Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

and that, as long as there is any social reality, it will be characterized
by conflicts or antagonisms. This inevitable antagonistic dimension of
social reality is what Mouffe calls ‘the political’. And, as everything is
discursive, ‘the political’ itself becomes an ontological category.
That is why we can speak about a political ontology. Before I continue,
let me briefly summarize the points made above:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
There exists no distinction between the discursive and the extradiscursive.
Every reality is discursive in nature.
A discourse can only exist through an act of exclusion
The ‘relation’ towards what is excluded, is always a potentially antagonistic
one, because what is excluded forms a threat to the existing order.
This inevitable, antagonistic dimension is called ‘the political’.
As such, everything is political.
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The statement ‘everything is political’, must be understood in the
right way. It does not mean that everything is the object of politics;
that would be similar to a totalitarian situation where in every aspect
of life is dominated by politics. Rather, it should be understood in the
way in which Carl Schmitt described the political. For Schmitt, the
domain of politics changes constantly as result of shifting power configurations.
In this Schmittian view, the political acts like a ghost: the
social is haunted by the political. Every aspect of social life, whether
it be health, religion or economics, can suddenly become the object
of political contestation. [9] But, and this is important, the political can
never appear in every aspect of the social at the same time. That would
be equivalent to a Hobbesian state of nature or the psychotic universe
mentioned above. So, instead of saying ‘everything is political’, it would
be better to say ‘everything can become (ever again) political’.
At this point we start to see glimpses of the relevance of this ontological
position. Indeed, if what is excluded from a signifying system
is not the result of an underlying necessity, it can only be the result of
a decision. The act of the decision, is an authoritarian moment which
has no foundation except in itself. To make this decision acceptable
is the result of a successful hegemonic operation. Since the decision
9
Schmitt (1979) 38.