Stupidity in Politics: Its Unavoidability and Potential 2020018469, 2020018470, 9781138588431, 9780429492297

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Citations and Translations
Introduction: the unavoidability of stupidity
1 Problematizing: Deleuze on the image of thought, and stupidity as an endogenous problem of thinking and politics
2 Tracing: democracy and intensified problematic of stupidity in Rousseau, J. S. Mill, Tocqueville, and Flaubert
3 Facing/missing: the problematical thinking and Kant’s critical project
4 Being: Kobayashi and his unrepentance of wartime critique
Conclusion: potential of stupidity
References
Index

Citation preview

Stupidity in Politics

Stupidity permeates our perception and practice of politics. We frequently accuse politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, voters, “elites,” and “the masses” for their stupidities. In fact, it is not only “populist politicians,” “sensational journalism,” and “uneducated voters” who are accused of stupidity. Similar accusations can be, and in fact have been, made concerning those who criticize them as well. It seems that stupidity is ubiquitous, unable to be contained within or attributed to one specific political position, personal trait, or even ignorance and erroneous reasoning. Undertaking a theoretical investigation of stupidity, this book challenges the assumption that stupidity can be avoided. Otobe argues that the very ubiquity of stupidity implies its unavoidability—that we cannot contain it in such domains as error, ignorance, or “post-truth.” What we witness is rather that one’s reasoning can be sound, evidence-based, and stupid. In revealing this unavoidability, he contends that stupidity is an ineluctable problem not only of politics, but also of thinking. We become stupid because we think: It is impossible to distinguish a priori stupid thought from upright, righteous thought. Moreover, the failure to address the unavoidability of stupidity leads political theory to the failure to acknowledge the productive moments that experiences of stupidity harbor within. Such productive moments constitute the potential of stupidity—that radical new ideas can emerge out of our seemingly banal and stupid thinking in our daily political activity. Nobutaka Otobe is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Law and Politics at Osaka University, Japan.

Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought

148 Ethical Politics and Modern Society T. H. Green’s Practical Philosophy and Modern China James Jia-Hau Liu 149 Consciousness and the Neoliberal Subject A Theory of Ideology via Marcuse, Jameson and Žižek Jon Bailes 150 Hegel and Contemporary Practical Philosophy Beyond Kantian-Constructivism James Gledhill and Sebastian Stein 151 A Marxist Theory of Ideology Praxis, Thought and the Social World Andrea Sau 152 Stupidity in Politics Its Unavoidability and Potential Nobutaka Otobe 153 Political Correctness A Sociocultural Black Hole Thomas Tsakalakis 154 The Individual After Modernity A Sociological Perspective Mira Marody 155 The Politics of Well-Being Towards a More Ethical World Anthony M. Clohesy For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/series/RSSPT

Stupidity in Politics

Its Unavoidability and Potential Nobutaka Otobe

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Nobutaka Otobe The right of Nobutaka Otobe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Otobe, Nobutaka, author. Title: Stupidity in politics : its unavoidability and potential / Nobutaka Otobe. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Routledge studies in social and political thought | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020018469 (print) | LCCN 2020018470 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138588431 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780429492297 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Political science—Philosophy. | Stupidity. | Democracy. Classification: LCC JA71 .O86 2021 (print) | LCC JA71 (ebook) | DDC 320.01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018469 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018470 ISBN: 978-1-138-58843-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-49229-7 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Acknowledgmentsvi Note on Citations and Translationsviii

Introduction: the unavoidability of stupidity

1 Problematizing: Deleuze on the image of thought, and stupidity as an endogenous problem of thinking and politics

1

21

2 Tracing: democracy and intensified problematic of stupidity in Rousseau, J. S. Mill, Tocqueville, and Flaubert60 3 Facing/missing: the problematical thinking and Kant’s critical project

102

4 Being: Kobayashi and his unrepentance of wartime critique135

Conclusion: potential of stupidity

169

References183 Index195

Acknowledgments

Politics can attract college students as a subject of study in many ways. Some may be fascinated by the hope for social reform. Others may aspire for power through studying politics. Yet what interested me were the aesthetic and existential dimensions of politics, namely its ugly banality and stupidity. I would like to thank Noriaki Ono at Kyoto University, who taught me how the study of political thought can help illuminate the aesthetic and existential qualities of politics. While the problem of stupidity had been my longtime preoccupation, my study started taking shape when I was writing my doctoral dissertation on stupidity at Johns Hopkins. I would like to thank my teachers at Johns Hopkins: Bill Connolly, Jane Bennett, Paola Marrati, the late Dick Flathman, Katrin Pahl, Naveeda Khan, and Jennifer Culbert, who taught me how to tackle problems, engage with texts, and think. I  also thank Mary Otterbein and Lisa Williams for their help throughout my graduate study there. As my project evolved, I benefitted from institutional assistance provided by Hosei University, Yale University, Ristumeikan University, Ibaraki University, and Osaka University. I would like to thank my mentors and colleagues at these institutions, namely Atsushi Sugita, Daniel Botsman, Takuya Inoue, Ryunoshin Kamikawa, Motoaki Ozeki, Tsuyoshi Takiguchi, and Kunio Watanabe. My work is also a product of stimulating conversations with and encouraging advice from friends. I would like to thank Kellan Anfinson, Jeremy Arnold, Alex Barder, Andrew Bush, Derek Denman, Tom Donahue, Stefanie Fishel, Ayako Hiramatsu, Sara Konoe, Hung-Chiung Li, Woosung Kang, Kenichi Johshita, Dot Kwek, Daniel Levine, Akitaka Matsuo, Ben Meiches, Kota Mori, Terukazu Morikawa, Kuniyuki Nishimura, Paulina Ochoa, Ayumu Okubo, Masataka Oki, Luke Plotica, Chad Shomura, Mina Suk, Shotaro Tahara, Lars Tønder, Tomoaki Ueda, Drew Walker, Juan Wang, Filip Wojciechowski, Mabel Wong, Kei Yamamoto, and Túlio Zille. Hitomi Koyama patiently read numerous versions of drafts and gave insightful comments. I am thankful to my editors at Routledge, Simon Bates and ShengBin Tan, who patiently supported this project. Finally but most importantly, I owe an enormous debt to my family for their longtime support and encouragement. Above all, I thank Yumiko and Yuriko.

Acknowledgments vii This project was supported by research grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (10J10209, 26780097, and 17K03526). An earlier version of the first chapter was published in Japanese as “Stupidity as Key to Deleuze’s Political Philosophy in Difference and Repetition,” Japanese Journal of Political Thought, no. 16 (2016): 117–43.

Note on Citations and Translations

For writings originally written in languages other than English, I use the translations when available and refer to their pages. Quotations, however, do not necessarily follow those translations. For some central texts other than Kobayashi’s writings, pages in the original editions are referenced after those in the translations: (English translation; Original edition) e.g., (Deleuze 1994, 222; 1968, 286) For the French original texts of Rousseau’s writings, I use the Pléiade’s fivevolume collections (Rousseau 1959–1995). Page numbers in the Pléiade editions are shown in (Volume: Page). For the original of correspondences of Flaubert, I  consult the Conard’s thirteen-volume collections (Flaubert 1926–1930). For the French originals of other writings of Flaubert, I use the Pléiade’s two-volume Œuvre Complètes (Flaubert 1982–1983). For the works of Kant, page numbers refer to those in the German Academy editions (Kant’s Gessammelte Schriften). References to the Critique of Pure Reason show the pages in the first edition and the second edition under A  and B respectively (e.g., A341/B399). For the German editions of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Judgment, I  consult Felix Meiner’s editions (Kant 1998b; 2009). For Kobayashi’s writings, I use the Sinchōsya edition of Complete Works (Kobayashi 2001–2010). The references are shown in (Volume:Page). When available, I consult Anderer’s translation (Kobayashi 1995), whose pages are shown after the page of the Japanese edition (e.g. 1:142, 1995, 24). Quotes from Plato’s works are taken from Complete Works, edited by John Cooper (Plato, 1997).

Introduction The unavoidability of stupidity

Stupidity permeates political life. We frequently accuse politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, voters, “elites,” and “the masses” of stupidity. Der Spiegel described the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change as “Donald Trump’s Triumph of Stupidity.”1 Economist Paul Krugman summed up his experience as Washington policy advisor as “against stupidity.”2 But the accusation of stupidity is not exclusive to politicians and bureaucrats in our society. Ill-considered responses to natural disasters and pandemics reveal the stupidity of specialists as well as their limitations. Also, lamentations of the stupid masses are abundant in the mass media and internet. It seems that accusations of being stupid spare no one. However, little has been written on stupidity. Shocked at the lack of study, Ortega y Gasset once asked himself “why . . . there has never been a study of this conflict—an Essay on Stupidity?” (1985, 58–59).3 Robert Musil, also surprised at the lack of such a study, ironically stated in his lecture “On Stupidity,” “Wise men apparently prefer to write about wisdom” (1990, 269). Maybe Musil is right. It is not without reason that political theory, which is often described as “normative,” concentrates on the inquiry into the good, the desirable, and the fair forms of politics. However, the scarcity of studies on stupidity is still noteworthy when compared with a recognizable amount of studies on those “bad” phenomena such as violence and evil, which are often regarded as predicates of politics. If inquiry into bad is not out of the scope of normative theory, then this makes the lack of scholarship on stupidity all the more conspicuous. Why is there a lack of scholarship on stupidity when it is a ubiquitous part of our political life? What does this say about political theory, a discipline that purports to make sense of our daily political experience? The lack, I will argue, is due to a long-lasting assumption that divides thinking—which includes philosophy and political theory—and politics. The dichotomy holds the former realm of thinking as the realm of solitary, righteous thinking and the latter as that of ordinary human affairs comprising stupid politicians, bureaucrats, and the masses. In so doing, this dichotomy leads theorists to ignore stupidity: i.e., it is their problem, not ours. By presuming a distinction between righteous thinking and

2  Introduction stupid politics, however, theoretical knowledge fails to acknowledge the indispensability as well as potential of stupidity in our thoughts. By indispensability, I mean that stupidity is an ineluctable problem that conditions our experiences of politics and thinking. What stupidity reveals is the political—that is, plural— character of thinking. By potential, I mean that radically new ideas can emerge out of seemingly banal and stupid thinking in our daily political activity. Furthermore, this potential plays a crucial role in democratic politics by suggesting a certain equality of thought and the role of communication. By attending to this gap between our daily experience of politics and of scholarly studies on the experience of politics, I pose a question: What would our political life and political theory look like if we took stupidity seriously as a problem of our politics and thought? In arguing against the dichotomy between theoretical knowledge and politics, therefore, this book will pursue two tasks: (1) to reveal the indispensability and potential of stupidity and (2) to envision a mode of political theorizing that would acknowledge its indispensability and potential.

Elusive and ubiquitous stupidity: a preliminary sketch What is stupidity? Stupidity is both ubiquitous and elusive. We often notice, accuse, and are shocked by somebody’s stupid acts and words. Yet as soon as we try to define stupidity, it escapes specification and demarcation. We either get lost in the power of reasonableness that resides in seemingly stupid phenomena, or we become stupid by believing that we are not. Such elusiveness might account for the dearth of studies on stupidity. However, even if we cannot define the concept of stupidity, it does not necessarily mean that we cannot think about the meaning of stupidity in our political life. We may not be able to demarcate and identify stupidity, but I  maintain that it is still possible to formulate the problematic of stupidity, that is, the locus in which stupidity problematizes our assumptions concerning thinking and politics. Before formulating the problematic in the first chapter, in this introduction I want to draw as a preliminary sketch some characteristics of stupidity from its elusiveness and ubiquity. These include (1) stupidity as an endogenous problem of thinking, (2) a communal dimension of stupidity, (3) proliferation of clichés as a quintessential phenomenon of stupidity, (4) philosophy’s conventional misapprehension of stupidity, and (5) the potential of stupidity that can unleash our thinking. The elusiveness of stupidity implies that stupidity is an endogenous problem of thinking. This can be deduced from the fact that stupidity cannot be reduced to an exogenous problem such as error. If stupidity were an error, it would not be so perplexing: we would be able to specify its cause, correct it, and secure our reason from it. Error may be a part of some acts of stupidity, but error does not exhaust stupidity. As we will see in the first chapter, Gilles Deleuze sees in the reduction of stupidity to “error” the reason why philosophy has failed to problematize stupidity.

Introduction 3 Musil (1990, 268) articulates this non- or extraerroneous quality when he calls stupidity the “big and little sisters of judgment and reason,” provoking his readers: If stupidity, seen from within, did not so much resemble talent as possess the ability to be mistaken for it, and if it did not outwardly resemble progress, genius, hope, and improvement, the chances are that no one would want to be stupid, and so there would be no stupidity. Or fighting it would at least be easy. (Musil 1995, 57) Stupidity is something that we cannot easily distinguish from righteous and upright thinking, logical reasoning, and sound judgment. This indiscernibility between stupidity and intelligence gives us a further clarification: stupidity cannot be reduced to excessive passion, affect, or lack of will. Many thinkers regard affections and passions as hindrances that hamper and destroy our disinterested reasoning (whereas a few others find in affections positive moments that can move our thinking activity). In so doing, the prevailing view ties reasons for failures of thought, such as partial judgment, to external factors. But these external failures differ from the stupidity this study pursues. Moreover, the stupidity I problematize in this study does not signify a psychological or pathological category of weak intellect. Idiocy and imbecility usually concern those categories of mental phenomena that reflect a lack of something ordinary people are supposed to have. And sometimes we use the term stupid to signify these categories. Yet our ordinary use also shows that we can be stupid at the same time that we are sane and intelligent. To quote Musil again, there is “the higher, pretentious form of stupidity” that is “not so much of the lack of intelligence as failure of intelligence” (1990, 283). It is true that the boundaries drawn between sanity and insanity, “ordinary” and “deficient” intellects, are themselves unstable and even arbitrary.4 Recent studies also seem to suggest that we cannot maintain a clear dichotomy between thinking and affect.5 Nonetheless, I hold that stupidity foremost confronts the activity of thinking from within. My above observation about the non-psychological quality of stupidity further suggests a certain sociopolitical dimension as a second characteristic of stupidity: stupidity concerns our communal dimension of human affairs as well as our individual thinking activities.6 Stupidity should be ascribed neither to specific personal traits nor to deficient intelligence. Being something common to us all, stupidity is likely to appear in our human interaction, of which the highest expression is politics. Musil again succinctly points out the political relevance of stupidity when he asks whether stupid “judgment . . . does not also lie at the root of politics, and of the disorder of life in general” (1990, 269). Politics is one of those fields in which the charge of stupidity more fervently appears. When you read about and watch politics in newspapers, TV shows, and other media, and when you talk about politics, you can easily find somebody uttering the phrase, “It’s stupid!” Whereas journalists, pundits, and citizens lament the stupidities of elites such as politicians

4  Introduction and bureaucrats, the inverse is equally common. Critics of “mass society” such as Ortega relentlessly point out the stupidity of the masses, calling for the rule by elites or virtuous people who are immune to such stupidity. In the end, it seems that politics is full of stupidity, present in both the rulers and the ruled. As Max Weber cautions in “Politics as a Vocation,” probably the world of politics is “too stupid or base” (2004, 94). The communal dimension renders stupidity a particular form of appearance: the proliferation of banal clichés. For example, multitudes of opinions flooding in social media often strike us with their repetitions of clichés. Their stupidity does not lie in their falsity, but in their monotone betraying the diversity of authors. It is not a mere coincidence that the few literatures available on stupidity all point to the use of cliché as a quintessential quality of stupidity. Arendt finds in Adolph Eichmann’s constant reliance on stock phrases an exemplary phenomenon of “thoughtlessness,” though thoughtlessness is not the same as stupidity (Arendt 2003, 159–65). In a similar manner, Gustave Flaubert’s book on stupidity, the Dictionary of Received Ideas, constitutes a series of clichés. Musil’s novel presents the “man without qualities,” that is, the man who is not different from any others, as a quintessential embodiment of stupidity. And the problem here is that a cliché tends to congeal multiple ideas into one and prohibit us from further reflection. Flaubert, regarding clichés as a manifestation of stupidity, once defined stupidity as “to conclude” (Letter to Louis Bouilhet, September 4, 1850). Clichés provide us with conclusions on which we can safely rest. However, if stupidity lies in our making of conclusions, how can we reach wisdom that usually also takes the form of conclusion? An encounter with stupidity can provoke melancholy among thinkers when they realize their pursuit of wisdom, too, is not free from stupidity (Deleuze 1994, 152; 1968, 198). More often, however, philosophers—including political theorists—assume themselves dissociated from stupidity—the assumption that constitutes philosophy’s misapprehension of stupidity, or an acknowledgment that stupidity is not one’s own problem. The history of Western philosophy is replete with such attempts to dissociate itself from stupidity, as already observable in Plato. Plato’s philosopher-king is free from stupidity because he manages to leave the cave of human affairs. He is not only free from stupidity, but also capable of detecting others’ stupidity and correcting it. But for all his self-identification as the one who is exempt, people never failed to mention the stupidity of Plato, the philosopher at Syracuse. The story of the philosopher-king is merely one of the numerous ways philosophy becomes stupid by regarding itself immune to stupidity. Even Ortega’s cry for the study of stupidity is not free from the desire to dissociate. In calling out the need to study stupidity, Ortega states, “For many men one of the greatest torments of their lives must have been their contact and clash with the stupidity of their neighbors” (Ortega y Gasset 1985, 58). For Ortega, stupidity is an object of encounter, the predicate of his neighbors. It is always “they,” not “we,” who are stupid. Stupidity is an other. Yet how could stupidity belong only to “their neighbors” while “many men” encounter it? Rather, should we not regard this stupidity as our own? If

Introduction 5 stupidity is elusive and pervasive, how is it possible for philosophers to secure distance from stupidity? If stupidity is ubiquitous, the specification of the self as exempt and the other as stupid cannot hold. Indeed, such dissociation constitutes a misapprehension of stupidity, one that prevents philosophy, including political theory, from taking up stupidity as its own problem. Despite these instances of misapprehension, the history of Western thought yields another, more positive insight: the potential of stupidity that can unleash our thinking. This insight sees stupidity not as “to conclude,” but rather, as a beginning: the experience of stupidity stupefies us into thinking. Despite his misapprehension, Kant’s case attests to this acknowledgment of stupidity’s role in inauguration: it is the scandal of reason, the long-lasting stupidity of philosophy, that shocked Kant into his critical project. As I  will explore in the third chapter, Kant’s great contribution lies in his acknowledgment of the finitude of human reason, that is, our common vulnerability to stupidity. Yet his critical project immunizes human thought against stupidity by drawing a limit within which our thought can be valid. Such awakening through an encounter with stupidity is observable in the beginnings of many philosophical endeavors. Socrates’s dialogues start with his acknowledgment of the problems he cannot solve alone. Maybe acknowledgment of stupidity is an exemplary case of the sense of wonder that Socrates regards to be the origin of philosophy. Herein lies the unleashing force of stupidity, the positive moment that inspires our thinking and, by virtue of it, inspires our democratic politics. Such potential, first, consists of the generative force in which our stupidities shock us into thinking. Realization of our own stupidity, or an encounter with stupidity, drives us into reflection. As such, this generative force of stupidity reminds us that thinking emerges in the midst of our human affairs, not in a philosopher’s solitary life. Moreover, as a second element, stupidity can nurture within philosophy what Deleuze calls “necessary modesty.” Philosophy, emanating from human affairs, easily distances itself from human plurality by confusing stupidity with correctable error. With this move toward an extrahuman realm of solitary thought, philosophy becomes arrogant, tyrannical, and stupid to the realm of human plurality that is the real home of our human activities. Being attentive to the pervasive quality of stupidity, we can make philosophy come down to earth, to our human condition. This modesty is most wanted in political theory, the discipline that has been troubled by the divide between philosophy and politics, between solitary thought and human plurality. The modest acknowledgment of plurality goes beyond the mere recognition of the plurality of actors in the political realm. In fact, what stupidity tells us is how communicative interaction among plural forces is at work among our thinking activities. This is why clichés—words of others—constitute the quintessential phenomenon of stupidity. Our thought is not a result of solitary activity, but the outcome of plural forces’ circulating within and beyond individual thought. This plural or communal quality of thought, third, would help us to appreciate the democratic force of thinking activities held in our ordinary human affairs. Ordinary people’s thoughts appear to contain such potential, rather than being mere unsophisticated or fallacious opinions.

