Something apropos from Zizek: "... The identification of the non-part with the Whole, of the part of society with no properly defined place within it (or resisting the allocated subordinated place within it) with the Universal, is the elementary gesture of politicization, discernible in all great democratic events from the French Revolution (in which the *le troisieme etat* proclaimed itself identical to the Nation as such, against the aristocracy and the clergy) to the demise of ex-European Socialism (in which dissident 'forums' proclaimed themselves representative of the entire society against the Party *nomenklatura*).
In this precise sense, politics and democracy are synonymous: the basic aim of antidemocratic politics always and by definition is and was depoliticization - that is, the unconditional demand that 'things should go back to normal', with each individual doing his or her particular job. . . . And, as Ranciere proves against Habermas, the political struggle proper is therefore not a rational debate between multiple interests, but the struggle for one's voice to be heard and recognized as the voice of a legitimate partner: when the 'excluded', from the Greek *demos* to Polish workers, protested against the ruling elite (aristocracy or *nomenklatura*), the true stakes were not only their explicit demands (for higher wages, better working conditions, etc.), but their very right to be heard and recognized as an equal partner in the debate - in Poland, the *nomenklatura* lost the moment it had to accept Solidarity as an equal partner." *** _The Ticklish Subject_ (p. 188)***
[an aside: social democratic philosophy desires no more than having capital as an equal partner; it's too bad capital doesn't reciprocate that desire.]
In much simpler terms, Chomsky has said that academic/pundit-inspired ruling class ideology is really only for the consumption of the minority of managers and professional types. The tactic for the majority is one of depoliticization - you're just a consumer and a worker, atomized, etc. Let the experts handle it. These are prosperous times, so don't worry.
Hence, it's inspiring to see young people - who didn't experience the feminist or environmental movements of the 70s, the Vietnam War, or the Civil Rights movement; who haven't seen government do anything good in their lifetimes, like the New Deal or LBJ's War on Poverty; who've been subjected to a massive campaign of depoliticization
- to see them (us) so very politicized, during "prosperous times" no less. (An ancillary pleasure of the Battle of Seattle has been the chance to witness pundits become unintelligeably apoplectic - whether Thomas Friedman in his NYT column or George Will on Sunday morning TV - when confronted by the fact that young people haven't succumbed to depoliticization anywhere near to the extent previously thought.)
Peter K.