Violence is inherent in political action

However, Merleau-Ponty later makes it clear that he is aware of this problem, which he calls “the pious excuse of ‘ends’” (127). He goes further, and rejects the categories of means and ends entirely:

The Marxist does not live with his eyes fixed on a transcendent future, forgiving deplorable tactics in the name of ultimate ends and absolving himself on account of his good intentions; he is the only one who denies himself such recourse. (128)

He thus comes to the conclusion: “the means is nothing but the end—the power of the proletariat—in historical form” (128). This, I think, is the only basis on which we can think political violence without falling into bad faith. The challenge is to think a form of violence which is both means and end, which is an integral part of a political project which can be accepted for its own sake. It is at this point that Merleau-Ponty fails us,

• because he does not (except for a brief remark about the impossibility of facing violence,
• 2) provide us with a phenomenology of violence, that is, an account of the internal effects on political subjects of emplying revolutionary violence.

Here we can turn to Fanon, who, in The Wretched of the Earth, gives us an account of a violence which is not simply a means to an end. For Fanon, the experience of revolutionary violence is the “irreparable gesture” (62) which allows for the formation of a revolutionary subject: The masses, without waiting for the chairs to be arranged around the baize table, listen to their own voice and begin committing outrages and setting fire to buildings. (62f)

In this connection of violence with subjectivity, Fanon draws together two threads which are only implicitly connected by Merleau-Ponty; the use of violence that is inherent in political action, and the implacable opposition that defines political subjectivity.

(Humanism and Terror’s discussion of Koestler also contains a few lines which seem remarkably appropriate to today’s pious “left.” How about, “for fear of having to forgive, he prefers not to understand”? Or the pleasingly bitchy: “Kostler’s essays exhibit a ’round-trip’ style similar to that of many former Communists—but annoying to others. After all, we do not have to atone for the sins of Koestler’s youth.”) On Philosophy y tim @ 3/8/2006 10:31 pm