focused focused on the descrtion of Eichmann as an obtuse obtus e ndvdual who drfted drfted wth the times ti mes and resed re sed to t o crtcally examne any ofhs criminal actons In hs thoughtless ordnarnesshs seaking in clchs, aarent lack of fanatcal fanatcal hatred for for the Jews, and rde in being a lawabidng citizenEichmann aeared to her as the ncar nation of the banalty of evl"3 evl"3 o doubt, dou bt, her belef that hlosohy revolves revolves around the th e cultvacultvaton and rotecton rotect on of a healthy oltcal saceforged out of oular artcation, human dversty, and equaltyreected the urgency of her own ersonal resonse to total terror a resonse that arose out of trauma, trauma, dslacement, loss, loss , and exile Yet, this is also the mark of an ancent orentaton that Arendt nherited from the Greeks Since Socrates, hilosohy has nvolved the unresolvable but roductive tenson between action and seculation, timelness and tmelessness, vta atva and vta ontemplatva. Philosophy and the Traumas of Twentieth-Centu History
Desite their sharly distinct aroaches to hlosohy, Habermas and Derrida seem se em to follow n the Arendtan model ike Arendt and unlke Russell, they do not look at oltcal commtment as a sulement to ther commtment to hiosohy, an otion that can be taken u, ostoned, or even rejected rejected altogether altogether Both of them have have encoun
oism and t e egacy o te nligtenment nligtenment
9
tered and embraced hilosohy n the context of the traumas of twentethcentury Euroean hstory: colonalism, totalitariansm, and the Holocaust Their contributions to the subject of 9/1 and global terrorism follow follow n the same sam e ven Habermas and Derrda were born only a year aart, n 199 and 9, resectively, and were adolescents durng World War II Habermas lved n Germany, Germany, under the ominous gri of the Thrd Reich, Reic h, while while Derrida lived n Algeria, Algeria, a French colony at that tha t tme Habermas recalls the dee state of shock that he and hs frends found themselves n as they learned about the azi atrocities at the uremberg trals and, subsequently subs equently,, n a seres s eres of documentary documentary lms We beleved that a sritual and moral renewal was indisensable and nevtable"4 nevtable" 4 The challenge of how to acheve a moral renewal n a country wth an unmasterable ast"5 has been Habermas's lfelong quest, whch he has ursued with excetonal loyalty and asson both as a hilosoher and as a ublic intellectual intellectual The task was so monumental that one cannot avoid onderng how a man of hs great talent, havng been resented many tmes with academic oers oers from around the world, did not decide decid e to leave Germany Germa ny and remove the German question" q uestion" from from the center ce nter stage of his lfe lfe and thought thou ght After After all, t would have made ma de erf e rfect ect sense from the standoint of his cosmoolitan belefs The fact that he never dd d d leave s for for me great cause for admiration The crucal role he layed during the Hstorans' Debate (Hstorkerstret) reresents comellng evdence for the deth of Habermas's Habermas's ublc commtment In the md98s several German hstorans began to question the uniqueness" of o f azi crimes, thereby oenng the way to a revsonst readng amed at equatng them wth other twentethcentury olitcal olitcal tragedes Habermas was artculary outraged at the renowned Berlin historan Est olte, who suggested that a consicuous shortcomng of the literature literature on atonal Socialsm s that t doesn't does n't know, know, or doesdoe sn't want to admt, to what extent everythng everythng that was later done by the azs, wth the sole exceton of the the technical rocedure of gassng, had already been descrbed descr bed n an extensive lterature datng from from the early early 9"6 olte claims that the Holocaust Holocau st was ndamentally ndamentally on a ar wth the Stalnist urges and even wth the Bolshevk uheaval, excet for for the techncal t echncal rocedure roce dure of o fgassng" gassng " Habermas, on that occason, reresented the most eloquent voce
Introduction
n def d efeens e of Gera nd i in p a st and rm an pa the Germa on off th at ion o lizati maliz n orm the nor inst the against past. He reits past. h the d ark side of its w ith ea l wit ne ed to d eal lute need any'ss absolute many' n een bee m had had b azism of N azis ealityy of the realit face the to fa al " to sal" tic re matic re traum that a trau arked th mark nteed point lso poi He also eicch. He rd Rei Third R th e Th fal of the the fal ince the ion since in thee nation at work in th genge nw n ow h is o is o f e c tive tiv p e rsp pers pe h e g th t ing r ibin ib scr sc D e . n ia. ia d e this he daanger o f this t o the d e of ose os c he t the t a ho w se t hose ho f n of o ren i dre d c h d r and an he gr h e wrote, The g tion, he eratio iltt guil gu a s ona on e r pe ce p i ence en eri xper o exp e e to t be e ab a be to oo yooung to b weree too y War I I wer rld Wa World o n spo r resp re c o e o m eco t bec b n o a s , ha h er, ever howev ry, how Me mo ry, up . Me wing up. grow ready gro alrea are ar e al t s e , it i ive e ctiv ct s p ers e per p t ive iv ect ec subbj one's su le ss of one's egaardless ," for, eg ted," tiated antia d istan ty dist de nty p ramp ding ing ram oad unloa thee unl ofth es of ages he imag me the im he sam st ill the sa ure is re is sti rtu part depa nt ofde point of ."1 7 itzz."17 schwit Auschw at Au only n ot on ty doo e s not ility d sibbili onsi re spon a nd resp al,, an vi dual ndividu ly in simply i s no n i o t si uilt is Guil er-aber Hab o th H th t bo b h a t th t int poin po s a s is i his . Thi T es. o ices ic c h a l o n so pes pe n g ki h makin w ith come wit st c aust au o o tHo ostH e pos p are ar e y the th t, ndt, rend e Are A ike ik e , u s cau beca be re s hare rr idaa sha nd Derrid as an mas a
hilosohers.
in ined in engraained are engr ityy are ib it nsib espons and respo guit and how guit cuattes how rticua ma s arti ab erm Haber ig w udw Lud i ng L ng oti quot qu e r: t h no an h one one a with ion wit eraction intera aily int our daily text of our the the context of lifee." orm oflif a fform ext a is coontext this c lls th calls tein, h e ca ittgeenstei Wittg hr is h simpl fac ha sbsqn gnraions also grw p from wihin a form oflif in which ha was possibl . Or ow n lif lif is linkd o h lif conx in which Aschwiz was possibl no by coningn cir cmsanc s b inrin sically Or form form of lif lif is connc d o ha of or parns and grandparns hrogh a wb of familial, local, poliical and inllcal radiions ha is dicl o disnanglha is, hrogh a hisorical mili ha mad s who w ar Non of s can scap his mi li, bcas or idniis, boh as individals and as Grmans, ar in dissolbly inrwovn wih i
However, one shoud not resume that since Habermas foregrounds the constitutive role of history, he either downlays the imortance of individual individual articiation articiation in the oitical arena or believes that oitica identity is automaticaly rovided by a historicaly estab lished tradition tra dition.. On the contrary con trary,, articuary articuary in the context conte xt of German nationa identity, identity, he def d efends ends a notion of constitutiona atriotism. Only such atriotism, which is based on o n the free free alegiance to the constituc onstitution on the art of each individua citizen, can forge a rogressive national aiance. aiance. For Habermas, it is essentia es sentia that Germans understand
orm and te egacy egacy o te t e nligtenment
1
themselves as a nation soely on their loyalty to the reubican consti tution, without hanging onto what he cals the reolitica reolitica crutches of nationaity and communiy comm uniy of fate. fate." Derrida exerienced these crutches rsthand when, in October 42 he was exeled from his school, the yce de Ben Aknoun, housed in a former monastery located near EBiar in Ageria where he grew u and lived until he was nineteen years old. The reason reaso n for for the exulsion was not no t rowdy rowdy behavior but the alication of the racia aws in France and its coonial ossessions, incuding Algeria. Identity emerged for for Derrida as a custer cust er ofunstable ofunstable boundaries. As he ainy recolects, the boy who was exeed in 42 was a ittle black and very Arab Jew who understood underst ood nothing nothin g about it, to whom no one ever gave the slightest reason, neither his arents nor his friends."22 Derrida's background highlights highlights the chalenge of existing existing at the boundaries bounda ries of multie territories: Judaism and hristianity, Judaism and Islam, Euroe and Africa, mainand France and its colonies, the sea and the desert. dese rt. This is the same s ame chaenge that Derrida resents resents to hilosohy. The anguage that Derrida recals being used us ed at the time of his exulsion from school highights the olyhony of these voices: In my family family and among h Algrian Jws, on scarcly scarcly vr said cir cmcision b bapism, no Bar Mi zvah b commnion, wih h consqncs of sofning, sofning, dling hrogh farl acclraion, ha I'v always srd srd from from mor or l ss co nscio sly, sly, of navowabl navowabl vns, fl as sc h, no Caholic, violn, barbaros, hard, Arab,circmcisd cir cmcision inriorizd, scrly assmd accsaion of rial mrdr2
For Derrida, then and for the rest of his life, each word branches out into a network ofhistorica and textual textua l connections. His oitical interventions are often aimed at throwing ight uon these hidden continents. As long as we use language unreexively, we remain comletely unaware unaware of them; the robem with this bessed bes sed ignorance is that, just by relying relying on them, the m, we iterate a number of o f normative normative assumtions of which we are not even aware. Take the human being as an examle. Most eole would assume that it is a selfevident designation: a human being is a member of the human secies. The robem is that both human" and secies" are
12
Introduction
de n b roaaden that bro ct ed ma zes tha tr ucte c onsstru ay con rica h istoo ric ut in i n hist ch ou ranch o thaat bran terms ter ms th On e. r ase. as phr ph h is f t of r um o um e ctr ct spe sp tic antic s eman em h e e th t c ate at p ic i te y com denitey and in nd inde s in in s , is i c ies ie pec spe s t h a a wi i se w case ca the is , as is as ies, pecies ec sp uman s th e human nd , th hand, t h e o ne ha e c ame am b e e w h en w of o n stio q uesti ue the tory: the histor narry his tiona evoutio ibed in evou scr scribe ic h in ad opt, w hich tion we ado catio ssica cassi of ca ncipee of he priincip ds u pon the pr ep ends hum hu man depen adh e ad , th t a nd, nd r ha h ot he O n the oth .2 2 On is .22 at itt is what i than wh er ent tha iere be di coud be theor he oryy co d ivid nd ua ti on of an indivi no tio the no ith er the ni es either ompanie accomp h ch acc an," whch ctivee human, j e ctiv ss ue of w hat the issu ith th ce to fa ce with face to u s fa pe ciee s, puts us e speci whoe the who bei being or the d emar we de do o w H n? man? huma hu s a c t as a o ac a n to t ean i t mea m e s D o s. e ans. an n" me hum hu man" m ion uest estion s qu q this thi ch r oach oa p p o ap a i n to t egi n beg b eve ven ot e a nnot nn e c W o r? vi n beh behaavio human cate huma h u inh in or ity or anity uman t s hum h e , it i t ure ur nat na a n u m f h n of o io notion t he no ring to th ferring refer ithoutt re withou
manity.
o f nts of to the events sp onse to a' s re spo ri da's ucia to Derrid c ruci tio n was cr q uesstion This que n con co i ca ca ogi e oog o id eat ide h of o f great ep och t hat epoc n to to th bution tributio co ntri a's con rida's D errid 8. 2 3 Der 196 19 6 8.2 h e o f th t n ep tion c oncceptio ich con which ogatee wh terrrogat to inter turmoi was to in iti ca tur po itic a nd po ict ct an sques via que te d vi ta rted ions star ra tion nsideerat consid take. Hi s co in faact a t stake. was in f ng wa n bei bein huma human n te te h in i e nch nc Fr F r h e g th t ting inatin ina o m d saw s aw h e at " that th s m gis oogi r opoo op thr an the anth ing th tion ioning c is soc so as a ge a ge rita herit he s tic nis mani huma hu h e d th t n ted te ran r gra g for ok h took fo which ectu ec tuaa s c ene, whic o c e to t a n issa e naiss na Re i an R an I tai ta h e t r om s . F opo op o h r nt of anth de a of Greee k i dea th e Gre ated ted w ith the as a h ida errid err t D h a w to y a oy o in ed remaine humanism rem enment, hum ightenm the Enig s" wiithncees" w scienc man scie hum be hu no t be here woud not of man." Ther it y of the unity e d th caed ich or, av , which e ndeavor nique iquey human" en un a nd u tin cty and di stinct t he dis in th ief in a beeief out ou t a b ept. concept. er as a co together n" togeth man" od s ma hods uc h op herrs such o sophe aist phios ste ntiiai ar II, e xistent W r d o f W s s of o n e rkn da I n the dark an-uman a hum h s ica ic ass as o f c n sion ver v ersio e w ne h a n a nch aunc au to ed to oped h rtre hop S artr Pau Sa eanPau as Jean by b y t y, " ait reai an re uman f hum h s of o m term ter in an e man m n re de ed to red posed to p rop Sa rtree pro i sm . Sartr p asep se od stood d ersto er un u n b e ot d not n o ud u c ec t co ubj ect man subj hum the he hu that t ant that which he meant a nd c t b je sub su e n w e et encce b etw penden te rdeepend w ord. 2 4 T his interd he r wor y frrom her rate rat ey f reiti ca repoitic a nd po ra an nd mora oun grou my gr tre a way to rmy Sa rtre nted Sar grante word gra horingg human A nchorin ec t. An ubj ect. the subj of the ion of tution st itut very c onsti ity in the ver onsibbit sponsi antiss ary ant e c essa e ne n the th ed emed seem rd se word wo e's one's on rd ward y towa to i ity it s ibi ib o n e spo sp r in re it y in rea reaity . ism. r ianism ian itar ita o ta ta f t t y o ni humanit inhum the in fo r the ot e fo dote rst to re thee rst were th ist s we iaists entia istent exist thee ex en ifth even if d ed, ed , ev nt end co nten ida co Derrrida Ye t , Der overover in e ed in ed cce t succ su n o i d y di d h e n , th t n g of m a nin meani th e mea of the io n of qu estt ion a sk t he ques e of of e m the th t he h o ugh ug tho th A A an .25 of man.25 unityy of the unit of the ea of idea ica id assica cass ng thee c coming th e itt itt i s sti st e is i er there eriod,, th the period of the rse of is course the disc in th re sentt in quitte presen tory is qui his histor n con co h e historry of t the histo pee, th amp or exam co nc epts. For ex story of con history the hi ctice of the pra practi
rrorism and te t e egacy o te t e nligtenment
3
cet of man is never examined. examined . Everything Everything occurs as if the sign man' had no origin no historica cutura or inguistic imit."26 Derrida's osition here is that once the concet of man man is given historica cutura tura and inguistic boundaries it wi be much harder to resort to any essentiaist arguments. The very mutiicity mutiicity of historica narratives wi wi uset any attemt attemt to construe the concet in terms of irreducibe irreducibe airsman versus woman human versus inhuman human versus anima rationaity rationaity versus instinct cuture versus naturewhich in Derrida's oinion roduces dangerous simications. simications. Particuary for for a generaton that had to make sense sens e of the faiure faiure of the humanistic idea to rotect Euroe from from totaitarianism and genocide Derrida's ange adds a whoe new dimension to the concet of socia socia critique. As for Habermas Haberm as for for Derrida Derri da guit and resonsibiity for the horrors of the twentieth century centu ry cannot be imited imi ted to those tho se who were directy invoved. In the same vein for both of them the oitica commitment of hiosohy is not n ot a matter of ersona choice. By engaging in hiosohy hiosohy one automaticay auto maticay engages in the eort to reckon with its time in this sense neither one of them is a oitica activist whereas both of them if in very dierent dierent ways are socia soc ia critics. For Arendt Habermas and Derrida Derrida hiosohy's rst commitment is to human aws and institutions as they evove through time. This beief marks them as ostHoocaust hiosohers. Their common chaenge has been necessariy how to give a ositive turn to the inteectua deression into which the generation of their teachers had h ad faen faen after after the exerience exerience of ersona exie and the horrors of the 19 and 19s. On the one on e hand Habermas takes tak es the universa vaue of reubican institutions and democratic articiation articiation as a given assed on to us by the tradition of the Enightenment. Seakng against the normaization of the German ast he wrote After Auschwitz our nationa consciousness can be derived ony om the better traditions in our history tory a history that is not unexamined but instead aroriated criticay."27 The robem for him is not that the Enightenment has faied as an inteectua roject roject but bu t that its origina critica attitude attitud e toward history got ost oening the way for oitica barbarism. On the other hand Derrida beieves that universaism is what reubican institutions and democratic articiation strugge toward in their innite quest for justice. justic e. This quest is ensured ony ifwe are oen to considering the no
Introduction
Derrda's approach to ethcs and poltcs has an addtonal dmenson: he calls t a re sponsblty before before alterty and derence, that whch s beyond the boundares of descrpton, excluded , and slent. For hm, ths sense of responsblty artculates the demand for unversalsm assocated wth the Enlghtenment. In lght of the dalogues collected n ths book, one cannot but be persuaded that Habermas and Derrda share an allegance to the Enlghtenment. The derence derence n ther approa ches s no t only of hstorhstorcal nterest (because t casts a new lght on ther relaton) but an llustraton of the rchness and vare that phlosophy s unquely capable of oerng oerng to the nterpretaton of the present moment. The ssue of tolerance, a key concept of both the Enlghtenment and the selfrepresentaton of Western democraces, s a case n pont.34 Derrda s tresses the d stnctly stnctly Chrstan matrx of the noton of tolerance, whch makes t less neutral a poltcal and ethcal concept than t makes tsel f out to be. Th e relgous orgn and focus of the noton of tolerance makes t the r emnant of a paternalstc gesture n whch the other s not accepted as an equal partner but subordnated, perhaps assmlated, and certanly msnterpreted n ts derence. derence. Indeed, tolera nce s rst of all a form form of charty. A Chrstan charty, therefore, therefore, even fJews f Jews and Muslms mght seem to approprat appropratee ths languag languagee as well . . . In ad dton dton to the relgo relgous us meanng meanng of toleranc tolerancee . . . we should also menton ts bologcal, genetc or or organcst connotatons. In France the phrase threshold of tolerance' was used to descrbe the lmt beyond whch t was no longer decent to ask a natonal communty to welcome any more foregne foregne rs, mmgrant workers and the lke." The n oton of tolerance s for Derrda nadequate for for use n secular pol tcs. Its relgous overtone, wth wth deep roots n the Chrstan concepton of charty, charty, defeats an y clam of unversal sm.3 sm. 35 Attentve to all facts facts oflanguag e, Derrda ponts out that t s not a concdence that tolerance tolerance has been ap proprated by the bologcal bologcal dscours e to ndcate the ne lne between ntegraton and rejecton. As s true wth organ transplants and pan management, the threshold of tolerance tolerance desgnates tolerance as the extreme lmt of the organsm's struggle to mantan tself n balance be fore collapse. Tolerance s t hus t he opposte of hosptal, hosptal, whch Derrda oers oers as ts alternatve. Clearly Clearly the dstncton between tolerance and hos ptalty talty s not a sema ntc subtlety but ponts to what s mos t mportant n
Trrorism and the Legac Legacy y of the Enlightenm ent
17
Derr errida id a's app approach ach to et e thics ic s and po p ol itic it icss: the uni unique que obli bligat gation ion th t hat
eac each o f u s ha has to th the othe ther.
