Radical. What a thought-provoking word; so empty, yet so full. It appears that whenever we hear the expression ‘radical’ it is always accompanied by a variety of images and feelings: anger or inspiration, confusion or curiosity, fear or hope. And even for the politically savvy among us, it is inevitable to, one way or another, have a noticeable reaction towards ‘radicalism’.
Alternatively, take ‘centrism’. Any strong feelings of abhorrence or joy come to mind? Inspired or infuriated? Most likely not. But do not worry, there is no point at blaming yourself; or at least not to a certain extent. If, like most people, you have a noticeably strong reaction to ‘radicalism’, positive or negative, whilst you feel rather inclined to turn your head and go on about your day when you hear ‘centrism’, then you are not alone. We may ask: what is behind these opposing reactions? In truth, to answer such a question, we must dive much deeper into the ideological domains that prescribe these very reactions.
What is this ideology thing though? Ideology, in fact, is the intricate structure of unconscious relations that we have towards the world and to each other. In his famous Das Kapital Marx had already clearly summed up ideology: “they do not know it, but they are doing it”. More than that, ideology sets the backdrop for how we express ourselves and understand each other daily, reproducing thereby a common, and yet unconscious, worldview. For instance, a child who goes to school every day and diligently obeys the rules set forth by her teachers may think she does this for herself (her grades, her happiness, her future, etc.). Instead, ideology conditions her to act in a certain way and express herself in a certain way, with the purpose of reproducing certain social structures such as civil obedience and satisfaction from authority approval. This, however, is not some conspiracy theory à-la-Donald Trump (even though it must be said that a fair amount of his accusations of Hillary Clinton are partially justifiable if not actually true; a well-rounded Google search might prove sufficient). Understanding ideology allows us to see how certain reactions are created and automatized, and how they categorize, as a result of this process, people and ideas into ‘radical’ and ‘non-radical’.
What we define nowadays as ‘radical’ or ‘centre’ is moreover based on the (extremely) outdated conception of politics as some kind of linear spectrum, where there is a ‘left’ and a ‘right’, the two extremes, with a ‘centre’ in between. This conception of politics famously originated during the French Revolution, where members of the National Assembly were divided into right (those who supported the monarchy) and left (those in favour of the revolution). Later on, those in the centre were deemed to be simply moderates. Today, in our post-Cold War era, politics have changed. The decades of antagonisms between West and East, which proved to be a geo-political rather than an ideological struggle, were followed by a consensus to Washington’s model of political economy and a stern compliance to whatever political discourse resulted from these presuppositions. Physical violence and military interventionism became less of the rule (let’s not talk about Iraq, though) in a world where the hegemony of global neo-liberalism would create an imperative for nation-states to join in the party. Otherwise, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would not be your friends, while rating agencies and multinational companies would not make your life easier either. You were either in, or you were out; you were either part of ideology or not. And for most developing nations still dependent on international aid, monetary or political, isolationism was too much of a costly choice in the wake of post-colonial capitalism.
Around the infamous Washington consensus, the intricate economic and financial system created a safe space for ideology. Beyond expanding throughout every corner of the world, the global neoliberal ideology, a transformation of post-World War II welfare state capitalism engendered at Reagan’s Oval Office and Thatcher’s Downing Street, succeeded in homogenizing economic imperatives and political ideas. Its greatest victory, however, was its ability to effectively invade political discourse. Dissent from the ‘left’ was either kidnapped and turned into what Tony Blair (still, let’s not talk about Iraq) and other self-described ‘social democrats’ misleadingly called the ‘Third Way’, or it was pushed into some kind of dangerous and hazardous ‘other’. What remained was a perverted version of the already inappropriate linear spectrum conception of politics. Neoliberalism sat on its high castle, spitting out to those congregating around its walls. This, in turn, would also impose a certain logic to the language used in politics, drawing lines between the possible and the impossible. Whatever language the ‘left’ had formed, from Marx to Bakunin, and from Allende to Che Guevara, it has been appropriated and co-opted by the language of capital – the hegemonic language of the ‘moderate centre’.
Today, political centrism, the rule of the centre, is the ideological fortress that determines what may be constituted as possible or impossible in our political discourse. Beyond that, its discursive force shapes and fits our ideas into its own language, crushing dissent and deeming what it does not understand or what it cannot translate simply as ‘radical’. Little else has been the reason for the evident media backlash against dissenting political movements and ideas in Europe, such as Podemos in Spain or even Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. The ideology at the centre of our political discourse has made sure to ostracise ideas outside of its comfort zone, filling up the otherwise empty and relative concept of radicalism with notions of a (misleadingly) harmful and destabilizing political ‘other’. Ideas antagonizing the established political discourse, and therefore against the very oligarchy themselves, die at the hands of those who, in their blindness, deem them to be too ‘radical’.
But what can we do? Because ideology already predisposes us to think in terms of possible and impossible, and to discriminate against whatever may be ‘radical’ and not ‘moderate’, then we must re-shape our discursive field. Let’s stop talking about the market as if it were a god that haunts upon all economic theory; instead, let’s discuss cooperativism and degrowth. Let’s think even beyond the fact that what we ‘do’ in society is to ‘work’ and ‘create output’; instead, let’s think about innovation without caring about demand, and let’s ‘do’ without expecting a monetary remuneration in return. The oppressive ideology that rules and shapes over our ideas begins to crack every time that we, as individuals or collective, reject its underlying logic of capital and commodity. Step by step, crack by crack, we may begin to dismantle a political discourse that has systematically kept dissent in the shadow. And if we want a real, thriving democracy, one where ideas (especially those antagonizing the hegemonic political centre) are freely expressed and discussed, then we must take it to our aim to grant spaces where we can have unrestricted (and yet respectful) political discourse, where we recognize each other as citizens and political beings. The crisis of ideology and capital will not arise at the shortcoming of its nature, but at the unwillingness of us, its subjects, to fit in.
To turn around Gandhi’s famous quote: be the crisis you want to see in the world.
By Sergio Calderón-Harker
The Bell 