6  Introduction

Contributions to ongoing debates As I  stated at the beginning, there are few studies on stupidity. However, my exploration, which I sketched in the previous section, does not merely fill a void left by the current scholarship. More importantly, this study also engages with some of the central debates ongoing in the current scholarship in political theory.

(1) Existing literature on stupidity There are only several extant works on stupidity. Most of them, however, are either collections of essays on various forms of weak intellects and poor judgments, including not only stupidity but also idiocy and folly (Boxel 2005), journalistic criticisms of our (or their?) stupidity (Shenkman 2008), and psychological surveys (Sternberg et al. 2002). Except for the third category of books, there are few scholarly studies, and as stated in the previous section, my study does not engage with stupidity as a psychological notion. Other scholarly works mainly concern the uses and notions of stupidity in literature (Roger 2008), hence rarely addressing the philosophical and political dimensions. Ronnell’s study (2002), which stands as one of the most thorough endeavors, falls into this category, despite the many philosophical and political insights it contains.7 This nearly exclusive focus on literature leads us to ask why literature is the central discipline for those studies on stupidity in humanities. As we will see in depth in the first chapter, Deleuze also mentions the preoccupation with stupidity among “the best literature,” in order to call attention to the lack of concern in philosophy, in contrast. My study, too, draws on insights from literature, evident from my extensive engagement with Robert Musil’s insights earlier. It is in literature that the problem of stupidity has been discussed rather than in philosophy. In later chapters I also engage with the works by Gustave Flaubert and Japanese literary critic Hideo Kobayashi for these very reasons, though I weave the engagement back to the discussion of political theory. Nonetheless, my exploration departs from the current scholarship in arguing that stupidity primarily concerns politics. While these chapters will not directly engage the question of “Why literature?,” my explorations reveal why these authors are well-suited to address the problem of stupidity. This is because simply put, a certain “democracy,” that is, the equality of words (Rancière 2011), enables literature to deal with stupidity without delegating stupidity to a lower form of expression as philosophers and political theorists have done. And it is the equality of words that weaves back the problem of stupidity into politics, where democracy is about community, communication, and stupidity. In any event, however, the sole focus on literature would not suffice as a philosophical and/or politico-theoretical study on stupidity, which this study pursues.8

(2) Paradoxes and limits of reason, and the unthought My study does not merely seek to offset the scarcity of the study on stupidity in political theory. Rather, my exploration of the hitherto unsearched terrain—the

Introduction 7 politics of stupidity—sheds some new light on ongoing debates in political theory. The first of these debates concern irrationality and paradoxes of reasoning. If they have been ignorant of stupidity, philosophers, political theorists, and political scientists have not failed to notice the importance of irrationality and paradoxes of reasoning. Arrow’s impossibility theorem on collective decision making, the paradox of sovereignty discussed among poststructuralists, and Arendt’s observations on thoughtlessness are examples. Significant as these accounts are, they do not deal with stupidity as such. Moreover, investigation into stupidity will shed light on a different terrain from Arrow’s theorem, loosen the binary logic into which the current literature on sovereignty falls, and point to an implicit assumption underlying the Arendtian notion of thoughtlessness. Social choice theory, which involves some strands of analytical philosophy and the rational choice tendencies of social science, has been preoccupied with paradoxes and dilemmas in which rational behavior results in irrational outcomes. Among social choice theories, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, which suggests the irrationality of voting, is probably the most influential. Arrow’s theorem shows the impossibility of collective decision making to consist of more than three alternatives that would satisfy the preferences of members involved (Arrow 2012). William Riker applied this theorem to the study of democratic voting, implying the impossibility of there being a truly democratic system (or, what he calls “populist” democracy): there is no voting system that could adequately reflect voters’ opinions (Riker 1988). Instead of being a truly democratic decision, voting is susceptible to manipulation and illusion. Some go further to challenge what they regard as the “myth of the rational voter,” calling their demystification “the study of folly” (Caplan 2007). Do these studies of folly converge with the present study of stupidity? Such “folly” certainly differs from the stupidity addressed in the present study. First, it is unclear whether the voters’ paradox is a real paradox for democratic reasoning.9 But a more pertinent point for my study is that even the solution of such a paradox would not dissipate the sense of stupidity we find in politics. What makes one say that this politician is stupid and that the masses are stupid? What differentiates the stupidity discussed here from the “folly” studied in social choice theory is the difference between dimensions they regard as central for our democratic process. Whereas social choice theory focuses on decision making and aggregation of opinions, which are approximated with wills or interests, the present study focuses on the process by which we formulate and reflect upon opinions. In addition, stupidity, I argue, debunks belief in our capacity to form opinions. Stupidity is an endogenous difficulty that challenges the very capacity for thought but nonetheless inaugurates this very thought. By regarding stupidity as an endogenous problem for our thinking activity, my study has more affinity with the tradition of continental philosophy, which has constantly problematized human thought. Hegel’s “negativity,” Heidegger’s “ontological difference,” Derrida’s “différance,” Levinas’s “other,” Deleuze’s “the virtual,” Agamben’s “potentiality,” to name a few, all point to the unthought that drives as well as challenges our finite thought, despite significant differences

8  Introduction among them. Indeed, my exploration draws heavily upon Deleuze’s insights into our inability to think, “the image of thought.” What kind of difference will my study bring into this general problematization of the unthought? By focusing on the chiasm between thought and the unthought, my study on stupidity challenges the binary logic that those in the continental strand often maintain between the two. Against the shared attention to aporetic instances of the unthought, I argue that we can think of the unthought only through stupidity, which is a vestige of the unthought. Simply put, stupidity is possible because we cannot but think even if the unthought shatters our thought. This unavoidability of unthought and thought itself may not be a new insight. However, by focusing on the very process of interaction between the two, my study will help loosen the interlocked antagonism between thought and unthought that remains prevalent in the current literature. For example, my focus on stupidity intersects with and departs from the current literature over the topic of sovereignty and animality. The common referent of those studies is Carl Schmitt’s classical formulation that “sovereign is he who decides on the exception” (Schmitt 2005, 5). However, what characterizes the current studies is the scope of this sovereign power. Giorgio Agamben, for example, connects it with Foucauldian biopower, regarding sovereign power as a subjectifying/ disciplinizing force as well as the force of establishing political community (Agamben 1998).10 By so doing, Agamben presents sovereignty as a power that decides who counts as an intelligent human being and who counts as an animal. In other words, being an intelligent human subject means being subject to the sovereign power. Now, this dichotomy between human subjectivity and animality seems to parallel the dichotomy between intelligence and stupidity, given that some languages have the same word to signify both “stupidity” and “animality,” such as bêtise in the French language. In fact, this double meaning suggests more than a mere coincidence on the level of words. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, articulates the sovereign power’s penetration into human intelligence when he speaks of the establishment of sovereignty through the social contract as the moment that makes “out of a stupid and bound animal an intelligent being and a man” (1997e, 53; 3:364). Despite these suggested parallel dichotomies between the subject and intelligence on the one hand and the animal and stupidity on the other, my exploration reveals that stupidity in fact resides within human intelligence. As Deleuze states, stupidity (bêtise) is a “specifically human form of bestiality” inherent in our thought (1994, 150; 1968, 196).11 In terms of the antagonism between thought and unthought, Agamben’s binary logic of human subjectivity and animality posits the unthought (which Agamben himself calls the potentiality of thought) beyond our reach: we either subject our thought to the logic of sovereignty or are purged from the realm of thought as an animal without intelligence. However, stupidity as an endogenous problem of thinking loosens this dichotomy, revealing the instability of thought. The unthought, or the potentiality of thought, ascends to the surface of thought as stupidity, which in turn evinces a vestige of potentiality. The binary logic of thought and the unthought

Introduction 9 may persist, but stupidity loosens the strict antagonism of those binary logics, opening the active process of interaction between the two. Arendt’s notion of thoughtlessness is another case that seems to overlap with stupidity. Indeed, her observation of Eichmann’s thoughtlessness shares characteristics with the stupidity this study addresses. First, both concern a problem of thinking instead of weak intellect or error. As Arendt points out, Eichmann shows a relative competency in handling bureaucratic negotiation and management. His thoughtlessness lies in his inability to know what he is doing, to distinguish what is right from wrong—and this moral judgment for Arendt is not simply a matter of applying universal moral rules. Such characterization of thoughtlessness resonates with my preliminary observation of stupidity: stupidity, too, lies outside the categories of weak intellect and error. Surely the event that involved Eichmann’s thoughtlessness—the Final Solution—looks far more extraordinary compared to our frequent encounters with stupidity. But Arendt emphasizes the banality of thoughtlessness, pointing out that it is observable almost everywhere in the present society (Arendt 2003). Second, both thoughtlessness and stupidity appear as clichés, stock phrases. In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt finds a typical expression of Eichmann’s thoughtlessness in his reliance on the stock phrase: “The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else” (Arendt 2006, 49). As I will argue in detail in the second chapter, this study, too, regards the employment of cliché as a quintessential characteristic of stupidity. These similarities in fact may make the two similar, or even identical. If so, why should we employ such an elusive and unfamiliar notion as stupidity rather than that of thoughtlessness, which is familiar to political theorists? Here I withhold myself from judging whether Eichmann could be called “stupid,” but in the first chapter I  will cast doubt on the general adequacy of the notion of thoughtlessness. The problem is not Arendt’s observation of Eichmann but her accompanying assumption about thinking. By describing thoughtlessness as the lack of thought, as an exogenous problem of thought, Arendt assumes that our thinking activity is innately righteous and upright. Moreover, this assumption leads her to formulate the question of the political relevancy of thinking in a misleading way. By revealing Arendt’s misleading formulation, this book presents how thinking becomes politically relevant because of its stupidity.

(3) Democratic theories of thoughtful citizenship The second debate concerns the role of thinking in democracy. With the principle of the equality of citizens, democracy is based upon citizens’ opinions. This of course does not mean that all democratic theories trust or encourage citizens’ thinking activities. A deep skepticism toward the people’s capacity for thinking underlies the tradition of democratic thought. Rousseau’s concern over the “blind multitude” is one of its classical manifestations (Rousseau 1997e, 68; 3:380).

10  Introduction Democratic theories during the mid-twentieth century, namely Schumpeter’s elite democratic theory and Dahl’s theory of polyarchy, are more recent examples of skepticism toward the thinking capacity of a democratic people. Further, as I  mentioned above, some social choice theorists foster a similar skepticism. Whereas the skepticism about people’s capacity keeps resonating among some theorists, current democratic theories, however, show a shift away from the conventional skepticism toward an appreciation of thinking held by ordinary citizens.12 Deliberative democracy exemplifies this shift by regarding deliberation— collective formation, exchange, and modification of opinions—as a crucial element of democracy. Epistemic democrats go further to argue that democratic decision making is a way to arrive at correct outcomes (Schwartzberg 2015; Landmore 2014). Poststructuralist-minded political theory, despite its relentless criticisms of the deliberation camp, shares the appreciation of peoples’ thinking power when they criticize the subjugating power of a singular sovereign as disciplining our thoughts as well as actions. As seen above, Agamben regards human intelligence as nothing but subjugation to sovereign power, thereby implying that resistance to such subjugation helps to unleash the potentiality of our thought. As such, Agamben sees the potentiality for thought as a positive moment inspiring our political life. My study, too, shares this view that the potential of thinking activity held among ordinary people should be unleashed instead of subjugated. First, by regarding stupidity as an ineluctable problem that debunks the hierarchy of thought, my orientation stipulates a certain egalitarianism of thinking activities. As Deleuze puts it, stupidity reveals that in thought “one is neither superior nor external to that from which one benefits: a tyrant institutionalizes stupidity, but he is the first servant of his own system and the first to be installed within it” (1994, 151; 1968, 196). The people may be stupid but so are the rulers, sovereigns, and theorists. This egalitarianism may appear negative compared to our accepted democratic idea of equality. While the latter democratic egalitarianism suggests that we all equally possess rights, the former equality is based upon our common vulnerability to stupidity (i.e., our equal insufficiency in our thinking capacity). However, such negative equality can adequately expose an assumption that the current theories share with the conventional deflation of ordinary peoples’ thinking: the assumption that leads to the safeguarding and purification of thought and politics from stupidity, an externalizing move. Rousseau, for example, safeguards the polity from dissolution by the blind masses by introducing the lawgiver with extraordinary genius. Although critical of the idea of the lawgiver, contemporary democratic theorists retain the same desire to safeguard thought from degeneration. Deliberative democrats, on the one hand, do so by identifying the condition of reasonable deliberation that is free from manipulation, torsion, and bias. Agamben, on the other, tries to purify thought from subjugation to the logic of sovereignty. However, what they all miss is the vulnerability of those ideals to stupidity. From my perspective, they are too hasty in making constituencies and democracy more “thoughtful” by either securing the condition of thoughtful deliberation or identifying the logic that trammels our thought. Simply put, they secretly introduce

Introduction 11 another hierarchy of thinking (such as reasonable deliberation above distorted communication, undisciplined potentiality of thought over those subject to sovereignty), even while aiming to overturn the current hierarchy. However, as I will show, stupidity submerges these formulated boundaries, making our thoughts permanently vulnerable to it. We may, for example, become more reasonable through deliberation. Yet our deliberative thinking may well remain stupid. But the insight of stupidity is not limited to the purely negative. Although stupidity debunks every attempt to protect thought from it, whether the attempt consists of the traditional skepticism regarding the deliberative ability of the masses or the democratic pursuit of thoughtful citizenship, stupidity also vivifies our thought. Stupidity elucidates the need to turn to our actual thinking processes on the ground.

(4) Politics and thought Third, my egalitarian take on the vivifying power of thought then suggests a reconsideration of the classical antagonism between thought and politics. This antagonism in the Western tradition is as old as philosophy itself. Socrates was sentenced to death because his contemporary Athenian citizens judged him to harm the order of the polis—the event entrenches the image of political community as being against thought. In current political theory, Arendt engages with this antagonism most extensively.13 According to her, the antagonism has its roots in the respective conditions of politics and thought: while philosophy, pursuing the singular truth, operates within solitary thinking, politics is based on the plurality of human beings. As such, the philosophical rule of truth inevitably becomes tyrannical when it is applied to politics. Arendt, however, does not simply reconfirm the classical antagonism. Rather, her contribution to that classical debate lies in her pursuit of the political relevancy of thinking despite the antagonism. Underlying this rescue attempt is her observation of Eichmann, whose thoughtlessness struck her. The question that imposed itself was, could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining and reflecting upon whatever happens to come to pass, regardless of specific content and quite independent of results, could this activity be of such a nature that it ‘conditions’ men against evildoing? (Arendt 2003, 160) Dana Villa pushes Arendt’s attempt further and proposes a model of thoughtful citizenship as “Socratic citizenship” (Villa 2001). My exploration partly concurs with these pursuits of the political relevance of thought. First, my perspective, too, loosens the conventional antagonism. As stated above, it is the very dichotomy between thought as a solitary activity and politics as an activity of plurality that has prevented us from taking up stupidity as a proper problem for both thought and politics. Thought, as well as politics, has a communal dimension as its condition. This communal dimension stimulates

12  Introduction thought—and by the same token, stupidity—in two instances where stupidity plays a crucial role: the genesis of thought and the representation that turns thinking into stupid clichés. In the former, interaction with stupidity appears as a stupor that can drive us into new thinking, whereas in the latter instance the plurality paradoxically turns our unique, if not solitary, thinking into the monotonous words of others. In other words, stupidity unmasks solitary thought to reveal its communal dimension. Second, the unavoidability of stupidity reveals an implicit assumption underlying the pursuit of thoughtful citizenship. Such an attempt is doomed to fail, not because the masses cannot be thoughtful but because thoughtfulness does not safeguard us, including rulers, the masses, and philosophers, from committing acts of stupidity. As the Platonic ideal of the philosopher-king is incompetent in securing our politics from stupidity, so is the opposite ideal of Socratic citizenship. Arguing against the conventional antagonism between politics and thought, however, this study does not aim at dissolving the distinction between politics and thought. My exploration rather pursues a reconsideration of that relationship. The key for this reconsideration is the deep plurality that penetrates both thought and politics: rooted in the communal dimension of thought, stupidity attests to the plural, or even political, character of thought.14 Thinking appears in the midst of this deep plurality, not from solitary reflection. Or, following Jean-Luc Nancy, I  would say that thinking and politics are different modes of communication—communal activities—that partake of Being. Thus my exploration concurs with some strands of the Arendtian orientation in calling for the need to be attentive to the thinking activity of ordinary people. At the same time, as it appears in stupidity, the plurality underlying thought prevents our attempts to make our thought—whether as philosophical thought or political thoughtfulness—secure from its danger: stupidity. Indeed, this deep plurality requires us to reconsider the very function of thought: we need to ponder what our theorizing activity as professional thinkers can do in addition to rescuing the thinking activity of ordinary people.