But pure or unconditional hospitality does not consist in such an invitation (I invite you, 1 welcome you into my home, on the condition that you adapt to the laws and norms of my territor, territor, according to my angage, tra dition, memor, and so on") . Pure and unconditiona hospitali t, t, hospitalit itse opens or is in advance open to someone who is neither expected nor invited, to whomever arrives as an absolutely foreign visitor, as a new unforeseeable, in short, wholly other. arrival nonidentiabe and unforeseeable,
Derrda's endorsement of hosptalty n place of tolerance s a sophstcated reworkng of a key text by a key ph losopher of the Enlghtenment, Kant, who rst posed the question ofhosptalty hosptalty n the context of nternatona nternatonall relatons.36 Those who nterpret nterpret Derrida as a certan kind of postmodernsta postmodernsta counterEnlightenment thnker wi a leaning toward toward relatvismwould relatvismwould use hs deconstructon of the unversal reach of tolerance n support of ther argument .37 To the contrary, for Derrda, Derrd a, demarcatng the histor ical and cultural lmits of apparently neutral concepts of the Enlghten ment tradton such as tolerance expands and updates rather than betrays ts agenda.3 8 To To meet the spec cally global global challenges of our tme, socal critque and ethcal responsbilty requre the deconstrcton of falsely neutral and potentaly hegemonic dea ls. Far om curtaing the demand for unversaljustce and eedom, d econs tructon renews t nntely. nntely. In contrast, Habermas stands by toerance on both the ethcal and legal front. front. Hs defense of tolerance emerges out of hs concepton of consttutonal consttutonal democracy as the only poltcal stuaton that can accommodate free free and unc oerced communcaton and the formaton of a ratonal consensus. It s true, he says, that the term has a relgous orgn and that t was only subsequently approprated by secular poltcs. Moreover, Moreover, t s true that tolerance s ntrnscally ntrnscally onesded : I t s obvous that the threshold of tolerance, whch separates what s stl acceptable' from from what s not, s arbtrary arbtrary establshed by the exstng authorty. thorty." However, n Habermas s vew, the one sdedne ss of tolerance tolerance s neutralzed f tolerance s practced n the context of a partcpatory poltcal system such as that provded by parlamentary parlamentary democracy. democracy. In a drect response to Derrda, durng our dalogue he claried ths pont:
20
Introduction
framework of internatioal reations does not do much in the way of opening up new cha nes. For what is needed is a change in mentaity, mentaity, which happens rather through the improvement ofliving conditions, through a sensi ble relief om oppre ssion and fear. Trst Trst must b e able to be deveoped in communicative communicative everyday everyday practices. Ony then can a broady eective eective enightenment exted into media, sch ools, ad hom es. And it must do so by aecting aecting the premises of its own poitica poitica culture." The remedy against systematic dis tortions of communication eading to c rosscultura rosscultura violence is to rebuid a ndametal lik of trst trst among peope, which cannot take pace whie oppres sion and fear dominate. Su ch a ink depends as much on the improvement improvement of material material conditions as it does on the politica cuture cuture in which individuals nd nd themseves iteracting with each other, for in the absence of either one mutual perspectivetag becomes impossible. While for Habermas reason, understood as the possibility of transparent and nonmaipulative communication, can cure the ills of modernization, fundamentaism and terrorism among them, for Derrida these destructive strains can be detected and amed but not wholy controlled or conquered. Whereas for Habermas the pathological agents cocern the speed at which modernizatio has imposed itself and the defensive reaction that it has eicited on the part of traditional traditional ways of ife, for Derrida the defensive reaction comes from modernity itsef. Terrorism is for him the symptom of an autoimmune disorder that threatens the ife ife of participatory participatory democracy, democracy, the legal system that underwrites underwrites it, and the poss ibiity ibiity of a sharp separation betwee the religious and the secuar dimen sions. Autoimmune conditions imply the spontaneous su icide of the the defensive defensive mechanism suppos ed to protect the organism from externa aggression. From the stadpoit of this somber anaysis, Derrida's exhortation is to proceed slowly and patiently in the search for a cure. Derrida's th esis in the diaogue is that the nd of globa globa terrorism terrorism behind the attacks of / is not the rst symptom of the autoimmune crisis bu t only its most recent manifestation. Throughou t the Cold War, War, Western libera democracies were arming and training their ture enemies in a quas isuicida manner. The Cold War's War's symmetrica dispay of power was undermined by the di ssemination of the nucear arsena as well as of bacteriological and chemical weapo s. Now we are faced faced with
Torism and the Legac Legacy y of the Enlightenment
21
the reality of an asymmetrical conict, which as such represen ts a rther stage of the the autoimmune crisis. In the age of terror, there is no p os sibility sibility of balance: since incaculabe incaculabe forces forces rath er than soverign states represent the real threat, the very concept of responsibili responsibility ty becomes potentially tentially incaculable. Who is re sponsibe for what, at what stage of planning, in the face o f what juridical body? Like the Cold War, the specter of global terrorism haunts our sense of the ture because it kills the promise upon which a positive relation with our present depends. In al its horror, / has eft us waiting for for the wor st. Th e violec e of the attacks agains t the Twin Towers Towers and the Pentagon has reveaed an abyss of terror terror that is going to haunt our existence and thinking for years and perhaps decades to come. The choice of a date, /, as a name for for the attacks, attacks, has the aim o f attributing tributing to them historica monumentaity, monumentaity, which is in the interest o f both the Western media and the terrorists. terrorists. For Habermas as well as for Derrid a, globalization globalization plays a big role visvis visvis terrorism. Whie for for Habermas what is at issue is an increase ofinequality inequality due to accelerated modernization, Derrida has a dierendierentiated readig of it depending on the context. Gobalization, for for him, rendered possible the rapid and relatively relatively smooth process of democratization in most Eastern European nations, formerly formerly part of the Soviet Union. There, Derrida beieves that it was a good thing. Recent movement movementss towar toward d democratiz democratization ation . . owe a great deal, amo st everything perhaps, to televisi on, to the communication of modes, norms, images, informatio informatioal al products, and so on." By contrast, Derrida is extremely tremely worried about the eect eect of gobalization on the dynamics of conict and war. Between the two supposed war leaders, the two metonymies, Bin Laden' and Bush,' the war of images ad of discourses proc eeds at an ever quickeing pace over the airwav airwaves, es, d issimulating ulating and delecting more and more quicy the trth that it reveals." In other cases yet gobalization is nothing more than a rhetorica rhetorica artice, aimed at di ssimulating ssimulating injustic injustic e. This is, in Derrida's view, view, what is happening within Isamic cultures, where gobalization is ony believed to be taking place but i reality it isn't. Here Derrida comes close to Habermas not only by understanding globalization under the rbric of inequaity but also by connecting it with the problem of modernity and of the Eightenment.
Introduction In h cors of h las fw cnris whos hisory wold hav o carlly carlly rxamind (h asnc of an Enlighnmn ag coloniza ion impriaism and so on svral facors facors hav conrid o h gopoli ical siaion whos cs w ar fling oday ginning wih h para dox of a marginalizaion and an impovrishmn whos rhyhm is pro porional o dmographic growh hs poplaions ar no only dprivd of accss o wha w call dmocracy cas of h hisory I s rily rcalld b ar vn dispossssd of h socald naral richs richs of of h h and and hs naral richs ar in fac h only nonvr alizal and n ondrrioriaiza goods lf oday oday
The Isamic words osition is unique in two ways: on the one hand it historicay acks acks exosure to the quintessentia quintess entiayy modern exerience of democracy democracy that Derrida with Habermas regards as necessary for a cuture to ostivey face modernization On the other hand many Isamic cutures ourished on soi rich in natura resources ike oi oi which Derrida denes as the ast nonvirtuaizabe nonvirtuaizabe and nondeterritoriaizabe" ritoriaizabe" resource. This situation makes the Isamic bock more vunerabe to the savage modernization brought about by the gobaized markets and dominated by a sma number of states and internationa cororations Whie for Habermas terrorism is the eect of the trauma of modernization ernization which has sread around the word at a athoogica seed Derrida sees see s terrorism terrorism as a symtom of a traumatic traumatic eement intrinsic intrinsic to modern exerience whose focus is aways on the ture somewhat athoogica athoogicay understood as romise hoe and sefarmation sefarmation Both are somber reections on o n the egacy of the Enightenment: the reentess search for a critica ersective that must start with sefexamination
F AM AM ALS ALS M A
A Dia logue with Jrgen Ha be rmas
Do you consider what we now tend to cal Setember Setember an unrecedented event one that radicaly alters the way way we we see se e ourselves? ourselves ? Allow me to say in advance that I shall be an swering your questions at a distance of three months Therefore it ight be use to mention my ersona exerience in relation to the event At the start of October I was beginning a twomonth stay in Manhattan I must confess I somehow felt more of a stranger this time than I did on revious visits vi sits to the ��caital ��caita l of the twentieth century cent ury" a city that has fascinated me for for more than three decad d ecades es ItI t was not ony the lagwaving and rather deant United We Stand" atriotism that had changed the climate nor was it the eculiar demand for soidarity and the accomanying suscetibiit to any resumed ��antiAmerican B 0
R R A D O
R
I
H A B E R M A S
:
:
"
Tanslated fom fom the Genan by Luis Guzman. Revised by Jrgen Habemas in English
r
30
Fundamentalism and Trror
threats threats at the NATO NATO coferece coferece i Brussels i mi dDecember [200] : ��Whe we look at the destructio they caused i the U.S .A. , imagie what they could do i ew York, York, or Lodo, or Paris, or Berli with ucear, chemical or biologica weapos."4 Of a wholly dieret kid were the meas ureseces sary ad prudet, but oly eective eective i the log termthe U. S. govermet govermet took after after the attack the creatio of a worldwide worldwide coalitio of coutries agais t terrorism, the e ective co tro over suspicious acial ows ad iteratioal bak associatios, the networkig of relevat iformatio lows amog atioal itelligece agecies, as well as the worldwide worldwide coordiatio of correspodig police ivestigatios. You have caimed that the itellectual is a g B 0 R R A D O R I : ure with historicaly specic characteristics, deeply itertwied with Europea hist ory, ory, the ite eth ce tury, tury, ad the os et of moder ity. Does Doe s he or she play a particular role role i our prese t cotext? I would't say so. The usua suspectswriters, H A B E R M A S : philosophers, artists, scholars worg i the humaities as well as i the social scieceswho scieceswho speak out o other occasios have doe so this time, too. There have bee the usual pros ad cos, the same sarl of voices with the familar atioal diereces i style ad publi c reso aceit has ot bee much dieret from from the Gulf or Kosovo Wars. Wars. Perhaps the America voices were heard faster faster a d louder tha usual i the ed, also somewhat more devoutly devoutly guberatorial guberatorial ad patriotic. O oe side, eve leftist leftist liberals for for the momet s eem to be i agreemet with Bush's politics. Ricard Rorty's proouced positios are, if I uderstad correctly, correctly, ot completey atypical. O the other s ide, critics of the oper atio i Afghaista Afghaista started from a false false prog osis i i their pragmatic pragmatic asses smet of its chaces for success . This ti me, what was required was ot oly athropologicahistorical kowledge kowledge of a somewhat speciaized kid but also military ad geopolitical expertise. am ot subscribig to the atiitelectual prejudice, accordig to which itellectuals itellectuals regularly regularly lack the required expertise. If oe is ot exactly exactly a ecoo mist, o e refrais refrais fromj fromj udgig complex ecoomic de velopmets. velopmets. With regard to miitar issues, however, itellectuals itellectuals obviously do ot act dieretly from other armchair strate gist s. your Pauskrche spee ch (Frakfurt, (Frakfurt, OctoB 0 R R A D O R I : ber 200 1),5 you deed fudametalism fudametalism as a specically moder pheomeo. Why?
A Dialogue with Jrge Jrgen n Haberma s
31
t depeds, of course, o how oe uses the term. H A B E R M A S : ��Fudametalist" has a pejorative rig to it. We use this predicate to characterize characterize a peculiar midset, a stubbor attitude that that isi sts o the politcal impositio of its ow covictios a d reaso s, eve whe they are far from beig ratioally acceptable. This holds especially for reli gious beiefs. We We should certaily o t co se fudamet fudamet alism with dogmatism ad orthodoxy. Ever religious doctrie is based o a dogmatic kerel ofbeie Sometimes there is a authority such as the pope or the Roma cogregatio, which determies what iterpretatios de viate from from this dogma ad, theefore, theefore, from ortho doxy. doxy. Such or thodoxy rst veers toward dametalism whe the guardias ad represetatives tives of the true faith faith igore the epistemi c situatio of a pluralistic soci ety ad isisteve to the poit of violeceo the uiversally bid ig character ad political acceptace o f their their doctrie. Util the oset of modernity, the prophetic teachigs were also world religios i the sese that they were were able to expad withi the cogitive horizos of aciet empires perceived from withi as allecompassig worlds. worlds. The uiversalism" of those empires, whose peripheries seemed to blur beyod their boudaries, provided the appropriate backgroud for the exclusive claim to truth by the world religios. However, i the moder coditios of a accelerated growth i complexity, such a exclusive claim to truth y oe faith ca o loger be aively aively maitaied. Europe, the cofessioal cofessioal s chism ad the secularizatio of society have compelled religious belief to reect o its oexclusive place withi a uiversal discourse shared with other religios ad limited by scietically geerated secular kowl edge. At the same time, the awareess of this double relativizatio of oe's ow positio oviously should ot imply relativizig relativizig oe's ow beliefs. beliefs. This selfreexive achievemet of a religio that leared to s ee itself through through the eyes of othes has had importat political implicatios. The believers could from from the o reaize why they had to re ouce viole ce, i gee ral, ad refrai from from state power, i particular, for the purpose of eforcig religious claims. This cogitive thrust ade religious tolerace, as well as the separatio betwee state ad church, possible for the rst time. Whe a cotemporary regime like ra refuses refuses to carry out this separatio or whe movemets ispired by religio strive for the reestablishme t of a Islamic form of theocracy, theocracy, we coside r that to be
32
Fundamentalism and Trror
ndamentalism. I woud explain the frozen features of such a mental cognitive dis sonance s. This reity in terms of the repress ion of striing cognitive pression occurs when the innocence of the epistemologica epistemologica situation of an alencompassing world perspective is lost and when, under the cognitive cognitive conditions o f scientic knowledge knowledge and ofreligious of religious pluraism, pluraism, a return to the exclusivity of premodern beief attitudes is propagated. These attitudes cause such striking cognitive dissonances since the compex ife ife circumstances in modern pluralistic societies are norma tivey tivey compatible only with a strict universalism universalism in which the same respect is demanded for everybodyb everybodybee they Cathoic, Protestant, Mus lim,ewish, Hindu, or Buddhist, believers or nonbelievers. nonbelievers. How is the kind ofI slamic ndamentalism ndamentalism we B 0 R R A D O R : see today dierent dierent from from earier ndamentaist trends and practices, such as the witchhunts of the early early modern age? There is probably a motif that links the two pheH A B E R M A S : nomena you ment ion, namey, the defensive defensive react ion against the fear of a violent uprooting of traditiona traditiona ways of life. life. In th at early modern age, the beginnings of poitical and economic modernization may have given rise to such fears in some regions of Europe. Europe. Of course, course, with the globaization of markets, markets, p articularly articularly the nancia markets, and with the expansion of foreign foreign direct investments, we nd ourselves ourselves today at a completely dierent dierent stage. Things are dierent dierent ins ofar ofar as world societ y is meanwhie meanwhie split up into winner, beneciary, and oser countries. To the Arab world, the U. S. A. is the driving driving force force of capitaistic capitaistic modernization. With its unapproachable ead in development and with its overwhelming overwhelming technoogical, economic, politica, and military military su periority, ority, the .S .A. appe ars as an insult to their selfcondence while simultaneously providing the secre tly tly admired mode l. The West in its entirety entirety serves as a scapegoat for the Arab word's own, very real experiences of loss, suered suered by populations torn o ut of their cutura cutura traditons during processes of acceerated acceerated modernization. modernization. What was experienced in Europe under more favorabe favorabe circumstances as a process of productive destruction does not hold the promise of compensation for for the pain of the disintegration of customar ways of life life in other countries. They feel this compensation cannot even be achieved within the horizon of the next generations. It is understandabe o n a psychological level for for this defensive defensive reaction to feed feed on spiritual spiritual sources, which set in motion, against the sec
A Dialoe w ith Jrgen Jrgen Habermas
33
uarizing force of the West, a potential that aready seems to have dis appeared from from it. The rious fundamentaist fundamentaist recourse to a set of be liefs, liefs, om which m odernity has e icited nei ther any sefrelexive sefrelexive earn ing process nor any dierentiation between religion, secuar knowledge, and politics, gains certain plausibility from the fact that it feeds on a substance that apparently disappeared om the West. A materialist West encounters other cultureswhich owe their prole to the imprint of one of the great world religionsony through the pr ovocative tive and trivializing trivializing irresistibility of a leveling consumeris t cutu re. Let 's admit itthe West p resents itself in a form form deprived of any normative kernel as ong as its concern for human rights only concerns the attempt at opening new free free markets and as ong as , at home, it alows free reign to the neoconservative division of labor between religious ndamentalism ndamentalism and a kind of evacuating evacuating depleting secuarization. B 0 R R A D O R I Philosophicaly Philosophicaly speaking, do you consider terrorism to be a wholy politica act? Not in the subjective subjective sense in which Mohammed H A B E R M A S : Atta, the Egptian citizen who came from from Hamburg and pioted the rst of the two catastrophic airpanes, would oer you a politica answer. swer. No doubt today's Islamic ndamentalism is also a cover for for poitical itical motifs. motifs. Indee d, we sho uld no t overook the politica motifs motifs we encounter in forms of religious religious fanaticism. fanaticism. Th is explains th e fact that some of those drawn into the holy war" had been secular nationalists ony a few few years before. before. I f one ooks at the biographies biographies of these people, remarkable remarkable continuities are reveaed Disappointment over nationaistic authoritarian regimes may have contributed to the fact that today re igion oers a new and subjectively more convincing anguage for od politica orientations. How would you actualy dene terrorism? Can B 0 R R A D O R : a meaningfu distinction be dawn between national and international or even gobal terrorism? H A B E R M A S : In one respec re spect,t, Pale Palesstinian terror terrorism sti stil l pos po s sesses a esses a certa certain in outm outmoded oded charact characteeristic in that in that it revol it revolv ves arou around mu murder, ar around the ind indiscriminate iscriminate annihila nnihilation of of enemi enemies , women , and
chidrenlife against life. This is what distinguishes it from the terror that appears in the paramiitay form form of guerilla warfare. warfare. This form of arfare has characterized many nationa liberation movements in the second haf of the twentieth centuryand h as left its mark today on the
34
Fundamentalism and Trror
