Four Concepts of Politics

Abstract

Four concepts of politics follow from an attempt to view the established order, its structural workings: actions and inactions, as more or less authentic politics by starting from Slavoj Žižek’s theory of authentic Political Act. In short Žižek’s theory is viewed from a slightly different angle in an attempt to approach more general theory of politics.

When analysing political antagonisms, Žižek has suggested looking for the third term. Viewing an antagonism from both of its viewpoints suggest, however, that instead of one position more, two conceptual positions more may be formulated. These two positions are proposed to be viewed as (in)acts of both corresponding sides. What is called ‘Politics of revolution’ in the proposed schema suggests ‘prefer not to politics’ and what is called ‘Politics of maintenance’ suggests ‘prefer to politics’.

Furthermore, a proposal to conceptually divide the politics of the established order in two is made in order to clarify the relation of found objects to their origins. Thus two respective conservatisms are identified: conservatism of ‘relics old particular all’ and conservatism of ‘relics of objects which might have saved the world’. In this context any re-Acts of these relics would fit the category of ‘Politics of maintenance’ and repressing these relics would fit the category of (in)active maintenance through ‘prefer to politics’. Another conclusion is that in analysing the political antagonism of two, one could look for, not only for the third but for the fourth term as well.