Communist Bloggifesto

Hot-headed junior members of the intelligentsia used to write manifestos. But ideological convictions – the all-consuming, radical and inflexible kind – have gone out of style among young people, to invoke that favorite New York Times cliche once more. Regardless of dubious theories about the political sloth of the youth, it is certain that ideology (even the word itself) is suspicious these days. Thus no one writes manifestos anymore.(I guess we write blogs instead; they’re not as committal.) \nFear of ideology represents a reaction to the ideologically-motivated failed utopias, genocides and wars from the last century. At present, our government exploits this fear, and would have us tremble before the threat of Islamofascism. If American foreign policy takes action based on an antagonistic “us” vs “them,” mentality, well, Islamofascism is the ideology of “them.” It is a propagandistic catch-all term, conflating and obscuring Islamic beliefs, invoking fear of Nazis and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in one fell swoop. \nBut before the Islamofascist “them,” there was the Communist “them.” American propaganda against, as well as atrocities done by, communist governments contributed to the burial of communism as a popular political ideology. The word “communism” has come to mean much the same thing as Islamofascism: It is an enemy to ‘freedom,’ inherently repressive, fundamentalist, anti-American. As a result, people believe communism equals repression, therefore capitalism equals freedom. I have actually heard students in a “Communism in Eastern Europe” history class attribute civil liberties to the free market. \nMisunderstandings of and hostility towards communism abound; no one has a good idea of what it is and no one wants to these days. That is why Alain Badiou’s Thursday lecture, “For a Revival of the Communist Hypothesis” was so unexpected.\nHere, at IU, was a real-live Communist! Alain “Vive Mai ‘68” Badiou is a French philosopher and political activist. Although his Thursday lecture was delivered in a language half-way between French and English, I was all the same inspired to revive the hypothesis. It forced me to reexamine my own ideology, or lack of one. \nBadiou is known for proposing a theory of universalism. He has written several books on the topic, but his Thursday speech specifically illuminated how communism and universalism are the same. \nMarx saw society in two parts: the workers, and the owners. Communism aspires to a society with no divisions; it aspires to a universal state shared by all people (classlessness). \nWhereas communism intends to unite, capitalism, for Badiou, recognizes no universal but money, and divides its subjects into ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ Capitalism reduces human beings to their most animalistic tendencies, that is, to competition with one another, thereby necessitating winners and losers. No one can ever be equal in this system.\nIn Badiou’s framing, communism is not just an economic system, or a left-wing ideology, but a part of “zee destinée of humanité” to realize the universal. \nIn the spirit of the French student uprising in 1968, he instructed the students in the room to have a vision, and to build this universal. “You should do that,” were his final words. And we should.