Chechnyan struggle for for independen ce, for for example. In c ontrast to thi s, the globa terror that cuminated cuminated in the September 1 attack bears the anarchistic traits of an mpotent revolt directed against an enemy that cannot be defeated in any pragmatic pragmatic sens e. The only possibe eect it can have is to shock and alarm the government and popuati on. TechTechnicaly speaking, since our complex societies are highly susceptibe to interferences interferences and acci dents, they c ertainly oer oer ideal opportunities for a prompt disruption of normal activities. These disruptions can, with minimum expense, have consideraby destructive destructive conse quences. Globa terrorism is extreme both in its ack of realistic goals and in its cynica expoitation of the vunerability of complex complex sys tems. Should terrorism be distinguished from from ordi B 0 R R A D O R : nary crime and other tyes of violence? Yes a nd no. From a moral poi nt of view, view, there is H A B E R M A S no excuse for terrorist ac ts, regardless of the motive motive or the situation under which they are carried out. Nothing justies our ��maing al owance for" for" the murder o r suering suering of others for for one 's own purpose s. Each murder is one t oo many. istoric ally, ally, however, however, terrorism falls in a categor dierent from crimes that concern a criminal court judge. It diers from from a private incident in that it des erves public intere st and requires a dierent kind of analysis than murder out of jealousy, for ex ampe. Otherwise, we woud not be having this interview. The dier ence b etween politica politica terror and ordinary ordinary crime become s clear during the change of regimes, in which former terrorists come to power and become wellreg arded repres entatives of their country. country. Cert ainy, ainy, such a poitical transition can be hoped fo ony by terrorists who pursue political goals in a realisti c manner; who are abe to draw, at leas t retrospectively, spectively, a certain legitimat ion for for their crimina ac tions, undertak en to overcome a manifestly unjust situation. owever, today I cannot imagine a context that woud some day, in some manner, make the monstrous monstrous crime of September 1 an understandable understandable or comprehensible political act. Do you think it was good to interpret /1 as a B O R R A D O R I declaration of war? Even if the term war" is ess misleading and, H A B E R M A S : morally morally,, less controvertib controvertibe e than ��crusade," I consider Bush' s decision to call for for a ��war again st terrorism" a ser ious mista ke, both normativey and pragmatically. Normativey, he is eevating these criminals to the
A Dialogue with Jrgen Jrgen Habermas
35
status of war war enemie s; and pragmatically, one cannot ea d a war against a ��network" if the term ��war" is to retain any denite m eaning. If the West West needs to dev elop greater sen sitivity B 0 R R A D O R I : and adopt more selfcriticism in its dealings with other cutures, how should it go about doing that Phil osophicaly, osophicaly, you have articuated the interrelation between transation" and the search for a common language." guage." Can this be the key to a new politica course? Since September I have often been asked H A B E R M A S whether whether or not, in light of this violent phenomenon, the whole conception of communicative action" I developed in my theor has been brought into disre pute. We We in the West do live in peacel and welto do societie s, and yet they contain a structural violence that, to a certain degree, we have gotten used to, that is, unconscionable social inequaity, ity, degrading discrimination, pauperization, and marginalization. Precisely because our social relations are permeated by violence, strategic action and manipulation, there are two other facts we should not overlook. On the one hand, the praxis o f our daiy living together rests on a soid base of common background convictions, selfevident cultural truths and reciproca expectations. Here the coordination of action runs through the ordinary anguage games, through mutualy mutualy raised and at east implicitly recognized validity validity caims in the pub lic space of more or less good reasons. On the other hand, due to this, conlicts arise distortion in communication from misunderstanding a nd incomom distortion prehension, from from insincerity and deception. When the consequences of these conicts b ecome painl enough, they and in court or at the therapist's therapist's oce. The spira of violence violence begins as a spiral of distorted communication that leads through the s piral of uncontrolled uncontrolled reciprocal mistrust, to the breakdown of communication. If violence thus begins with a distortion in communica tion, after after it has erupted it is po ssibe to now what has gone wrong and what needs to be re paired. This trivial insight can be applied to the conicts you speak of. The matter is more compica ted here beca use cultures , ways ways ofife, and nations are at a greater di stance from and, thus, are more foreign foreign to one another. another. They do not encounter each other like members of a society ho might become alienated from each other only through systemati cay distorted communication. Furthermore, in inteational relations, the curbing power of the aw plays a comparatively weak role. And in intercultural relations, the legal system achieves at best an insti
Fundamentalism and Trror
tutiona framework framework for for forma meetings , suc h as the Word Word C onference onference on Human Rights hed in Vienna by by the United Nat ions. ions . As important as the mutieveed intercutura intercutura discourse o n the controversia controversia interpretations of human rights may be, such forma encounters cannot by themseves interrupt the spira of stereotyping. The desired transformation of a mentaity happens, rather, through the improvement of iving conditions, through a sensibe reief from oppression and fear. Trust must be abe to deveop in communicative everyday practices. Ony then can a broady eective eective enightenment extend into medi a, schoos, and homes . And it must do so by aecting aecting the premises of its own poitica cuture. In this context, the type of normative sefrepresentation visvis other cutures becomes important for for ourseves, too. In the process of such revi sion of its se fimage, th e West West co ud earn, for exampe, how it woud need to change its poitics if it wants to be perceived as a shap ing power with a civiizing impact. Without the poitica taming of an unbounded capitaism, the devastating stratication of word word society wi remain intractabe. intractabe. The disparities in the dynamic of word economic deveopment woud have to at east b e baanced out regarding their most de structive structive conse quencesthe deprivation and misery of compete regions and continents comes to mind. This does not merey concern the discrimination toward, the humiiation of, or the oense oense to other cutures. The socaed ��cash of civiizations" civiizations" [Kampf der Kuturen] is often the vei masking the vita materia interests of the West (accessibe oieds and a secured energ suppy, for exampe).6 In ight ight of what you are suggesting, we shoud B 0 R R A D O R I : ask ourseves whether the diaogue mode suits the intercutura exchange at a. Is it not aways on our own terms that we swear to the s oidari between cutures? The constant deconstructivist suspicion of our H A B E R M A S : Eurocentric prejudices raises a counterquestion: why shoud the hermeneutic mode of understanding, which nctions in everyday conversations and which since Humbodt has been methodoogicay methodoogicay deveoped from the practice of interpreting interpreting texts, suddeny break down beyond the boundar ies of o f our own cuture, of our own own way way of ife ife and tradition? An interpretation must in each case bridge the gap between the hermeneutic preunderstanding of both sideswhether the cutura and spatiotempora dis tances are shorter or onger, or the semantic dif dif
A Dalogue wth Jrgen Jrgen Habermas
37
ferences smaer or arger. A nterpretations are transations in nuce. It is not even necessar to reach back to Donad Davidson in order to understand that the very idea of a conceptual scheme, which constitutes one of severa words, cannot be conceived o f without contradiction. One can aso show with Gadamerian arguments that the idea of a sefcontained universe of meanings , which is incommensurabe with othe r universes universes of this tye, is an inconsistent concept. From this, however, however, a methodica ethnocentrism does not necessariy foow. Rorty and Aasdair MacIntyre defend an assimiation ode of understanding whereby radica interpretation means either the assimiation to one's own standards of rationaity or a conversion and, thus, a kind o f subject subject ion to the rationality of a competey foreign conception of the word. We shoud ony be abe to understand what fas under the dictates of a worddiscosing anguage. That description ts at be st the very beginning of an interpretationa interpretationa troubing troubing sit uation that demands a hermeneutic e ort since it makes participants painy painy aware of the the one sided nature and imitations of their initia conjectures . Strugging Strugging with the dicuties dicuties of understanding, understanding, peope must, step by step, widen their origina perspectives and utimatey bring them together. And they can suc ceed in such a fusion fusion of horizons" by virtue of their pecuiar capacity to take up the roes of speaker" and �� hearer." king up these ro es I a da 1 ogue, they en gage in a ndamenta symmetry, which, at bottom, a speech situations require. When a native speaker has earned how to use the system of persona pronouns, she has acquired competence in exchanging the perspectives between rst and second person. And in the course of utua erspectivetaking there can deveop a common horizon of background assumptions in which both sides accompish an interpretation that is not ethnocentricay adopted or converted but, rather, intersubjective shared. This mode expains why attempts at understanding have a chance ony under symmetrica conditions of mutual perspectivetaking. ood intentions and the absence of manifest manifest vioence are of course hep, but not sucient. Wihout the structures of a communicative communicative situation ee om distortion the resuts are aways under the suspicion of having having been forced. Naturay, Naturay, most mos t of the time it i s ony the un avoidabe fallibiity fallibiity of the human mind tha t is reveaed by the eection, and the need for revision and expansion of the interpretations ob
Fundamentalism and Trror
tained. However, such norma faiures are often indistinguishable from that peculiar moment o blindness, blindness, which interpretations owe to the trace s of forced assimiation to cons traints impose d by a superior party. party. Due to this, communication is aways aways ambigous, sus pect ofate nt volence. But when communication gets ontologized ontologized under this description, when when nothing nothing but vioence is seen in it, one misses the essential point: that the critical power to put a stop to violence, without reproducing it in circles o new vioence, can only dwel in the telos of mu mu tual understanding and in our orientation toward this goa. Gobalization has brought us to reconsider the B 0 R R A D O R I : internatonalaw concept of sovereignty. sovereignty. How do you see the role o f internationa organizations organizations in relation to it? Does cosmopolitanism, one of the the central ideals of the Enightenment, stil pay a use role in today's circumstances? I beieve that Carl Schmitt's existentiaist idea, H A B E R M A S : according to which the politica" consists merey in the selfasserton of a colective identity over against other colective identities, is false and dangerous in view of its practical consequenc es. The ontoogization of the friendoe reation suggests that attempts at a cosmopolitan juridication of the relations between the belligerent subjects subjects of interinternational aw are ated to serv e the masking o particular particular interests in universalistic disguise. But how can one, hoding this opinion, ignore the act that the totalitarian regi mes o f the twentieth ce ntury ntury,, wth their po litica litica mass crimes, have repudiated in an unprecedented way the assumption of innocence found in classica international law? For this historical reason we have ong ound ourselves in the transition rom cassical international aw to what Kant had anticipated as a state o world citizenry. citizenry. This i s a act, and rthe rmore, normatively speaking, I do not see any meaningl alternative to such a deveopment. This notwithstanding, there are drawbacks drawbacks that cannot be ignored. Since the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crmes tribunas ater the end o World War II, since the founding o the UN and the UN Decaration o Human Rights, sinc e the more active human rghts policy followng followng the end of the Cod War, since the controversial NATO intervention in Kosovo, and nally, nally, since the declara tion of war against international terror ism, since al of these events, the ambiva lence o this transition has emerged more cleary.
A Dialoe with Jrgen Jrgen Habermas
39
On the one hand, the idea of an international community that eiminates the state o nature between nations by eectively penalizing wars of aggression, genocide, and crime s against humanity and punishing violations o human rights has taken shape in the UN and its branches. The tribuna in The Hague is hearing the the case against Slobodan Milosevic, a former head of state. The top Britishjudges amost prevented the repatriation of Augsto Pinochet, a criminal exdictator. The estab lishment of an international criminal court is unde rway. rway. The principle of nonintervention in the do mesti c aairs aairs of a sovereign state has been undermined. Resoutions of the UN S ecurity Council have have revoked the Iraqi government's free use of its own airspace. UN soldiers are guaranteeing the s aety aety of the p ostTaliban ostTaliban government in Kabul. Macedonia, which stood at the brink of a civil war, has agreed under pressure from the EU t o dema nds from the Albanian minority. minority. On the other hand, the word organization is often nothing more than a paper tiger. It is depe ndent on the wilingness of the great pow ers to cooperate. The Security Counci can provide only very seective observanc e for for the avowed principes of the the internatio nal communi t, t, even after the events of 1989. As the Srebrenica tragedy shows, UN troops are oten oten not in a position to enforce enforce given guarantees. guarantees. If the Se curity curity Council is bocked in its decisions, a s it was in the face of the Kosovo conlict, and if in its place a regiona alliance like NATO acts without a mandate, it reveals t he fatal fatal power dierential dierential that exist s beeen the legitimate bu t weak authori of the international community and the actua strength of nationstates capable of military action but pursuing their own interests. The discrepancy between what should and what can be done, between ustice and power, sheds a negative ight both on the credibility of the UN and on the practice o intervention of unauthorized states that merely usurp a mandateeven for for good reasonsand turn what woud woud be justied as a police action into an a ct of war. war. The supposed police action often becomes indistinguishabe from an al too ordinar ar. This unclear jumble of classica power politics, consideration for regiona aliances, and attempts at a cosmopolitan regime not only strengthens the opposing interests existing between North and South, East and West West within the UN. It aso fosters the superpower's appre hension toward al normative restrictions of its scope of discretion.
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undamentalism and or
pose egitimately eached decisions It only imposes the condition that this ulebeaking esistance be pausibly justied in the spiit and woding woding o the constitution and conducted by symbolic means that end the ght the chaacte o a nonviolent appea to the majoity to once again elect on tei decisions In this way, the democatic poj ect othe o the eaization eaization o equal civil ights actually actually eeds eeds o the esistance o minoities, minoities, which, although appeaing appeaing as enemies o democacy to the majoity today, ould actualy tun out to be thei authentic iends tomoow o etun to you question, this elexive ovestepping o the boundaies o toeance within a ��militant democacy is due to the univesalistic natue o the legal and moa oundation o a ibea ode In the stict sense , �univesaism �univesaism amounts to the egalitaian egalitaian individualism o a moaity that demands mutua ecognition, in the sense o equal espect and ecipoca consideation o eveybody Membeship in this inclusive moa community, which is theeoe open to all, pomises not only solidaity and a nondisciminating nondisciminating in clusion, but at the same time equal ights o the potection o evey bodys individuali individuality ty and otheness Discouses inspied by this idea ae distinguished om om al othe disco uses by two esse ntial eatues eatues On the one hand, the univesaistic discous es o law and and moality can be abused as a paticulaly insidious om olegitimation sinc e paticula inteests can hide behind the glimmeing aade o easonable univesality This ideological nction, which had aeady been denounced by the young Max, oms the basis o Ca Schmitt's esentment when he thows humanitythe insistence on standads o egaitaian individualismtogethe with �bestiality in one pot What ascists ike Schmitt seem to oveook, and what Max cealy cealy saw, saw, is the othe chaacte istic o this this disc ouse the peculia sele seleeence eence that makes it the vehicle o secoecting secoecting leaning poces poces ses Just as evey objection objection aised against the selective o oneeyed application application o univesalistic univesalistic standads must aleady aleady pesuppose these same standads, in the same manne, any deconstuctive deconstuctive unmasking unmasking o the ideologicaly ideologicaly concealing use o univesalisti univesalisticc dis couses actually pesupposes the citica viewpoints advanced by these same discouses Moa and legal univesalism is, thus, selee seleexivel xivelyy closed in the sense that its impeect pactices can only be citicized on the basis o its own standads
A Dia Diallogue ogue with withJ Jrge rgen n Haber Haberma mass B O R R A D O R
heoism?
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One last ques questio tion: n: What hat are your your ideas ideas on
he couage, discipline, discipline, and selessness demon H A B E R M A S : stated by the New Yok emen who on Septembe spontaneousy put put thei lives on the ine to save save oth es is adm iable Bu t why why do they need to be called heoes? Pehaps this wod has dieent dieent connotations in Ameican English than it does in Geman I t seems to me that wheneve ��heoes ae honoed the question aises as to who needs them and why why Even in this loose s ense o the the tem one can undestand Betolt Becht's waning: waning: Pity the land that needs heoes
r
RE CONS TR U CTING TERROR TERRORIS IS M
Habermas
For over four four decades Habemas's thought has been centeed on the dea that dem ocacy, ocacy, and the publc stggle fo fo ts best fom, s the key to solvng appaently nsumountable poblems. Democacy, n ts strctual perfectbty, s both the means and the end of ndvdual and socal emancpaton. In the eghteenth century, Kant dened emancpaton as the process of cvc matuaton that povdes ndvduals wth the selfcondence to use the own reason and undestand ng. Such matuty s a pere quste for patcpatng, equally and feely feely,, n a communty poltcally structued as a consttutonal democacy. Habemas grew up n pos tWord War War II Germany, where democracy as not only a ealty but a passonately embraced o ne. Ths poston makes hm hm stress emancpa emancpaton ton as a very specal knd of selfexpeence, because n t pocesses of selfunderstandng selfunderstandng lnk up th an n cease of autonomy. autonomy." " In o the words, the kind of emancpaton emancpaton that democracy stmulates n ndvduals bngs them to lve rsthand the
Reconstructing Trrorism
phy with with the pos sibility of diagnosing the ils of societ y in terms o f defects in communicatio. Is terrorism a defect defect in communicatio? If so, does it occur at the level of oca communicatiowithin communicatiowithin te bounds of a singe cuture, natio, or reigionor at the level of global communication? Wheter it is local or gobal or both, who i s accountable for for it? My diaogue wit Habermas revolved around these crucial questions. I n it, Haberm as exposed is etire philosophical framewo framework rk to interpret the attacks of /, the most heinous heinous ad gigantic terrorist mission ever perpetrated. As a whole, te dialogue has the structure of a cas e study: te anaysis of this specic occurrence alows for for an iterpretation of gobal terrorism tat heps expose its dangerous conceptual elusiveness. The purpose of my essay is to review the main arguargumets Habermas puts forth and pace tem i the larger context of his phiosop hy. hy. Underst anding how they t ito his philosophica proje project ct will will help the reader walk along te same path that Habermas took to arrive arrive at his judgments on terrorism . It will also highight a number of implicatios that, particuarly for for tos e ew to Ha bermas's berma s's t heory, heory, may easily be overlooked.
First Historic World Event 9/11 T he First
It is a great privilege to have a mind of the the caiber c aiber of Habermas's mas' s apply itself to the reading and interpretation of an event that so powerfully des ed a certa in sens e of safety safety aorded aorded by the end of the the Cod Co d War. War. By coinci dence, e was i ew York York in te weeks after the terror ist attacks tat destroyed the Twin Towers, a portion of the Pentagon in Washigton, D. C. , ad took down a commercia plane plane full of passengers in western Pennsyvania. The direct experience of tat aftermath gave im a completely dierent dierent pers pective on the degree o f emotional devastation tha t ew Yorkers Yorkers su ered on / . Our dialogue bega om Haberm as's acknowledgment of the irreducibe casm betwee fact and representation, rstperson and tirdperson perspectives. Plainy, e concedes tat only after arriving in New York York did the l emotio nal intensity of this chasm beco me palpa be for him. Even Habermas, a stern defeder of the endess benets of what can be articulated articulated throug speech, admitted the s trength trength of the
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unspeakable as he recounted the tae of a friend who watched the tragedy unfod unfod from from the r oof ofhis ho use . As grapic a d sho cking as they were, te images imag es he saw on his TV scr een in Germany were delivered i te breakig news" format, eavig the possibility of a thirdperson perspective. By contrast, New Yorkers ike me were eft i existential and sesory caos: not only did a pervasive smel ang over Manattan for weeks, but the acte scream of the sirens, usualy ost i acoustic polution, kept puncturing the siece eft by te empty airspacethe spacethe great dome of cotrais cotrais ad roars cris scrossig above te city. And And yet, as Habermas points out, never before before did anyone get as muc reaity from from a TV s cree as peope worldwide worldwide got on /. The footage of / wasn't edited or even produced for its own media coverage, ad this renders it, in is words, the rst historic world event." Perhaps September 11 could be called the rst historc world event in the strctest sense: the impact the explosion the slow collapse-every thing that was not Holywood anymore but rather a gruesome reality, lit erally took place in front of the ��universal eyewitness" of a gobal public .