(5) Image of political theory Finally, reconsideration of the relationship between politics and thought inevitably leads to a reconsideration of the image of philosophy as a discipline of thought: what kind of status and role should we assign to philosophy, namely of political theory/philosophy?15 A  conventional assumption has long maintained that philosophy, as the realm of solitary wisdom, is free from the error of human affairs. However, my exploration shatters such an assumption by showing that stupidity stems from the plurality in thought, appearing in philosophy as well as our ordinary thinking.16 If politics and thought are nothing but two ways of dealing with the deep plurality, what can secure the identity of philosophy vis-à-vis politics? What will be left to the task of philosophy? As stated before, the common ground itself does not necessarily mean the dissolution of politics and thought. I claim neither that our thought merely reflects

Introduction 13 our political or social structure nor that philosophy is no different from ordinary opinions. If philosophy lacks its proper ground and is unable to attain insight into the essence of the world, philosophy and politics could still coexist as different responses to the same condition of the deep plurality. However, the question of the status of philosophy appears more important for political theory, which has long assumed its role as offering normative prescriptions to politics. If stupidity is a problem for both politics and thought, the traditional self-understanding of political theory as normative thought vis-à-vis politics would be shaken, if not rendered impossible. Instead, the exploration of stupidity recommends political theory to be more attentive to the reality of politics, rather than dismissing its supposedly erroneous reality or seeking to reorganize its material according to its prescriptions. In criticizing the idealism of normative political theory, my orientation concurs with surging interests in realist political theory. Realist political theory as a distinctive theoretical approach has yet to take unified shape, containing disagreements and different emphases among its proponents.17 Raymond Geuss, for instance, emphasizes the need to ground the evaluative activity of theory in historical contexts (Geuss 2005; Geuss 2008), while Bernard Williams takes a more minimalist approach, claiming to maintain the role of political theory within justification (Williams 2005). Yet as a common thread, realist political theorists all call for the need to turn the focus of ideal, normative theory back to the sober reality of politics, wherein power relations and negotiations are ordinary phenomena. Geuss criticizes what he calls the “ideal theory” of ethics—namely, but not limited to, those of Rawls and Nozick—for their idealism and universalism. Lacking the acknowledgment of the reality of politics, ideal theory makes political theory into mere “applied ethics” (Geuss 2008). In a similar manner, Williams attacks “political moralism,” a style of political theorizing that by making “the moral prior to the political,” prescribes how political actors should think. Instead, we need to politically negotiate disagreements: A very important reason for thinking in terms of the political is that a political decision—the conclusion of a political deliberation which brings all sorts of considerations, considerations along with others, to one focus of decision—is that such a decision does not in itself announce that the other party was morally wrong or, indeed, wrong at all. (Williams 2005, 13) In its call for the need to focus on “what is platitudinously politics” (Williams 2005, 13), the realist political theory responds to one of the recurrent themes in this study: reconsideration of the assumed higher status of thought over politics. Notwithstanding these advantages, political realism comes with its own difficulties: the remaining assumption about the status of theory and, as a consequence, its tendency to fix reality. First, while criticizing the hubris of theory and calling for modesty vis-à-vis the reality of politics, political realists pay little attention to the endogenous problem of thinking, which spawns stupidity. Thus,

14  Introduction Geuss shows little difficulty in maintaining the evaluative role of theory, the role that remains even for the realist theory. Williams’s realism, too, leaves theory its distinctive role to offer standards of justification. For the realists, political theory, once its idealistic tendency is corrected, can serve not only in understanding but also in evaluating (or even guiding) politics. However, my exploration shows that the deep plurality renders thinking as well as politics internally problematic, if it does not dissolve the former into the latter. Weber’s above quote—his call for the courage to deal with stupid politics—required his passionately idealistic audience to come to terms with the stupidity of politics. But is thinking, namely theory, not stupid as well? Geuss touches on the stupidity of philosophy when he affirmatively mentions Hegel’s assimilative approach to multiple but partial philosophical doctrines in the past, Nietzsche’s genealogical rejection of the ultimate worldview, and Adorno’s insight into the falsity of the worldviews (Geuss 2005, Chapter 3). Moreover, he acknowledges the political element latent in theorists’ determinations of “who asks what question, how [to] exactly [formulate], and [make] what assumptions at what time, and in what order” (Geuss 2005, 7). Nevertheless, Geuss’s realism once again severs politics from thought. With this distinction, he presents a specific conception of politics (his own) as the reality. Politics, it is true, is rife with coercion, violence, and concessions. But its reality is contestable, too. In the end, our conceptions of politics, including those of idealistic theories, are constituted by and constitutive of such “reality.” Against these tendencies, my study, while criticizing the idealist tendency, focuses more on the problematic moment inherent in thought as seen in both philosophy and political theory. When stupidity disrupts the hierarchy of thought between philosophical truth and erroneous ordinary thought, we witness the endogenous problematicity of thought. It is endogenous because we cannot attribute the cause of stupidity to identifiable exogenous factors such as passion and will. And it is problematic because stupidity resists demarcation (while we can specify the cause and phenomenon of error), so that stupidity remains a problem we cannot eradicate. Moreover, this problematicity permeates politics as well as thought: there is no secure perspective from which to envision the reality of politics. Simply put, the present study pursues a mode of theorizing that is attentive to that problematicity, maintaining the contestability of both theory and politics. In pursuing such a mode of political theorizing, my approach shows an affinity with the genealogical approach. For genealogy, broadly construed, deals with problematics by questioning the values and practices we take for granted. In so doing, genealogy questions the commanding status of theory, although from a different perspective than the realist political theory; whereas the realists do so by focusing on “what is platitudinously politics,” genealogy calls into question the assumed hierarchy of thought. As Foucault states, by parting company with “the lofty and profound gaze of the philosopher,” genealogy meticulously engages itself with documents “that have been scratched over and recopied many times” (Foucault 1977, 140). Refraining from ideal prescriptions does not mean to exclude ideal or aspirational dimensions. Rather, genealogy illuminates

Introduction 15 how various social forms produce and modify values by problematizing them. Moreover, by questioning how various forces constitute values within which our thought and practice operate, the genealogical problematization becomes a political project. It questions political functions and the effects of our problematic values without giving prescriptive solutions to them or disregarding them as mere erroneous ideologies. Indeed, Foucault identifies his work as that of the problematization of politics, not as that of providing solutions to questions given in politics: “And no doubt fundamentally it concerns my way of approaching political questions. It is true that my attitude isn’t a result of the form of critique that claims to be a methodical examination in order to reject all possible solutions except for the one valid one. It is more on the order of ‘problematization’— which is to say, the development of a domain of acts, practices, and thoughts that seem to me to pose problems for politics” (Foucault 1997, 114). Genealogy, it is true, has been pursued mainly in historical analyses rather than in philosophy and political theory. In addition, there may be doubts concerning the political scope of the method of problematization. Foucault’s genealogy certainly draws its political relevance from directly engaging with sociopolitical institutions and practices. Can such a problematization be a political project without explicitly addressing historical analyses of sociopolitical practices? Throughout the study, I argue for the politico-theoretical relevancy of such problematization. In pursuing this method, I turn to Deleuze’s orientation developed in Difference and Repetition. In that magnum opus, Deleuze proposes to regard Being as the being of a problem, set against a conventional Platonic style of philosophizing that takes a form of dialectic between identity and nonidentical contradiction— the style that aims at reaching the essence of Being through stripping nonbeing out of Being. “Being is also non-being, but non-being is not the being of the negative; rather, it is the being of the problematic, the being of problem and question” (Deleuze 1994, 64; 1968, 89). In so doing, Difference and Repetition develops a mode of philosophizing that questions the problematic nature of thought without subduing it under philosophical truth. Difference and Repetition is largely seen as less political than his later works with Guattari, namely the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Also, not all problematics are political. Yet I maintain that the Deleuzean orientation presents a rich resource for political theory that would not dispense with the problematic nature of thought. It therefore is no coincidence that Difference and Repetition is one of few philosophical works that takes up the problem of stupidity. For, as stated earlier, stupidity problematizes thought by dramatizing its political dimension. In the first chapter, I  attempt a problematization of stupidity as a political and ideational problem by explicating Difference and Repetition. After giving a concrete contour to the Deleuzean orientation, however, I  turn to the other resources in the subsequent chapters. Namely, I emphasize the importance and influence of Kant’s critical project for the Deleuzean orientation I pursue. Leaving diverse camps of “Kantianism” behind—from the Rawlsian deontic political philosophy to the Deleuzean “transcendental empiricism”—I suggest that the

16  Introduction essence of Kantian critique lies foremost in acknowledging the problematic of human thought—namely, its finitude. This acknowledgment appears most vividly in the preface to the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant states: Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognition that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason (1998a, Avii) As I  will argue in the third chapter, Kant’s own philosophical trajectory does not reflect this initial acknowledgment. However, his orientation toward critique initiates a strand of thought that flows into Deleuze’s method of problematization.18 After exploring this line of thought in Kant, Deleuze, and in a Japanese literary critic, Kobayashi, I return to the question of political theory’s status in the conclusion, where I will formulate such problematizations as a “method of dramatization.”

Outline of the study The issues I addressed above—the reconsiderations of the relationship between thought and the unthought, of thoughtful citizenship in democracy, of the dichotomy between politics and thought, and of the status of political theory— are the main themes I  pursue in revealing the unavoidability and potential of stupidity.19 In pursuing these reconsiderations, I organize the subsequent chapters so that they respond to the following three questions: (1) How can stupidity inaugurate the thoughts of thinkers, even though said thinkers eventually negate their acknowledgment of stupidity? (2) How did modern democracy intensify the problematic of stupidity? (3) How should political theory respond to this intensified problematic? In Chapter  1, I  start by problematizing the indispensability of stupidity by drawing upon one of the few philosophical analyses of it in Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition. Although his remarks are dense and seem to be made in passing, constituting only a couple of paragraphs, Difference and Repetition presents one of the most serious analyses of stupidity. Through my interpretation of Deleuze, I formulate the problematic of stupidity under the following two theses: (1) Stupidity is an inherent problem of thinking: we become stupid because we think; (2) Not only a problem of thinking, stupidity is also an inherent problem of politics: stupidity reveals the political character of thinking. Having formulated the problematic of stupidity, the following three chapters address specific phases in the exploration of the unavoidability and potential of stupidity: tracing, facing and missing, and being. Each chapter examines crucial thinkers in the history of political thought, demonstrating how acknowledgment of stupidity implicitly drives their respective ideas as well as how they all eventually negate their acknowledgment in order to distance their thoughts from

Introduction 17 ordinary ones. Proceeding with a detailed analysis of Deleuze’s writings, namely his discussion of Kant, the first chapter may appear difficult to those unfamiliar with the works of Deleuze and Kant. I  tried my best to make my arguments approachable to nonspecialists. However, readers who are interested in the political problem of stupidity will probably skip the chapter. Chapter 2 traces a historical trajectory in which the advent of modern democracy intensifies the problematic by dissolving de jure distinction between higher and lower thinking. The intensified problematic appears vividly in Rousseau’s Social Contract. While intended to turn a “stupid and bounded animal” into “an intelligent being and a man” (Rousseau 1997e, 53; 3:364, italics mine), his social contract cannot guard people from the “blind multitude” (68; 3:380), thereby necessitating the invocation of the “lawgiver” for correct intelligence and judgment. Such a move is not limited to Rousseau. The advent of modern forms of democracy intensifies the problem of stupidity, inviting thinkers, including J. S. Mill, De Tocqueville, and Flaubert, to tackle the problem in various philosophies and literature. Stupidity in the age of democracy intensifies, permeates, and challenges political theory from within. Chapter 3, “Facing/Missing” turns to Kant’s critical project in order to search for a mode of theorizing adequate to the problematic. Kant’s critical project stems from his encounter with the “scandal of reason”—that is, the problematic character of thinking that leads him to “face” the problematic of stupidity. Nonetheless, Kant’s philosophy does not suffice to respond to the intensified state of problematic. Instead of pushing his face-to-face negotiation with the finitude of thinking to its logical end, Kant externalizes stupidity as “the lack of judgment” and thus misses its potential. Having identified the limit of Kant’s project of critique, Chapter 4 looks for other modes of political theorizing that can better negotiate the problematic of stupidity in the works of Japanese thinker Hideo Kobayashi. Living in the period of rapid modernization and of an early attempt at democratization in the 1920s (which nonetheless was disrupted by the rise of militarism), Kobayashi notably called for a style of critique characterized by immersion into objects instead of judging the objects from the outside. Simply put, Kobayashi’s strategy requires us to be stupid, not to encounter stupidity. Mere encounter with stupidity serves to reinforce the presumption that stupidity is external, thus distinguishing the realm of politics from the realm of thought. Because Kobayashi identifies the endogeneity of stupidity he calls for us to immerse, that is, to be stupid. While this proposed strategy is promising, Kobayashi himself did not manage to pursue the project to its logical end and succumbed into quietism in the face of the blatant stupidity of war. Such blatant stupidity appeared to him as the concluding kind, not as that which prompts further reflection. However, his attempt at immersion nonetheless provides a rich resource for a political theory that acknowledges the potential of stupidity. Stupidity is everywhere. It is ineluctable and unavoidable. How can we relink the two conclusions—stupidity as concluding, and wisdom as conclusion? After explicating the loci of stupidity in the history of political thought, I conclude by

18  Introduction presenting the method of dramatization as a mode of political theorizing that acknowledges the potential of stupidity. By probing into the reality of our thinking activity, my study delineates the actual process where new ideas emerge out of our ordinary activity, a crucial moment that inspires democracy. This is to acknowledge stupidity as inauguration, and wisdom, as conclusion.

Notes 1 “Trump Pulls Out of Climate Deal, Western Rift Deepens,” Der Spiegel Online, June 2, 2017, www.spiegel.de/international/world/trump-pulls-out-of-climatedeal-western-rift-deepens-a-1150486.html, accessed July 2020. 2 Paul Krugman. “Against Stupidity .  .  .,” New York Times, February  20, 2009, https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/against-stupidity-2/, accessed July 23, 2020. 3 In Kerrigan’s translation that I refer to, the word stupidity is translated as “folly.” 4 See, for example, Foucault (2006). 5 See, for example, Connolly (1999), Bennett (2010). 6 By thinking I  mean the process of thinking. I  use the word thought to signify the result of the process of thinking. The distinction, however, is not to clearly separate the thinking process from the articulated thought. Rather, as I emphasize later, one of my purposes in this introduction is to attain a perspective from which to grasp both elements as an interconnected whole. 7 Within the existing literature, this study is most indebted to two works: Avital Ronell’s Stupidity (2002) and the special issue of Le Temps de la Réflexion on stupidity and animality [bêtise and bêtes] (1988). Ronell’s path-breaking work is one of the few studies that, while mainly dealing with literature, endeavors a philosophical investigation of stupidity. In so doing, her study concurs with mine in coverage and approach: both draw upon perspectives propagated by Deleuze, Derrida, and Jean-Luc Nancy. As such, the present study owes much to her: namely, to her focus on the “acts of responding where no response is called for” (Ronell 2002, 13), which the second chapter of the present study will conceptualize instead as the phenomenon of cliché in which we spontaneously speak in the words of others. Despite this similarity, her work leaves some lacunae to be fulfilled. In addition to her exclusive focus on literature, Ronell’s study is a loose collection of fragments on various authors—Musil, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, De Man, Schlegel, Kierkegaard, Wordsworth, and Kant—rather than a systematic study. The variety of authors discussed in the study does not necessarily mean the lack of consistency, and the lack of systematicity is understandable given the elusiveness of stupidity that challenges the desire for systematicity. In the end, it seems, the stupidity lies in such a desire for systematicity or for a necessary conclusion (as we will see in the second chapter, Flaubert stated that stupidity lies in our desire to conclude). Yet, I maintain that we cannot avoid stupidity by loosening the demand for systematicity. Rather, we should risk becoming stupid by dealing with stupidity’s elusiveness in a more or less systematic manner. Among the essays included in Les Temps de la Réflexion’s issue on stupidity and animality, I  owe the most to Jean-Luc Nancy’s “Fragments de la Bêtise” (Nancy 1988). Nancy’s essay includes an illuminative commentary on Deleuze’s remarks on stupidity, the central material of the first chapter of this study. However, Nancy’s piece is also a collection of fragments. In general, the present study owes more to Nancy’s other writings (Nancy 1999, 2000, 2006) that do not directly deal with stupidity but with the relationship between philosophy and politics, whose contribution I clarify later.

Introduction 19 8 Bernard Stiegler’s recent book (2015) stands as one of few studies that share similar orientation with this study, developing a politico-philosophical perspective on stupidity. My study, however, pursues a broader perspective than Stiegler’s, of which main target is the contemporary neoliberalism. Moreover, this study disagrees with Stiegler over the potential of stupidity, which he does not acknowledge. 9 Gerry Mackie’s study (2003), for example, persuasively shows that Arrow’s theorem does not nullify the utility of democratic voting. 10 Here I take up Agamben as just one exemplary figure—although one of the most influential—of those contemporary thinkers who revived the study of sovereignty as a locus of subjectification/subjugation. For other influential resources, see Derrida (1994), Derrida (2009), Foucault (2007). 11 In this statement, Derrida finds a certain bent toward the negligence of animality in Deleuze’s thought (Derrida 2008, 2009, 136–86). I do not think that Deleuze necessarily commits to humanism by attributing stupidity only to human beings. However, I do not further delve into this question in this study, whose focus is the thinking activity that appears in human thought. 12 A recent example of the skeptic theory is Brennan (2016). 13 Arendt is not the only thinker who engages with the antagonism between politics and philosophy. Leo Strauss, for example, explores the role of political philosophy in relationship to politics throughout his work (e.g., Strauss 1988). In the present study, however, I focus on Arendt more than any other political thinkers because of the similarity between the characteristics of stupidity I  examine and those of the “thoughtlessness” concept she explores. For a study comparing Arendt and Strauss on the relation between politics and philosophy, see Villa (1999, chapter 7). 14 By “plurality,” I do not mean that of constituted entities but also a multiplicity of forces circulating among those entities. In other words, “plurality” here involves the process of “pluralization” (Connolly 1995, xi–xxx). 15 I draw upon Deleuze’s exploration of “image of thought” in Difference and Repetition in developing the idea of the image of philosophy. Inspired by Deleuze’s orientation, Davide Panagia employs the phrase “image of political theory” to signify “the multiple layers of signification composing ideas” that “extend well beyond their value as a philosophical argument”(Panagia 2006, 2). While Panagia’s exploration focuses on poetics and representation of political theory rather than its role and status, this study shares his conviction that the multilayered complexity of thought cannot be simply reduced to the level of rational argumentation. 16 Revealing the communality—the partition of Being—common to politics and thought,1 Jean-Luc Nancy asks a similar question: “In a sense, the sole question is the following one: why, then, are there always philosophers, and why does the community always give them a place? . . . In the community there is one knowledge. But this knowledge is not of philosophical discourse, but concerns what ‘thought’ is. And here ‘thought’ is not ‘clairvoyance’ ”(Nancy 1999, 217). 17 The representative works of this camp are Geuss (2008) and Williams (2005). For illuminating classifications and analyses of this emerging strand, see Galston (2010) and Philp (2012). 18 Many studies on Deleuze emphasize the influences of Spinoza, Bergson, and Nietzsche on his thought. And Deleuze himself called Kant an “enemy” (Deleuze 1984). However, I  think his philosophical orientation (especially in Difference and Repetition) owes much to Kant. Difference and Repetition’s project of the “transcendental” empiricism shows its Kantian strand, which comes into front when Deleuze problematizes stupidity and asks a transcendental question, “how is stupidity (not error) possible?” (1994, 151; 1968, 197). In addition, he sees

20  Introduction Nietzsche as a successor of Kant’s “critical” philosophy (Deleuze 1983). Thus I regard Deleuze’s philosophical project as, in a sense, a development of Kant’s critical project. 19 The issues relevant to this study are not limited to these five topics I have mentioned above. Each of the following chapters address some others, such as the role of literature for political theorizing, the predicament of modern individualism, the importance and limits of theories of judgment for democratic politics, the possibility of internal reflection, etc.

