Abundance, lack, and identity

Abstract

Discussions of the nature of identity have produced at least two theoretical debates, described here as an ontological debate and a formative one. The first debate occurs between theorists who propose an ontology of ‘abundance’ (e.g. William Connolly) and theorists of an ontology of ‘lack’ (e.g. Ernesto Laclau). The second debate occurs between those who hold that identity is rooted in voluntaristic choice (e.g. Laclau) and those who assert that identity emerges through a gradual process of aspect change (e.g. Aletta Norval). My aim in this essay is to gain some concrete purchase on these abstract debates through a study of the autobiographical discourses of two contemporary ideological apostates in the US—David Brock and David Horowitz. Exploring the life stories of subjects such as these may provide a valuable resource for understanding processes of identification and ideological change.

Notes

 1. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday, 1959); Erik H. Erikson, Identity: Youth and Crisis (New York: Norton, 1968).

 2. Amy Gutmann (Ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).

 3. Robert G. Dunn, Identity Crises: A Social Critique of Postmodernity (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1998); Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991); Adrienne Rich, ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 5 (1980), pp. 631–660.

 4. Kenneth Hoover, The Power of Identity: Politics in a New Key (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1997), p. 59, original emphasis.

 5. Amy Gutmann, Identity in Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 15.

 6. David Howarth and Yannis Stavrakakis, ‘Introducing Discourse Theory and Political Analysis’, in David Howarth, Aletta J. Norval and Yannis Stavrakakis (Eds), Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies, and Social Change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 3.

 7. William Connolly, ‘Review Essay: Twilight of the Idols’, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 21 (1995), pp. 127–137; William Connolly, Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox, expanded edition (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2002); Nathan Widder, ‘What's Lacking in the Lack: A Comment on the Virtual’, Angelaki, 5 (2000), pp. 117–138.

 8. Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection, trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Routledge, 1977); Ernesto Laclau (Ed.), The Making of Political Identities (London: Verso, 1994); Ernesto Laclau, Emancipation(s) (London: Verso, 1996).

 9. Lars Tønder and Lasse Thomassen (Eds), Radical Democracy: Politics between Abundance and Lack (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), p. 7.

10. Ernesto Laclau, ‘Identity and Hegemony: The Role of Universality in the Constitution of Political Logics’, in Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek (Eds), Contingency, Hegemony, Universality. (London: Verso, 2000), p. 79.

11. Aletta J. Norval, ‘Democratic Identification: A Wittgensteinian Approach’, Political Theory, 34 (2006), pp. 229–255.

12. David Howarth, Discourse (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000), p. 11.

13. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, 1958), §66.

14. Ken Plummer, Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism (London: Sage, 2001), p. 86, original emphases.

15. Charlotte Linde, Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 3.

16. Jerome Bruner, ‘The Autobiographical Process’, in Robert Folkenflik (Ed.), The Culture of Autobiography: Constructions of Self-Representation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 38.

17. Eugene Vance, ‘The Functions and Limits of Autobiography in Augustine's “Confessions”’, Poetics Today, 5 (2) (1984), p. 400.

18. John Sturrock, ‘Theory Versus Autobiography’, in Robert Folkenflik (Ed.), The Culture of Autobiography: Constructions of Self-Representation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 93.

19. David Brock, ‘Confessions of a Right-Wing Hit Man’, Esquire, 128 (1) (1997), pp. 52–57, http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct = true&db = aph&an = 9708106004 (accessed 10 August 2005); David Brock, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative (New York: Three Rivers, 2002); David Brock, ‘Interview by Terry Gross’, Fresh Air (National Public Radio, 2004).

20. David Horowitz, ‘The “Peace” Movement’, in Peter Collier and David Horowitz (Eds), Deconstructing the Left: From Vietnam to the Persian Gulf (Lanham, MD: Second Thoughts Books, 1991), pp. 185–191; David Horowitz, ‘Letter to a Political Friend’, in Peter Collier and David Horowitz (Eds), Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties (New York: Free Press, 1996), pp. 306–332; David Horowitz, Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey (New York: Touchstone, 1997); David Horowitz, Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey (Dallas: Spence, 2003).

21. The dimension marked by the terms ‘right’ and ‘left’ naturally involves any number of meanings. Though they have some elements of contestability, one can still find certain core understandings related to each term. (See Norberto Bobbio, Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Steven Lukes, ‘The Grand Dichotomy of the Twentieth Century’, in Terence Ball and Richard Bellamy (Eds), The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 602–626.) Regardless, the precise content of this dimension's polar concepts are not critical for the present study.

22. For an example of this genre, see Isaac Deutscher, Heretics and Renegades and Other Essays (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969).

23. Horowitz, Radical Son, Ref. 20, p. ix.

24. Linde, op. cit., Ref. 15, p. 42.

25. Plummer, Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism, 2.

26. Dan P. McAdams, Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self (New York: William Morrow, 1993), 11, original emphases.

27. Linde, op. cit., Ref. 15; James Olney, Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972).

28. J.M. Blanchard, ‘Of Cannibalism and Autobiography’, MLN, 93 (1978), pp. 670–671.

29. Bert Olivier, ‘Lacan's Subject: The Imaginary, Language, the Real and Philosophy’, South African Journal of Philosophy, 23 (2004), pp. 1–19.

