Totalitarianism and Moral Indignation

Author(s): Ernesto Laclau

Source: Diacritics, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 88-95
Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/465333
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 TOTALITARIANISM
AND
MORAL INDIGNATION

ERNESTOLACLAU

There are two different aspects in what has become the Paul de Man
"scandal." One of them relates to what de Man did and wrote in the early
1940s in occupied Belgium; the other to what American academics and
journalistshave done with these early writings in the late 1980s, once they
becamepublicknowledge. These aretwo entirelydifferentmatters,andI will
make a point of treatingthem separately.
About the first aspect thereis not too much to say except to referto the
description of the facts to be found in EdouardColinet's contributionto
Responses, a clear account thatconsiderablyhelps to introducesome com-
mon sense in a matterwhich has been the locus of all kinds of vociferous and
hystericaldistortions.The facts areclearenough. Paulde Manwas not either
a fascist or ananti-Semite. Before thewarhe was linkedto theCercle du libre
examen, in which no rightist students participated,and concerning his
publishingin Le soir duringthe occupation,all witnesses agree thatit was no
act of ideological identification,but resultedentirelyfrom his need to ensure
a livelihood for his family. As for the only anti-Semiticpiece thathe wrote
duringhis periodof collaborationwithLe soir, Colinet assertsthe following:

Paul de Man's collaboration with Le Soir had consequences: he

could not refuse to write an article on the influence of Jewish
authors on present-day French literature, an article published
March4,1941 in the afternoonedition. All witnessesagree that he
did it reluctantly,fearingto lose his livelihood.... This is the most
severe of Paul's sins during those years, a sin that was more the
consequence of a slight cowardice due to his fear of losing his
livelihood thanit was of any hostilefeeling versustheJews,feeling
thatnobodyhadever noticed. Wehave to rememberthatduringthe
same period Paul de Man was hiding Jewishfriends in his home.
One of them,whomI metrecently,told me thatshe could not believe
thatPaul had any antisemiticfeelings. [430-31]

On the whole, not a very courageous attitude,but not worse than that
either. Certainlyit does not provide any element to judge the value of de
Man's intellectualproductionin the '60s and '70s. Thus Colinet draws the
only conclusion at which any decent person should arrive:

I think that the value of a work-scientific, literary, musical or

artistic-has to be judged independentlyof the personality of the
author,and anyattemptat destroyingit withad hominemarguments
is immoral, shameful and invalid. Anyway, I do not think that

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 anybodyhas the right to destroythe good name of a renownedprofessor on the
basis of aforty-year-old story about two venial charges:

-to have writtencriticismof worksof literature,music or theplastic arts in Le

Soir during the Germanoccupation.

-to have published once an article with a slight antisemiticflavor, about the
possible influence of Jewish authors on contemporaryFrench literature-a
misdeed that was largely made up for by the risks he took in hiding Jewish
friends. [432]

Of course the matteris not exhaustedwith these brief commentaries. We could ask
ourselves, for instance, about the way in which the experience of the war affected de
Man's perceptionof politics; or how his image of the possible courseof Europeanhistory
was altered between 1940 and 1945; or to what extent some of his basic theoretical
assumptionscan be referredback to somethingthathe wrotein thatperiod. But it is clear
that these questions are only interestingto de Man's biographersor to somebody doing
scholarly researchon his work. It is difficult to see at first sight how they could be the
startingpoint of a scandal.
And yet the scandal has takenplace. One should ask oneself why. (And this takes
us to the second aspect of the de Man affairon which we want to concentrate.) The first
and most obvious explanation-which is overwhelmingly confirmed by the general
patternof this whole debate-is thatthe latterhas little to do with de Man's intellectual
biography, but ratherwith the political use which can be made of it for present-day
confrontationsin the academicarena. A certainW. W. Holdheim,the authorof one of the
most vociferous contributionsto this ignoble debate writes: "It contains [the original
articleby Derridain CriticalInquiry,to whichHoldheimis replying],amongotherthings,
a transcriptof his improvisedremarksin October1987 at Tuscaloosa. The chief purpose
of this section seems to be political: the authorwants to demonstrate,perhaps,that the
Tuscaloosa conference was not (as some have charged)an exercise in crisis controlbut
a scholarlymeetingexclusively guidedby lofty ideals of totalelucidationand intellectual
probity"[792]. Now, the obvious questions arise: controlof what crisis? Why should
therebe any crisis at all? Why shouldpeople interestedin de Man's maturework feel in
the least affected or threatenedby what he wrote when he was twenty-one years old?
These are,of course,rhetoricalquestions. It is clearthatthis"issue"was meant,from
the very beginning, to produce effects far beyond de Man himself and his personal
trajectory. Samuel Weber has clearly shown ["TheDisfigured Monument"]througha
carefulanalysisof the textsthatthewhole affairwas conceived fromthe startas an attempt
to put "deconstruction"on trial. The very fact thatthis displacementof the debate, with
all its apparentsimplicity, could have takenplace so easily, reveals a deep disease and a
fall in the ethical standardsof the intellectualdiscussion, whichdeservescarefulanalysis.
Derrida has spoken of totalitariantendencies in referringto the practice of those
engagedin the operationof characterassassinationagainstde Man. This characterization
has been violently rejectedby de Man's opponents. Thus Holdheim writes:

anyone who is essentially critical of either [of deconstructionor of de Man],

whateverhis or her historyor background,is totalitarianby definition. And the
tendencies impugnedare so numerous,so easy of application, that they can be
discoveredanywhereat will. Paradoxically,one hasprotofascistleanings if one
takesa dimview of a certaincritic's earlyfascist associations. Ifear thatwe can
expect a lot of philosophical aspersions in the monthsto come. [796]

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The termapplies only too well, however, to the kind of practicedenouncedby Derrida.
What is it, actually, to be totalitarian(and the term does not only mean "fascist"as
Holdheim believes)? Essentially, it is to assert that there is a point of the social fabric
which is the locus of both knowledge and power, and from which society can be
"rationally"organized. That is, totalitarianismdrasticallyeliminates any difference or
ambiguity and maintains the myth of an absolutely transparentsocial organization.
Preciselybecausetotalitarianismpresentsitself as anentirelyrationalorder,it hasto adopt
the form of an uncontaminatedpurity,and thatwhich is excluded has, conversely, to be
essentially impure. The myth of an original foundation-not stainedby historicalcon-
tingency-of a homogeneous society requires,as its parallel counterfigure,an equally
nonhistoricalvision of evil. Sins are original sins and as such are irredeemableby the
historicalactors themselves.
Intellectual activity protects itself (like any other activity) by breaking with this
principleof purity, by introducinggaps and discontinuitiesthat dissolve any "total"or
homogeneous space. One of these is the discontinuitybetween a certainwork and the
personality of its author. Would we say that because Frege was a violent racist his
philosophy of mathematicsis not valid? Another discontinuity is the one between a
certainwork and the contexts of its receptionand rearticulation.As it is well known that
there is no original meaning that fixes the identity of a text, each of its various
environments will reinvent and hegemonize its meaning. I would maintain that this
progressivedistantiationfromthe ideaof a "transcendentalsignified"involves a progres-
sive breakwith totalitarianpracticesand the advancein a democraticdirection. It is this
advancethatdeconstruction,amongothercurrents,hascontributedto makepossible. But
in the de Man affairthe movementhas gone in exactly the opposite direction: therehas
been an attempt(a) to link the meaningof the matureworkof de Man to a youthfulerror;
and (b) to derive fromthis a basis to judge deconstructionas a whole. Whatis this butthe
reductionof meaningcharacteristicof totalitarianism?A young scholaraged twenty-five
or thirty,born decades afterthe end of the Second WorldWar, who has found de Man's
critique of aestheticism convincing or found it fruitful to adopt a deconstructionist
approach,one day learnsthatas a resultof a set of mysteriousarticles writtenbefore he
or she was bornandsuddenlyexhumed,his or herworkis flawed with a penchanttowards
... fascism! Is not this the most flagrantdenial of intellectualfreedom,of people being
able to give meaningto theirwork-because its "true"meaninglies elsewhere, in some
original stigma of which they were not even aware? As I said before, the dangerof the
totalitarianturnis not to be found only in fascism; everything,even the values we most
cherish, can be given a totalitarianuse. The days in which democraticvalues were used
in a terroristicand intimidatingway duringMcCarthyismare not faraway. The stigma,
the essential impuritycan be anywhere,even within ourselves, who have lost all ability
to controlthe meaningof our actions. Jean-PaulSartrerefersin one of his plays to a man
who lived in the anguish of perhapsbeing Communistwithoutknowing it.
The interventionsby John Brenkmanin this debate are particularlygood examples
of this coarse and vulgar reductionism. He does not even try to conceal with some
euphemismsthe natureof his whole exercise. He bluntlystatesat thebeginningof his first
piece: "The articles Paul de Man wrote for Le soir in 1941-42 furnish the evidence,
beyond a reasonabledoubt,thathe was at the time a fascist and an anti-Semiteas well as
an active collaboratorwith the Nazi occupationof Belgium"[21]. "Beyonda reasonable
doubt"= as is evident. It is well known, this despicableargumentativeprocedure,which
consists in assertingas evident the most doubtfulpropositions. In his piece writtenwith
Jules David Law, Brenkmanuses the proceduread nauseam: "theyoung de Man, how-
ever firmlycommittedto fascist ideology and howevermuchan accomplice of the Nazis
occupying Belgium" [804]; "de Man's commitmentto fascism" [806]; "the crucialrole
thatde Man's many reflectionson nationalismplayed in his ideological commitmentto