1 Problematizing Deleuze on the image of thought, and stupidity as an endogenous problem of thinking and politics Introduction This chapter aims at formulating the problematic of stupidity. By “problematic,” I mean the locus and ways stupidity matters to our political lives—especially to political thinking in theory and practice. As such, a problematic constitutes a constellation of interconnected themes that does not come to the level of systematic thought. One of the fundamental problems in my attempt to tackle stupidity is the deficiency of the studies on this matter. Due to this deficiency, it is hard to see not only where the problematic lies but also even the extent to which stupidity constitutes a problematic or whether stupidity is a problem for our politics or political thought at all. Thus, it is inevitable that a question arises: is stupidity really an important topic for political theory?1 Indeed, one of the central purposes of the present study is to respond to this question through a problematization of the relationship between politics, thinking, and stupidity.2 For this task of problematization, I start by articulating the following two theses, which constitute the problematic of stupidity: I

Stupidity is an inherent problem of thinking; we become stupid because we think. As an internal problem, stupidity resists any attempt of demarcation. Thus, it is impossible to distinguish stupid thought from other more sophisticated kinds of thought by any pregiven standard.3 II Not only a problem of thinking, stupidity is also an inherent problem of politics; stupidity reveals the political character of thinking. Against a conventional dichotomy between thinking and politics, which holds the former as a solitary activity and the latter as a plural one, stupidity attests to a political, i.e., plural character of thinking.4 In arguing for the above theses, I  draw upon Deleuze’s remarks on stupidity in Difference and Repetition, which stands as one of the most insightful accounts of stupidity. It is true that his remarks on the matter consist only of several paragraphs in the more than three hundred pages of Difference and Repetition, with a few more sentences found elsewhere. In his later works, such

22  Problematizing as two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia—works more explicitly political and popular among political/social/cultural theorists—Deleuze no longer writes about stupidity.5 Hence, it may appear that stupidity occupies only a minor role in Deleuze’s philosophy, or even that it is discarded in his later thought. But his remarks on stupidity in Difference and Repetition are neither instances of poetic rhetoric nor marginal to his thought. Rather, they are situated at the center of his philosophical project in his magnum opus, showing the internal relationship between stupidity, philosophy, and thinking.6 The phenomenon of stupidity exposes elements Deleuze critically analyzes in the entire Difference and Repetition: the emergence and abortion of representation and the emergence of thinking. Moreover, as this chapter demonstrates, his insights help us to clarify the political relevance of stupidity, even though Difference and Repetition almost exclusively concerns philosophy.7 In the next section, I  analyze Deleuze’s remarks on stupidity in Difference and Repetition and formulate the problematic mentioned above. Then, in the rest of the chapter, I  attempt to reveal the relevance and utility of Deleuze’s insights. First, I defend my exploration against other interpretations of Deleuze and ambiguities within Deleuze’s texts. This clarification will mainly illuminate the first thesis. Next, I defend and clarify the second thesis by comparing it with another candidate for the explanation of stupidity, that is, Arendt’s notion of “thoughtlessness.” Though it is not on stupidity as such, her observation on Eichmann’s thoughtlessness shows an affinity with Deleuze’s account of stupidity; both Arendt and Deleuze respectively find the distinctive characteristic of thoughtlessness and stupidity in the use of stock phrases and clichés. Then, why should I  not employ Arendt’s notion of thoughtlessness? After all, the notion of thoughtlessness was originally coined to explore one of the most disastrous political events in history—totalitarianism and the Final Solution—one might ask whether her notion of thoughtlessness would be more relevant for the revaluation of the relation between politics and theory. While Arendt’s notion of thoughtlessness appears to be more relevant for politics, in fact, a brief comparison between Deleuze and Arendt will reveal a certain flaw in Arendt’s orientation toward thinking—that is, her presupposition of the innate righteousness of thinking activity. This presupposition in turn makes it difficult to grasp the internal problematic of thinking as an activity and thereby occludes the interrelation between thinking and politics. I do not, however, offer solutions to the problematic of stupidity thus formulated and clarified in this chapter. In fact, one of the most significant points to be made about the problematic is that we cannot solve it. As an endogenous predicate of thinking and politics, stupidity haunts us as an internal and therefore permanent problem. But this does not mean that we are helpless to tackle the problematic or that we do not have to consider the problematic. Toward the end of the chapter, I articulate three questions that the problematic poses to our current practice and theory of politics, to which I respond in the following chapters without aiming to solve them.

Problematizing 23

Stupidity as a transcendental problem for thinking and the political In Difference and Repetition, the theme of stupidity appears in the third chapter, “The Image of Thought.” While the scope of Deleuze’s remarks goes beyond what is covered in the third chapter, here I want to start with the context within which they appear. The main theme of “The Image of Thought” is to criticize the conventional way of philosophy for its inability to dissociate itself from presuppositions, that is, unexamined, pre-philosophical doxa. Philosophy typically tries to be free from doxa by starting without any presuppositions. In this attempt, it has been relatively successful in starting without what Deleuze calls “objective presuppositions,” those presuppositions contained in concepts employed by philosophy. For example, Descartes in Meditations denies that he starts with the pregiven concept of human being as rational animal because that conceptualization would already presuppose what “rationality” and “animal” are.8 Such presuppositions contained in concepts are called “objective” because they are external to the process of thinking. However, according to Deleuze, expelling objective presuppositions is not enough to truly begin philosophy. In fact, it still retains “subjective presuppositions.” What are subjective presuppositions? Again, in the case of Descartes’ Meditations, even after his denial of any pregiven concepts, his famous cogito still expresses unexamined presuppositions about the thinking activity itself. In so doing, cogito presupposes that we already know what thinking is before we begin to think. In particular, Deleuze identifies two major presuppositions. The first is the assumption of the good will in thinking, which Descartes calls “good sense”; since we are equipped with the good will, we can reach the same conclusions as long as we think. “Good sense is of all things in the world most equally distributed” (Descartes 1956, 1). The second assumption, which is even more relevant to the problem of stupidity, is that we are all endowed with the faculty of thinking; this righteous faculty for thinking leads us to the truthful conclusions. However, what assures those two assumptions? Deleuze argues that they actually express an unexamined “common sense.” As such, the Cartesian cogito results in reproducing doxa in its image of thought, which Deleuze calls “orthodoxy,” or the “dogmatic image of thought.” In the chapter on the “Image of Thought” Deleuze examines such subjective presuppositions under eight postulates, one of which is the negligence of stupidity as the negative of thought, or the exemplary failure of what thinking is supposed to do.9 In terms of our present purpose of articulating the problematic of stupidity, we do not have to delve into each of the eight postulates. But a couple of implications for stupidity are observable in the overall framework of the chapter. First, subjective presuppositions concern the internal character of thinking. More precisely, those presuppositions blanket the process of thinking with the assumption that to think constantly brings about right and unobjectionable conclusions for everybody. In fact, such an assumption is not without question, and as I argue

24  Problematizing in what follows, due to this presupposition, philosophy ignores or defers the internal problem of thinking, which appears as stupidity. Second, Deleuze’s description of those presuppositions as constituting the “dogmatic image of thought” suggests why stupidity appears as clichés. The dogmatic image of thought takes the form of “everybody knows”: we all know what we mean by thinking. By implicitly assuming it, the dogmatic image of thought reproduces what is already known to us—that is, people’s opinions— even when thinkers believe they set thinking free from those opinions. This is nothing but a mechanism of clichés that, as I pointed out in introduction, a few pioneering writers such as Flaubert always attribute to stupidity. As the dogmatic image of thought lies in its initial reproduction of people’s opinions without the people themselves being aware of it, stupidity manifests as clichés we make when we speak the words of others without realizing we are doing so. Cliché, in other words, illuminates how what we think is an independent and spontaneous thought is intruded upon by the voices of others. Third, building from the last point, we now get a glimpse of the political character of thinking and stupidity. Deleuze’s criticism reveals that our activity of thinking is not solitary but indeed immersed in opinions of people. If we define the political as a plurality of people, can we not see a political character in such intrusion of people’s doxa into cogito? Indeed, Deleuze writes that we need “the new power of politics” in overturning the image of thought (Deleuze 1994, 137; 1968, 179). What does this new power of politics look like? I will turn to it later in this chapter and explore its potential more in the subsequent chapters. But for now, I want to focus on Deleuze’s writings on stupidity, moving to the analysis of the postulate of stupidity. Among the eight postulates of the image of thought as presented by Deleuze, stupidity concerns the fifth: the postulate of taking error to be the sole negative of thought. According to Deleuze, the orthodox and dogmatic image of thought fails to address stupidity as an internal negative of thinking. In so doing, the dogmatic image keeps the presupposition that thought leads us to the right conclusion insofar as we start to think. It is true, nonetheless, that the image of thought acknowledges no negative or failure in thinking. Indeed, the failure of thought is a constant concern for philosophy. Plato’s Theaetetus already takes up the problem of error, which leads to an aporetic conclusion. Kant, in his transcendental dialectic in the Critique of Pure Reason, deals with the internal illusion of reason and the antinomies as the cul-de-sac of reason. Or rather, we can see the extent to which his acknowledgment of our finite ability to think moved his entire project of critical philosophy when we read the very first sentence of the Critique of Pure Reason: Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason. (1998a, Avii)

Problematizing 25 In a sense, Kant speaks of a problematic here: speculative reason is fine within its limit, but it compulsively tends to go beyond the limit. Nevertheless, according to Deleuze, these cases of the negative of thought, including Kant’s internal illusion, become endorsements for the image of thought by being reduced to error: “Error, therefore, pays homage to the ‘truth’ to the extent that, lacking the form of its own, it gives the form of the true to the false” (Deleuze 1994, 148; 1968, 193). In errors, we miscalculate (e.g., answering “three” to the question of what one plus one equals) and misrecognize (e.g., saying two o’clock to be three). But taking miscalculation and misrecognition to be exemplary cases of the negative of thought, the dogmatic image of thought caricatures the negative of thought and thereby expels the problematic that the image of thought actuality has. Who actually makes such simple errors? Certainly, we may. But is it a paradigmatic case where we lapse into the negative of thought? In fact, “Error acquires a sense only once the play of thought ceases to be speculative and becomes a kind of radio quiz” (Deleuze 1994, 150; 1968, 195). Errors turn thought into a “radio quiz” where thought is reduced to the matter of making right reasoning or right cognition. A more serious problem is that those errors are taken from the most banal of empirical facts. In so doing, they fail to raise the transcendental question about thinking, the question quid juris whether thought is truly possible. It is true that Kant, for example, comes closest to posing the transcendental question in the beginning of his First Critique, which I quoted above. Kant even goes further to analyze the “internal illusion” of reason appearing in antinomies of pure reason. Notwithstanding this, Kant’s transcendental dialectic of pure reason brings the question back to a matter of error. This is because he attributes internal illusion to the wrong use of a faculty. Internal illusion, for Kant, appears when, for example, reason as the faculty of ideas, and not understanding as the faculty of categories, misconceives that it can directly grasp the world. As such, internal illusion falls under the control through the correct use of faculties, whose harmonious collaboration Kant grounds in the de facto model of common sense, sensus communis.10 His retreat from the transcendental question is observable as early as the second sentence of the First Critique: “Reason falls into this perplexity [that it can neither avoid nor solve certain kinds of questions] through no fault of its own” (Kant 1998a, Avii). Even if reason often prompts such misuse of itself, the problem of thinking is not reason’s own fault. It is due to its improper use. To become dissociated from the dogmatic image of thought, we need to look for a different negative of thought that is also transcendental and hence internal to thinking as such. It is because of this need for the internal negative that Deleuze introduces stupidity: One is neither superior nor external to that from which one benefits; a tyrant institutionalizes stupidity, but he is the first servant of his own system and the first to be installed within it . . . Cowardice, cruelty, baseness and stupidity

26  Problematizing are not simply corporeal capacities or traits of character or society; they are structures of thought as such. (Deleuze 1994, 151; 1968, 196) Unlike error, stupidity stands out as a transcendental problem for thinking. Being not merely facts that can be dealt with simply as failures that can be corrected, stupidity lies inside thinking as a condition for the latter: “Stupidity is a structure of thought as such.” Stupidity is a thinking.11 Moreover, it is possible to say that there is no a priori principle to distinguish upright, correct thought from stupid thought. Deleuze suggests this, as well as implies the political relevance of stupidity when he writes: “One is neither superior nor external to that from which one benefits: a tyrant institutionalizes stupidity, but he is the first servant of his own system and the first to be installed within it” (1994, 151; 1968, 196).12 To use Deleuze’s own word, stupidity “haunts” thinking (151; 196). Let me summarize what we have discussed up to this point. My exploration thus far has shown the first thesis of the problematic I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter: the internal relationship of stupidity to thinking. Also, Deleuze’s passing reference to the relationship between tyranny and the servant underscores the political character of thinking, which would constitute the second thesis. However, several questions remain. If error does not suffice as the model of the negative of thinking, how can we say that stupidity serves the role better? Moreover, what is stupidity? While it is true that we cannot distinguish stupidity from thought with pregiven standards, there must be some characteristic phenomenon of stupidity we observe when we say, “It is stupid.” Deleuze mentions the authors Reon Bloy, Charles Baudelaire, and the most important of all, Gustave Flaubert—claiming that “the best [literature] was haunted by the problem of stupidity. By giving this problem all its cosmic, encyclopedic and gnosological dimensions, such literature was able to carry it as far as the entrance to philosophy itself” (1994, 151; 1968, 196). But how can we theorize or philosophize the problem Flaubert (as well as the other two authors) takes up in his literature?13 To answer the above questions, we need to go beyond following Deleuze’s words on stupidity and move to account for them, a task that requires analyzing his passing remarks in light of the broader philosophical framework of Difference and Repetition. With this analysis, we can not only discern the mechanism of stupidity in play but also make the political character of stupidity clearer. To understand Deleuze’s remarks, I  focus on Deleuze’s orientation toward individuation and his accompanying criticism of Kant. Claiming stupidity as a transcendental problem for thought, Deleuze poses a transcendental, that is, Kantian question: “How is stupidity possible?” His answer is: It [stupidity] is possible by virtue of the link between thought and individuation. . . . It [the ground] is there, staring at us, but without eyes. The individual distinguishes itself from it, but it does not distinguish itself, continuing rather to cohabit with that which divorces itself from it. It is the indeterminate, but the indeterminate in so far as it continues to embrace

Problematizing 27 determination, as the ground does the shoe.  .  .  . Stupidity is neither the ground nor the individual, but rather this relation in which individuation brings the ground to the surface without being able to give it from (this ground rises by means of the I, penetrating deeply into the possibility of thought and constituting the unrecognized in every recognition). (Deleuze 1994, 151–52; 1968, 197) This individuality is not the Cartesian cogito and is prior to it (Deleuze 1994, 257; 1968, 331). While cogito (and its variant “the thinking I” in Kant’s philosophy) is posed as an insular actor of thinking, individuality is never free from the ground (Being), and this relation forms the locus of stupidity. Such a relational character suggests the political character of stupidity. But Deleuze’s explanation above is still too obscure. What is individuality? How does it differ from cogito? What is the relationship among thinking, individuation, and the ground? We need to decipher these notions. The key to interpreting these notions is to be found in Deleuze’s critique of cogito. As I explained, the notion of individuation was introduced as an alternative to what Deleuze believes to be the flawed assumption of the Cartesian cogito. As is well known, Descartes introduced the insular substance of cogito as the ground of Being, as the foundation of all knowledge and the existence of the world. Isolated from the outside, cogito, the thinking I, serves as the ground, free from all doxa imposed from outside upon thinking, which itself is supposed as always right and certain. Although Descartes once introduced the idea of a deceiving God, which could betray the assumption of the innate righteousness of thinking, he quickly overcomes this possibility. Of course, his notion of cogito had been subject to a long line of criticisms well before Deleuze. Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason already made one of the most well-known criticisms of it, pointing out that Descartes confused the activity of thinking with the substance of cogito. According to Kant, the activity of thinking as a function is not sufficient to ground the actual existence of the subject, the thinking I (Kant 1998a, B405). Nonetheless, Kant repeated a similar reasoning to Descartes’s when he grounded the possibility of experience by introducing the concept of pure apperception, which takes the form of “I think”: The I think must be able to accompany all my representations. . . . I call it the pure apperception. . . . I also call its unity the transcendental unity of self-consciousness in order to designate the possibility of a priori cognition from it (Kant 1998a, B131–32, bold and italics in original) One might suggest that Kant betrayed his own criticism by making the “thinking I” into a “unity,” thereby returning to the insular substance in grounding the thinking I and Being. However, interestingly enough, Deleuze finds another possibility in Kant’s criticism and reintroduction of cogito. By displacing or, in a sense, deconstructing

28  Problematizing Kant’s exploration of cogito, Deleuze reinterprets it as an account of the emergence of thinking, individuation, and cogito from within their mutual relationship, the emergence of what he calls the “passive synthesis.” In his interpretation of Kant, Deleuze focuses on Kant’s reformulation of the Cartesian cogito, through which Kant not only criticizes the Cartesian proposition but also deepens it, explicating its condition. Kant is in a sense Cartesian when he says of pure apperception that “the I think must be able to accompany all my representations” (Kant 1998a, B131, bold in original) and grounds all representation—cognition with the thinking I. The thinking I always brings all given intuition into a represented unity and thus serves as an anchor of all possible cognition. However, Kant also argues that the Cartesian proposition, “I  think, therefore I  exist” is insufficient for this purpose of grounding. For the “I  think” to determine the existence of myself, first, something needs to be given to construct the representation of my existence—that is, given intuitions that will be united under the “thinking I.” While the thinking I  serves its unifying function and can determine my existence, “my existence” requires the object of this act of determination, an object that is not necessarily unified as such but can be the object of determination. Simply put, the thinking “I [ego],” as the spontaneous function for thinking, needs the material for “self [moi],” the passive and empirical material upon which the activity of thinking is anchored. With the need of the passive self (or at least its material), Kant introduces a split into the Cartesian cogito, the split between a thinking I and the empirical self. Whereas it is the I that thinks, this thinking activity is sensed only in the passive, empirical self. I as intelligence and thinking subject cognize my self as an object that is thought, insofar as I am also given to myself in intuition, only, like other phenomena, not as I  am for the understanding but rather as I  appear to myself. (Kant 1998a, B155, bold in original) But this split cogito does not endanger the stability of singular cogito as long as the unification is smooth. For example, if the passive self is given as a lived experience with which the thinking I fits smoothly, the split will be covered up as soon as it is introduced, with this recoupling constituting the organic, lived unity. However, this is not the case with Kant, who deals with the transcendental question that purports to articulate the possible conditions of experience (in this context, the existence of the given manifold of intuitions) and not specific experiences. For him, the existence of a self is not a matter of fact but the object of the question: under what condition is the manifold of intuition given? Kant’s answer to this question is time as the form of inner sense: “Since our intuition is always sensible, no object can ever be given to our senses” (Kant 1998a, B52). As the formal condition of internal intuition, time serves as a condition of our existence,