A compariso with Habermas's reaction to the Guf War rter clari es his take on te uniqueness of /. In tat case, too, he was an active pubic voice. InJanuary , when the GufWar broke out, te world was struck at how staged" the war seemed: it invited, he ater wrote, comparisons wit video games, wit the maddeningly irresistibe playback of an electroic program."4 Nonetheess, we outside ob servers were a too aware that a good port ion of the realityin fact, fact, te warlike warlike dimension of the warwas being thheld, ad this awareness may ave stimulated our ow powers of imaginatio. The censor's black patch patch on te TV s creen sets one's own imaginatio imaginatio in motion."5 The Gulf War exposed the public to a miimal amount of footage of wat happened on the ground. Whie in , proving te old saying tat ��Truth is the rst casuaty of war," the global public was given a media costruction; i 200 that same globa public became a universal eyewitness." This ver fact, for Habermas, makes / te ��rst historic word event." While Habermas underines the absolute uniqueness of / from the standpoint of its communicative communicative modaity, modaity, he prefers prefers to let histor
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Reonsuting rrorism
two Grman rpubcs n 1989 spaks rcty to s poston concrnng t s tny of t nato nstat. Kants ong sao w can b foun foun n Habrmass caraton tat t wou b a mstak for Grman ctzns to foun tr ntty n traton. For m, t ony gtmat pot ca artcuaton of t ntty of a naton, wt or wtout an unmastrab past, s ��consttutona patrotsm" n wc oyaty to t const tuton attsts for t consnsua partcpaton of a ctzns. Suc oyaty oyaty aso xprs ss oyaty to t a of unvrsa rgts tat taks as t conton for t coxstnc of uman bngs, partcuary n a compx an mutcutura so cty c ty.. A fw monts a ftr t fa of t Brn Wa, Wa, wc to t uncaton o f t two Grman rpubcs , Habrmas wrot t foowng If w do no fr ourslvs from h dis noions aou h naion sa, if w do no rid ourslvs of h prpoliical crch s of naionaliy and communi of fa fa w will unal o coninu unurdnd on h vr pah ha w w hav long sinc chosn : h pah o a muliculural soci y h pah o a fdral sa wih wid rgiona dirncs and srong fdral powr, powr, and ao v all h pah o a unid Euro pan sa of many naionaliis A naional idniy which is no asd prdominany on r pulican slf-undrsanding and consiuional parioism ncssarily colids wih h univrsais ruls of muua coxisnc for human ings
T noton o f consttutona patrotsm s a us pont of partur to arss Habrmass vw concrnng t possbty of a nw cosmopotan orr, wc rcognzs as t most urgnt cang facng t gopotca scn aftr t trrorst attacks of 9/11• To gt r of a atavsms, potca tougt as to abanon th a tat potcs s anytng anytng otr tan a communcatv communcatv xcang wos ky rqurmnt s rac ng ratona agrmnt on wat w man wn w tak to ac otr. Spakrs an stnrs mpcty mpcty sgn ts agrmnt vry tm ty communcat on any subjct and n watvr arna, prvat or pubc, tca or potca. Potcs s tus nstngusab from t communcatv moaty propr to vryday xcangs. In potcs as w as n ornary spc, yng an manpuaton, cpton an msunrstanng, cannot omnat, bcaus communcaton wou b prcu. As s t cas wt vryday
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53
spc, our objctv sou b to mak t communcatv cor of potcs mor ctv, for for ts wou automatcay strngtn ac ctzns dntcaton wt r communty communty soy on t bass of ts c on sttutona sttutona rus. Habrmas consdrs t Grman posopr ofaw Car Car Scmtt to b t mbm of t wrong way of tnkng tnkng about potcs. H s opposton to ts vry controvrsa gur, gur, s ncatv of ow mpacab Habrmas s towar t aspct s of Grman an Europan cutur tat assocats wt natonast pocs an prpotca vaus suc as tncty tncty or communty communty of fat." fat." Habrmas fs tat s rst cvc cvc uty as a Grman ctz n s to rcovr ony wat s ratonay ratonayjust an agr upon. A mmbr of t Naz Party snc 1933, Scmtt was praps t most promnnt consttutonast of t Tr Rc; a rrst n 19 45, Scmtt was bann from from tac ng an rtrat nto a argy argy sfmsfmpos x. Scmtt bvd tat t ynamc of morn Europan story s rvn by a sarc for a nutra spr fr from vont con ct and ntctua ntctua contstaton. Ts story grows out o f a racton aganst t rgous wars tat crpp Europ n t sxt nt cntury. Accordng Accordng to S cmtt, a numbr of xpansonst xpansonst trats mnac Europ, mang ts sr for pac unattanab. Snc s ary wrtngs from t 1920 urng t Wmr Rpubc, Scmtt was obsss by t xpanson of Sovt Rus sa, wr cv war a foow foow t ab caton oft tsar n 1917. In s ys, Russa was cat to absorbng a t tcnoogca opportunt s n orr to vop an vr strongr army. In s wrtngs aftr Word War II, Scmtt xtn s obss son to t otr gant on t ntrnatona ntrnatona scn t Unt Stats . In t fac fac of ts trats , Europ rman for for Scmtt t oman of t concpt an t practc o f sovrgn stats, baancng ac otr troug troug ntrnatona ntrnatona aw. aw. In our aogu, Habrmas arms tat for for Scmtt t bounds of t potca ram ar st by t sfassrton sfassrton of on coctv coctv dntty aganst anotr a sovrgn naton s not bas on t sftrmnasftrmnaton of cvc brts b ut on t unqunss of on tnc natonaty aganst a otrs . To To dn t potca n ts way mans, for Habrmas, to ontoogz" t frnf frnfo o raton an turn t nto t sub stanc or t ssnc of potcs. I t s prcsy n raton raton to ts prms tat Scmtt vops t suspcon tat ntrnatona aw may b at
54
Reconstructing Trrorism
the service of expansionist interests of stronger actors. Haber mas rejects this ine of reasoning not ony because i t grouns poitics in vaues an assumptions that are prepoitica but aso because it pays own the interna egitimacy o internationa aw, reucing it to the contin gent meiation between nationa poitica poitica actors. But how can one, hodi ng this opin ion, ignore the fact that the totalitarian totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, century, with their atrocities of poitical ma ss crimes, have repudiated in an unprecedented way the assumption of innocence found in classica international law?
Schmitt's position isavows what Habermas eems to be an obvious fact: namey, that internationa aw is a freey achieve agreement between equa partnersan nees to be unmaske in a its anger. Habermas commen s Europe's overcoming overcoming of nationaism nationaism as evi ence of civic civic maturity an pruenc e. However, even within the Euro pean C ommunity, ommunity, the p oss ibiity of conceiving internationa aw from from a new cosmopoitan ange wi arise ony after nationstates have exited center stage. As that wi happen, other continentwie aiances" cou become the major poitica actors on the internationa scene. ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) an NAFTA (North American Free Trae Agreement) are just two exampes areay in pace. More than two hundre years ago, Kant anticipate anticipate the p ossibiity ossibiity of transforming transforming cassica internationa aw into a new cosmopoitan order. order. With remarkabe remarkabe poitica acumen, Kant specie that only con stitutiona repubican states cou be part of this orer, for for each na tion, for for the sake of its own security, security, can an ought to eman of the others that they shou enter aong with it into a constitution, constitution, simiar to the civi one, within which the rights of each cou be secure. This wou mean estabishing aderation ofpeoples. "1 3 Kant's iea requires requires that civi society coincie with the internationa community; this coin cience wou automaticay eiminate the state of nature between nations, which Schmitt escribes within the frienfoe scheme. In the Kantian cosmopoitan picture, a sense of hospitaity re paces enmity among nations. Hospitaity means the right of a stranger stranger not to be treate with hostiity hostiity when he arrives arrives on someone
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55
ese's territoy territoy."14 ."14 Preface Preface by the remark remark that the concept of hospita hospita right, Kant goes on to speci ity is not about phianthropy but about right, right of of a guest, for that its meaning. The stranger cannot caim the right wou entai fri frieniness eniness with the hos t. But the guest can caim a right ofresort, for a men are entie to presen t themseves in the society of others by virtue of their right o communa poss ession of the the ea rth's surface. surface. Since the earth is a gobe, they cannot isperse over an innite area, but must neces sariy sariy toerate one another's company."15 Just by virtue of sharing possession of the earth's surface, peope wi thus be come member s of a universa universa an cosmopoitan community community conceive accoring to the principe that a vioation of rights rights in one part of the worl is fet fet eveywhere."1 eveywhere."1 6 This wou give a human beings the status of worl citize ns." Both Habermas an Derria are heaviy inebte to Kant in their construa of cosmopoitanism. Yet, whie Derria expans on Kant's notion of hospitaity as the aternative to the frienfoe frienfoe reation, Habermas insists on the eimination eimination of the state of nature on the basis of mutua respect between constitutiona repubican states. In Habermas's view, view, the institution o f an internationa crimina cour t is the rst st ation on the cosmopoita n ine. Anoth er is the overcoming of the principe of nonintervention in omestic aairs of foreign states. Two exampes of this overcoming overcoming have been the UN ban against Iraq's us e ofits own air space after the Guf War an the controversy surrou ning the extr ai tion of the Chiean ictator, Augusto Pinochet, from Great Britain, where he was etained uner house arrest. 17 However, However, Habermas is convince that what separates the pr esent moment om a transition to cosmopoitanism is not ony a theoretical matter but a practica one, too , for for the eci sions o f the international communit nee to be respecte. The exampe of the 1995 massacre in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica, whie uner the protection of Dutch Unite Unite Nations peaceke epers, is an exampe of Haberma's Haberma's worr concerning the fata power dieentia that exists between the egitimate but weak authority of the internationa community an the actua strength of nationstates, capabe of miitary action but pursuing their own interests." Unfortunatey the power ierentia between nationa an international authorities threatens to weaken the egitimacy of any miitary miitary intevention an to re too poice ac tion as war.
Reconstructing Trrorism
pheree ublicc S pher he P ubli and t he ism and rrorism Trr The questio n of nationaism nationaism lies at the center of Habermas's discuss ion of terrorism. Today's Today's hoy warriors, he caimed, were yesterday's secu ar nationaists disappointment toward ationalistic authoritarian regimes ike ra, raq, S audi Arabia, and pos sibly even Paistan makes reigion more subjectively convincing" than any secuar politica motivation. Objec Objec tively tively,, however, terrorism can be gra nted poitical c ontent ony if it has poitically poitically realistic goals. Otherwise, it is on a par with ordinary criminal activity. activity. Sin ce only the ture can judge wheth er the goals of terrorism have have been accomp ished, terrorism is a retrospective designation. For Habermas, inking the poitical scope of terrorism terrorism to the ac compishment of its goas oers the pos sibiity sibiity of distinguishing between at least th ree dierent dierent inds o f terrorism i ndiscrim inant guerilla warfare, warfare, paramilitary guerila warfare, and gobal terrorism. IS The rst is epitom ized by Palestinian terrorism, in which murder is o ften carried out by a suicide militant. The model of paramilitary guerila warfare warfare is proper to the national iberation movements and is retrospectivey legitimized by the formation of the state. The third, globa terrorism, does n ot seem to have poiticay poiticay reaistic goals other than expoiting the vulnerabii ofcompex systems . n this sense, gobal terrorism has the smalest chance of being retrospectivey retrospectivey recognized as advancing advancing poitical caims. Unike the global terrorists' mutinational networks, both the indiscriminant mode and the paramilitary mode of terrorist activities share what Habermas cals a partisan" proe, which anchors them to specic ocations. By contrast, elusiveness and intangibility represent the novelty of goba terrorism as we as its greatest destructive potentia that, for for Habermas, has to do with the delegitimation delegitimation of democratic democratic governments. governments. The risk of overreacti overreaction on on the part of the United S tates after g/, and ofany ofany naion under the threat of goba terrorism, ha s for him a paradoxica and ragic implication: in spite of not expressing reaistic political objectives, global terrorism succeeds in the supremely poitical goa of delegitimizing th e authority of the state. Since the beginning of his his career, Habermas has devoted a great deal of attention to the question ofegitimacy, which he sees inextricably reated to the workings of the pubic sphere. In The Structural
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ansoation ofthe Public Sphere (g62), Habermas analyzes the key role of the pubic sphere in the formatio formatio of poitica decisions within a democracy. Kant is again Habermas's point of departure. Habermas gets om Kant a view of the public sphere as the denitive institution of democ racy racy,, that without which no theory o f constitutional constitutional republicanism ca exist. Ony an ac tivey tivey involved public sphere o pens the way for for a truly democratic exchange. Whie Habermas admires Kant for having presente d the public sphe re as constitute d around rational argument rather than the identities of the arguers, he is critica of Kant for his elitist and somewhat bourgeois understanding of its dyamics. For Habermas, Kant's d escription escription of the pubic sphere is the expression of a bourgeois ideology that conceives participation as a prerogative prerogative of the upper cass, predominant predominantyy educated, aluent, and male.1 9 Thus Habermas embarks on a critical and historica reconstruction of the deveopment of the public sphere in modern Western democracies. Sice Kant, the advent of mass communication clearly represents the ndamenta change. On the one hand, it has had the positive eect of progressivey expading the pubic sphere, enlarging participation to a much wider spectrum of citizens. On the other hand, the quantitative quantitative expansion of participation participation has meant a dec rease in its quaity. A number of factors have contributed to it the pace at which information is processed by and circuates within the public sphere makes it hard to keep up with the mode of communication communication that Kant has in mind when he discusses the public sphere, namely, the academic exchange. While in the academic exchange the participants in a discussion are given enough time to think and formuate their arguments, the speed invoved in mass communication works in the interest of those who select and distribute the information rather than those who receive it. Habermas sugg ests th at the pressure of thinng and evauating data quicky quicky has a poitica import, becaus e it facilitates an experience of politics based o the persona of the actors rather than the id eas that each of them defends. 20 Th e dicuty in bracketing the dramatic packaging ofpersonal attributes attributes is due to the power of the public reations industry, whose objective is to engineer consent among consumers of mass cuture. For Habermas, mass consumption and its ideology, consumerism, not ony siences rationalcritic rationalcritical al consens us but impose s it
Reonstruting rrorism
ossibe os sibe to te who is maniuating whom who is teing the truth and who is ying. The ossibii os sibiityty of rationa rationayy justied onsensus onsensu s is absoutey crucia from from a oitca ersective: ers ective: for for without it not ony woud hiosohioso hy ose its critica edge but the door woud be eft oen for for a deniden ition of soidarity soidarity either in terms of reoi reoitica tica vaues or in terms of the voatiity ofsubjective subjective feeings of comassion. comassi on. For Habermas H abermas soidarity and the socia bond are a structura function of communication that can be strengthened once we become aware of the vaidity vaidity caims embedded in any ofour statements. statements . As soon so on as we enter into meaning discussions with one another our commitment to redeem such caims wi systematicay roe us to seek rationa soutions that wi be evident to everyone who is not under the se of maniuat maniuation ion or distortion. These kinds of soutions wi aow for the formation of asting and rationay vaidated vaidate d consensus consen sus rather than shifting aances aanc es of convenience venience or utiitarian utiitarian agreements.32 Any discussion of the ubic shere is about abo ut the nature of our in terest in others and the reach of oitica invovement. invovement. Without an in terest in others oth ers and a sense sen se of invovement invovement with the webeing of the coectivity coectivity there is no ubic shere. sh ere. The theory theory of communicative action caims to have found a way to weave together the abstract eve ertaining to the vaidit of mora norms (the (th e demand that beiefs beiefs are not a matter of reference or incination but of vaidity based on rationa argumentation) with the concrete eshandbones dimension of existence. existence . f Habermas is right right the cassic dicuty dicuty of reconciing individua autonomy and socia bond b ond woud be fundamentay soved. Aso stating that interest and motivation toward others is constitutive of who one is rather than the resut of an an intention that th at may at any time be revoked renforces both engagement in the democratic rocess and commitment to socia justice justice as it imbues these oitica exeriences with sefreection and the romise of seftransformation. This concetion of communication modies the notion of ubic shere in a substantia way. way. Being the arena in which articiants debate their aready formuated formuated ositions the ubic shere becomes the diaogica framework within which the individua and her mora rin cies and beiefs emerge in resonse to a community of feow seak ers. Whie Kants categorica categorica imerative imerative is we iustrated iustrated by a scene of
abermas
sol� tary conversation with one se lf ( o r with ith an imaginary liste ne r) in whIch one seeks to ide identi the pr principe such that the re st of humanty woud ch choose to act accordingly, ly, the pr princ inciple o f communicative action c?rresponds to a forum n n whch a puraty o f spe akers eth ther agree or dsagree b ase d o n the the strength o f their argume nts. Habermas ident i es the fre e do m o f ethe r agreeng o r dsagreeng on the b asi s o f the the str strongest argument a s both the the forma featur ture o f ra rationaity and the foundng pr princpe o f demo cracy. Habermas is a is aw ware that th ths free do m de scr ibe s a theoretca mo mode not found in the real word, where communicat ion ge gets distort ed by a e ngine ineerng o f consensus by �ae � o f fac tors: from the en by the publc lc relatIon dustry to a sorts o f power games inc ted by by the sp s peake r on on the s sttener. Ho However, t s the ve very abstractness of what he cas idea speech sit situuation" that makes t a regulative princip ip e and a gude de to our conduc t.33 .3 3
Viole olence a ce a s Di st st orted ted C ommunic ati atio on
According ing to Ha H abermas's argument, f gob obal terrorism ism does not ha have a realisti isticc p �litica ica goa it c it caan be cate ategorize ized a s reg reguar ar cri crim mina activ ct iviit t u�awl V VOlence. So the questons arise: se : What is is vioen e nce? Why do d oes VOence oc o c c ur ? Is th the re a wa y to to stop it? H a b e r m a s ad ad m it s tha th a t v ioioence exists n any socie ty. W in th Wst do iv in pac and wl-to-do socitis and yt thy contain a sruul violnc that to a crtan dgr w hav gottn sd to . nconsciona social inqalty dgradng discrimination paprzaton and margnazaton.