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fascism" [807]; "Derrida'seffortto interpretde Man's politicalcommitmentsas ambigu-
ous fail to register the most obvious tension animating de Man's complex, evolving
project:on the one hand, de Man was a Nazi collaborator,on the other hand he was a
Belgian fascist" [808]; "What did de Man reject, retain and readaptfrom his fascist
project?"[811]. Derridais perfectlyrightin referringto this sequence as a procedureby
which the magic of the reiterationtries to conceal the inanityof the argument. Those of
us who have studied the propagandatechniquesof totalitarianregimes know perfectly
well how an illusion of realityis createdthroughrepetition. Brenkmanof coursedoes not
deprivehimself of carryingout the second movementin the totalitarianreduction:hinting
at the ways in which the incriminatingpieces would have had a contagious effect
permeatingthe whole of de Man's work. Thus he concludes his first piece by saying:
"Two questions thathave greatrelevance today-By what pathdid he arriveat his post-
war intellectualidentity? And how did his laterwritingsrespondto the earlier?-cannot
reallybe addresseduntil,andunless, we come to gripswithhis fascistcommitments"[34].
And, with J. D. Law: "Derrida... referscontemptuouslyto critics of deconstructionwho
mightnow tryto 'reapplyhis [de Man's] categoriesto his own texts' andwho believe that
'everything is already there' in the early writings"[644,642, 640-41]. "Yet Derrida's
contempt does not demonstratethat such interpretationsactually misapply de Man's
lessons. They merely threatento give a pictureof a laterde Manwho has not brokenwith
fascism in the precise way, and to the extent, thatDerridaassumes" [810]. To keep the
record straight,Brenkmanand Law have not in their reductionistexercise gone to the
extreme of the sensationalistwritingsdissected by Sam Weber, which try to put on trial
the whole deconstructivemovement,but they have gone farenough along thatroadto be
consideredwarriorsin the anti-deconstructionistcrusade. The mere fact of writingin the
presentclimate of aggressionand intolerancewithoutmakingthe necessary distinctions
is alreadyto take sides.
Whatto say aboutBrenkmanandCo.'s escaladeof accusations?Therearetwo sides
here. The first is the fact thatthere is not the slightest proof thatde Man was a fascist-
whatever the degree of his collaboration. To say the opposite is a gratuitousassertion
which goes against the evidence provided by all witnesses who knew de Man before,
duringand afterthe Second WorldWar. To be a fascist was not just to be a collaborator;
it was to be a collaboratorin termsof verypreciseideologicalconvictionsandof veryprecise
political commitments. Here the evidence goes overwhelminglyagainstthe image of a
fascist de Man. Neither his politico-intellectualcommitmentsbefore the war, nor what
he wrote before 1940, nor what we know throughmany witnesses aboutthe real reasons
of his collaborationgives any credence whatsoeverto the assertionthathe was a fascist.
The case is, of course,differentas faras his collaborationis concerned.With theprovisos,
and within the limits pointedout by Colinet, this is an undeniablefact. But it is precisely
a fact from which no obvious conclusion follows concerning de Man's ideological
commitments.
This leads me to the second side of BrenkmanandLaw's indictment. More harmful
even for scholarlyresearchthanthe unsubstantiatedcharacterof theiraccusationsis the
very procedure of historical reconstructionthat they apply. For they can construct
whatever little acceptabilitytheir argumentmay convey only throughisolating themes
in de Man's discourseandshowing thepresenceof similarthemesin thediscoursesof the
Belgian fascist organizationsof the time. In this way anything can be proved. The
atemporalization of the category of "fascism" in contemporary discourse-and
Brenkmanand Law are not alone here-proceeds through the isolation of particular
contents from the context of historical alternativeswhich gave them their particular
meaning. The 1930s was a period of rapiddisintegrationof the consensus regardingthe
viabilityof liberalpatternsandinstitutions.Aftertheworlddepressiontherewas a general
lack of confidence in the capitalistsystem's capacityfor self-regulation,and the general

