Nihilism and the Deconstruction of Time: Notes toward Infrapolitics
______________________________________ JAIME RODRÍGUEZ MATOS UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 1 How do we stand with respect to nihilism? Perhaps Oliver Marchart’s book PostFoundational Political Thought (2007) is not a bad place to start when considering this question, even if in a preliminary fashion. His book is, among other things, an attempt to separate Leftist-Heideggerian theorists (including Jean-Luc Nancy, Alain Badiou, Claude Lefort and Ernesto Laclau) from the charge of nihilism that is usually leveled at approaches that posit the absence of a final or foundational ground, whether it is in terms of politics or philosophy. He cites Laclau’s words to this effect: there are no necessarily pessimistic or nihilistic conclusions to be drawn from the dissolution of the foundationalist horizon . . . As Laclau underlines, the “abandonment of the myth of foundations does not lead to nihilism . . .” since the “dissolution of the myth of foundations . . . further radicalizes the emancipatory possibilities offered by the Enlightenment and Marxism.” (156) What is odd about this particular defense against the accusation of nihilism is that the theory of post-foundationalism is predicated first and foremost on what Heidegger called the ontological difference. And in Heidegger’s own thought, we find that taking the ontological difference seriously would make it impossible to treat the problem of nihilism as a mere pitfall that can be avoided or as an obstacle that can be simply surpassed—for nihilism must instead be thought in its essence and thought must first learn how to gather itself in the nothing that it is (see “On the Question of Being” Heidegger 291-322). Marchart, on the contrary, states that nihilism, which for him is another name for anti-foundationalism, is the assumption of the absence of foundations, even if one thinks of foundations as a contingent and partial. And according to him, this “would result in complete meaninglessness” (14). Marchart’s project is geared toward avoiding such an abyss. My aim here is not to delve into the intricacies of the theory of post-foundationalism as Marchart’s elaborates it, but his insistence on sidestepping the problem of nihilism does serve to illustrate one of the recurrent symptoms of the incursion into politics of the