The reason why Habermas thnks vioence does not exode in demod emocratic cratic societies stems om his theory of communicativ communicativee action. h praxis of or daiy living togthr togthr rsts on a solid as of common acgrond convictions, slfvidnt cltral trths and rciprocal x pctatons r th coo rdnaton of acton rns throgh th ordnary angag gams throgh mtaly raisd and at last implicity rcog nzd valdity clams in he ubli ubli sae ofmore ofmore or o r less good good reasons
Reconstructing Trrorism
Our everyday fe, says Habermas, s structured by the commu nicative practices practic es that aow us to unders tand each other. Just by the act of speakng, we we impcy agree o n a set s et of grammatca rues hat w a use truthy, for the sake of communication and not mapuatn. Habermas's pont s that in ths same way we impictly agree on the rues of the cuture, soci ety, and community within which we nctn. These rues are what he denes as ��a sod base of common back ground convictions, sefevident cutura truths, and r c�roca exp ctations." The common background background grants us the poss blty blty of puttg puttg ourseves in the other's shoes, which Habermas artcuates as symmetrica condtons of mutual perspectivetakng." perspectivetakng." B ut f the mutua perspectivetaking for some reason cannot occur, speaker and i tener become estranged om each other and indierent indierent to the redemptn of their caims. Ths is the begnnng of a distortion in communication, a misunderstanding or a deception, of which terrorism is the m ost ex treme vern. One o f the centra arguments that emerged from our diaogue is precisey that terrorism is a communicative pathoogy th t feeds i �s own destructive input. He says ��The spir of voence begs as a p ra of distor ted communication t hat eads through the spira of uncontroed reciproca mistrust to the breakdown of communication." In Western ibera democracies there are estabished channes to ease communicative breakdowns. At the indivdua eve, psychotherapy heps recover one's interna moments of sience. In the intersubjectve pubic arena, ega suits sette concts between individuas individuas ? have exhausted a avenues avenues of dscussion. Gobazaton Gobazaton seems to ect ect e into the spiraing spiraing movement of communicative communicative vioence. By intensiing communication, gobaization puts o n stage distrbutive distrbutive injustce, injustce, stary dvidin dvidingg the word into wnners, beneciaries, and os ers. Mu tua perspectivetakng becomes harder and harder in the face of such chaenges. The burden of responsibiity ceary fas on the shouders of the the stronger stronger nations. This is why Habermas cas on ibera Western democracies to rebud channes of communication, for for unbounded capitaism and the rigid strat caton of word socie ty are at the root of the coapse of diaogue. diaogue. The idea that gobaization may be interpreted as a commu catve pathoogy intersects the debate on the cash of civizations.34 Initiated by poitica scientist Samue Huntington n 199, the year of the rst
Habermas
terrorist attack on the Word Trade Trade Center Cen ter by an Isamic ndamenta ist group, this debate revoves around the hypothesis that word word po tics is unde rgoing an important shft. The shift shift is determi ned by a rad ica change n the nature of conlicts, which for Huntington wi be progressivey anchored in cutural and reigous motives rather than in deoogica dierences dierences or economic inequaity. inequaity. In his reading, despite indivdua indivdua desires desi res for power or money, the drivng and mobiizng force in today's concts is cuture. Huntington identes Isamic civization as most key to be the primar chaenger in the twent rst century. Habermas rejects Huntington's hpothess. The cause of the communicatve municatve aiment brought about by gobalzaton is not cutura but economic. To cure it, the Western coaition needs to work on two fronts. On the one hand, on its sefrepresentation: it s mportant for deveoping countries to stop p erceivng the foreign poicy of Western este rn natons as an mperiaist front seekng nancia expanson. On the other hand, what these democraces have to do is not reducibe to a marketng strategy, for t s a sad fact that Western consumerism ex podes ike a and mne in the mdst of the most disadvantaged ayers of the word popuation. popuation. This consum erist bast, Haberm as suggests , eicits the sprtua reaction, which too many peope see as the ony aternative to sience and resignation. Starting n the ate 1970s, as he acheves a systematic articuation of the theor of communicative acton, Habermas begns to refer to the pubc sphere n terms of ifeword." Coined by the phenomenoogca tradition initiated by Edmund Husserl , the noton of ifeword ifeword refers refers to the preinterpreted and pre relective relective background against which our everyday everyday fe fe unfods unfods.. It I t encompass enco mpass es the whoe range of takenfortakenforgranted daiy soca activites, but t aso, and cononty, ndcates the roe of tradton as well as any es tabished m odes of thinkng thinkng and acting on communication. The transition from the pubic sphere to the notion of ifeword marks an important conceptua shift in Habermas's theoretica deve opment. The reference to ife" certainy underines his co mmitment to the concreteness and utter specicity of the subject's subject's pace wthin her community offelow offelow speaker s. The conc ept of word" frees the t he pubic realm from from the mod e of eighteenthcentur European socety n reaton to which the notion of a pubic sphere was rst conceived. Such a notion understands socety as a totaity, neaty dvided into private
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Reconstcting orism
Critica Theory and in Marxism the aim of critique was to make explicit the contradictions produced in the world by the socia injustice inherent in capitaism for Habermas te function of critique is to af rm communicative rationality and its potentia for selfrelection and selfexamination. Provided that rationality is not an abstract nction but the conceptual c onceptual underpinning of everyday everyday communicative practice critique becomes the eort to enhance the production of consensus based on free and undistorted discussion among speakers. Critique thus becomes become s the exaination of the conceptua and practical procedures allowing allowing the formation formation of rational consensus. consensu s. The turn toward communicative communicative action causes Habermas's focus to shift from from historicaly ad socioogicaly founded founded anayses to a more formal approach in which the investigation of institutiona processes and argumentative argumentative structures is given more prominence than th an material conditions. The argments through which we we redeem validity caims are units ofwhat Habermas calls discourse." discou rse." The notion of discourse was elaborated by ethnolinguistists such as Emie Benveniste4 Benveniste4 who analyzed anguage wit reference reference to the speaker and her spatiotemporal location including all variables that speci te context of utterance. Habermas makes the term discourse" the cornerstone corner stone of his comu nicative nicative approach to ethics eth ics and political philosophy. philosophy. Since S ince one on e of his most recent books Beween Facs and Norms 2000, he has been stretching it to cover legal theory theory too. Discourse entails en tails a certain suspension of beief in a given norm and indicates ind icates the procedure procedu re through wich one can test tes t its vaidity. vaidity. Once its validity is reassesse reass essedd through rational (discursive) argumentation the norm is presumed to be vaid not only for the idividual who happens to accept it or the rational speakers involved in te discussion but for a possibe rationa speakers involved involved in any feasible feasible discussion. discus sion. The idea of a discoursebased approach to ethics is a moral community whose norms and practices are ful fulyy accepted by those t hose who are subject subject to tem. This community forms a society based on the agreement of al free and equal partners om wich imposition ad manipulation have have been expunged. expunged. The discursive approach to ethics and politica phiosophy phiosophy is less focused on the discussio dis cussionn of te normative normative content conte nt of specic speci c norms or principles and more focused on identiing wich norms can be b e redeemed discursivel discursivelyy and the kind ofrational procedures their redemp
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tio tion req re quires ir es.. Ha Habe rmas's as 's interpr erpret etaatio tion of of the locus locus cl clas assic sicus us of Crititica T a Th heory, ry, th the con co ncept and fate at e of of m oderni rni ty, ty, oc occurs aga again insst the b he baack groun ound o f is newly forged discu sc ursiv sive or ient ie ntaation. on. For oder odern nity is the the name for for a way o f thi thinkng ng and and ac ting in g in lin li ne com communicativ cativee ration ionaity ity. D is cuss ing ing in more de d etai ai his his tre tr eatm atment of o f modern ernity unders dersccores th t he p remis em ises es of his understand anding o ng off relig ligious ndamentali alism a sm ass a u a un niqu iquely oder odern n disru isrup ption, on, wh which is is at at th the cor core of his reading o ng off glob lobal te terror rroris ism m . Also, so, t t e debate o te on n what to at to d doo wth the inte intellec ectua heri eritage tage o f mo modern de rnity ity is te axis xis o f Ha Ha be r ma s's s' s respo sponse to Derrida, da, wh w hich ich I w I wil il artic ticulate ate by b y add ad dress es sing in g H aberm er m as's s' s and D nd Der erri rid da's r ead ea dings ng s o f a th third phil philoosopher, Wate t er Be Be nja min. in . B en� ain ain �tands bet betw ween H en Hab aber erm mas and and Derr rrda in in aJa a Janu nus sllike ike pose, cast cast g an an te ten nse gaz gazee up upon bo th C th Cri rittica ica Theory eory a an nd de de construc tructio tion n.
T he Ir Iron C a ge ge o fF fFund am amentali tali sm sm
Habermas's interest inte rest in the concept co ncept of modernity modernity posited as a s the heritage of the Eightenment political egacy comes to him from from his men tors Adorno and Horkheime Ho rkheimer.r. Since te foundation of the Frankrt School Critical Teorists agreed that the Enligtenment was the just jus t and necessar cr against te oppression of unilateral unilateral authorities authorities such as reigion. However in the post n period this nobe a �enda seemed ardly reconciable with wat many German intelectuas' includig Adorno and Horeimer interpreted as the Eightenment's selfdestructive strains: How did it happen that the shared sense of civc responsibility cutivated for two centuries by postKatian En lightenment lightenment thinkng and society so ciety did not prevent two word wars ad the upsurge of totalitara totalitarann regimes? The threat ofglobal ofglobal terrorism tat has inaugurated the start of the third millennium could easiy be used as rter evidence to support tis dark suspicion. In the midst mi dst of the ruins of bombed Germa cities ad a d shattered German culture Adorno and Horheimer ooked back at the work of sociologist Max Weber Weber wo expicitl expicitlyy laid out te hypothesis hypothesis that Enightenment cuture hed sefdestrctive seeds.4 Weber's argument revoves aroud the possibiity that te secuarization ofknowedge ofknowedge mandated by the Enlightenment Enlightenment ignites a disenchantment of the world" world " whch erodes the foundations of traditiona ways of life. Such dise
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Recontructing rrorism
chantment leaves the human subject subject alone: as all ideals of cosmic harmony are dispelled, the world comes to be perceived as an external ob ject to be used us ed for for utilitarian utilitarian ends Disenchantment Di senchantment is thus the breedbree ding ground for an instrumenta ins trumenta conception concept ion of rationality, rationality, which Weber refers to as Zwekrationalitt, whose agenda is the reductive causa terms of means and ends ends Reason, understood in this way, way, represents the pure and simpe promotion of controlthe contro of human bebe ings over the world and of the individual human being over others othe rs After iving rsthand the unspeakable atrocities of totalitarianism, many German inteectuals and Critical heorists were convinced that history had provided the ultimate corroboration for the worst of Dialect ic of Enlightenment Enlightenment published in 47 by Weber's fears Dialectic Adorno and Horkheime on their return to Germany from a decade of exile in the United States, is the quintessential expression of the the beief that Weber Weber was right ri ght Adorno exerted the greatest inluence on the young Habermas However, theirs is a complicated relation: as Habermas struggled to overcome the pessimism and nihilism of his teacher, he did it using Adorno's own means Rrading Rrading Adorno had givn givn m h corag o ak ak p sysmaically sysmaically . . h hory of ricaion as a hory of raionalizaion, n M Wr's sns. Alrady a ha im my prolm was a ho ry of modrni, modrni, a h or o f h h paholog o modrniy from from h vwpon o f h h raizaion h dformd ralizaonof rason in his ory. ory. 22
Since his eaiest days, Habermas has been seeing a positive and con structive theory of modernity he pathology of modernity" mentioned in the passage can be read to mean either that there are pathologica strains within modernity or that modernity itsef is the ilness ilnes s Habermas takes the th e atter stance, that e e pathologica strains existing existing within modernity can be separated out of the heathier whoe Reading Weber's Weber's theory of rationaization in connection with the theory of reication is the rst step Habermas takes in this direction Reication indicates the way in which socia reations have been deformed, and even disgured, by the capitaist mode of production Capitaism, according to the arxist diagnosis, imposes im poses on the work work ing cass the unbearabe weight of ienation, which reduces the abor
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force to just jus t another kind of o f commodity commod ity In capitaist modernity moderni ty,, so the argument goes, the life life of the working cass is understo un derstood od as a means to implement prot his mechanism mecha nism impedes imped es the worker from from appropriating the meaning of her own abor a bor Eventually, Eventually, ifaienation is the result res ult of her activity, she is also denied an autonomous reationship with her surroundings In postWorld War II Germany, Habermas combined eber's theoy that modernity carried out a destructi de structive ve kind of o f rationrationaization with the Marxist theory of reication Precisey this combination of rationalization and reication is the pathoogical strain of modernity At the center of Weber's dark scenario is the gure of the iron cage, a prison prison of ecient bureaucratic blindness created by the indisind iscriminate growth of utiitarian or instrumental rationaity Habermas's conception of the twotiered modes of deveopment of complex societies, in which the economy and administrative apparatus are described as selffeeding selffeeding �system �sy stems," s," is clearly inherited inherit ed from from Weber Weber Very much in line with Weber, Habermas sees the danger of the expanding power of impersona economic forces and bureaucratically organized administration processes processe s However, very much unlike Weber, Weber, Habermas does not think that societal rationalization rationalization amounts to the growing growing power of technology and calcuation, organization and administration, and that the triumph of reason is a hindrance to freedom freedom rather rat her than its ultimate chance On the contrary, Habermas endorses unconditionally the political agenda of the Enightenment, which he renames the discourse of modernity modernity" It is this discourse, discour se, which the Enlightenment Enlightenment left left unnished, that today complex complex postindustria societies should s hould devote temselves to completing Habermas's critique of Weber's pessimism toward modernity provides a unique uniqu e key to interpret religious ndamentalism Weber's negative ve description of the eects eects of instrumental rationality rationality and secularization eerily ts the religious ndamentalist perception that Western Western cuture cuture is uprooting traditional forms forms of if ifee Fundamentalism echoes echoe s eber's contention that such su ch uprooting, in homogenizing cutures and estranging individual members from their communities, tends to de stroy stroy the possibiity of spiritua spiritua and a nd mora mora identity identity Fundamentalism, precisely precisely because of its opposition to t o modernity and modernization, is for Habermas a distinctively and uniquely modern phenomenon Every religion religion entais entai s a dogmatic dogmati c kernel of belief, observed Haber Hab er
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Reontruting Trrorim
as, which is the ea so why evey evey eigio needs an authoity etited to disciiate between othodox, o vaid, and uothodox, o ivaid, intepetatios intepetatios of doga Yet, Yet, as h e stated in ou diaogue, such othodoxy st vees towad ndaetais when the guadias and epesentatives epesentatives of the tue faith faith igoe the episte ic situation of a puaistic society ad insisteve to the point of vioeceon the uni vesay bindig chaacte and poitica acceptance of thei doctine" Modeity does not sipy conne eigio wthin the spiitua diesion of ife, ife, pushing it away fo fo the poitica anageent of the pubic sphee it deands that it ebaces, at the co gitive gitive eve, its ocation in a puaistic society n othe wods, eigion has to face the copex chaenge of eativizing eativizing its pos ition visvis othe eigios without eativizing its own dogatic coe This is what Habeas caed ��th e episteic situation" o f eigion eigion in odenity Stating with with the Refoatio, Refoatio, which caused the intena schis of Westen Chistianity into Roan Cathoicis and Potestantis, fo fou fou huded yeas eigion i Euope ha s withstood a situatio of this kind Seeig onesef thoug thoughh the eyes of othes is w hat odeity odeity has asked of eigio The othe in this case is a copeting puaity of othes, icuding dieent dieent eigious faiths, scietic owedge, and poitica poitica institutios Fundaentais is the ejection ejection of this custe of chaenges, which Habeas de scibed as the epession of stikng stikng cognitive cognitive dissoa nces" and the etun to the excusivity excusivity of peode beief attitudes" attitudes" A beief attitude idicates the way in which we beieve athe than what we beieve i Fudaetais has ess to do with any specic text o eigious doga and oe to do with the odaity odaity of beief beief Fo this easo, he added, oden puaistic societies ae noativey copatibe oy with a strict uivesais i which the sae espect is deanded fo eveybodybe they Cathoic, Potestat, Musi,ewish, Hindu, o Buddhist, beieves o nonbeieves" This univesais is stict" because it appies to the way in which ay eigion eates itsef to othes and to its ow faith A pue univesais is the gound o which Habeas stongy defeds the notio of toeance Toeance descibes the costaint of stict uivesais de anded by ode puaist societies ou diaogue, Habeas ecaed the Edict of Nates (159 8) , in which Heny V, V, king of Fance, ��peitted the Hugueots, a eigious ioity, to pofess thei beiefs
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ad obseve thei ituas unde the condition that they do not uestion the authoity of the kig's thone o the supeacy of Cathoicis" Cathoicis" The Potestant ioity was thus toeated" povided that t e nounced any cai to poitica powe o antagonis towad the Cathoic ajoity Habeas easiy ecognized that these ae patena istic conditions fo fo which acceptance of the othe has the chaacte of a ac t o f ecy" ecy" Whie this is the eason why Deida eects the concept of toe ace, the patenaistic chaacte of toeance does n ot ipede Habeas fo fo defedig it on the bas is of an aguent that he aso uses agast agast the notion that deocacy ay be a cutuay cutuay specic, and thus not univesay pefeabe, fo of govenent n ou diaogue, he tesey expesse d it with the foowig foowig wods: Withn a democratic community whose ctizens recprocally recprocally grant one another equal rights no room is left for an authorty allowed to one-sid ed determine the boundaries of what s to be tolerated. On the basis of the citzens' equal rights and recprocal respect for each other nobody possesses the privlege privlege of setting the boundaries of tolerance from from the viewpoint oftheir oftheir own preferences and value orentatons.
Fo Fo Habeas , toeance is d efensibe if pacticed in the cotext of a deocatic couity n such a context, given hat citizes gant each othe equa ights, o one has the piviege to set the boundaies of what has to be toeated Whie eny one sidedy pocaied toeance towad Potestats, in oden Weste deocacies toeance acuies a diaogica po poe What is being toeated is not oesidedy o monological estabished but dialogically achieved though the a tiona tiona exchage aong citizens a bea deocacy, the ony coo standad euied by to eacethe condition ude which a eigios peson toeates an atheistis oyaty to the constitution The costitution, fo Habeas, is the poitica incanation of the idea of a oa counity whose nos and pactices ae y accepted by its e bes Aegiance to te costitution thus eans aegiace to a society in which the agee ent of a fee fee and eq ua patnes i s achieved in dependenty depe ndenty fo fo i position position ad anipuation Habe as's account, the constitution of a epubican deocatic state is the uintessentia ode of discusive
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Reconstructing rrorism
valiatio. The cas e of colicts regarig the iterpretatio of the co stitutio illustrates this iscursive elemet i it, for the costitutio itsefhas mae e e cessary provisios. There are istitutios a proceures for for settlig set tlig the ues tio of the imits for what might sti, or o loger, loger, be take as beig loyal to the co stitutio." As log as com moy agree upo proce ures are i plac e, the po ssibiity of ratioally articulatig articulatig coicts is also i pace. This possibiity etais two cocurret commitmets: oe is the speakers commitmet to telig the truth a efeig efeig it hrough the reemptio of its valiity caims the other is the listeers commitmet to either accept it or oppose it with a better argumet. If these two commitmets have bee mae, eve beig loyal loyal to the costitutio is subject subject to costat revisio o the pa rt of al ivove ivove agets. The cas e of civil civil isobeiece is iterestig from from the stap oit of Habermass Habermass appreciatio of the costitutios iscursive structure a selfreective selfreective potetia. the ialogue he uerlie that i its tolerace of civil isobeiece, the costitutio selfreexively stretches to cover eve the coitios for oversteppig its ow bouaries." This is to say that the cos titutio has provisios provisios for the most raical situatio i which a issie t ecies ot to abie by itit aymore. Such provisios maate that the issiets resistace be carrie out accorig to certai proceures. t is the costitutioa proceures that allow he majority majority to remai criticaly egage with their ow ecisios . Formulate i thes thes e terms, the emocra tic projproject fees o the resistace o f miorities, whose h ostility to the wil of the majo majority rity at the pres et mome t may reew the majori majoris s ow se fuerstaig i the ture. Accorig to Habermas, rights are ot features that iiviuas aturally aturally posses s but reatios that have their basis i mutual recogi tio. At the conceptual conceptual level, righs do no immdiay rfr o aomisic and srangd indiiduas who ar possssiy s agains on anohr On h conrary, conrary, as mn s of h ga ordr hy prsuppo s coaboraion among subjcs who rcogniz on anohr, in hir rciprocay rad righs and duis, as fr and qua consocias undr aw This muua rcogniion is consiui for h ga ordr from which acionab
Habeas
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righ ights a ts arre de d eriv rived ed In In th t his s is see nse se s su ubjec je ctiv tive" righ rights emerge rge equipr iprimo imordia iay w y wth obj object ec tve ve" law law. 43
Iiviuas cofer upo each other rigts as soo as tey agree to regulate their commo life life through law. law. iberal emocracies , law is ot a shou ot be iterprete as a iteraly iteraly coheret syste m of abstract orms; rather the ega boy is, a shoul be take to correspo to, subjective liberty. Ueryig tis beief, which is cetral to Habermass more recet cotributios to political a lega theory, theory, is the Katia priciple that guaratees to the iiviual the greatest amout of liberty liberty that ca be grate to al .