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feeling was thatsome form of "statism"and "dirigisme"was necessary. It was certainly
the time of the rise of Nazism, but also of the formulationof Keynesianism,of the New
Deal, of the fascinationwith the StalinistFive Year Plans and ... of the spreadof the
influence of Henri de Man's Planism. There was also a growing skepticism about the
ability of the liberal states to restore full employment and economic growth without
passing throughat least a few profoundstructuraltransformations.It would be a serious
historicalmistaketo thinkthatthis trendwas doomedto lead,by some kindof teleological
fatality, in the directionof fascism. Fascism was only one of the possible alternatives
within an open and undecidablehorizon. Many otherthings thanfascism came fromthat
critique of the weaknesses of the Liberal State: without the latter would have been
unthinkableeitherthe wave of nationalizationof enterprisesby the Gaullist regime after
1944, or the constructionof a Welfare State in Britainby the LabourParty in the years
following the end of the war.
It is against this historical context that assertions such as those to be found in a
youthfularticleby de Manpreviousto the war should be read. In it he refers to the need
for democracies, if they were victorious in the war, to establish "an order in which a
civilization like the one we cherish can live again" [Derrida603]. On this point I part
company with Derridaand I agree-for once!-with Holdheim [786-87]. De Man's
allusion to a new ordercannotbe readat all as a covert allusion to the Nazi new order: it
was ratheran absolutecommonplaceat the time certainlyused by Plannists,but also by
Communists,New Dealers,etc. At the same time therewas also in the 1920s and '30s the
widespreadfeeling thatwithoutpulling togetherthe forces of the nation,without some
recoveredsense of "community,"the structuralchangesneededfor thisprocess of radical
reformwouldbe impossible.Again,it is herethattheneedwasfeltat thetimeforsome
kind of "third way" which avoided the "catastrophicequilibrium"between a wild
capitalism responsible for the crisis and for unemploymenton the one hand, and the
radicalcoursewhich hadled class confrontationto a blindalley on theother. Butthisneed
did not havea definiteideologicalaffiliation;it was morelike a sortof widespreadfeeling,
which could give place to manyandverydifferentideologicalarticulations.It is certainly
withinthis climatethatfascist discoursesfoundtheconditionsof theircredibility,butalso
within it that Henri de Man developed his reflections on the motivationsof historical
action and thatGramsci-who (I would hope!) cannotbe suspectedof fascist leanings-
elaboratedhis politicalanalysisconcerning"hegemony,"theconstructionof a"collective
will" and the "nationaltasks of the workingclass."
My main point is, first, that at any moment-and especially in periods of organic
crisis as the 1930s-there arethemesthatdo not haveany precise ideological articulation
but ratherassume the role of floating signifiers;and, second, that they are more central
and permanent in the creation of social identities than the various forms of their
ideological articulation. That is, that they operateas necessary surfaces of inscription
withinwhich any hegemonicalternativehas to be constructed.GarethStedmanJoneshas
shown, for instance, how in the period following the Napoleonic Wars the language of
political radicalismhadbecome the necessarysurfaceof inscriptionof any formof social
protest,to the point that when Chartistmobilizationstartedit had to constructits
credibilitywithin the parametersconstitutedby thatlanguage. When duringthe Second
World War Togliatti addressedthe Italianpeople throughhis Moscow broadcasts,and
laterfrom Naples, he triedto show how the themes of Ballila, Garibaldi,and Mazzini on
which fascist propagandawas based were actuallyusurpingthe truesignifiersof national
and popularrevolt. So, he triedto hegemonizethem, and one can imagine Brenkman,if
he were an Italianist,findingout thatMazzinianand Garibaldianthemes were presentin
the discourses of both Togliatti and the Salb Republic, and concluding that the general
secretaryof the CommunistPartywas showing dangerousfascist leanings.

