Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho
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the problem just sketched would evaporate. Yet this <strong>do</strong>es not count as<br />
an objection, and for two reasons. In the first place, at the beginning<br />
of this essay I claimed that I wanted to show how there is a tension<br />
between the theoretical framework on which Laclau and Mouffe base<br />
their claims and the particular claim they make for a politics of hope, a<br />
point that was just demonstrated. But, in the second place, this point<br />
corresponds to a problem that largely exceeds a discussion within<br />
Laclau and Mouffe. When Laclau states in the very first line of New<br />
Reflections on the Revolution of our Time, ‘Every age a<strong>do</strong>pts an image of<br />
itself’, this also holds for his own philosophy. [18] The political ontology<br />
of Laclau and Mouffe is a conceptual image of a time in which nihilism<br />
is a fact. Every transcendent order has indeed disappeared: there are<br />
no grand ideologies or Great Stories anymore. We can be sad about<br />
that, but have no other choice than to acknowledge it. It is in this way<br />
that Mouffe and Laclau bring us into confrontation with a problem<br />
that exceeds their own philosophy: the fact of nihilism.<br />
The central issue we will deal with in the next part of this paper<br />
is the question of how this nihilism can be overcome. I will specify<br />
the question by considering how to localize hope within the politicalontological<br />
framework sketched above, but I also aim to say something<br />
more general about hope within a democratic context. My answer to<br />
these questions, however, should be considered as an experiment in<br />
two ways. Firstly, I cannot claim to solve the problem in this short<br />
essay. The only thing I can <strong>do</strong> is give a direction as to where hope can<br />
be localized. Secondly, my answer will be an experiment because I<br />
make use of an analogy to give this direction: namely, the analogy of<br />
the writer’s writing.<br />
99<br />
DEMOCRACY, HOPE<br />
AND NIHILISM<br />
Thomas Decreus<br />
The Writer’s Writing<br />
The most central idea in the political ontology of Laclau and Mouffe<br />
is that of the impossible possibility of every order, which has as its<br />
consequence the unavoidability of antagonism. The latter results in<br />
the difficulty of making a place for hope. To show that hope is still<br />
18<br />
Laclau (1990) 3.