Problematizing 29 and therefore, the central element of grounding. This is what Kant explains in the following: Just as for the cognition of an object distinct from me I also need an intuition in addition to the thinking of an object in general (in the category), through which I determine that general concept, so for the cognition of myself I also need in addition to the consciousness, or in addition to that which I think myself, an intuition of the manifold in me, through which I determine this thought; and I exist as an intelligence that is merely conscious of its faculty for combination but which, in regard to the manifold that it is to combine, is subject to a limiting condition that it calls inner sense, which can make that combination intuitable only in accordance with temporal relations that lie entirely outside of the concepts of the understanding proper, and that can therefore still cognize itself merely as it appears to itself with regard to an intuition (which is not intellectual and capable of being given through the understanding itself), not as it would cognize itself if its intuition were intellectual. (1998a, B158–59, bold in original) It is this introduction of time that debunks the unity of cogito, the coupling of thinking I and the self, for it deprives the thinking I of its independent spontaneity, transmitting it to the passive self that is subject to the condition of time. Deleuze writes: The consequences of this [answer by Kant that the form of time is necessary for the I think to determine my existence] are extreme: my undetermined existence can be determined only within time as the existence of a phenomenon, of a passive, receptive phenomenal subject appearing within time. As a result, the spontaneity of which I am conscious in the ‘I think’ cannot be understood as the attribute of a substantial and spontaneous being, but only as the affection of a passive self which experiences its own thought—its own intelligence, that by virtue of which it can say I—being exercised in it and upon it but not by it. (Deleuze 1994, 86; 1968, 116, italics in original, underlining mine) In the split cogito, the self feels the spontaneous thinking of the I. But the materials for the determining self are passively given only through the form of time. Now the passive self can have the representation of the spontaneous “I think” only as an indirect effect that stems from the thinking I’s “affecting” upon time, through which the self is given (Kant 1998a, B155). According to Deleuze, this leads to the conclusion that the passive self represents the activity of “I think” but only as an experience external to the passive self. Using a phrase from Rimbaud, Deleuze articulates, “I is an Other” (Deleuze 1997, 29–31). Furthermore, the

30  Problematizing possibility of the peaceful unification of the passive self and thinking I is no longer available with the introduction of time. Subject to the condition of time (as a formal condition), each of the two turn into a “fractured I” and a “dissolved self” (Deleuze 1994, 259; 1968, 333).14 Simply put, the proposition of cogito, which is said to have grounded Being with the insular, autonomous, and spontaneous activity of thinking, is immersed in otherness. As Deleuze succinctly puts it toward the end of Difference and Repetition, “In the psychic system of the I-Self, the Other thus functions as a centre of enwinding, envelopment or implication. It is the representative of the individuating factors” (1994, 261; 1968, 335). By finding the intrusion of the Other in cogito prior to the emergence of the latter, we can say the thinking I (that is, determination by cogito) is not able to ground (determine) the existence of Being (the undetermined), but actually the spontaneity of the former is subject to the latter. In this play between the thinking I whose assumed spontaneity is endangered and Being that actually affects the former in its passivity, Deleuze finds the source of stupidity: “Thought is the highest determination, confronting stupidity as though face to face with the indeterminate which is adequate to it” (Deleuze 1994, 275; 1968, 353). Still, it is not yet clear enough how this play of spontaneity and passivity, or its reversal, appears as stupidity. To clarify the mechanism, we need to turn to Deleuze’s notion of the Other. In addition, it is by revealing how the Other intervenes in the seemingly insular cogito that we can in turn understand the political character of stupidity. Deleuze’s exploration of the Other appears mainly at the end of the final chapter of Difference and Repetition, the part where he deals both with the emergence of representation and its abortion. As I have shown above, the intrusion of the Other in the formation of cogito means that the representation of the thinking I, contrary to the presupposition of its spontaneity and independence, contains a passive element inspired by the Other. Deleuze distinguishes this Other from an empirical other, who is not different from myself but still can be seen as another person: “Theories tend to oscillate mistakenly and ceaselessly from a pole at which the other is reduced to the status of object to a pole at which it assumes the status of subject” (Deleuze 1994, 260; 1968, 334). Under such a notion of other as subject/object, the difference between myself (as subject) and other (as object) becomes subject to the larger assumption of the equality of subject and object. Simply put, such an other is nothing but another cogito. Rather, the Other is “not a person,” but the “a priori Other” (Deleuze 1994, 260; 1968, 334). So far, such characterization of otherness, the Other as something beyond objectivity, and prior to the formulation of “I think,” as pure alterity is not necessarily distinct from Deleuze’s characterization. In fact, the sub- or beyond-representational status of otherness forms a central concern for contemporary philosophy, especially among so-called poststructuralist thinkers. What makes Deleuze’s notion of Other distinct from those of other contemporary thinkers, however, is the observation that the Deleuzean Other comes into play not only in its absolute and singular alterity but also in its anonymity, or as ourselves in general. With this

Problematizing 31 difference, the Deleuzean orientation helps us to clarify the political character of deep plurality, which is thus distinguished from the ethical character suggested by the unilateral and asymmetrical relationship between the two components. To see this, we return to the second chapter of Difference and Repetition, “Repetition for Itself,” where Deleuze displaces the Kantian reformulation of cogito and leans toward a moment of the “passive synthesis.” As I wrote above, the moment that introduces otherness into cogito is time as Kant’s formal condition of the passive Self. By bringing time as the determinable form of Self, Kant attempts to preserve his version of cogito, pure apperception, but, according to Deleuze, only at the expense of turning the thinking I into the Other. Deleuze calls the Kantian formal time that achieves (and fails) this synthesis of cogito as the third synthesis of time, the synthesis of future, which achieves (and again, fails) the entire syntheses of temporality with the other two temporalities, the present and the past, that is the “passive synthesis.”15 Here I cannot delve into Deleuze’s account of the three syntheses, but it would suffice for my present purpose of exploring the characteristic of Deleuzean otherness to point out the two characteristics of the third synthesis. First, this time concerns the future because, as Kant writes in the Critique of Pure Reason, time as the formal condition of the passive self, of inner sense, is what enables time to pass. Second, this time is devoid of any content and thus of experience. Because this time serves as a transcendental condition, it has nothing to do with content, free from any empirical, lived time (1998a, A30–36/B46–53). With those two characteristics, the Kantian notion of the future deprives cogito of its attachment to the empirical, lived world. Kantian time achieves the synthesis of temporality but in a way that prohibits the seamless unification between the thinking I and the empirical self. It returns the divided cogito into unity but as an impossible unity: “The order of time has broken the circle of the Same and arranged time in a series only in order to re-form a circle of the Other at the end of the series” (Deleuze 1994, 91; 1968, 122). Deleuze overlaps this aborted synthesis of temporality (and cogito) with his interpretation of the Nietzschean eternal return. But this eternal return neither repeats the identical unity nor presents the pure alterity of otherness (for if it did, any synthesis would be impossible) but repeats nameless Others: As Klossowski says, it is the secret coherence which establishes itself only by excluding my own coherence, my own identity, the identity of the self, the world and God. It allows only the plebian to return, the man without a name. (Deleuze 1994, 90–91; 1968, 122, italics mine) This Other is beyond representation, but not in the way in which, say, God is. Rather, we cannot represent the Other because it is the nameless plebian: the Other is everybody. As I have repeatedly emphasized, in the representation of “I think,” thinking of the I is indeed the thinking of others. Moreover, now it becomes clear that such thinking of others is the thinking of everybody.

32  Problematizing Such depossession of thought into the nameless Other, into everybody, is the mechanism Flaubert observed in his writings on stupidity. It is for this reason that Deleuze counts Flaubert’s writing as “the best literature” haunted by the problem of stupidity. For Flaubert, stupidity appears in the arena of communication as clichés. For example, in his Bouvard and Pécuchet, two figures keep accumulating stock phrases they absorb from books. This accumulation culminates in Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas, which he planned to insert in Bouvard and Pécuchet as their writing. This dictionary, which the author called “the historical glorification of everything generally approved,” is composed entirely of clichés. However, those words in the dictionary are clichés not simply by being generally accepted. They are clichés because people as individuals, as independent “thinking I”s, utter them as if they are the expressions of their own independent opinions or thoughts. Flaubert in his letter to Louise Colet on December 17, 1852, explains the purpose of the Dictionary to be the following: I think that the whole thing would be a formidable lead shot [plomb]. There would not be a single word invented by me in the book. If properly done, anyone who read it would never dare open his mouth again, for fear of spontaneously uttering one of its pronouncements. (1926–1930, 3:67; 1980, 176, italics in original) In other words, the dictionary’s terms function as the illumination of stupidity because those words show that we become prey to stupidity at the very moment we regard ourselves as spontaneous and independent thinkers. So far, I  have tried to show stupidity’s internal relation with thinking by following the reformulations of the Cartesian cogito by Kant and Deleuze. Deleuze sees Flaubert’s Bouvard and Pécuchet as “the outcome of the Discourse on Method” (1994, 276; 1968, 353). Cartesian cogito, unable to grasp the individual, the real actor of thinking, comes to represent the thought of others while it presupposes that representation as its own spontaneous projection. But since cogito represents its (assumed) thinking on the empirical ground, the otherness within it also needs to appear in its empirical representation, at the cost of losing its status as pure alterity, which is otherwise beyond representation. This fundamental failure of cogito’s spontaneous grounding and the inevitable intrusion of otherness leads to our seemingly spontaneous and independent thought through a series of clichés. Now, let me turn to the second thesis that I mentioned in the introduction, the problematic about the political character of stupidity. The key to this problematic is the Deleuzean notion of the Other. As I explained above, Deleuzean otherness is unique in seeing otherness in its nobody-ness as everybody-ness, while his contemporaries tend to take otherness as pure alterity. For example, for Levinas, the paradigmatic case of our relationship to the Other is the Book of Job, where otherness is evinced as the god’s fundamental unintelligibility. The Levinasian notion of otherness, regardless of its asymmetrical character, offers great resources for our ethical orientation but fewer for our political orientation. For such pure alterity of the Other cannot be multiplied. By taking otherness

Problematizing 33 as everybody-ness, however anonymous it is, Deleuze offers a different way to account for the multiplicity of otherness. Now the relationship between myself and the Other is that between myself and multiplicity, which is better seen as a political relationship than as an ethical one. Therefore, stupidity, by revealing the intrusion of the Other as everybody, is a problem not only for thinking but also for politics.16 This point will be explored later by comparison with Arendt.

Beyond the image of thought? So far, I have tried to account for Deleuze’s short paragraphs on stupidity in the “Image of Thought” chapter. My interpretation of them has exposed the two theses on stupidity that I anticipated in the beginning: (1) stupidity is an internal problem of thinking; and (2) stupidity is a problem not only for thinking but also for politics. Moreover, the intrusion of otherness in the “thinking I” reveals the fundamentally political element inherent in the thinking activity itself. Thus the two modes of human activity—thinking and politics—are connected by stupidity as their hinge. For stupidity, appearing as clichés, is possible by virtue of thinking and the intrusion of the Other in the very incipience of the former. Nonetheless, if stupidity is the hinge that links thinking and politics and is inherent to the activity of thinking itself, it leaves several uncertainties. In the rest of the chapter I address these uncertainties as a way to elucidate the scope and extent of my two theses. The first uncertainty concerns the solubility of the problem. If stupidity constitutes an internal problem for politics, is it possible to solve the problem? Simply put, can we do away with stupidity? In the previous sections, I repeatedly emphasized the ineluctable character of stupidity, showing stupidity to be an enduring problem. Yet my account so far does not eradicate such a question or attempt to solve the problem of dissociating thinking from stupidity. This question also comes out of ambiguities contained in Deleuze’s texts themselves, both inside and outside Difference and Repetition. In fact, my reading of Deleuze, in emphasizing the ineluctable quality of stupidity and the role (however negative it is) of cogito in thinking, seems to deviate from prevalent, if not hegemonic, readings, which more or less articulate Deleuze’s purpose in the “Image of Thought” chapter and Difference and Repetition to be the pursuit of thinking without image—representation. If we could attain thinking without the image, we would do away with stupidity as its component. Also, as the second uncertainty, another but similar kind of reading may try to underestimate the importance of stupidity for Deleuze’s philosophy, pointing out that the theme disappears in his later writings, and that it appears only in passing in Difference and Repetition. This line of reading emphasizes, instead of stupidity, the importance of the notion of idiocy, which, already appearing in Difference and Repetition, becomes a key notion in his later book coauthored with Guattari, What is Philosophy? Does this shift in focus suggest a certain flaw in Deleuze’s orientation toward stupidity that would be fixed by replacing it with a notion of idiocy, which hovers outside

34  Problematizing the dogmatic image of thought while stupidity is embedded within it? This question about the difference between stupidity and idiocy leads to a third question: a question about the meaning of stupidity, or to be more precise, about the meaning of posing the question of stupidity. My focus on the ineluctable and enduring character of stupidity anticipates a pessimistic vision of human thinking: thinking, incessantly haunted by stupidity, seems unlikely to reveal anything, much less certainty or truth. If such is the destiny of human thinking, should we accept skepticism with resignation? Are there any positive moments in thinking? In other words: what is the point of taking stupidity seriously? In this section, I respond to those three questions by clarifying the corresponding ambiguities in Deleuze’s texts. The first question concerns the extent to which stupidity and the image of thought “haunt” our thinking. If stupidity (and the image of thought) is an internal problem for political theory, is there any possibility that we can do away with the problem? In other words, is there any new mode of thinking that is free from stupidity? That question draws its plausibility from two ambiguities in the chapter on the “Image of Thought”: one concerns the status of the image of thought in general; and the other concerns the relationship between stupidity and thinking. Let me start with the status of the image of thought. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze articulates the main object of his criticism. The image of thought, with its unexamined presuppositions, makes philosophy unable to truly initiate thinking. As such, does his criticism rather imply that we cannot think as long as we are under the tutelage of the image of thought? Does the philosophical system Deleuze conceives in Difference and Repetition evince an entirely new thinking—thinking without the image? In fact, Deleuze’s orientation may look toward this direction when he pursues an encounter with radical novelty in thought, calling for “the new power of politics” that will “overturn the image of thought” (1994, 137; 1968, 179, italics mine). Moreover, using the metaphor of painting, Deleuze even concludes: “The theory of thought is like painting: it needs that revolution which took art from representation to abstraction. This is the aim of a theory of thought without image” (1994, 276; 1968, 354, italics mine). Given this blunt manifestation, it would be reasonable that many current interpretations of Deleuze follow this direction when they claim that his philosophy is the search for new thinking without image, thinking without representation. Now, if our thinking can be truly free from the image of thought, thinking would also be free from stupidity. For, as I have shown in the previous section, stupidity appears under the mode of thinking that takes the formulation of cogito or the thinking I. It is true that Deleuze writes that “stupidity is possible by virtue of the link between thought and individuation” (1994, 151; 1968, 197). And individuation is different from cogito, because individuation is what proceeds to cogito (Deleuze 1994, 257; 1968, 331). Nonetheless, it is through cogito, or rather fissures within it (fractured I and dissolved self), that stupidity appears. Thus, if Deleuze offers an alternative to the image of thought of which the subject of representation is cogito, such thinking would necessarily do away with

Problematizing 35 stupidity altogether. If so, however, this direction would contradict the first thesis: the problematic that finds stupidity to be an internal problem for thinking. In fact, some of Deleuze’s remarks on stupidity seem to resonate with the above direction, to suggest that stupidity lies outside the true thinking, external to the thought without image. For example, Deleuze speaks of the negligence of stupidity in the image of thought, in conventional philosophy, as an obstacle to thinking: “The subject of Cartesian Cogito does not think: it only has the possibility of thinking, and remains stupid at the heart of that possibility” (1994, 276; 1968, 353–54, italics mine). Does he not suggest here that stupidity does not involve thinking? He seems to suggest so when he writes that stupidity “is evidence of an inability to constitute, comprehend, or determine a problem as such” (1994, 159; 1968, 207). Is stupidity for Deleuze the zero degree of thinking? If so, does it mean stupidity is a problem for others, for those who are entrapped in the cave of the image of thought, and not for ourselves, for the real philosophers who attain thought without image? Given this statement about stupidity as nonthinking, it would seem reasonable that the popular image of Deleuze holds him to be a thinker of anti-representation, seeking direct experience without mediation, or a thinker of vitalism who liberates the life force from the obstacle of philosophical representation, both of which deny any subject of representation, whether that be cogito or the thinking I.17 Moreover, Deleuze himself looks to support this widespread image when he draws upon the notion of idiocy as a positive alternative to a negative nonthinking of stupidity. Idiocy may look similar to stupidity in that both are opposed to upright thinking and good will. However, the ways in which they are respectively opposed to upright thinking and good will are different. Whereas stupidity appears as a reproduction of shared opinions (i.e., of clichés) idiocy refers to the lack of such sharing. “The philosopher takes the side of the idiot as though of a man without presuppositions” (Deleuze 1994, 130; 1968, 170). The representative figures of stupidity are Bouvard and Pécuchet; for idiocy they are Prince Myshkin and the nameless narrator from underground in Dostoyevsky’s work. Although Deleuze does not mention him in relation to idiocy, we can also add Bartleby to the list of idiots. Idiots cannot agree on what is shared in society, thus rendering them unable to even utter clichés.18 With this inability, the idiot possesses the potentiality to truly initiate thinking without image. Free from shared assumptions and thus from representation, idiocy rather shows a potentiality of thinking, the power of initiating new thinking beyond the image of thought. While stupidity remains stupid within the image of thought, idiocy, hovering above the dogmatic image, seems to show the true power of overturning that image. If it is true that stupidity appears as mere nonthinking and the idiot as a true thinker, such an interpretation would contradict the second thesis concerning the political character of stupidity and thinking, as well as the first thesis about the coexistence of stupidity and thinking. For such a reading poses true thinking of idiocy beyond the realm of shared plurality: the idiot is a solitary thinker— the classical figure of philosopher. Then the purpose of Deleuze’s remarks on

36  Problematizing stupidity, of the “Image of Thought” chapter, and probably of the entire book of Difference and Repetition would preclude the realm of plurality and politics as that of nonthinking, repeating the orientation frequently observed in philosophy since Socrates’s death. It would not be without reason, then, that most of the readings that seek the political dimension of Deleuze’s philosophy turn to his later works with Guattari, especially the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, which introduce explicitly political notions such as the rhizome, nomadism, the state apparatus, and the war machine. More crucial to our current concern is that the theme of stupidity fades away in these two volumes. Deleuze’s departure from the theme, in fact, may appear related with his turn to more explicit political themes. As we have observed, stupidity makes its appearance due to necessary fissures in cogito. Thus, stupidity is possible as far as we inevitably draw upon the assumption of cogito as the subject of presentation, or the assumption of the dogmatic image of thought; if we can do away with the image of thought and representation, we will be free from stupidity altogether. And such total disavowal of representation seems to take place under Deleuze’s assumed political turn. While, as I  argue, Difference and Repetition remains, in a sense, reserved in its attempt to “think difference in itself independently of the forms of representation” (1994, xix; 1968, 1–2) since it maintains that representation—however flawed—emerges, his work with Guattari looks less ambiguous in its attempt to grasp difference in itself, which is now called multiplicity. This shift in philosophical orientation, with an apparently political tone in Capitalism and Schizophrenia, leads a reader interested in Deleuze’s political aspects such as Brian Massumi to juxtapose representation (in his word, “representational thinking”) with “the state philosophy,” the mode of thinking that subjugates people (or the multitude) under state, with the purpose of breaking the two altogether with “nomad thought,” which takes us beyond the narrow sphere of philosophy (Massumi 1987). Thus, it may look as if the theme of stupidity fades away once Deleuze leaves the narrow, even statecentered realm of philosophy and becomes a true political thinker. In fact, the connection between philosophy and politics for Deleuze is not so simple. A Thousand Plateaus, for example, does not simply call for pure deterritorialization and a direct grasp of multiplicity. The authors are keen to pay attention to moments countering deterritorialization, such as reterritorialization, codification, and so on. Moreover, even after Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze returns to the central importance of philosophy in What is Philosophy? The book, seen to have been written more by Deleuze than Guattari (Dosse 2007), explores the same theme of “The Image of Thought” written about more than twenty years before: what thinking should be like. Moreover, What is Philosophy? repeats several motifs originally appearing in “The Image of Thought,” exploring presuppositions in philosophy, stupidity, and idiocy. But it now deals with them in a slightly different tone. Now stupidity occupies a smaller role and gives way to more positive characteristics attributed to idiocy. Whereas stupidity finds its expression in clichés, idiocy, now clearly stated as the predicate of philosopher, exercises its positive role in breaking from accepted

