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to Laclau’s and Mouffe’s political ontology. To do this I will use some
insights from Maurice Blanchot’s thinking on literature and writing,
and will attempt to show how these insights can make sense of hope
within a (radical) democratic context.
A political ontology
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In order to see why the concept of hope is difficult to conceive within
Laclau’s and Mouffe’s shared theoretical framework, we have to summarize
some ontological-political standpoints on which their framework
rests.
According to Laclau and Mouffe, there can be no distinction between
the discursive and the extradiscursive. [3] Everything appears within a
discourse, which makes appearance as such possible. A discourse itself
consists of elements structured around certain nodal points. Meaning
is thereby construed through the differential relations in which the
elements engage each other. Meaning, identity or objectivity are thus
relative and differential. As Laclau puts it:
“[…] ‘relation’ and ‘objectivity’ are synonymous. Saussure asserted that
there are no positive terms in language, only differences – something
is what it is only through its differential relations to something else.
And what is true of language conceived in its strict sense is also true
of any signifying system (i.e. objective) element: an action is what it is
only through its differences from other possible actions and from other
signifying elements.” [4]
But here a problem arises. If differential relations are only possible
within the totality of a discourse, how should this totality itself be
conceived? If we think of a discourse as being just another differential
identity, then this can only mean that the discourse is part of another,
larger discourse in which differential identities are established. This
opens the door to infinity, and infinity makes any meaning impossible
3
Laclau and Mouffe (2001) 105
4
Laclau (2007) 68.