30. Ernesto Laclau and Lilian Zac, ‘Minding the Gap: The Subject of Politics’, in Ernesto Laclau (Ed.), The Making of Political Identities (London: Verso, 1994), pp. 11–39.

31. Yannis Stavrakakis, ‘Passions of Identification: Discourse, Enjoyment, and European Identity’, in David Howarth and Jacob Torfing (Eds), Discourse Theory in European Politics: Identity, Policy and Governance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 70, original emphasis.

32. Laclau, Emancipation(s), Ref. 8, p. 21, original emphasis.

33. Laclau, Emancipation(s), Ref. 8., p. 52; Lasse Thomassen, ‘Lacanian Political Theory: A Reply to Robinson’, British Journal of Political and International Relations, 6 (2004), p. 558.

34. Jacob Torfing, New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Žižek (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), pp. 149–152.

35. Connolly, Identity\Difference, Ref. 7, p. 64.

36. Connolly, ‘Review Essay’, Ref. 7, p. 133; Widder, ‘What's Lacking in the Lack’, Ref. 7, p. 118.

37. William Connolly, ‘Immanence, Transcendence, Democracy’, presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC (2005), p. 12.

38. William Connolly, The Augustinian Imperative: A Reflection on the Politics of Morality, new edition (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), p. 119.

39. Stephen K. White, ‘Weak Ontology: Genealogy and Critical Issues’, The Hedgehog Review, 7 (2) (2005), p. 21.

40. Connolly, op. cit., Ref. 38, p. 12.

41. Brock, Blinded by the Right, Ref. 19, p. 9.

42. Brock, Blinded by the Right, Ref. 19., p. 11.

43. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 49.

44. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23., p. 44.

45. Horowitz, ‘Letter to a Political Friend’, Ref. 20, p. 308.

46. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 7.

47. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 100.

48. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 67.

49. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23, pp. 173, 397.

50. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 45, p. 328.

51. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 44.

52. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41., p. 51.

53. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41., p. 2.

54. Brock, ‘Confessions of a Right-Wing Hit Man’, Ref. 19.

55. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 21.

56. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41., p. 340.

57. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 357.

58. Peter Collier and David Horowitz, ‘Good-Bye to All That’, in Peter Collier and David Horowitz (Eds), Deconstructing the Left: From Vietnam to the Persian Gulf (Lanham, MD: Second Thoughts Books, 1991), p. 26.

59. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 228.

60. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23., p. 271.

61. Laura Kipnis, ‘Brock Attack: The Formerly Right-Wing Shark Behind Media Matters’, Slate, 18 May (2004), http://slate.msn.com/id/2100712/ (accessed 19 May 2004).

62. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 10th anniversary edition (New York: Routledge, 1999).

63. Laclau (Ed.), The Making of Political Identities, Ref. 8, p. 35; Jacques Derrida, ‘From “the Double Session”’, in Peggy Kamuf (Ed.), A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 194.

64. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 3.

65. This sort of dualism is not unexpected. As Isaac Deutscher (op. cit., Ref. 22, p. 15) observed about the ex-communist: ‘He remains a sectarian. He is an inverted Stalinist. He continues to see the world in white and black, but now the colors are differently distributed’.

66. Horowitz, ‘The “Peace” Movement’, Ref. 20, p. 190.

67. Horowitz, Left Illusions, Ref. 20, p. 337.

68. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23, pp. 358–359.

69. Jason Glynos, ‘The Grip of Ideology: A Lacanian Approach to the Theory of Ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 6 (2001), p. 198.

70. Ernesto Laclau, ‘Deconstruction, Pragmatism, Hegemony’, in Chantal Mouffe (Ed.), Deconstruction and Pragmatism (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 55.

71. Aletta J. Norval, ‘Hegemony after Deconstruction: The Consequences of Undecidability’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 9 (2004), p. 142.

72. Norval, op. cit., Ref. 11.

73. Norval, op. cit., Ref. 11., p. 235.

74. David Owen, ‘Genealogy as Perspicuous Representation’, in Cressida J. Hayes (Ed.), The Grammar of Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 87–88.

75. Owen, ‘Genealogy as Perspicuous Representation’, in Cressida J. Hayes (Ed.), The Grammar of Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003)., p. 91.

76. Norval, op. cit., Ref. 11, p. 241.

77. Butler, op. cit., Ref. 62, pp. 33, 44.

78. Butler, op. cit., Ref. 62., pp. 179–188.

79. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 82.

80. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41., pp. xvii–xviii

81. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41., pp. 314–315.

82. Brock, ‘Interview by Terry Gross’, Ref. 19, p. 8.

83. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd enlarged edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

84. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 276, original emphasis.

85. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref.45, p. 313.

86. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref.45., p. 328.

87. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 64e, original emphases.

88. Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989), p. 33.

89. Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989)., p. 84, original emphasis.

90. Brock, op. cit., Ref. 41, pp. 272–273.

91. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 23, p. 293.

92. Peter Collier, ‘Something Happened to Me Yesterday’, in Peter Collier and David Horowitz (Eds), Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties (New York: Free Press, 1996), p. 300.

93. Horowitz, op. cit., Ref. 67, p. 337, original emphasis.

94. Robert Smith, Derrida and Autobiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 58.