T he Unnished nis hed Project Project of o fModei oerity is for Habermas the very emblem of the poitical promise of ratioait ratioaity. y. The problem, as Habermas s ees it , is that this promise has ot bee le. The articulatio of this ufule promise has sharply istiguishe him from the traitio of Germa thikers which iclues Weber, Aoro, a Horkheimerthat mae Elightemet ratioality resposible for ifectig ifectig moerit wth th e virus of selfestructio. Habermass eyes, te rech thikers associate with the critiue of Eightemet ratioality ratioality a ver oos ely aiate with the labe of pos tmoerism raicaize this posit io a buy ito a aetally etally irratioalist irratioalist claim, which makes us more a ot les s vulerable to the threat of fascism. ascis m. compex po stiustria so cieties, cieti es, fascis fascism m correspos correspos to the coloiz atio of the ifeworl ifeworl by the systemic pressures of ubrile global markets, wil techological spraw, a ight a, reigious reigious fuametalism. Habermas simply oes ot see how to couter suc h cooizatio if ratioaity is ot recogize , i lie with Eightemet teets, as the uiversaly vali political tool. Agaist the egative iterpretatios of moerity, moerity, Habermas a vaces the thesis that moerity has prouce mora progress. Such progress progress rests o the awareess that the process of sociaizatio has to be structure by a system of orms reuirig argumetative argumetative justicatio without ay appea to traitio. As the lifeworl lifeworl is s tructuraly tructuraly
Reontruting orism
of criticay appropriating the present odernity is renewed every time the present is taken as a door opened onto the ture As Haberoftse" mas caims the modern age 'as to create ts normatv ou t oftse" odernity sees s ees itsef i tsef cast back upon itsef without any possibiity of es cape47 Like Hege Habermas thinks that a truy democratic society has to be committed to its norms independent of any externa authority whether it is the past tradition or reigious orthodoxy This impies that modernity is not a historicay bound phenomenon irreduciby determined by the course of European European histor and cuture but rather a project endorsed deiberatey at a certain point n history by whatever community of citizens.4 undamentaism is the vioent reaction against this very project. odernity is thus the name for the possibiity of criticay appropriating any tradition so that individuas and com munities may pursue reey and consensuay consensuay their own deiberations. Giving up modernity for for Habermas Haberm as means to give up the commitment to freedom and socia justice which is the very core of his phio sophica system This expains why he took so much to heart the de bate over the fate of modernity and strongy opposed any suggestion that our epoch may be projected onto a postmodern one Since the 980s 980s his commitment to modernity ed him to take up the task of unmasking the poitica irresponsibiity irresponsibiity of postmodern phiosophers phiosophers operating under the inuence of Nietzsche Nietzsche and Heidegger Heid egger.. In the preface preface Plosop cal Dscourse ofMode ofMode he decares how this topic to e Plosopcal occupied occupied him amost obsessive obses siveyy since 1980 19 80 the year of his reception of the the prestigious Adorno Prize4 Prize 4 Since S ince that day he writes writes his hm dispud and mulif mulifacd as i is nvr los is hold on m Is philosophical aspc s hav movd vn mor sarly ino pulic con sciousnss sciousnss in h wak wak of h h rcpion of Frnch Frnch nosrucura nosrucuralism lism h challng from from h nosrucuralis nosrucuralis criiqu of rason dns h prsp civ from from which I sk o rcon sruc hr sp y sp h philo sophical discours of modrniy Sinc h la ighnh cnury modrniy has n lvad o a philosophical hm in his discours
Habermass intense invovement with the issue of modernity stems from his anxiety that the postmodern orientation encourages enc ourages poitica responsibiity and the potentia to deveop into a dangerous reac
abermas
79
tionary tionary reviva5 reviva5 Habermas accuses acc uses this breed of thinkers incuding incuding errida of not giving due respect to the poitica underpinning of modernity: a universaist ca for freedom freedom and equaity that cannot be reativized vized in any form form I wi address Habermass critique of errida indirecty by discussing Habermass response to Water Benjamin52 n Habermass view view Benjamin Benjamin is erridas direct antecedent anteced ent for for the messianic m essianic sense that he attributes to the modern moment mome nt Habermass Habermas s opinion of Ben jamin is signicant not ony because he extends ex tends his judgment of Ben jamin to errida but aso because Derrida perhaps in response to abermas uses Benjamin Benjamin as a main source ofone of his crucia text on poitica phiosophy phiosophy The Force ofLaw Law53 Habermas introduces his discussion discuss ion of Benjamins Benjamins theory of modernity by contrasting it with the rench poet hares Baudeaire Whras Baudlair had connd himslfwih himslfwih h ida ha h consl laion of im and rniy coms o pass in h auhnic work of ar Bnamin Bnamin wand o ransla his asic ashic xprinc ack ino a hisorical rlaionship H fashiond for his purpos h concp of a nowim ezzei), which is sho hrough wih wih agmns of mssianic or compl compld d im im On h on hand h ida of a homognous and mpy im ha is lld in y h suorn lif in progrss of volu ionism and h philosophy o f his ory; on h ohr hand h nu raliza ion of all sandards fosrd y isoricism whn i imprisons hisory in h musum and l s h sq unc of vns lik h ads o f a rosary
Baudeaire is an unrestrained defender of aesthetic modernity: for him the unprecedented freedom enjoyed by the modern work of art gives it the opportunity to express the cash between the impermanence of the present and a nd the weight of eternity. In Habermass Habermas s reading rea ding enjamin enjamin is even more exacting in his demands dem ands or him the work of art achieves authentic modernity not just because of its subjective subjective free free dom and deance dean ce of convention convention but as a resut res ut of its productive con nection nection with the present understood understoo d in a messianic vein In Benjamins Benjamins mind modern phiosophy of history history has suocated suocated messianism in two ways: either by ooking at history as a predetermined mined course ofevents of events or by accepting evething historica indiscrim
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Reonstruting orism
inately inately and placing it wit the same degree o respect in a museum. mus eum. By contrast Benamins own ca or a new messianism is the ca or a present that is neiter predictabeas tose who view history as a predetermined course o events events woud ie it to benor beno r indierent indierent to its pastas those who revere al that is past to te same degree woud view it. The present needs to be a response to the compete unpredictability dictability o the the ture and a critica assessment assessme nt o te past construed as the horizon o uned uned expectations. expectations. his nd for for rdmpion on h par ofpas of pas pochs who hav dircd hir xpcaions o s is rmi niscn o f h h gr familiar n oh Jw ish and Prosan mysicis m of man's rsponsiili y for for h fa of a God who, n h ac of craion, rlinqishd his omniponc in favor of hman frdom, ping s on an qal fooing wih hmslf. 55
The two conditions that Benamin considers essentia to a meaning connection with the presentthat it be oriented toward an unpredictable ture and that it be seective with respect to the vaue o the past based on its unued expectationsconointy revea the absoute uniqueness uniq ueness o our ocation in history histo ry.. Benamin Benamin cas it messianmess iansm. An attentive ook at Benamins position reveas that it is nda nd a mentay connected with Heges articuation o modernity which have sowed sowed as being cose to that o Habermass . tis tis hods true there is an overap between Habermas and Benamin on Hegeian grounds. Athough this is certainy the case case the ground o overap overap is imited. Hege did conceive the meaning o modernity aong the ines o the the absoute uniqueness o the present with respect to its ocation in history. t is ony in the modern epoch or Hege as we as or Benamin that this uniqueness has come to te ore as an empowering weapon in the hands o individuas individuas and communities. However Hegel was suspicious su spicious o the the pasts pa sts imited vision o the overa traectory traectory o history which which in his mind became visibe ony rom rom the modern standstan dpoint. By contrast Benamin Benamin thought o the past as a range o un un ed expectations or which the modern subect shoud stil ee responsibe because it is ony on the basis o tis tis very cal om the past that the ture can be aced as the wholy new. Benamin and ater on Derrida deveop deveop a strain o Hegels reection on the signicance o
abermas
8
odernity that is precisey what Habermas who aso ooks bac to Hege or or inspiration suppresses suppresses.. This strain concerns a past pa st that can not be articuated discursivey. Tere is nothing more dangerous in Habermass view than the idea o buiding the ture as response to a qasimessianic ca rom rom the past.56 pas t.56
A U TO TO I MM U N I TY TY : R EAL EAL AND S Y M B OL I C S U I C I DE DES
A D i a l o g u e w i t h Ja Ja c q u e s D e r r i d a
September (Le 11 septembre) gave us the imB 0 R R A D O R : pression of being a major event, one of the most important historica events we wil witness in our ifetime, especialy for those of us who never ived through a world war. Do you agree? Le 1 septembre, as you say, or, since we have agreed D E R R I D A : to speak two anguages, anguages, " September ."2 We w have to return later to this question of language. As wel as to this act of naming: a date and nothing more. When you say "September " you are aready citing, are you not? You You are inviting inviting me to speak her e by recaling, as if in quotation tion marks a date or a dating that has taken over our pubic space and or private ives for for ve weeks now. Som ethingfait ai t date, I would say in Tanslated fom e Fench by Pascale-Anne Brault and Michae Naas. Revised by Jacques Deida in nch
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Atoimmnity Atoimm nity Real and Symboli ymbo li Siides
a French idiom something marks a date a date in history; that that s a ways what's most mos t string the very mpact of o f what is at east eas t in an apparenty immediate way to be an event that truy marks that truy makes its mark a singuar and as they say here unprecedented"3 event say apparenty mmediate" because this feeing" is actuay ess spontaneous spontaneo us than it appears: t s to a arge arge extent condtioned consttuted if not actuay constructed circuated at any rate through the meda by means of a prodgious technosocopotica machine To mark a date n history" presupposes in any case that something" comes or happens for the rst and ast tme somethng" s omethng" that we do not yet reay reay now how to dent dent determine recognize or anayze but that shoud remain from here on n unforgettabe: an neaceabe event in the shared archive archive of a universa caendar that is a supposed unversa caendar for these areand want to insist on ths at the outsetony suppostions and presuppositons Unrened and dogmatic or ese carey carey considered organized cacuated strategicor a of these at once For the index pointing toward this date the bare act the mnima dectic the minimaist aim of ths datng aso marks something ese amey amey the fact that we perhaps have no concept and an d no meaning ava abe to us to t o name n any other way this thing" that has just happened this supposed sup posed event e vent" An act of nternationa nternationa terrorsm" for exampe and we wi return return to ths is anything but a rigorous concept that woud hep us grasp the singuarity of what we be tryng to discuss Something" took pace we have have the feeing of not having having seen se en t coming and certain consequences cons equences undeniaby foow foow upon the thng" But this very thing the pace and meaning mean ing of this event" event" remains ineabe ineabe ke an ntution wthout concept conce pt ike a unicity with no generaity on the horizon or with no horizon at a out of range for for a anguage anguage that admits ts powerlessness and so s reduced to pronouncing mechancay a date repeating it endessy as a knd of ritua ncantaton a conjurng poem ajouastic aj ouastic itany or rhetorica refran refran that admits to not knowng what it's tang about abou t We do not in fact fact ow what we are saying or naming in this way: September , le septembre, September The stems not ony from an brevit of the appeation (September , economic or rhetorica necessity The teegram of this metonmya name a numberpoints out the unquaiabe by recognizing that we do not recognize recogni ze or even cognize cogn ize that we do not n ot yet know how to qua i that we do not know what we are takng about
A Dial Dialog ogee wit wit ae aess De Deida ida
This is the rst indsputabe eect of what occurred (whether it was cacuated we we cacuated or not not precsey on September Septembe r , not far from here: we repeat ths we must repeat t and it s a the more necessary necessa ry to repeat it insofar as we do not reay know what is beng named n this way as if to exorcse two times at one go: on the one and to conjure away as fby magic the thing" itsef the fear or the terror it nspires (for (for repetition aways aways protects by neutrazng dead ening distancing a traumatsm and ths s true for for the repetition of o f tthe he teevised images we wi speak of ater and on the other hand to deny deny as cose as possbe pos sbe to ths act of anguage anguage and ths enunciation enu nciation our poweressnes poweressnesss to name in a appropriate fashion fashion to characterize to thnk the thing in question to get beyond the mere deictc of the date: something s omething terribe terribe took pace on September , and n the end we don't know what For however outraged we might be at the vioence however much we mght genuiney deporeas depo reas do aong with everyone esethe number of dead dea d no one w reay be convinced convince d that this is in the end what t's a about wi come back to ths ater; for the moment we are smpy preparing ourseves to say something about it 've been be en in ew e w ork ork for for three weeks now now ot ony is it mpossi be not to speak sp eak on this thi s subject subject but you fee fee or are made mad e to fee that it s forbidden, actuay that you do not have the right to begn speakng of anythng anythng especay n pubic without ceding to this obigation withwithout makng an aways somewhat bnd reference to ths date (and this was was aready the case n hina where was on September , and then n Frankrt on September 4 gave n reguary to ths injuncti injunction on admit; and n a certan sense am doing so again by taking part in ths iendy nterview with with you though trying aways aways beyond the commocom motion and and the most sincere compassion to appea to questions and to a thought" (among other things a rea poitca thought of what t seems has just jus t taken pace on September Septe mber ju justst a few few steps from from here in anhattan or ot too far away away in Washingto Washingtonn D D beeve aways aways in the necessty nec essty of being attentive attentive rst of alto this this penomenon penomenon ofanguage of anguage namng and dating to this repetition compsion psion (at once rhetorica magica and poetic To what ths compuson signes transates or betrays betrays ot in order to isoate ourseves n angage as peope in too much of a rush woud ike us to beeve be eve but on te contrary contrary in order to try to understand unde rstand what is going on precisey eond anguage anguage and what is pushng us to repeat endessy and with
94
Autoimmunity Real and Symbolic Suicides
e concetua concetu a or discursive disc ursive activity, activity, a question quest ion of knowedge; it is as a s if were in act act content to say that what what is terribe terribe about Setember Setem ber " what remains innite" in this wound, is that we do not know what it is and so do not know how to describe, des cribe, identi, or even even name it. And that is, in fact, what m saying. But in order to show that this horizon of nonknowedge, nonknowedge, this nonhorizon of knowedge knowedge (the oweressn oweressness ess to comrehend, recognize, cognize, identi id enti,, name, describe, describe , foresee) foresee) , is anything anything but abstract and ideaist, wi need to say more. And, re cisey, in a more concre co ncretete way. way. sha do this in tee moments twice by reerence to what has been caed ca ed the Cod War," the end en d of the Cod War," War," or the baance ofterror." These three moments momen ts or series s eries of arguments a aea to the same ogic. The same ogic that esewhere roosed we extend without imit in the orm o an imacabe aw the one that reguates ever autommunta pocess7 As we know, an autoimmunitary rocess is that strange behavior where a iving being, in sucdal ashion, itsef" works works to destroy its own rotection, to immunize itse aganst its own" immunity.
First moment,jrst autoimmuni. Rex and rection. Te Cod War in te ead.