Problematizing 37 clichés: “The idiot, the one who wants to think for himself and is a persona who can change and take on another meaning” (Deleuze and Guattari 1994, 70). Also, “the dogmatic image of thought” in Difference and Repetition gives way to more affirmative “images of thought,” or “planes of immanence,” which refer to each philosophical system. Thus, it is a privilege of philosophy that standing above the realm of doxa repudiating clichés brings about a new image of thought. “In the end, does not every great philosopher lay out a new plane of immanence, introduce a new substance of being and draw up a new image of thought, so that there could not be two great philosophers on the same plane?” (Deleuze and Guattari 1994, 51). While What is Philosophy? aspires to a “new people,” the new people have nothing to do with the current form of democracy and opinions (Deleuze and Guattari 1994, 99). Because of such a prominent role given to the philosopher-idiot, authors like Alain Badiou see in Deleuze the figure of a classical, or even Platonic, philosopher, an image entirely opposed to that of Massumi’s. According to Badiou, Deleuze’s project is far from anti-foundational or anti-philosophical but essentially a return to classical ontology of the One, of which the paradigmatic case remains Plato. “Not only is Deleuze’s philosophy to be understood as a thinking of ground, but it is, of all the contemporary configurations, the one that most obstinately reaffirms that the thought of the multiple demands that Being be rigorously determined as One” (Badiou 1999, 45). Badiou further argues that despite Deleuze’s disavowal of the conventional dichotomy between the one and the many in A Thousand Plateaus (Deleuze and Guattari 1987, 4) and his recurrent criticism against Plato, his call for the virtual and multiplicity is not so different from Plato’s call for the Idea. Moreover, this “classical” character in Deleuze’s philosophy goes beyond the narrow character of ontology to its ethical dimension and to political-social functions. In requiring thinking to think oneness, the univocity of Being, thinking for Deleuze is aristocratic because the highest purpose of thinking lies in thinking the supreme oneness of Being (whatever its name is) that is distributed hierarchically among beings. Thus Deleuze’s project, being purely philosophical, does not have a necessary connection with any political positions according to Badiou: “It is one of the signs of Deleuze’s greatness that, in spite of his success, he was unable to be incorporated into the major blocks of opinion that organize the petty parliamentary life of the profession” (Badiou 1999, 96). While Deleuze’s readers try to connect his philosophy with democratic political movements, it has nothing to do with Deleuze’s philosophical system. Rather, Badiou claims, Deleuze remains purely philosophical in his work and stays aloof from any attempt to find political implications in his philosophy with his keen awareness of the classical danger faced by philosophers—the corruption of the youth (Badiou 1999, 97). Badiou’s reading, however, has the same implication as that of Massumi for my current attempt to find the political character of stupidity. If Deleuze’s project is to think the virtual in its oneness, stupidity would remain a pure negative of thinking, that is, nonthinking. Moreover—and this is the second possible rejoinder to my argument developed in the previous section—this pure negativity would mean that stupidity has nothing to do with a positive (or actual) event

38  Problematizing of thinking. Unlike idiocy, which can initiate (philosophical) thinking, stupidity remains inside the realm of daily life, of doxa. Therefore, what results from such a classical manner of philosophy of oneness seems to be a thorough devaluation of our daily thinking.19 In this chapter, I neither try to solve all of these ambiguities in Deleuze’s texts nor squarely respond to these interpretations. Instead of giving an interpretation to the entire œuvre of Deleuze, giving a definite statement as to the extent to which Deleuze’s later works are political, or assessing the validity of each of its interpretations, I  want to focus on Difference and Repetition—namely on the notion of stupidity. I  deal with ambiguities and interpretations insofar as they concern that focus. Let me summarize what is at stake in the ambiguities of Deleuze’s texts and interpretations. First, about the internal relation between thinking and stupidity, Deleuze’s text sometimes locates stupidity outside the realm of thinking, as nonthinking. This possibility renders readings by Massumi and Badiou more plausible. For while presenting different interpretations concerning the political implications of Deleuze’s texts, both concur that Deleuze’s philosophy aims at going beyond representation and the world of beings, toward, for Massumi, nonrepresentation and, for Badiou, toward the oneness of Being. Such an orientation is not compatible with my interpretation of stupidity. My interpretation sees representation as a flawed but inevitable condition. Second, concerning the political character of stupidity, whereas Badiou and Massumi starkly differ on the political implications of Deleuze’s philosophy, they share a certain presumption about what the political implications of philosophy mean. Both mean by “political implication” only a specific normative political orientation: while Massumi finds an anarchic political project in Deleuze’s criticism against “state philosophy,” Badiou identifies a hierarchical character of thinking in Deleuze and denies its political implications for the lack of any necessary linkage between Deleuze’s philosophy and any political position. Third, as a consequence of the previous two, such interpretations taken by Massumi and Badiou would not find any importance in stupidity. Different from “nomadic thought” or “philosophy of oneness,” stupidity would, for Massumi and Badiou, lack a relation to a positive mode of thinking, staying as the zero degree of thinking at best. How can I counteract those readings that marginalize the role of stupidity? I have already attempted to show the internal relationship between thinking and stupidity in the previous section—the relation whose crucial moment resides in the argument that thinking cannot but appear as representation, however flawed it is, through cogito.20 Thus, in the following, I want to defend the problematic through a different path: by exploring differences between Deleuze and Heidegger, whose orientation toward thinking and the lack of thinking in What Is Called Thinking? has an influence on Deleuze’s “Image of Thought” chapter and thus makes Deleuze’s philosophy susceptible to the criticisms posed by Badiou. Heidegger’s influence on Deleuze is apparent throughout Difference and Repetition. Deleuze himself is unequivocal about his indebtedness when he mentions

Problematizing 39 Heidegger’s philosophy of difference as one of the contemporary accounts that helped to prepare his book. Moreover, as I will point out later, the “Image of Thought” chapter can be seen as Deleuze’s version of What Is Called Thinking? At the same time, Heidegger’s influence contributes to making Difference and Repetition appear as if it is privileging one kind of thinking—the thinking of Being—over others, moving beyond representation, and having nothing to do with the political. Badiou, for example, refers to Heidegger’s influence, which he rightly claims is greater than generally accepted, as evidence of the quintessential philosophical character of Deleuze. In solely focusing on the oneness of Being as the object of thinking, not on multiple beings in society, Deleuze’s philosophy, Badiou claims, is a loyal successor to Heidegger’s: The question posed by Deleuze is the question of Being. From beginning to end, and under the constraint of innumerable and fortuitous cases, his work is concerned with thinking thought (its act, its movement) on the basis of an ontological precomprehension of Being as One. (Badiou 1999, 20) According to Badiou, Deleuze is indeed more thoroughgoing than Heidegger on this point when Deleuze criticizes the residual phenomenological element in Heidegger. While for Heidegger thinking needs to start with “pre-ontological understandings” revolving around beings, Deleuze seeks to sever the internal linkage between beings and Being (Badiou 1999, 21–26). For Deleuze, the thinking of Being is disconnected from those about beings. Whether or not Badiou is right in maintaining a “more Heideggerian” Deleuze than Heidegger himself, it is no doubt that such a figure of the philosopher who concerns himself solely with Being stems from the image of Heidegger. Heidegger, in What Is Called Thinking?, states that thinking involves listening to the call of Being. Such listening seems to reduce the assertive mode of thinking to a mere passive reception. According to Heidegger, our modern image of thought that centers on logic, aiming at the grasp of logical relations among represented beings (that is, concepts), remains far from true thinking. In fact, for Heidegger, under this confusion between thinking and representation, we do not yet think. Heidegger opposes this image of thinking as a responsive activity, as a thankfulness to the call of Being. Thinking in its authentic form appears as a pure activity vis-à-vis Being under this Heideggerian formula. It is true that Heidegger does not simply oppose the true thinking of Being against representational thinking or nonthinking. In fact, he cautiously maintains that Being is always guarded by beings that we represent. Heidegger does not simply argue for our direct grasp of Being; rather, to the philosopher of “oblivion,” Being never becomes transparent. Thinking always arrives in a certain passivity (e.g., as thanks, gift, recollection), that is, as a response to the call of Being made available at that time. More importantly, our nonthinking— “the fact that we do not yet think”—is not simply a negative state for Heidegger. On the contrary, “the fact that we do not yet think” is the “food for thought”

40  Problematizing that needs to be thought and that drives out assertive thinking. Here we see Heidegger’s thesis concerning the ambiguity of truth: the truth appears, on the one hand, as the unconcealment of Being while, on the other hand, Being needs to be preserved in the concealment of beings. Nevertheless, thinking for Heidegger is still directed toward the unconcealment of Being insofar as the negative fact of our nonthinking makes us realize that we are still not thinking. In fact, according to Heidegger, modern thought, in its self-understanding centered on the spontaneity of reason and representation, closes our way toward the true thinking and thus toward Being (Heidegger 2004, 210–11). Thus, it seems that we have two kinds of nonthinking: one as a preservation of Being in its unconcealment and the other pure nonthinking as the zero degree of thinking, appearing as our modern poverty of thinking. Not only is Heidegger’s thinking detached from representation, but it is also anti-political in that the unconcealment of Being arrives outside the realm of our ordinary human intercourse.21 The realm of people, of das Man, has a positive impact on our thinking only insofar as it calls for the need to transcend itself. What Heidegger’s thinking calls for is the receptive quiet thinking of the solitary philosopher, which is based on a lingering dichotomy between authentic and inauthentic thinking. When we turn our eyes to Deleuze’s “Image of Thought” chapter, Heidegger’s influence is obvious. As Heidegger insists that “we do not yet think,” Deleuze counters that the dogmatic image of thought has been preventing our thinking from truly initiating itself. The two also concur when regarding representation as the main source of misunderstandings about and obstacles to thinking. Moreover, Deleuze makes his debt to Heidegger evident when he refers to the phrase “the fact we do not yet think” in discussing stupidity (Deleuze 1994, 153; 1968, 198). Thus, it might seem reasonable to assume that Deleuze shares with Heidegger not only the orientation to the question of thinking but also its flaw— the flaw of privileging the philosophical mode of thinking above others marked as nonthinking. Badiou diagnoses this problem in Deleuze when he criticizes Deleuze’s idea of a “disjunctive synthesis,” the distinction between Being and beings (Badiou 1999, 22). If we accept this distinction, Badiou’s line of argument will claim, thinking qua philosophy has nothing to do with beings in the world of thoughtlessness.22 Therefore, Badiou would argue not only against the first thesis on the internal relationship between thinking and stupidity but also against the second thesis concerning the political character of thinking. However, we need to be attentive to the differences between Deleuze and Heidegger as well as the similarities. In fact, Deleuze’s displacement of “the fact that we do not yet think” with “stupidity,” I argue, reflects his displacement of Heidegger’s dichotomy between authentic, philosophical thinking and inauthentic nonthinking. Deleuze’s reference to Heidegger’s What Is Called Thinking? appears at the very end of the paragraphs dealing with the problem of stupidity: “the transcendent element which can only be thought (‘the fact that we do not yet think’ or ‘What is stupidity?’)” (1994, 153; 1968, 198). A  straightforward reading of this quote seems to make “stupidity” appear as just another name for “the

Problematizing 41 fact that we do not yet think.” Yet there is another possibility: the conjunction “or” replaces Heideggerian nonthinking, “the fact that we do not yet think” with “What is stupidity?” If, as I have argued, stupidity is internal to thinking (and if Deleuze avoids the abovementioned pitfall of the Heideggerian orientation), this latter interpretation appears more plausible. Deleuze’s assessment of the contributions and risks of Heidegger’s philosophy in one of the longest notes in Difference and Repetition supports this latter reading. In the note, while acknowledging Heidegger’s significant contribution to the philosophy of difference, Deleuze expresses his concern about the slippery use of the negative in Heidegger: “It can nevertheless be asked whether Heidegger did not himself encourage the misunderstandings, by his conception of ‘Nothing’ as well as by his manner of ‘striking through’ Being instead of parenthesising the (non) of non-Being” (1994, 66; 1968, 91). If Heidegger posits the negative of Being by the word “non,” a hierarchical dichotomy between the world of Being and that of nothingness results. Such externalization of the negative is similar to the kind I pointed out in Heidegger’s orientation toward nonthinking: the annihilation of the realm of das Man. A productive path to avoid this danger is, according to Deleuze, to interpret Heidegger’s “non” as difference, especially as the ontological difference between Being and beings. His proposal shows that Deleuze, while proposing to think difference in itself independent of the form of representation, neither leaves the world of beings nor completely does away with the world of representation. Thinking needs to become other than representation, but it does so by way of represented thinking and the fissured cogito. Deleuze makes this point clear in the quote above when he states “this unthought has become the necessary empirical form, in which, in the fractured I (Bouvard and Pécuchet), thought at last thinks the cogitandum; in other words, the transcendent element which can only be thought” (153; 198, italics in original, underline mine). Fissures in thinking cogito and stupidity in representation evince the disparity that debunks representation beneath it, “the transcendental element which can only be thought” (153; 198). If difference is nonrepresentable and unknowable, it can only be thought as the element with effects on the world that nonetheless is not available to direct presentation within it. From this point, the positive moment—the second point I mentioned in the beginning of the section—in stupidity becomes clear as well. For Heidegger, “the fact that we do not yet think” is the greatest food for thought and the moment that initiates thinking. By the same token, stupidity, as the negative of thinking, attests to the nonrepresented movement of disparities and by virtue of it initiates thinking. This, however, does not mean that stupidity is outside thinking (as is the case with Heidegger’s “the fact that we do not yet think”). Rather, as an internal problem that resists specification and dissolution, stupidity in thinking is what keeps thinking as an activity in motion. This difference from Heidegger is also observable when Deleuze states that stupidity “forces us to think.” Recall that Heidegger equates thinking with thanks: for him, “the fact that we do not yet think” gives us the food for thinking but only to the extent it drives us to attain the thanks for Being. For Deleuze, stupidity not only gives us the food for

42  Problematizing thought but also serves as a “violence”: “Thought is primarily trespass and violence, the enemy, and nothing presupposes philosophy: everything begins with misophy” (Deleuze 1994, 139; 1968, 181–82). Stupidity, as a stupor, forces us to think without letting our thought leave the world of people, on, das Man.

Stupidity and thoughtlessness: Deleuze and Arendt on the political relevance of thinking In the last section, I attempted to clear up ambiguities in and around Deleuze’s texts by repudiating some interpretations and criticisms against him, especially those concerning the first thesis about the endogenous relation between thinking and stupidity. The central issues at stake among those ambiguities and criticisms involve the internal relationship between stupidity and thinking—that is, the degree to which stupidity haunts our thinking. By refuting such readings that interpret Deleuze’s purpose to be solely concerned with Being or the overcoming of representation, I  have shown the characteristics and thus importance of the notion of stupidity that traverses the realms both of Being and beings, or subrepresentation and representation. Stupidity is not the problem of others (of beings, of das Man, of representation, and so on), nor is it external to thinking and philosophy. It is our problem. This endogeneity of stupidity helps to clarify another problematic that the previous sections touched on but did not fully address: the political character of stupidity. In the course of examining interpretations of Deleuze, we have seen opposing views concerning the political relevance of his philosophy. On the one hand, readers concerned with its political utility, such as Massumi, see Deleuze’s so-called anti-representational philosophical project itself as a political project against the state while, on the other hand, readers like Badiou posit the exclusively philosophical concern of Deleuze and regard its connection with radical political movements to be merely arbitrary. I  have already shown that those two views are philosophically misleading in ignoring the account Difference and Repetition gives to the emergence of (flawed) representation. What is also noteworthy is that in politics, too, Massumi and Badiou share one assumption: the assumption that the political relevance of philosophy is to be tested solely according to the extent to which philosophy offers the ground for specific political agendas or attitudes. In holding such a reductionist view that judges political relevance for its applicability, their seemingly opposing positions converge. I do not deny that Deleuze’s philosophy can serve to deepen our political sensibility. Indeed, my study is devoted to explicating the positive political contributions of the problematic of stupidity, part of which I briefly suggested at the end of the previous section. But such positive elements do not simply emerge through the explication of a certain political agenda from philosophy and by virtue of its applicability.23 Moreover, the political relevance of one philosophical system can be of great value when it helps us to clarify the very relationship between politics and philosophy and/or between politics and thinking. It is regarding such relationships that Deleuze’s exploration

Problematizing 43 of stupidity is illuminative. If, as I have shown, stupidity is based on the intrusion of others as its transcendental moment, it attests to the plurality in thinking. And because the political finds its predicate in plurality, Deleuze, by taking up stupidity as an internal problem of thinking, offers a clue as to how to reconfigure the relationship between politics and thinking. When we turn to the history of Western philosophy, we see that it is common to separate politics and thinking, or especially politics and philosophy. Within this divide, both sides—politics and philosophy—criticize each other. To see such antagonism, we only need to recall Plato’s case. For Plato the philosopher, politics, especially under democracy, is so susceptible to degeneration and vice because of the multiplicity of politics that he believes a philosopher-king should govern. For people, citizens, and politicians, on the other hand, the solitary life of philosophy appears so distanced from their lives that philosophy appears to be absurd and irrelevant. Again, it is Plato who showed the incompetence of philosophy through his political endeavor at Syracuse.24 Nonetheless, it would be misleading to sever philosophy and politics, solitude and plurality, and to hold them in antagonism. Rather, stupidity shows their mutual intrusion by revealing the plural dimension in thinking.25 In addressing the problem of stupidity in the relation between thinking and politics, however, we encounter an alternative notion, better known in political theory, that deals with a similar problematic: Hannah Arendt’s notion of thoughtlessness and the related investigation into the relationships among politics, philosophy, and thinking. Although Arendt distinguishes her notion of thoughtlessness from stupidity, her observation of the phenomenon and orientation shows an interesting similarity with my exploration of Deleuze’s notion. Why, then, do I not follow the Arendtian path and employ the notion of thoughtlessness that she trod with more explicitly political concerns instead of Deleuze’s philosophical attempt? Both Deleuze and Arendt find the crucial characteristics of stupidity and thoughtlessness, respectively, in similar phenomena: stock phrases and clichés. For Arendt, it was Adolf Eichmann’s recurrent employment of stock phrases that led her to come up with her idea of thoughtlessness. His use of clichés went so far as to become grotesque when, before his own execution, he uttered a stock phrase for his own funeral oratory, even though it was he himself who was going to be executed (Arendt 2006, 252). According to Arendt, Eichmann’s dependence upon stock phrases showed his inability to speak his own words and thus his inability to think. Instead of thinking the reality of world in which he himself was embedded, he shied away from it and found his safeguard in the world of stock phrases. Eichmann says “Officialese (Amtssprache) is my only language.” But for Arendt, the point here is, officialese became his language because he was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché . . . . . . The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was