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 What I am essentially arguing is that categories like "fascist," "resistant,"and
"collaborator"have to be deconstructed,showing the complexity and heterogeneity
which constitutethem. If in 1944 45 the lines of demarcationtended to be particularly
clear, in 1940 the situation was far more confused. There were certainly people who
became resistersas early as 1940, but they were a minority;it would be totally ahistorical
to thinkthatin Belgium in 1940 the collaboratorsconstituteda unifiedand homogeneous
bloc. I am not a specialist in the historyof the Second WorldWar,and this analysis-or
deconstruction-of collaborationcannotproceedwithoutminutehistoricalresearch.But
as I see the situationI think thatbroadly speaking, four categories of people should be
distinguishedamong the nonresisters:

1. Those who hadno sympathyfortheNazis butwho acceptedthatGermanyhadwon

the war, and tried in one way or anotherto adaptthemselves to the situation.
2. Those who acceptedthe defeatbut thoughtalso thattherewas somethingpositive
in the new order-that is, that they were fundamentallypassive but accepted to some
extentor the otherthe articulationbetweenthe "themes"or floatingsignifiersof "national
reconstruction,""new order,"etc. and the orderactually imposed by the occupiers.
3. Those who acceptedthe above mentionedarticulationbut tried to take an active
role, trying to advance specific Belgian objectives within the new order.
4. Those who became pure and simple instrumentsof the occupying power.

Within this broad classification it seems to me thatHenri de Man belonged to the third
categoryandPaul,to the extentI canjudge by theavailableevidence, to some intermediate
point between the first two. For these categoriesof people, the links between whatcould
attractthem in the new orderand the actualreality of the latterwere obviously tenuous
and likely to weaken and finally be brokenin the course of the war. So I do not thinkit
plausibleatall, as hasbeen suggested,thatdeManwas a convincedfascist untilthevictory
of Stalingradand thathe then opportunisticallydisappearedfrom the scene. Thatsome
elementof the sortcould havebeenpart of his decision is certainlynotexcluded-Colinet
himself hypotheticallyacceptsit as partof his explanation-but it could have notbeen the
main motivation. Many more things were happeningin Belgium at the time to convince
him thatwhateverillusions he could have hadin 1940 were thoroughlyungrounded.Two
consequences follow from this. The first, that the assertion that in later years de Man
should have made a thoroughself-criticism,in the same way thatKoestlerandothersdid
regardingtheir Stalinistpast, entirelymisses the point. De Man could not repudiatehis
fascist past, because he had neverbeen a fascist, whereasKoestlerand otherscamefrom
Stalinism. As for the reasons why de Man did not write his autobiography-whether
because he did not want to be confrontedwith unpleasantfacts or for any otherreason-
it is onlypossibleto speculate,andI knowtoo littleabouthimto engagein thatkindof
exercise. But-not being his biographeror his psychoanalyst-I am not very much
interestedin that,and nor should it be an overridingconcernof those who have received
the intellectualimpact of his laterwork.
The second and more importantconsequenceis thatif the pictureI am presentingis
correct-and I think it is supportedby all the available evidence-it is unlikely that de
Man's relationto his past hadbeen seen by him in termsof the need for a clearor absolute
break. It is only if he hadbeen a complete fascist andanti-Semitethatthe questionposed
by Brenkmanof the complete or incompletebreakwith his past would be relevant. But
if some basic themes of his thought were only in a very loose articulationwith some
contemporarypolitical alternatives,then the collapse of the latterwould not involve the
rejectionof the former. Intellectualtransitionsrarelytake the form of complete breaks;
thereis rathera muchmore subtlegame of continuitiesand discontinuities. For thatvery
reasonpeople interestedin de Man's work shouldnot surrenderto intellectualterrorism.