We beyond the United States, the whoe word fees obscurey affected by a transgression that is not ony resented as a transgression transgress ion without recedent in history (the rst vioation of U.S. U. S. nationa territory in amost two centuries, or at east thats the hantasm that has revaied revaied for for so ong) but as a transgression of a new tpe. But what Before answering answering this question, et me reca once more the obvitpe? Before ous this transgression vioates the territor territor of a country that, even in the eyes of itsits enemies enem ies and esecia es eciayy since the socaed end en d of the the Cod War," War," ays a vrtuay sovereign roe among sovereign state s tates.s. And thus the roe oguarantor or guardian of the entire word order, the one that, in rincie rincie and in the ast resort, is suosed to assure credit in genera, genera, credit in the sense s ense of nancia transactions but aso the credit granted to anguages, aws, oitica or diomatic transactions. The United States hods hod s this credit, for for which everyoneincuding everyoneincuding those who are trying to ruin itee the need, and it shows it not ony
A Dialoue it acques acques Deida
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through through its weath and its technoscientic and miitary miitary ower but aso, at the same time, through its roe as arbitrator in a conicts, through its dominant resence on the Security Counci and in so many other internationa internationa institutions. institutions . ven whenand with imunityit imunityit resects neither the sirit nor the etter o these institutions and their resoutions. The Th e United States sti retains the ower o accrediting before before the word a certain seresentation it reresents the utimate resumed unity un ity o force and an d aw, aw, o the greatest force and the th e discourse dis course of aw. But here is the rst symtom o suicida autoimmunity not ony is the ground, that is, the itera gure o the founding founding or foundation of this force force oaw o aw,"," seen to be exposed to aggression, but the aggression of which it is the object (the object exposed, recisey, recisey, to vioence, vio ence, but aso, in a ," to its own cameras in its own interests) comes, as fom te nsde, rom forces that are aarenty without any orce of their own own but that are abe to nd nd the means, mea ns, through ruse and the th e imementation of gtec owedge, to get hod of an American weaon in an American city on the ground of o fan Amercan airort. ImI mmigrated, trained, reared or their act in the United States by the United States, these ackes incororate, so to seak, two suicides in one: their own (and one o ne w remain orever orever deenseess deensee ss in the ace o a suicida, autoimmunitar aggressionand that is what terrorizes most) but aso the suicide of those who wecomed, armed, and trained them. For et us not n ot orget orget that the United States had in eect aved the way for and consoidated the orces of the adversar" by training eoe ike bin Laden," who woud woud here be the th e most strikng exame, and by rsts t ofa creating the oiticomitary circumstances circu mstances that woud favor favor their emergence and their shif sh iftsts in aegiance (( or exame, the aiance with Saudi Arabia and other Arab Musim countries in its war against the Soviet Union or Russia in Aghanistanthough one coud endessy mutiy mutiy exames of these suicida aradoxes) aradoxes).. have been be en adjusted wth an extraorDoub sucdal, this force wi have dinary econom (the maximu amount o security, o rearation, of technica rociency rocien cy,, of destructive caabiity, with a minimum ofbor o fbor-rowed means!). t wi have targeted and hit the heart or, rather, the symboic symboic head hea d of o f the revaiing revaiing word order. Right at the eve of the head (cap, caput, captal, Captol) this doube suicide wi have touched two aces at once symboicay and oerationay essentia to
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T hird moment, third autoimmuni
Rex and rection T he vicious circle of repression repression
t cannot be sad that huanty s defenseess aganst the threat of ths ev. But we ust recognze that defenses and a the fors of what s caed wth two equay probeatc words the war on terrors" work work to regenerate n the short or o r ong ter the causes of o f the ev they ca to eradcate. Whether we are takng about raq Afghanstan or even Paestne the bobs" w never never be sart" enough to prevet the vcts (tary ador cvan another dstncton that has becoe ess and ess reabe fro respondng ether n perso or by proxy proxy wth what t w w then be easy ea sy for for the to present prese nt as egtate reprsa reprsass or as counterter counterterrors rors. . And so on ad nntu nntu . . . For the sake of carty carty ad because the anayss requred t have dstngushed three autountary terrors. But reaty these three resources of terror terror cannot be b e dstngushed they feed feed nto and overde terne one another. They are at botto the sae n perceptua re aty" aty" and especay the unconscouswhch s not the east rea of reates. Whether or not Septeber s a event of ajor ajor portance what roe do you see s ee for phosophy? Can phoso pho so phy hep us to understand understan d what has happened? Such a event" surey cas for for a phosophca response. Better a response that cas cas to queston at ther ost ndaenta eve the ost deepseated conceptua presuppostons n phosophca dscourse. The concepts wth whch ths event" has ost ofte been descrbed descrbe d naed categorzed ae the products product s of a dogatc suber" fro whch ony a new phosophca reecto can awaken us a reecton o phosophy phosophy ost notaby on potca phosophy and ts hertage. The prevang dscourse that of the eda and of the oca rhetorc rees too ready on receved co cepts ke war" or terros" (natona or nternatoa. A critical readng of Schtt for exape woud thus prove vey use. On the one hand ha nd so as to foow foow Schtt as far asas possbe n dstngushg cassca war (a drect and decared confrontaton confrontaton be tween two two eney states st ates accordng to the og tradto of Europea aw fro fro cv war" and partsan war" (n ts odern fors even though t appears Schtt acknowedges acknowedges as eary as the begng of B
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the nneteenth century. But B ut on the th e other hand we woud aso have have to recognze agaist Schtt Schtt that the voence voence that has now been uneashed s not n ot the resut of war" (the expresson war on terrors" thus beng one of the ost confused confused and we ust anayze ths conson and the terests such a abuse of rhetorc actuay serve. Bush speaks of war" war" but he s n fact ncapabe of dentng the eney aganst who he decares that he has decared war. t s sad over and over that ether the cvan popuaton of Afghanstan Afghanstan nor ts ares are the enees of the Unted States. Assung that bn aden" s here the sovereg decsonaker everyone knows that he s ot Afgha that he has been dsavowed by hs own country (by every country" and state n fact aost wthout excepton excepton that hs trang owes uch to the Unted States ad that of course he s not aoe. The states that hep h ndrecty do not do so as states. o state as such supports h pubcy pubcy.. As for states state s that harbor" harbo r" terrorst networks t s dcut to dent the as such. The Unted States and Europe ondo and Ber are aso sanctuares sanctua res paces of trang or foraton and nforato for a the terrorsts" of the word. o geography ography no terrtora" deternaton deternat on s thus th us pertnent pertnen t any oger for for ocatng ng the seat of these new echooges of o f transsson or aggresson. To say t a too qucky and n passng to ap and car just jus t a bt what sad earer about a absoute threat whose org org s anoyous and not reated reated to any state such terrorst" attacks aready no oger eed panes bobs or kakazes: t s eough to ntrate a strategcay portant coputer syste and ntroduce a vrus or soe other dsruptve eeent ee ent to parayze the econo e conocc tay tay and potca resources of a entre coutry or contnent. And ths can be attepted fro fro just just about anywhere o earth at very tte expense and wth a a eas. The reatonshp between earth terra, terrtoy and terror has changed and t s necessary nec essary to know that ths s because ofknowedge knowedge that s because becau se of technoscence. t s technoscence technoscence that burs the dstncto betwee war and terrors. ths regard whe copared to the possbtes for destructon and chaotc dsorder that are i reserve, for the futre n the coputerzed networks of the word Septeber " s st part of the archac theater of voence aed at strkng the agnato. agnato. One be abe to do eve worse toorrow orrow nvsby nvsby n sence sen ce ore qucky and wthout any boodshed boods hed by attackng the coputer and nforatona nforatona etworks etworks on whch the
Auimmuniy Auimmuniy Real an d Symblic Symblic Suicides
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etire ife ife (soia, (so ia, eoomi eo omi,, miitary, miitary, ad so o) of a great atio," of the greatest power power o earth, depeds Oe day it might might be said: ep eptember "those were the (good") (goo d") od days of o f the ast war Thigs Thigs were sti ofthe order of the gigati: visible visible ad eormous! e ormous! What size, s ize, what height! There Ther e has bee b ee worse sie aotehoogies aotehoogies of a sorts are so muh more power ad ivisibe, uotroabe, apabe apabe of reepig i everywhere everywhere They are the miroogia rivas rivas of mirobes ad bateria Yet our uosious is aready aware aware of this; it aready ows it, ad that's what's sary If this vioee is ot a war" betwee state s tates,s, it is ot a ivi war" either, either, or a partisa war," hmitt's sese, isofar isofar as it does ot i vove, ike most suh wars, a atioa isurretio or iberatio movemet aimed at takig power o the groud of a atiostate (eve if oe of the aims, whether wheth er seodary or primary, primary, of the bi Lade" etwork etwork is to destabiize de stabiize audi Arabia, a ambiguous ambiguous ay ofthe Uited tates, tates, ad put a ew state power i pae) Eve if oe were to isist o speakig here of terrorism," terrorism," this appeatio ow overs a ew e w oept ad ew distitios Do you thik that these distitios a be safey draw? It's more diut tha ever If oe is ot to trust bidy i the prevaiig aguage, whih remais most ofte sub serviet to the rhetori of the media ad to the bater of the poitia powers, we must be very are usig the term terrorism" ad espe es pe iay iay iteratioa iteratioa terrorism" I the rst pae, what is terror? What distiguishes distigu ishes it om fear, fear, axiety, axiety, ad pai? Whe I suggested su ggested earier earie r that the evet of eptember was major" oy oy to the extet that the traumatism traumatism it iited upo osiousess ad upo the uosious had to do ot with what happeed but with the udetermied threat of a ture more dagerous tha the Cod War, was I speakig of terror, fear, pai, or axiety? How does a terror that is orgaized, provoked, ad istrumetaized dier from thatar that a etire traditio, trad itio, from from Hobbes to hmitt ad eve to e ejami, jami, hods to be the very oditio of the authority authority of aw ad of the sovereig exerise of power, power, the very oditio of the poitia ad of the state? sta te? I I Leviathan Hobbes speaks ot oy of fear" fear" but of terror" terror" ejami ejami speaks ofhow the state stat e teds to appropriate for itsef, itsef, ad preisey through threat, threat , a moopoy o vioee (Critiue (C ritiue ofVioee") It wi o doubt be said B
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that ot every experiee of terror is eessariy ees sariy the eet eet of some terrorism To be sure, but the poitia history of the word terrorism" is derived i arge part from a referee to the Reig of Terror Terror durig the th e Freh Revolutio, a terror that was arried out i the ame of the state ad that i fat presuppose presupposedd a ega moopoy o vioee Ad what do we d i urret deitios or expiity expiity ega deitios of terrorism? I I eah ase, ase, a referee to a rime rim e agaist huma ife i vioatio of atioa or iteratioal aws etais at oe the distitio betwee iviia iviia ad miitary (the vitims of terrorism are assumed to be iviias) ad a politia ed (to iuee or hage the politis of a outry by terrorizig its iviia popuatio) These deitios do ot therefore exude state terrorism" Every terrorist i the word aims to be respodig i sefdefese to a prior terrorism o the part of the state, oe that simpy wet by other ames ad overed itsef with a sorts of more or ess redibejustiatios justiat ios You You kow about the au satios eveed agaist, for for exampe, ad espeia es peiayy, the Uited tates, t ates, suspeted suspet ed of pratiig or eouragig eouragig state terrorism 3 I additio, eve durig deared wars betwee states, i aordae with the og traditio of Europea aw, aw, there were equety eque ty terrorist terror ist exesses exess es We before the massive bombig ampaigs of the ast two word wars, the itimidatio of iviia popuatios was ommoy resorted to For eturies A word must aso be said aout the expressio iteratioa ter rorism," whih has beome be ome a stape of oia poitia poitia disourse the word word over over IItt is aso beig used i umerous oia odematios o the part of the Uited atios ati os After eptember , a overwhemig overwhemig majority majority of states represeted represet ed i the U (it may have atualy atualy bee uaimous, uaimous, I woud have to hek) odemed, as has happeed more tha oe i the past pas t few few deades, dead es, what it als iteratioa iteratioa terror ism" Durig a teevised sessio of the U, eretaryGeera Ko Aa had to real i passig some of their previous previous debates debate s Forjust For just as they were preparig to odem o dem iteratioa terrorism," ertai states expressed reservatios about the arity arity of the the oept ad the riteria used to ideti it As with so may other ruia juridial o tios, what remais obsure, dogmati, or preritia does ot prevet the powers that be, the soaed so aed egitimate powers, from from makig use of these otios whe it seems opportue O the otrary, the more o sed the oept the more it eds itsef to a opportuisti appropri
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Auoimmuniy: Auoimmuniy: Real and Symbolic Suicides Suicides
If �il re erves itory. If territory. need f o r terr inimal ne but a minimal hat has bu trol that control t litical con politica zable rtua zable onvrtua last nonv th e last n amon mongg the eft, a tories ries l left, terri rrito are te the rare ong the r a mong rema remain am own a ights to lay down th e rights secure the imply secu ac es, one c an simply stria ria p ace terre terrest tech t he whoe w hoe tech ent , the mo m ent, th e mom true th t hat, f o r the ugh itt is also true Thoough i eline. Th pip pi peline. reethese th ese r o n e nds depe dep t ries coun ount o nic c nic egem emo o f heg h ture re struc st ructu ial dus trial noin noi ndustr , the y be, be it may ma i ned termi erdeterm d overde ov ex and an o mpex mp c howevver co th at, howe sources, sou rces, so that, remain� about remain spokenn about just spoke have ju erything we have ility of everyth ossibility of possib hes e ces,, t hese places ceabble pla replacea nonnrepla these no eak, k, in in these to spea so to sp solid still solid in the the still aw, in by aw elonng, by to belo tinue to b co ntinu itoriess con se ter terrritorie hese ies. The erritorries. T territo states.s. ationnstate ign natio vereeign n to sover law, to so ational law internnation dition of inter tra traditio What you are suggesting cals for profound B 0 R R A D O R I changes at the e ve of international international institutions and internation internationl la. Such a mutation wll have to take pace. But t mD E R R I D A possible to predict at what pace. In all the transformations we have been discussing, what remains incalcuable is rst of al the pace or rhythm, the time of acceleration and the acceleration of time. And this is for for ess ential reasons that have to d o with the very speed of technoscientic advances or shifts in spee d. Just like like the shifts shifts in size or scale that nanotechnoogies have introduced into our evaluations and our measures. Such radical changes in international international law are neces sary, sary, but they might take place in on e generation or in twenty. twenty. Who can say? Though I am incapabe of knowing who today deserves the name philosopher (I would not simpy accept certain professional professional or organi organi zationa zationa criteria), I would be tempted to cal philosophers those who, in the ture, reect in a responsible fashion on these questions and demand accountability from from those in charge of public public discour se, those responsible for the language and institutions of internationa law. A ��philosopher" (actually I woud prefer to say ��philosopherdeco structor") would be someone who analyzes analyzes and then draws draws the pract ca and eective eective conseq uences of the relationship between our philo sophical heritage and the structure of the stil dominant juridico political system that is so clearly undergoing mutation A ��philosopher" would be one who seeks a new criteriology to distin uish between ��comprehending" and ��justiing." For one can descbe , com prehend, and explain explain a certain chain of events or series of associations that lead to war" or to ��terrorism" without withoutjustiing justiing them in the least, while in fact condemning them and attempting to invent other associations. One can condemn unconditionaly certain acts of terrorism
A Dialoe w ih Jacques Deida
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(whether of the state or not) without having to ignore the situation that might have brought them about or even legitimated them. To provide examples it would be necessary to conduct long analyses, in principle interminaby long. One can thus condemn uncondtonally, as I do here, the attack of September 1 without having to ignore the real or alleged conditions that made it possible. Anyone in the world who either organized or tried to justi this attack saw it as a response to the state terrorism of the United States and its allies. This was the case , for for exampleand I cite this ony as an examplein the Middle East, even though Yasir Yasir Arafat Arafat also condemned Septem ber 11 " and resed bin Laden the right to speak in the name of the Paestinian Paestinian people. If the distinction between war and terrorism is B 0 R R A D O R I : probematic probematic and we accept the notion of state terrorism, then the ques tion tion stl remains who is the most terrorist? The most terrorist? terrorist? This question is at once n ecesD E R R I D A sary and destined to remain without any answer. answer. Necessary becaus e it takes into account an e ssen tia fact: fact: a ll terrorism presents tse as a respons e in a situation that continues to escalate. It amounts to saying, I am resorting to terrorism as a last resort, becaus e the other is mo re ter rorist than I am; I am defending myself, counterattacking; the rea terrorist, the worst, is the one who wi have deprived me of every every other means o fresponding be fore pres enting himself, himself, the rst aggressor, as a victim." It is in this way that the United States, Israel, wealthy nations, and colonial or imperialist powers are accus ed of practicing practicing state terrorism and thus of being more terrorist" than the terrorists of whom they say they are the victims. The pattern is well known, so I wont belabor it. Bu t it is dicut to write it o purely and simply, simply, even if it is sometimes applied in a simpistic and abusive fashion. Yet the question you are asking, that ofa more or ess" in terrorism, shoud aso not be settled through a purely and objectivey quanttatve logic. For this question can give rise to no such suc h forma forma evaluation. Terrorist" acts try to produce psychic eects (conscious or unconscious) and symboic or symptomatic reactions that might take numerous detours, an incalcuable number of them, in truth. he qual or ntensty of the emotions provoked (whether conscious or unconscious) is not always proportionate to the number ofvictims of victims or the amount of damage. In situations and cutures where the media do not spectacularize the event, the killing killing of thousands o f peope in a very short p eriod of time might pro
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ess loca icidet ic idet ut u t this ogaized itepetatio infomed infomed by the cuent state of SChia eations (dipomatic tesios and icidets of vaious sots) sots) ended up having to yield to othe exgecies CNN and othe inteatioa media outets have penetated Chiese space and Chia too afte afte al has its ow Musim" Musim" pobem It thus became ecessay to join in some way way the atiteoist" atiteoist" coaitio" It woud be necessay to aayze i the same vei the motivatios and iteests itees ts behid al the deent deent geopoitica geopoitica o stategicodipomatic stategicodipomatic shifts shifts that have ivested" so to speak Septembe (Fo exampe the wamg i eatios betwee ush ad Puti who has been give a fee fee hand i Chechnya C hechnya ad the vey use but vey hasty ideticaidetic atio of Palestiia teoism wth iteationa teosm which ow cals fo fo a uivesal espose I both cases cases ceta paties have a iteest in pesenting thei advesaes ot oy as teoistswhch they in fact ae to a cetai extentbut only as teoists ideed as international teoists" who shae the same ogic o ae pat of the same etwok ad who must thus be opposed t s claimed ot though coutetesm but though a wa" meag f couse a ce clean" wa The facts" cealy show that these distinctios ae ackig i igo mpossbe to maitai and easy manipulated fo ceta ends A adica decostucto deco stucto of the the dstictio between wa ad teoism as a s we as betwee dieet dieet types of teoism (such as atioa ad teatoa) makes t vey dicut to coceive of politics i a stategic sese sese Who ae the actos o the wod stage? How many ofthem ae thee? the e? Isnt Is nt thee hee h ee the isk of tota aachy? The wod aac aachy" hy" isks isks making making us abado abado too too quicky quicky the aaysis aaysis ad itepetatio of what ideed looks like pue chaos We must do a that we ca to account fo this appeaance appeaa nce We We must do eveything possible possib le to make this ew dsode" dsod e" as iteigibe as possibe possibe The anayss we sketched out eaie tied to move i that dection a ed of the Cod C od Wa" Wa" that eavesjust oe camp a coatio actuay actuay of states caiming caimin g soveeigty soveeigty ffaced aced with aoymous a oymous and a nd os tate tate oganizations oganizations amed and vituay vituay nucea powes Ad these powes can aso without ams and without exposios without any attacks peso pes o ava themseves of ncediby ncediby destuctive compute technoogies technologes capabe of opeatios that i fact have o ame (eithe wa no teoism) ad that ae o oge caed out n 0
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the ame of a atiostate ad whose cause" i a seses of ths wod is dicut to dene (thees the theoogica cause the ethnic cause the socioecoomc cause ca use ad so o) o) On o side is the ogic of soveeignty eve put ito questio qu estio (poitica soveeigty o that of the the atiostatetsef of ototheoogica oigi though moe o ess secuaized i oe pace ad puey theoogica and nosecuaized i anothe) ot o the side s ide of the atiostates and the geat powes that sit o the Secuty Couci ad ot o the othe side o othe sides side s sice thee is pecisey an idetemiate id etemiate umbe of them Eveoe wi o doubt pot to existig iteatioa aw (the foudatos foudatos of which emai I beeve pefectbe evisable i need of ecastig both coceptuay and isttutioay) ut this iteatioa aw is owhee espected And as soo as oe paty does not espect it the othes o oge coside it espectabe ad begi to betay it i the tu The ted States ad Isae ae ot the oly ones who have become accustomed to takg a the the ibeties they deem ecessa ec essa with UN esoutios To aswe you questio moe specicay I woud say that the ited States is pehaps not the soe taget taget pehaps not eve the ceta o utmate taget of the opeatio with which the ame bi Lade" is associated at east by metoym m etoymyy The pont may be to povoke a mitay mitay ad dpomatic situato that destabiizes de stabiizes cetain Aab couties couties to betwee a powe pubic opiion (which s atiAmeatiAmeican if ot atiWeste atiWeste fo coutess easos stemmig stemmig fom fom a compex cetues old histoy histoy but the also in the aftemath aftemath of a ea of coloaism o mpeiasm fom povety oppessio ad ideoogcoeigous idoctiatio) ad the ecessty ec essty of basig thei nodemocatic authoty o dplomatic ecoomc ad mtay ties with the ited States Sta tes Fist on the ist hee woud be Saudi Aabia which which e mais the pivieged pivieged eemy of evething evething that might be epeseted by a bi Lade" (a ame I use aways as a syecdoche) o a Saddam Hussen Yet Saud Aabia (a mpotant family family and a impotat oipoducing powe) whie whie maitaiig its ties with ts Ameica potecto" cet" ad boss" fues a the hotbeds of Aab Isamic fanaticism if ot teoism" i the wod This is oe of the paadoxica situatios oce agai autoimmunitay of what you caled tota anachy" the movemets and shifts in the stategic oi aiaces betwee the nited States (sefstyed champio of the democatic idea of
Auimmuniy Auimmuniy Real and Symblic Suicides