44  Problematizing possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such. (Arendt 2006, 48–49) As for stupidity, my exploration so far has emphasized the use of clichés as a distinguishing phenomenon of stupidity. This similarity makes a comparison between Deleuze and Arendt pertinent. A more important reason to make the comparison necessary is that the problems of stupidity and thoughtlessness open the space for reconsideration of the relationship between politics and thinking. As for Arendt, Eichmann’s thoughtlessness and the “banality of evil” led her to consider the meaning of vita contemplativa (from which she distinguishes vita activa, the mode of action to which politics properly belongs) for politics, the question she addresses in her essay “Thinking and Moral Consideration” and more extensively in her posthumous work on thinking and judgment. For Deleuze, the connection is less clear, though as I have shown, the moment of plurality in his notion of stupidity attests to its political implications. Indeed, Arendt focuses on the plurality in thinking in her exploration of the political character of thinking; in the first volume of Life of the Mind, she identifies the ethical-political moment of thinking with its differentiating effect that brings about consciousness qua conscience, that is, the state of “two-in-one” in thought (Arendt 1977, 179–93). By comparing Deleuze and Arendt, therefore, we may get a clearer picture of the political character in the Deleuzean notion of stupidity as well as the advantage of employing the notion of stupidity rather than the Arendtian notion of thoughtlessness. Of course, there are differences as well as similarities between the two notions. Before comparing them by focusing on the relationship between politics and thinking, I  want to look at the differences between stupidity and thoughtlessness. One apparent difference concerns the choice of the words: stupidity and thoughtlessness. This is not a mere difference of words, for Arendt explicitly denies describing Eichmann as stupid. According to her, Eichmann’s characteristic “was not stupidity but a curious, quite authentic inability to think” (Arendt 2003, 159). The reason comes from Kant’s definition of stupidity in his lecture notes on logic, where he ascribes stupidity to a “wicked heart.” The problem with Eichmann is that he does not show a wicked heart. Thus Arendt concludes: “Inability to think is not stupidity; it can be found in highly intelligent people, and wickedness is hardly its cause, if only because thoughtlessness as well as stupidity are much more frequent phenomena than wickedness” (Arendt 2003, 164). Thus the comparison gives rise to the following questions: Is Eichmann stupid in Deleuzean sense of the word? Do Bouvard and Pécuchet exhibit the same flaw as Eichmann? Such questions may sound absurd given the scale and magnitude of the crime Eichmann committed and acted within, that is, totalitarianism and “the Final Solution.” But the context in which Arendt forges the idea of thoughtlessness as distinguished from stupidity makes the question necessary.

Problematizing 45 Against those immediate questions, however, it is still possible to refute or bypass them. First, the stupidity Arendt rejects is different from that which Deleuze addresses. Deleuzean stupidity is not a problem of a wicked heart but of thinking itself. As such, it is as common as thoughtlessness. Indeed, Kant himself gives a different definition of stupidity (Dummheit) elsewhere, which I take up in the third chapter. Second, we do not necessarily have to solve the question of whether or not Eichmann the actual figure is stupid in the Deleuzean sense. It is well known that Arendt’s Eichmann is more the product of her own theorization, a characterization woven into her equally original account of totalitarianism, more than the historical reality of Eichmann and totalitarianism.26 As far as we are concerned in determining the stupidity of Eichmann, the point becomes whether we accept Arendt’s account of totalitarianism, a task that requires another fulllength study. In this study, I want to leave this question open and instead focus on a narrower comparison: the relationship between politics and thinking. As I mentioned before, what is crucial for Arendt in her encounter with Eichmann’s thoughtlessness is that it leads her to examine the relationship between politics and thinking, vita activa and vita contemplativa, the relationship she once constructed with seemingly more emphasis on the former: The question that imposed itself was, could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining and reflecting upon whatever happens to come pass, regardless of specific content and quite independent of results, could this activity be of such a nature that it “conditions” men against evildoing? (Arendt 2003, 160) For Arendt, thinking cannot be identified or dealt with on the same level with other activities that constitute vita activa, because thinking is a solitary activity held in the absence of others, the activity whose process never appears in the world of phenomena, while action has a plurality of actors in the world of appearance as its condition. Not only is it held in solitude, but thinking, with its thorough examination, tends to destroy common sense and any accepted rule of behavior. According to Arendt, thinking as such does society little good, much less than the thirst for knowledge, which uses thinking as an instrument for other purposes. It does not create values; it will not find out, once and for all, what ‘the good’ is; it does not confirm but, rather, dissolves accepted rules of conduct. And it has no political relevance unless special emergencies arise (Arendt 1977, 192) Despite its unproductive or even destructive character, thinking is not without political relevance, as Arendt points out cautiously at the end of the above quote. The political relevance of thinking is to be found in the plurality it brings about; thinking has a differentiating function, making the “two-in-one” in the

46  Problematizing thinking mind. Thinking brings difference into the thinking mind, turning it into a split state of mind. While this plurality remains within one’s mind and cannot be identified with plurality of actors in the world of appearance, it brings about consciousness as conscience (Arendt calls attention to how both are set in the same word in some languages, such as French). As Arendt points out, this plurality of conscience in the thinking ego is rather an obstacle to action because it is concerned with oneself more than with the world, as a citizen is supposed to do (Arendt 1977, 182). However, Arendt suggests that the political relevance of thinking may be found in Socrates’s prescription that we need to examine our actions to maintain harmony between the “two-in-one,” that it would be better for me that my lyre or a chorus I directed should be out of tune and loud with discord, and that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself and contradict me. (Arendt 1977, 181) Taking care to not contradict oneself gives voice to one’s conscience and protects him or her from thoughtlessness in “boundary situations,” where accepted values and morals of conduct fall apart. Arendt’s view on the political relevance of thinking is both resonant and dissonant with the Deleuzean orientation. On the one hand, both find a moment of plurality in the activity of thinking. If, as Arendt finds it, we can see political relevance in this plurality, we might see the political moment in Deleuzean stupidity more clearly. On the other hand, the Arendtian orientation marks a stark difference from the Deleuzean one on two points. First, Arendt says that thinking, once initiated, tends to go against or even destroy people’s common sense. It is this destructive character of thinking that Arendt believes makes thinking politically irrelevant except during a time of emergency. As Villa (2001, Chapter  5) points out, Arendt on many occasions is more inclined toward relying upon people’s common sense. Deleuze converges with Arendt in saying that thinking is essentially in antagonism with common sense. However, for Deleuze, the problem is rather that thinking is too susceptible to common sense to initiate itself. As we have seen, one of the main components of the image of thought is common sense. Also, as the second point of dissonance, Arendt distinguishes thinking from philosophy and finds political relevance only in the former, whereas Deleuze is concerned with philosophy when he addresses the question of thinking in “The Image of Thought” chapter. It is not that Arendt disavows philosophy for its meaninglessness, or that philosophy for Deleuze means the same thing for him as it does for Arendt. On the contrary, Arendt is sensitive to the proper role given to philosophy. She simply maintains that philosophy is different from politics, while Deleuze is critical of the way philosophy has been conducted. Nonetheless, the comparison with Arendt poses a question with regard to the extent to which Deleuze’s project becomes political. Or, rather, does Arendt’s orientation toward philosophy make it a better candidate than the Deleuzean one in exploring the

Problematizing 47 relationship between thinking and politics? We need to assess the relationships between thinking and politics and between philosophy and politics in Deleuze and Arendt. Regarding the relationship between thinking and politics, as we have seen, Arendt’s reserved acknowledgment of the political relevance of thinking shows the tension between her caution against the destructive character of thinking on the one hand and her reliance on common sense on the other. Thinking itself is a fruitless activity in that it is unlikely to produce a definite conclusion. Thus thinking sets obstacles to action. Moreover, thinking works against the common sense of people, shaking the ground that human beings rely upon in conducting their ordinary lives. The problem with the destructive character of thinking is that it makes us susceptible to the false conclusion that everything is possible. It is due to this false reasoning that Socrates’s students such as Alcibiades drew from the teacher a cynical doctrine that “if we cannot define what piety is, let us be impious”—a conclusion that appeared to be “perhaps even the greatest danger of this dangerous and profitless enterprise” of thinking (Arendt 1977, 175–76). Whereas Arendt regards this destructive tendency as a central problem of thinking for politics, Deleuze finds one of the greatest failures of the dogmatic image of thought in the entrapment of thinking within common sense. For Deleuze, it is rather the presupposition of common sense embedded in thought that prevents us from truly initiating thinking. Therefore, it may appear that Arendt is more attentive to the risk and danger in thinking and more reserved about its political potency. However, the situation is more complex than that. While Arendt finds a threat to politics in the unproductive and even destructive character of thinking, she argues that thinking is politically relevant in the boundary case, saving us at least from one evil—thoughtlessness. In other words, Arendt maintains that we remain thoughtful and free from evil in so far as we continue thinking. The underlying assumption is that thinking as such is not problematical and not vulnerable to thoughtlessness or stupidity. In reconstructing Arendt’s orientation toward thinking, Julia Kristeva points out Arendt’s reliance on humanity, in human potentiality for upright thinking and language: Even if human beings can go mad, as our century has so cruelly shown to be true, the humanity in which Arendt, despite everything, put her faith, or at least all her confidence, cannot go mad—and must not go mad. Therein lies the transcendence—and the limits of Arendt’s thought. (Kristeva 2001, 238) Let me articulate this point further by looking at Arendt’s account of Eichmann’s use of stock phrases. For Arendt, thinking is always available as human potentiality in a nonproblematical way, even though sometimes we do not think. Her conviction is what lies beneath the difference between thoughtlessness as the lack of thinking and stupidity as an internal problem of thinking. Her reliance on the human capacity

48  Problematizing for language is apparent when she writes of, for example, Eichmann’s accumulation of the “language rule” under the Nazi regime—where euphemisms such as “special treatment,” “evacuation,” and “Final Solution” are used instead of saying “killing” and “extermination” (Arendt 2006, 85). Arendt states, The net effect of this language system was not to keep these people ignorant of what they were doing, but to prevent them from equating it with their old, “normal” knowledge of murder and lies. Eichmann’s great susceptibility to catch words and stock phrases, combined with his incapacity for ordinary speech, made him, of course, an ideal subject for “language rule.” (Arendt 2006, 86) Eichmann’s dependence on stock phrases made him an ideal instrument of the totalitarian strategy of replacing the reality of a world—plurality—with sheer ideology that, in explaining everything only by dissociating the object from reality, deprived people of “the freedom inherent in man’s capacity to think” (Arendt 1976, 470). This means, however, that ordinary language is not cliché and that human thinking is external to thoughtlessness. Therefore, Arendt’s and Deleuze’s respective images of the negative of thinking are rather different in character. While, as I previously mentioned, both notions find their paradigmatic expressions in the use of clichés and stock phrases, but the ways such expressions come about are different. About Eichmann’s use of stock phrases, Arendt states, “Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, the claim on our thinking” (Arendt 2003, 160). By protecting us from reality, stock phrases save us from thinking independently, enabling “the total absence of thinking.” By “total absence of thinking” Arendt does not mean that Eichmann is insane or lacks rationality. Indeed, what strikes her is his sanity—Eichmann showed a capability or even competence in handling instrumental matters within a given framework of language, value, and rationality. One activity he never engaged in, however, was thinking about the framework itself. On the other hand, in Deleuzean stupidity, cliché is an effect or result of thinking. As we saw in the previous sections, Deleuze’s point is that thinking is most likely to appear as clichés when others intrude into it. Even though their observed phenomena are similar, the respective mechanisms that bring about clichés are different: thoughtlessness helps us not to think by conforming to stock phrases; stupidity shows the trace of thinking in clichés. Simply put, thoughtlessness stands outside thinking, while stupidity haunts thinking from within. More importantly, from this difference in their understandings on the negatives of thinking, there emerges a deeper difference in plurality. For Arendt, thinking itself is upright and brings about consciousness qua conscience, even if thoughtlessness is a perennial danger and consciousness rarely appears politically relevant. For Deleuze, on the other hand, thinking itself is a problematical activity; thinking requires a degree of stupidity and could also be swallowed by it.

Problematizing 49 Arendt’s assumption of the upright character of thinking, therefore, is a bit closer to the image of thought Deleuze criticizes. While the Arendtian orientation leads us to see the political relevance of thinking, what lies embedded in acknowledgment of the political relevance of thinking is a traditional assumption that divides politics as the realm of the multitude and thinking as the realm of solitary and upright activity. With this point, I do not conclude whether Arendt finally sides with thinking or action—with Socrates or Pericles.27 I  emphasize, rather, that the Arendtian orientation toward thinking leads to the assumption about the inherent uprightness and righteousness of thinking and thus to the antagonism between thinking and politics. I do not claim, however, that thinking and politics are the same. Without dissolving the distinction, I  want to examine more closely how a Deleuzean orientation reconfigures the political character of thinking. As I formulated as the second thesis, the inherent plurality that prompts thinking into stupidity attests to the political character of thinking. Here, the two differences between Deleuze and Arendt help us to articulate the political character of thinking more clearly. The first of them is Deleuze’s inclusion of representation in thinking. One characteristic of Arendt’s orientation is that she rigorously distinguishes thinking from its expression and representation. Her dissociation of thinking from representation is not without reason; she wants to focus on thinking as an activity, against a prevalent misunderstanding to identify thinking with cognition, doctrine, and truth. Does her distinction, however, lead to a certain assumption that ties thinking, in its assumed solitary character, to purity? A  Deleuzean orientation, by contrast, introduces plurality into thinking more thoroughly by including representation as an element that limits but nonetheless accompanies thinking, and acknowledging plurality both on the level of representation and the subrepresentative process. Deleuze concurs with Arendt in distinguishing thinking from doctrine and cognition. He also denies that representation can bring thinking to full articulation. Nonetheless, he acknowledges representation as a necessary moment, which engenders clichés by virtue of the intrusion of otherness as people, das Man or on. Thus, as the second difference, we find that the plurality and otherness are of different characters for Deleuze and Arendt. Otherness in thinking for Deleuze is not the “two-in-one” as in Arendt’s Socratic thinking. Nor is it the plurality of unique individuals that Arendt discovers in the realm of public actors. Rather, otherness for Deleuze appears as the monotonous voice of anonymous people. It appears as congealment. Arendt would denounce such a monotonous world as evidence of thoughtlessness. Contrastingly, the Deleuzean orientation offers us another perspective—to see such monotonous, nameless otherness as an element in thinking—and thus a clue to discover the active world of difference in thinking. The otherness on the level of representation is not independent of the thinking process but an effect of the intrusion of otherness on the subrepresentative level of “passive synthesis,” in which cogito, or the thinking I, emerges and fails to achieve its unity. As we have seen in the first section, the former is the empirical form of the latter. Thus, Deleuze opens up a way to trace the active generation of

50  Problematizing thinking from monotonous representation without disavowing the latter. This is why he notes in the beginning of Difference and Repetition that: Modern life is such that, confronted with the most mechanical, the most stereotypical repetitions, inside and outside ourselves, we endlessly extract from them little differences, variations and modifications. Conversely, secret, disguised and hidden repetitions, animated by the perpetual displacement of a difference, restore bare, mechanical and stereotypical repetitions, within and without us. (1994, xix; 1968, 2, underlining mine) Moreover, the latter moment of Deleuzean plurality—plurality in subrepresentative emergence of thinking—is different from Arendt as well. While for Arendt the plurality in the thinking process is the dissolution of the thinking I into “twoin-one,” for Deleuze individuality emerges out of the ground, whose process of individuation is “impersonal” (Deleuze 1994, xxi; 1968, 4). This difference is pertinent in assessing the political element in their respective orientations. For one reason that Arendt is reserved in attributing full political relevance to Socratic thinking is that the plurality there is not same as the one in public sphere. The “two-in-one” is rather an extension of oneself than the plurality of unique actors. The ideal mode of Socratic “two-in-one” is harmony, as maintained in friendship. But harmonious friendship is not the principle to govern political plurality in its mode of agonistic contestation. Moreover, plurality in the “two-in-one” risks turning the two into another self, effacing the plurality (Arendt 1977, 189). Plurality for Deleuze, on the other hand, is not harmonious but rather the permanent intrusion of otherness, which finally extends to a monotonous plurality on the level of representation. With the problematic character inherent in thinking and with a different understanding of plurality, the political character for Deleuze thus changes in its meaning from that of Arendt into a fundamental predicate of thinking. I started this section by pointing out that the political character of thinking should not be limited to the normative utility for specific political agendas. Arendt’s exploration of the political relevance of thinking, it is true, opens up a different approach by asking the political meaning of thinking without making it into a manual for politics. Nevertheless, Arendt’s exploration remains concerned with the positive contribution of thinking to politics. Her normative concern is clear when she states the question that drove her to examine the relationship between thinking and politics: “Is our inability to judge, to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly, dependent upon our faculty of thought? Do the inability to think and a disastrous failure of what we commonly call conscience coincide?” (Arendt 2003, 160). It may look natural, as a political theorist, to focus on the positive effect of thinking in taking up the relation between thinking and politics, for what she finds in Eichmann is the opposite of such a positive relation, and her focus itself does not necessarily exclude the possibility of other effects. But her focus becomes problematic when she externalizes thoughtlessness from thinking and

Problematizing 51 holds thinking in its upright, righteous character. In fact, we cannot pose the same question if we follow Deleuze in regarding thinking itself as problematic. For Deleuze, thinking is political. But it never means that thinking contributes to politics positively whenever the former is called upon. The significant contribution of Deleuze’s exploration of stupidity to the relationship between thinking and politics lies in challenging the long-standing antagonism between the two. Against the conventional distinction between thinking as a solitary activity and politics as that of the multitude, the Deleuzean notion of problematical thinking reveals that both thinking and politics contain plurality as their ontological condition. This common condition of politics and thinking, of course, does not mean that the two are the same. Such a claim would be absurd. They are different modes in their respective activities. Nor do I claim thinking, or philosophy as its quintessential form, should be oriented to serve politics. Rather, the political character of thinking debunks attempts to guide thinking for political agendas or to govern politics by philosophy because of the lack of pregiven yardstick to distinguish upright, righteous thinking from stupidity. My statement concerning the common foundation of thinking and politics makes no prescription for politics and thinking. Then, what is the use of this insight? If both politics and thinking are plural activities, what does this common predicate reveal to us? Moreover, if we cannot clearly separate thinking from stupidity, what can we draw from thinking? Finally, what is the role of philosophy? These questions are too big to settle in this chapter. Here I want to briefly show available approaches to these questions and leave them for further investigation in the following chapters. First, regarding the advantage resulting from the common predicate of plurality for thinking and politics, it does not help us directly to conceive of a productive political agenda, but it helps us to reexamine the role of thinking in what would otherwise appear to be mere thoughtlessness. As we have seen, the notion of thoughtlessness assumes clichés as the lack of thinking. The underlying idea is that such a phenomenon is the result of conformism (see, for example, Villa 2001, 253). Roughly put, this perspective sees the history leading to totalitarianism, to Eichmann’s thoughtlessness, as a process through which people gave up or lost their thinking capability and came to rely on indoctrinated values from the outside. Deleuze’s notion of thoughtlessness contests such a simplified narrative by tracing vestiges of thinking in monotonous clichés. From the reexamination of thinking suggested above comes a clue to the second question concerning the positive moment that the Deleuzean orientation brings. The problematical character of thinking, that is, the impossibility of an a priori standard to distinguish upright, righteous thinking from stupidity, dissolves any attempt to establish a manual for thinking, whether it is teleological guidance or procedural conditions. Thus assessing the relationship between thinking and politics in a way to make the former serve the latter as normative guidance will appear contentious. Nonetheless, the Deleuzean exploration of stupidity can reveal a positive element in thinking, the moment that is not necessarily fully subsumed under a normative manual of thinking. At the end of the previous