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They shouldinsteadrejectany sortof "contagiontheory"which wouldpreventthemfrom
pointing out whateverthey find valuable and importantin de Man's early work.
Two final remarks. If I have taken issue with reductionistand ahistoricaltheories
which construct categories like "fascism" on the basis of destroying all historical
complexity and differentiation,it has been not only in orderto introducesome historical
clarity in the case of de Man, but also because serious ethical and political issues are at
stake. The totalitariandreamsof an absolutepurity-with its counterpartof an impurity
withoutappeal-have a deplorableand negative result. It leads one to thinkthat what is
this side of the frontierof exclusion is uncontaminatedfullness, purity,presence. But this
is far frombeing the case. Radicalcontextualizationof meaning,when it is coupled with
the recognitionof the unstablecharacterof all context,meansthatthereis no meaningthat
contains in itself the guaranteeagainstits own corruption.I have pointedout previously
the case of democraticvalues underMcCarthyism,but the readercan no doubtextend the
list with a varietyof examples coming fromdifferentlatitudes. Thateven a signifier like
"anti-fascism"can be corruptedand bastardizedis fully shown by the debatethatwe are
reviewing. Conversely,thereis no exclusion thatcan guaranteethe essential impurityof
the excluded.
This leads me to the lastpoint. Perhapsthe most quizzicalaspectof this disreputable
onslaughtagainst de Man is the way in which "deconstruction"has been accused again
and again of being incompatiblewith historicalthought. I would argue that exactly the
opposite is the case: thatdeconstructionrepresentsan enormousstep forwardin termsof
both the historicizationand the politicizationof the categories with which we operate.
Because if the structuresare essentiallyundecidable,in thatcase whateverorderexists is
essentially contingent,and dependenton a decision which cannotbe referredback to any
eidos or aprioristicprinciple. Showing the undecidablecharacterof the structureenlarges
in that way the terrainof the decision. It is in that sense that-using a terminologythat
is not Derrida's but my own-we could say that the counterpartof a theory of
deconstructionis a theoryof hegemonyas a theoryof the decision takenin an undecidable
terrain,i.e. a theorywhich enlargesthe field of theoryandpolitics. Speakingin termsof
a certain"productivityof crisis"we can say thatthe de Man affairhas been useful in the
sense thatit hasshown theradicallydemocraticcharacterof a historicistconception,while
revealingonce morethe potentiallytotalitariannatureof all essentialisms-even in those
cases in which they disguise themselves behind a mask of moral indignation.

WORKS CITED
Brenkman,John. "FascistCommitments." Hamacher,Hertz, and Keenan 21-35.
Brenkman,John, and Jules David Law. "Resettingthe Agenda." Critical Inquiry 15.4
(1989): 804-11.
Colinet,Edouard. "Paulde Manandthe Cercle du libre examen." Hamacher,Hertz,and
Keenan 426-37.
Derrida,Jacques. "Likethe Soundof the Sea Deep within a Shell: Paul de Man's War."
Critical Inquiry 14.3 (1988): 590-652.
Hamacher,Werner,Neil Hertz,andThomasKeenan,eds. Responses: OnPaul de Man's
WartimeJournalism. Lincoln: U of NebraskaP, 1989.
Holdheim,W. W. "JacquesDerrida'sApologia." CriticalInquiry15.4(1989): 784-96.
Weber, Samuel. "The Disfigured Monument." Hamacher,Hertz, and Keenan404-25.

diacritics / fall 1990 95

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