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human ights, and so on) and egimes e gimes about which the east that can be said is that they do not coespond to this mode. Such egimes ( used the exampe of Saudi Aabia, though though it woud be necessay to speak of the equay seious seiou s case of Pakistan) Pakistan) ae aso the th e enemies o tagets of those who oganize socaed intenationa intenationa teoism" teoism" against against the .S. .S . and, at east ea st vitua vituay,y, thei aies. hat makes fo fo moe than one tiange. And with a the anging going on between these tianges, it is difcut to disentange the ea fom the aeged motivation, oi fom eigion, poitics fom economcs o miitay stategy. he bin Laden" type of diatibe diatibe against the Ameican devi thus combines such themes as the pevesion of faith and nonbeief, the vioation of the saced paces ofsam, of sam, the mitay mitay pesence pesence nea Mecca, Mecca , the suppot ofsae, and the oppession of Aab Musim popuations. But if this hetoic ceay ceay esonates with the popuations and even the media of the Aab and Musim wod, the govenments of o f Aab Musim states st ates (the majo majo ity of which cae about as much fo human ights and democacy d emocacy as bin Laden does) ae a e amost a hostie in pincipe, as govenments," to the bin Laden" netwo and its discouse. One thus has to con cude cude that bin Laden" Laden" is aso woki woking ng to destabii destabiizeze them . . . Which woud be the standad objective of teoists, to ovetun but not take ove, to destabiize des tabiize the cuent situa tion. he most common stategy consists aways in destabiizing not ony the pincipa, decaed enemy but aso, at the same time, in a kind of quasidomestic confontation, those much cose. cose. Sometimes even one's own aies. his is anothe necessay consequence of the same autoimmunitay pocess. n a was, a civi was, a patisan was o was fo ibeation, the inevitabe escaation eads one to go afte ones iva patnes no ess than one's socaed pincipa advesay. Duing the Ageian Wa, between 19 and 19, what sometimes s ometimes ooked oo ked ike faticida faticida"" acts of vioence vioence between dif dif feent insuectiona foces poved sometimes just as exteme as those between these goups and the ench coonia foces. foces. This is yet one moe eason eas on not to conside eveything eveything that has to do with Isam o with the Aab usim us im wod" wod" as a wod," wod," o at east eas t as one homogeneous homoge neous whoe. And wanting to take a these divisions, dieences, dieences, and dieends dieends into account does do es not necessai nece ssaiy constitute an act of wa wa no does tying to do eveything possibe to ensue that B
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in this Aab Musim wod," whch is not a world and not a wod that is one, cetain cuents do not take ove, namey, those that ead to fanaticism, to an obscuantism amed to the teeth with moden techno science, to the vioation of evey juidicopoitica pincipe, to the cue disegad fo human ights and democacy, to a nonespect fo ife. ife. We must hep what is caed c aed Isam Is am and what is caed Aab" to fee fee themseves om such vioent dogmatism. We must hep those who ae ghtng heoicay in this diection on e nsde, whethe we ae taking about poitics in the naow sense sen se of the tem o ese about abo ut an intepetation of the Koan. When say that we must do this fo what is caed sam and what is caed Aab," I obviousy mean that we must not do any ess when it comes to Euope, the Ameicas, Afica, and Asia! Eaie you emphasized the essentia es sentia oe of intenationa oganizations and the need to cutivate a espect fo intenationa aw. Do you think that the kind of teoism inked to the a Qaeda oganization and to bin Laden habos intenationa poitica ambitions? What appeas to me unacceptabe in the stategy" stategy" (in tems of weapons, pactices, ideoogy, ideoogy, hetoic, discouse, discous e, and so on) of the bin Laden eect" is not ony the cuety, the disegad fo human ife, ife, the disespe dis espectct fo fo aw, fo women, the use of what is wost wo st in technocapitaist modenity mod enity fo fo the puposes of eigious eigious fanaticism. No, it is, above a, the fact fact that such actions action s and such discouse open ono noure noure and, n my vew, ave noure noure If we ae to put p ut any faith in the pefectibiity of pubic pubic space spa ce and an d of the wod juidicopoitica juidi copoitica scene, of the wod" wod" itsef, itsef, then thee is, it seems to me, nong good to be hoped fo fom fom that quate. What is being poposed, popo sed, at east eas t im picity, is that a capitaist and moden techno scientic foces be put in the seice of an intepetation, itsef dogmatic, dogmatic, of the samic eveaeveation of the One. One . Nothing of what has been so aboiousy secuaized in the foms foms of the poitica," of democacy democ acy of intenationa aw," aw," and even in the nontheoogica fom of soveeignty (assuming, again, that the vaue of soveeignty can be competey secuaized o detheoogized, a hypothesis about which have my doubts), none of this seems se ems to have any pace whatsoeve in the discouse bin Laden." hat is hy, hy, in this uneashing uneashin g of vioence without with out name, if had to take tak e one of the two sides and choose in a binay situation, we, woud. Despite my vey vey stong eseations about the Ameican, indeed Euopean, po B
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itica itica po stue, about the intenationa antiteoist" antiteoist" coaition, despite a the de facto betayas, al the faiues to ive up to democacy, intenationa aw, aw, and the vey intenational institutions that the states of this coaition" themselves founded and suppoted up to a cetain point, I woud take the side of the the camp that, in pincipe, by ight ight of aw, aw, eaves a pespe ctive ctive op en to pefectibiit pefectibiityy in the n ame o f the p oitica," democacy, intenationa aw, intenationa institutions, and so on Even Even if this in the name of" is sti meey an assetion and a puey veba veba commitment Even in its mo st cynica cynica mode , such an ass etion stil ets esonate within it an invincibe invincibe pomise. I do n't hea any such pomise coming fom fom bin Laden," at east not one fo this worl. It seems that you you pace you hopes in the au B 0 R R A D O R thoity of intenationa aw. Yes In the st pace, as impefect as they may be, D E R R I D A these intenational institutions shoud be espected in thei deibeations and thei esoutions by the soveeign states who ae membes of them and who have have thus subscibed to thei chates I mentioned just a moment ago t he seio us faiings faiings of cetain cetain ��Westen" states wth egad to thes e commitments. Such faiings faiings woud stem fom fom at eas t two seies of causes . Fist, they woud have to do with the vey stuctue of the axioms and pincipes pincipes of these systems ofaw and thus of the chates and conventions that institutionaize them Reection (of what I woud ca a ��decons tuctive" tuctive" type) shoud thus, it seem s to me, without without diminishing o des toying toying these axioms and pincipes, question and efound efound them, endessy ene and univesaize them, without becoming discouaged by the apoias such wo k must neces saiy saiy encounte. But secon d, such faings, faings, in the case of states as powe as the United States and Isae (which is suppoted by the U.S .) , ae not sub ject to any dissuasive sanctions. The United Nations has neithe the foce no the means fo such sanctions It is thus necessary to do eveything possibe (a fomidabe and imposing task fo the vey ong tem) to ensue that these cuent faiings in the pesent state of these institutions ae eectivey eectivey sanctioned an d, in tuth, discouaged in advance by a new oganization. This woud mean that an institution such as the UN (once modied in its stuctue and chateand I'm thinking hee paticuay of the Secuity Counci) woud have to have at its disposa an eective intevening foce and thus no onge have to depend in
A Dialoge w ith Jacques Derida
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ode to cay out its decisions on ich and powel, actuay o vituay hegemonic, nationsta tes, which bend the aw in accodance wit thei foce and accoding to thei inteests. Sometimes quite cynicay. I'm no t unawae unawae o f the the appaenty utopic chaacte of the hoizon I'm sketching out hee, that of an intenational intenational institution institution of law and an intenationa cout of ustice with the i own autonomous foce. Though I do not hold aw to be the ast wod in ethics, politics, o any thing ese, though this unity of foce foce and aw (which is equied by the vey concept of aw, as Kant expains so we) is not only utopic but aporetic (since it impies that beyond the soveeignty of the nation state, indeed beyond democa tic soveeigntywhose soveeigntywhose ontothe oogical foundations must be deconstuctedwe woud nonetheess b e econstituting stituting a new gue, though not ne cessaiy stateelated, of univesa univesa soveeignty, of absoute law with an eective autonomous foce at its disposa ), I continue to beieve that it is faith in in the po ssibiity of this impossible and, in tuth, undecidabe thing fom fom the point of view of knowedge, science, and conscience that must goven a ou deci sions 4 It might be said that this teoist attack was, in B 0 R R A D O R I : one sen se, an attack against the pincipe of soveeignty that the the nite d States has ove its own and, yet also an attack on the soveeign ole the United States pays visvis th e Weste Weste n wod, at once poiticaly, poiticaly, economicay, and cutuay Have these two attacks destabiized the concept of soveeignty soveeignty as it has been deveoped by Westen Westen mo denity? denity? Those caed teoists" ae not, in this context, D E R R I D A : othes," absoute othes whom we, as Westenes," Westenes," can no onge un destand We mus t not foget that they wee often often ecuited, tained, and even amed, and fo a ong time, in vaious Westen ways by a Weste n wod that itsef, in the couse of its ancient a s wel as vey e cent history, invented the wod, the techniques, and the poitics" of teoism." Next, one has to divide, o at least dieentiate, a the whoes" o goups" to which we might be tempted to attibute esponsibiity fo this teoism. It's not the Aabs" in genea, no Isam, no the Aab Isamic Midde East Each of these goups is het eogeneous, eogeneous, ed with tensions, conlicts, and essentia contadictions, with, in tuth, what we have been caing sefdes sefdes tuctive, tuctive, quasisuici da, autoimmunitay pocesses The same goes fo the West." What is, to my eyes, very impo tant fo fo the tu e, and I wi etun to th is late,
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epicenter at least metonymically of all these wars" is the confrontation between between the state ofsrael of srael (another democracy" that has not cut the umbilical cord wth reigious reigious indeed ind eed wt ethnoreligious authority and that is strongly supported though in a complicated way by the United States) and a virtual Palestinian state (one that in preparing its constitution has not yet given up on declaring slam the ocial state religion and that is strongy supported though in a compicated and often pererse way by Arab Muslim state s tates)s) would like to hope that tha t there wil wil be in Europe" Eu rope" or in a certain modern tradition of Europe at the cost of a deconstruction that is stil nding its way way the possibility of another discourse and another politics a way out of this double theologicopoitica program September S eptember whatever is ultimately ultimately put under this titewil titewil thus have been at once a sign and a price to pay pay a ver high price to be sure without withou t any possibe redemption or savation on for the victims but an important stage in the process S you see se e an important important roe for Europe? hope for it but do not see it have not n ot seen any thing in the facts that wold give rise to any certainty or knowledge Ony a few signs to interpret f there are responsibilities to be taken and decisions to be made responsibilities and decisions worthy of these names they belong to the time of a risk and of an act of faith faith Beyond knowledge For if decide because I know, within the limits of what I know and know I must do, then am simpy deploying a fores foreseeeeable program and there is no decision decis ion no responsibility responsibility no event As for what have ust risked on the subect of Europe" let's say that 'm raising a few few questions in the midst of a certain night and on the basis of a certain number of signs decipher dec ipher wager wager hope hope f put so so many cautionary cautionary quotation marks around these the se proper names beginning with with Europe" it is because am not sure about anything Especialy not about Europe Euro pe or the European community commu nity suc as it exists or announces itsef de facto facto t is a matter of thinking the perhaps" of which spoke at such length in Politics ofFriendsip on the subect of the democracy to come. Sticng for a moment with Europe in its cur rent state how do you see Europe's political role role and the possibilities pos sibilities for it to exercise a real inluence? Right ow the French and German governments B
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are tring timidly to slow down or temper the hastiness or overzealousness of the United States at least with respect to certain forms forms this war on terrorism" might take But little heed is taken here to voices coming from from Europe Europ e The mao maorr television televisi on networks speak spe ak only of te unconditional uncondition al and enthusiastic enthu siastic support s upport of Engand and Tony Tony Blair be side the United States State s France should do more and do better it seems to me to make mak e an original voice heard But it's a small country country even if it has nucear weapons and a vote on the Security Se curity Counci Counci As long as Europe does doe s not have a unied miitary force force sucien su cientt for for autonomous autonomou s interventions interventions interventions that would be motivated calcuated discussed and deiberated in Europe the ndamenta premises of the current situation wil not change and we wil not get any coser co ser to the transformation transformation aluded alu ded to earlier ear lier (a new international internationa l law law a new internationa force force in the service of new international international institutions a new concept and a new concrete gure of sovereignty as well as other names no doubt for for all these things to come) do not wish to grant too great a privilege privilege to the th e uridical sphere to international international aw and its institutions even if if believe more than ever eve r in their importance Among the international institutions that matter most today there's not only the UN but the nternationa onetary Fund and the G8 to name ust wo Reca what happened recently in Genoa for for example Some have said sa id not without exaggeratio exaggerationn but also not without some plausibiity that between the forces that are being mobilized today against globalization and those of o f international international terrorism (in two words words September S eptember there is a common cause a de facto facto aliance aliance or colusion if not an intentional conspiracy conspiracy Enor mous eort eort wi bebe required to introduce here al the necessar distinctions (both conceptua and practical) which wil have to take into account the contradictions that is the autoimmunitary overdeterminations on which 've been insisting Despite their apparently biological genetic or zooogical zooogical provenance these contradictions a concern as you can see what is beyond be yond living being pure and simple f fonly because they bear death in ife ife The question q uestion of internationa internationa sovereignty appears to me extremey compicated When the role of international organizations ganizations and of international international law is pushed to its extreme don't we end back up with a state mode a metastate a metaaw? This is an enormous problem to be sure The B
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maor reerences to discuss here woud be or me Kant and Hannah Arendt. Both o these thinkers caed or an internationa aw and yet excuded excuded indeed reecte reectedd the hypothesis o a superstate or word govgovernment It is not a question o going through as is the case today more or ess temporary crises o sovereignty sovereignty to end up at a word state. This absoutey new and unprecedented orm o destateication woud aow us to think thin k beyond what Kant and Arendt Are ndt ormuated ormuated in a determined way the new gure to come o an utimate recourse o a sovereignty (or rather and more simpy simpy since this term sovereignty s overeignty"" is sti too equivoca sti too theoogicopoitica a orce or power a cracy o a cracy aied to or even one with not ony aw but ustice. That is what I wished to bring out in the phrase democracy democracy to come (la dmocratie a venir Democracy to come" does not mean a ture democracy that wi one day be present." Democracy wi never exist in the present it is not presentabe and it is not a reguative idea in the Kantian sense But there is the impossible whose promise democracy inscribesa promise that risks and must aways aways risk being perverted into a threat. There is the impossibe and the impossibe remains impossibe because becau se o the the aporia o the demos the demos is at once the incacuabe singuarity singuarity o anyone beore any subect" the possibe undoing o the the socia bond by a secret to be respected beyond a citi zenship beyond ever state" indeed every peope" indeed even be yond the current state o the denition o a iving being as iving human" being and the universaity o rationa cacuation o the equaity o citizens beore the aw the socia bond o being together with or without contract and so on. And this impossibe that there is remains ineaceab ineaceabe.e. It is as irreducibe as our exposure to what comes or happens. It is the exposure (the desire the openness but aso the ear) that opens that opens itse that opens us to time to what comes upon us to what arrives or happens to the event. To history i you wi a histor to be thought thou ght competey competey otherwise than rom rom a teeoog ica horizon indeed rom any horizon at a. When I say the impossibe that there is" I am pointing to this other regime o the the possibeim possibe" that I try to think by questioning in a sorts o ways (or exampe around questions o the git orgiveness hospitaity and so on) on) by trying to decons d econstruct" truct" iyou wi the heritage o such concepts as possi possibiity biity"" power" impossibiity impos sibiity"" and so on But I cannot ca nnot deveop this this any rther rther here here
A Diale wi Jacques Jacques Deida
2
Oa O a the names grouped grouped a bit too quicky quicky under the categor po itica itica regimes" (and I do not beieve that democracy demo cracy"" utimatey des ignates a poitica regime") regime") the th e inherited concept o democracy is the ony ony one that wecomes the possibiity possibiity o being contested o contesting contesting itse o criticizing and indenitey improving itse. I it were sti the name o a regime it woud be the name o the ony regime" that pre supposes its own perectibiity perectibiity and thus its own historicityand that th at is responsive in as responsibe a ashion ashion as possibe I woud say say to the aporia or the undecidabiity on the basis o whicha basis without basisthis regime gets decided Im quite aware that such ormuations remain remain obscure but bu t i democracy is aso a thing o the the reason to come this reason can present itse today today it seems se ems to me ony in this penum bra. Yet I can aready hear in it so many intractabe inunc inunctions tions What is your position concerning the concept o gobaization and what is the reationship between gobaization and cosmopoitanism? As or gobaization or what I preer to reer o in French or or reasons I give esewhere as mondialisation the vioence o September seems once again to attest to a series o contradictions. tions. Contradictions that are in act destined to remain or or they are aporias that have to do once again it seems to me with that autoimmunitary inevitabiity inevitabiity whose eects we are constanty registering. First Firs t gobaization gobaization does not take pace in the paces and at the moment it is said to take pace Second everhere it takes pace without taking pace it is or better and or worse. et me try to cari these two points. I does does n ot take place In an age o socaed gobaization an age where it is in the interest o some to speak about gobaization and ceebrate its benets the disparities between human societies the socia and economic inequaities have probaby never been greater and more spectacuar (or the spectace is in act more easiy gobaizabe ") in the history o humanity. humanity. Though the discour di scoursese in avor avor o gobaization insists on the transparency made possibe by teetechnoogies the opening o borders borders and o markets markets the eveing eveing o paying paying eds and the equaity o opportunity there have never been in the history h istory ohuo humanity in absoute numbers so many inequaities so many cases o manutrition ecoogica disaster or rampant epidemic (think or exampe o AIDS AI DS in Arica Arica and o the miions o peope we aow to die B
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and, thus, ki!). As A s for technoogica inequaities, inequaities, think think of the fact fact that ess tan 5 percent of humanity as access to the nternet, though in 1999 af of a American househods did, and that the majority of servers are in Engish. At the very moment wen the end of work" is being touted, unprecedented numbers number s of peope are being oppressed by work conditions or, inversey inversey, are unabe to nd te work they desire.2 Ony certain countries, and in these countries ony certain casses, benet fuy from gobaization. Weaty, northern countries od the capita and contro the instruments of economic decisions (G8, MF, Word Word Bank, and so on). f te organized perpetrators perpetrators of the September n" attack are themseves among those who benet from from tis socaed s ocaed gobaization (capitaist (capitais t power, power, teecommunication, advanced technoogy, technoogy, the openness open ness of borders, and so s o on), on) , they nonetheess caimed (unfairy, no doubt, though to great eect) to be acting in the name of tose doomed by gobaization, a tose who fee fee excuded or rejected, disenfranchised, eft by the wayside, who have ony the means of the poor in this age of gobaization (which is, today, teevision, an instrument that is never neutra) neutra) to witness the spectace of the oensive prosperity of oters. A specia specia pace pac e woud have to be reserved here for samic cutures and popuations in this context. n the course of the ast few centuries, whose istory woud have to be carefuy carefuy reexamined (the absence of an Enightenment age, cooniaization, imperiaism, and so on), severa factors have contributed to the geopoitica situation whose eects we are feeing today, today, beginning with the t he paradox of a marginaization and a nd an impoverishment whose rhythm is proportiona to demographic growt. These popuations are not ony deprived of access to what we ca democracy (because of te history just briey recaed) but are even dispossessed of the socaed natura riches of the and, oi in Saudi Arabia, for for exampe, or in raq, or even in Ageria, Ageria, god in South Africa, Africa, and so many other natura resources esewhere. es ewhere. They are dispossessed at once by te owners, that is, te seers, and by the ex poiters and cients, in truth, by the nature of the game whereby the two parties engage in these more or ess peacefu aiances aiances or transactions. transactions . These natura" riches are in fact the ony nonvirtuaizabe and nondeteritoriaizab teritoriaizabee goods eft eft today they are the cause cau se of many of the phe nomena we have been discussing. discuss ing. With a these victims of supposed gobaization, diaogue (at once verba and peace) is not taking pace.
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Recourse to the worst vioence is thus often presented as te ony response" to a deaf ear." ear." There are countess cou ntess exampes of tis in recent history, we before before September S eptember This is the ogic put forard by al terrorisms invoved in a strugge for freedom. Mandea expains quite we how his party, after years of nonvioent strugge and faced with a compete resa of diaogue, resigned itsef to having to take up arms. The distinction between civiian, miitary, and poice is thus no onger pertinent. From this point of view, view, gobaization is not taking pace. t is a simuacrum, a rhetorica artice or weapon that dissimuates dissimu ates a growing imbaance, a new opacity, opacity, a garruous and hypermediatized noncommunication, a tremendous tremend ous accumuation of weath, means of production, teetechnoogies, and sopisticated miitary miitary weapons, and the appropriation of a these powers by a sma number of states or internationa corporations. And contro over these is becoming at once easier and more dicut. The power to appropriate has such a structure (most (mos t often deterritoriaizae, virtuaizabe, virtuaizabe, capitaizabe) capitaizabe) that, at the very moment wen it seems controabe by a sma number (of states, for exampe), it escapes right into the hands of internationa nonstate nonstate structures and so tends toward dissemination in the very movement of its concentration. Terrorism Terrorism of the September n " sort (weathy, hypersophisticated, teecommunicative, anonymous, and without an assignabe state) stat e) stems ste ms in part from from tis apparent contradiction. 2 And yet wherever it is beieved globalzaton s takngplace, t s For better discourses, owedge, and modes for better b etter and a ndfor for worse For are transmitted better and faster. faster. Democratization Dem ocratization thus has more of a cance. Recent movements toward democratization in Eastern Europe owe a great dea, amost everything perhaps, to teevision, to the communication of modes, norms, images, informationa informationa products, and so on. Nongovernmenta institutions are more numerous and better known known or recognized. recogn ized. Look at the eorts eorts to institute institu te the nternationa Crimina Tribuna. You spoke of cosmopoitanism"a cosmopoitanism"a formidabe question, to be sure. Progress of cosmopoitansm, yes. We can ceebrate it, as we do any any access to citizenship, in this case, to word citizenship. But citizenship is aso a imit, that of te nationstate and we have aready ex pressed our reservations res ervations with with regard to the word state . beieve we
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should hus, beyod he old GrecoChrisia cosmopoliical cosmopoliical ideal (he Soics, Sai Paul, Ka), see he comig o a uiversal uiversal alliace alliace or solidariy ha exeds beyod he ieraioaliy o aiosaes ad hus beyod ciizeship. This was oe o he m
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