52  Problematizing section, we identified a positive moment of stupidity as a shock that can trigger and vivify another line of thinking. Though there is no a priori assurance that newly generated thinking becomes free from stupidity, thinking would not continue without problematical thinking, the amalgam of thinking and stupidity within themselves.28 We can probably regard the reexamination of thinking that I suggested above as a part of such a continuous activity of thinking that is disrupted by stupidity but nevertheless continues by this very disruption. Finally, my investigation into the relationship between thinking and politics leads to the question about the status of philosophy: what can we expect from philosophy vis-à-vis the problematical and political character of thinking? I first posed the question in the last section, when I argued against Badiou and Massumi. Massumi holds Deleuze’s philosophy (in A Thousand Plateaus) to be a normative political philosophy against the state, while Badiou maintains that Deleuze’s project is essentially philosophical, concerned solely with the ontology of Being and has nothing to do with politics. A  comparison with Arendt makes this question an acute one, because one of the central characteristics in her exploration of the relationship between thinking and politics is a distinction between thinking and philosophy. According to Arendt, philosophy is antithetical to politics not only because the former rarely belongs to the political activity of thinking but also because truth, the highest purpose of philosophy, has a coercive character: truth, whether it be philosophical, factual, or scientific, comes with compulsion and needs no agreement for it to appear to be true. Therefore, when applied to politics, “truth has a despotic character” that annihilates the space of doxa, or plural opinions essential for politics (Arendt 1993, 241). It is because of this despotic character that Arendt, in addressing the political relevance of thinking, cautiously distinguishes Socratic thinking from the philosophical doctrine of Socrates (or of Plato) no more than from Plato’s vision of philosopher-king. This is also why Arendt claims that she is not a philosopher but a political theorist (Arendt 1976, 3; 1994, 1–2). When we turn our eyes to Deleuze, his orientation contrasts with Arendt’s: Difference and Repetition not only addresses political questions in passing but also defends the role of philosophy against doxa (see Marrati 2001). However critical he is of the image of thought under which traditional philosophy has been conducted, his criticism is not against philosophy itself but against the failure to dissociate philosophy from doxa. Indeed, in its relentless defense of philosophy against doxa and common sense, Deleuze’s project is one of the most adamant among contemporary philosophers. However, if we accept Arendt’s caution against the despotism of truth, does Deleuze’s criticism of the image of thought appear antithetical to politics? And if we cannot attain an a priori, universal standard to distinguish thinking from stupidity, epistēmē from doxa, how is it possible to achieve philosophy that is not doxa? To this question of the status of philosophy, we need to note, first, that Deleuze is by no means the heir of a Platonic despotism of truth, despite his deep commitment to the role of philosophy. The objective of philosophy for Deleuze is

Problematizing 53 not to leap into the Platonic world of Ideas: Ideas for Deleuze are not the form to ground reality but rather problems “to which there is no solution” (Deleuze 1994, 168; 1968, 219). Also, Deleuze does not pursue the unconcealment of Being as Heidegger defines truth. As I have shown in the previous section, Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism departs from Heidegger in its focus on the relationship between beings and Being rather than retreating to the world of Being. In other words, the purpose of Deleuze’s philosophical project in Difference and Repetition is to explicate the condition of real experience, the emergence of beings as “events.” Therefore, Deleuze’s idea of philosophy does not necessarily result in the despotism of truth. Second, regarding the status of philosophy vis-à-vis the risk of stupidity, it is important to see that Deleuze calls for the modesty of philosophy in dealing with stupidity: Philosophy could have taken up the problem with its own means and with the necessary modesty, by considering the fact that stupidity is never that of others but the object of a properly transcendental question: how is stupidity (not error) possible? (1994, 151; 1968, 197) So far in this chapter, I  have followed the path this “properly transcendental question” leads to. Now let me review our exploration in terms of the manner in which Deleuze pursued this question. What is “the necessary modesty” of philosophy with which to deal with the problem of stupidity? The Deleuzean orientation is “modest” in acknowledging the inevitability of the image of thought. As I have emphasized, the struggle against the image of thought does not mean to do away with image, representation, clichés, people (das Man, on) and stupidity. Rather, Deleuze’s philosophy seeks to locate the emergence of thinking beneath the world of representation by way of the latter. In other words, Deleuze’s “modest” philosophy is devoted to illuminating the truthfulness (of the emergence of thinking, of event) of doxa.

Concluding remarks Throughout the chapter, I formulated, defended, and clarified the problematic of stupidity that I identified at the outset. To repeat, the first thesis of the problematic is the endogeneity of stupidity within thinking, and the second is the political character of stupidity. These two theses taken together show the relevance and necessity of the study of stupidity in political theory. Stupidity is relevant to political theory because it is the hinge that connects thinking to politics. It is necessary because stupidity is an ineluctable condition and problem for thinking, which we cannot simply dismiss as an unnecessary negative accompanying representation. It therefore helps us to see the entangled relationship between thinking and politics.

54  Problematizing Although it remains of secondary importance for my purpose, my interpretation of Difference and Repetition in this chapter modifies the current Deleuze scholarship. Specifically, my interpretation emphasizes two characteristics that have not received due attention. The first is the necessity of representation for thinking. Difference and Repetition, it is true, is a book that criticizes the image of thought and representation. But the criticism does not always equate to a call for abolishing it or replacing it with something else. Rather, Difference and Repetition offers one of the most systematic criticisms of representation in showing both why thinking leads to representation and why representation is insufficient. In doing so, it opens up a way to approach the real emergence of experience. Second is the distinctive quality Deleuze gives to his notion of the “Other.” Given the privileged role attributed to otherness among so-called poststructuralist thought to emphasize the otherness, Deleuze’s “Other” may seem to constitute one small branch of the general trend. Moreover, the notion of “Oher” occupies a smaller space in his writings than in those of his contemporaries such as Derrida and Levinas. However, Deleuze’s “Other” in Difference and Repetition can be neither dismissed nor equated with the Derridean or Levinasian notion of otherness.29 While otherness for those contemporary authors tends to be a pure and singular alterity, Deleuze’s “Other” is, in a sense, plural, of which the representative model is nameless people, das Man, on. Combined together, those two characteristics help us to approach Difference and Repetition in terms of political philosophy, an approach that has rarely been taken in the Deleuze scholarship.30 With its attention to the emergence of representation, it avoids retreating into the philosophy of the oneness of Being, and by taking the moment of Other as that of plurality, it delivers both an ethical and a political relation. The two theses, however, gave rise to three questions not yet fully engaged. (1) What does the political character of thinking reveal to us? If we are mistaken in opposing thinking and politics, what kind of perspective does the predicate of plurality specifically bring to us? (2) What we can expect of thinking? If we cannot separate thinking from stupidity, what can we draw from our thinking? (3) What is the role of philosophy? In particular, what is left for political philosophy or theory vis-à-vis the problematical and political thinking? The subsequent chapters are formulated to clarify and respond to those questions through diverse materials. The next chapter, dealing with the thinking of citizenship under democracy, responds to the first question by identifying democracy as one locus that highlights the common predicate of politics and thinking. By exploring the mechanism where the thinking of citizens leads to clichés, I show that the problem of modern democracy is not reducible to thoughtless conformism. Rather, modern democracy underlines the problematic of stupidity. The third chapter addresses, in addition to the first question, the third question about the status of philosophy by examining the theory of political judgment. Posed as a model of political thinking by Arendt, the Kantian theory of judgment receives attention as a candidate of democratic political philosophy that does not subsume the opinions of citizens under the Platonic despotism

Problematizing 55 of truth (Arendt 1982, 22–33). While sharing the same concern, I will argue that the Kantian theory of political judgment cannot fulfill the Arendtian purpose because of the endogeneity of stupidity within thinking. This endogeneity, rather, suggests the need to modify the image of political theory. While the second and third chapters situate these problems more clearly in historical and theoretical context, the fourth and fifth chapters will respond to those questions. The fourth chapter illuminates the positive element of stupidity by taking up the works of Hideo Kobayashi, a literary critic in Japan who pursued a way to write criticism without holding objects of criticism to be lower, stupid writings. By doing so, the chapter will suggest a mode of criticism that acknowledges the problematic of stupidity. Finally, the fifth chapter responds to the third question, exploring the role of a political theory that is, using Deleuze’s words, “modest” enough to pay due attention to the problem of stupidity while holding to “its own means.”

Notes 1 Another reason to start this study by formulating the problematic is the elusiveness of stupidity: as Derrida suggests, stupidity lies at the field of the indeterminable and thus resists any clear conceptualization. Indeed it is tempting to define stupidity as what debunks clear conceptualization. For example, In his letter to Louis Bouihet on September 4, 1850, Flaubert gives a succinct articulation, though not conceptualization, of stupidity when he states that stupidity is the desire to conclude (1926–1930, 2:239; 1980, 128). Nonetheless, instead of formulating the concept of stupidity, I believe, it would be still possible to explore the ways and the locus in which stupidity matters as problematic. 2 For the ideas of “problematic” and “problematization,” see Introduction. 3 By “thinking” I mean the process of thinking while I use the word “thought” to signify the result of the process of thinking. With this distinction, I freely translate “la pensée” in Deleuze’s texts into “thinking” and “thought” according to the context. The distinction, however, is not to clearly separate the thinking process from the articulated thought. Rather, as I emphasize later, one of my purposes in this chapter is to attain a perspective that grasps both elements as an interconnected whole. 4 By “political” I mean the predicate whose basic mode is plurality. This plurality is not limited to that of already fixed, given entities, whether they are individuals or groups. Plurality exceeds those fixed identities and works underneath them. I owe this notion of plurality to William Connolly’s idea of pluralism that acknowledges the moment of “pluralization” exceeding fixed identities as a kernel element constitutive of pluralism (Connolly 1995, xi–xxx). I use the word “politics,” on the other hand, to point to the practice held among constituencies in and around given institutional settings. 5 Deleuze touches on the topic of stupidity in two other works written before Difference and Repetition (1968): Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962) and Proust and Signs (1964). Because those two books pose nearly identical ideas to Difference and Repetition, I mainly focus on explicating Deleuze’s words in Difference and Repetition. See Deleuze (1983, 103–110; 2000, 5). Also, Deleuze briefly mentions stupidity in his final work, What is Philosophy? (1991, 32–3, 92–3). But as I examine later in this chapter, the book does not emphasize stupidity as much as idiocy.

56  Problematizing 6 For studies that focus on the importance of stupidity for Deleuze, see Derrida (2008, 2009), Hughes (2009), and Lee (2009). 7 About the political relevance of Difference and Repetition, especially of the chapter “The Image of Thought,” see Marrati (2001). 8 Descartes (1996, 17): “What then did I formerly think I was? A man. But what is a man? Shall I say ‘a rational animal’? No; for then I should have to inquire what an animal is, what rationality is.” 9 The eight postulates are: “the principle of Cogitatio natura universalis”; “the ideal of common sense”; “the model of recognition”; “the element of representation”; “error as ‘the negative of thought’ ”; “the privileged status of designation”; “the postulate of responses and solutions according to which truth and falsehood only begin with solutions or only qualify responses”; “the postulate of knowledge” (Deleuze 1994, 167; 1968, 216–17). 10 I will take up Kant’s notion of sensus communis and his abortion of transcendental project in detail in the third chapter. 11 For this interpretation, see Derrida (2008, 49; 2009, 152). 12 Focusing on Deleuze’s reference to the tyrant, Derrida develops his investigation into bêtise, an interpretation that is similar to mine in explicating the political relevance of stupidity (bêtise) but different by emphasizing the problematic of sovereignty. While my investigation does not preclude the problematic of sovereignty, here I do not pursue the theme as such for two reasons: (1) Derrida’s exploration is deeply tied with the term bêtise, which suggests animality as well as stupidity, whereas I focus on a broader family of notions including stupidity, bêtise, dummheit, and orokasa (愚かさ); (2) while the problematic of sovereignty is not proper to stupidity and can be approached by way of other notions, we can tackle the problematic of politics and thinking, which I  pursue in the greatest detail in this study by focusing on stupidity. Cf. Derrida (2009, especially sessions 5 and 6). 13 As a work that explores Deleuze’s insights into literature and especially into Flaubert, see Colebrook (2002). 14 As Widder (2008, 92) points out, Kantians would argue against Deleuze’s interpretation of the “pure apperception,” pointing out that it belongs to the noumenal and has nothing to do with actual conditions in the phenomenal. My point here, however, is to see how Deleuze productively develops the Kantian insight to account for his own idea of the “passive synthesis.” 15 For a detailed account of the structure of the three moments of passive synthesis in the chapter “Repetition for Itself” of Difference and Repetition, see Hughes (2009, 86–126); Widder (2008, Chapter 8). 16 For example, Deleuze writes about the world of one (people, they) as the following: “The world of ‘one’ or ‘they’ is a world of impersonal individuations and preindividual singularities; a world which cannot be assimilated to everyday banality but one in which resonates the true nature of that profound and that groundlessness which surrounds representation, and from which simulacra emerge” (1994, 277; 1968, 355, italics in original). 17 This characterization of Deleuze’s thought is rather an image, which is not pursued by many Deleuze studies but still shared by many readers beyond the narrow scholarship on Deleuze. For a study pursuing this way, see Manuel De Landa’s characterization of Deleuze’s project as “philosophical realism” (De Landa 2002). See also Toscano (2010). 18 Deleuze explores the idiocy and clichés (formulae) of Bartleby in his essay “Bartleby; or, the Formula.” It is true that Bartleby speaks one cliché: “I would prefer not to.” But his cliché is radically different from those of Bouvard and Pécuchet. While the latter two repeat the words of others, Bartleby, as Deleuze observes,

Problematizing 57 “makes” clichés (Deleuze 1997, 68–90). This difference between Bartleby and Bouvard and Pécuchet, between idiocy and stupidity, helps to clarify my exploration from another approach that is prevalent in the current scholarship in continental political theory: that is, Agamben’s exploration, which is organized around the problem of sovereignty. Referring to Deleuze’s essay on Bartleby, Agamben pushes Deleuze’s insights further, toward his own idea of potentiality. According to Agamben, Bartleby attests to the absolute potentiality of thought, which is the supreme object of philosophy. Such positive evaluation of “absolute potentiality” seems to be resonant with Agamben’s emphasis on zoē as the pre-sovereign life. In contrast, what Bouvard and Pécuchet attest to, and thus problematize, is not such potentiality vis-à-vis sovereignty but a certain dissonance in represented thought. I will return to this point in the conclusion. 19 A similar line of criticism is posed concerning Deleuze’s attack on the assumption that the capacity for thinking is equally distributed to everyone, the assumption exemplified in Descartes’s statement in Discourse on Method that “Good sense is of all things in the world most equally distributed.” For example, Toscano (2010) regards this attack to be an anti-democratic attitude for, he argues, this denial leads to privileging philosophers’ thinking. But such criticism seems hasty to me. It is one thing to attack the pre-philosophical assumption about the capacity for thinking, but denying the capacity of people for thinking is another. The point of Deleuze’s denial is to show how philosophy has been leaving one of the most problematical elements in thinking untouched, not to claim that philosophy has the capacity for thinking. Moreover, I regard Deleuze’s criticism as implying a certain egalitarianism. Contrary to the Cartesian equality in our capacity for thought, Deleuze’s egalitarianism is based on the impossibility of giving hierarchy in our thinking capacity: stupidity equally troubles philosophers and the people, the sophisticated and the vulgar. 20 My reading, as we saw in the review of current Deleuze scholarship, might sound like an unorthodox one. However, textual evidence supports it. For example, Deleuze writes that “selves must be presupposed as a condition of passive organic syntheses, already playing the role of mute witness” (1994, 258; 1968, 333). Surely his emphasis is on the need to go beyond or below the form of cogito. But we should be equally attentive to his realization that we still need cogito, or a certain form of subjectivity. Bryant (2008) and, in a more nuanced manner, Hughes (2009) emphasized that Deleuze’s philosophy is not simply a philosophy of anti-representation. 21 Here I  do not discuss Heidegger’s own political thought, his commitment to National Socialism, or the possibility of Heideggerian political theory. However, one characteristic I  want to note is that Heidegger’s politics, if there is such a thing, would belong to the classical Platonic tradition in privileging philosophical nous and a certain form of community, regardless of the great distance between Plato and Heidegger. In seeing in Heidegger the classic philosophical—and thus not politico-theoretical—attitude, I concur with Arendt’s view in her essay, “Heidegger the Fox” (Arendt 1994, 361–2). 22 To put it more precisely, Deleuze for Badiou prioritizes Being and thus disconnects the realms of Being and beings further than Heidegger: “The real reason for the disparity between Deleuze and Heidegger, within their shared conviction that philosophy rests solely on the question of Being, is the following: for Deleuze, Heidegger does not uphold the fundamental thesis of Being as One up to its very end. He does not uphold this because he does not assume the consequences of the univocity of Being. Heidegger continuously evokes the maxim of Aristotle: ‘Being is said in various senses,’ in various categories. It is impossible for Deleuze to consent to this ‘various’ ”(Badiou 1999, 23, italics in original). While Heidegger sees

58  Problematizing the authentic connection between Being and beings in certain mitsein, Deleuze, Badiou claims, repudiates any such connection and presents the virtual—Being for Deleuze—as the sole object of philosophy. As I argue throughout this chapter, however, it is misleading to take Deleuze’s philosophical project in Difference and Repetition solely as the search for the virtual. It is true that Deleuze offers a kind of monism, but Badiou has overlooked the protean character of Deleuze’s monism—its capacity to morph its many modes of capacities. Equally important is Deleuze’s account of how thinking needs to appear as representation, however flawed the representation is. 23 Patton (2010) explicates the affinity of Deleuzean philosophy and Rawlsian normative political theory. While his work helps us to eradicate the prevalent assumption about the impossibility of a normative political philosophy of Deleuze, my approach is different from his in two respects. First, Patton’s project is more concerned with Deleuze’s later works with Guattari. Moreover, as the second difference, I  want to focus more on what kind of modification Deleuze’s criticism of “the image of thought” requires of our conceptions of normative political theory, than on enriching the latter with the ideas of the former. For a different kind of interpretation that takes Deleuze’s writings as challenges to conventional political theory, see Widder (2012) and Mackenzie and Porter (2011a, 2011b). I turn to reflecting on Deleuze’s challenge to political theory in the conclusion, where I present Deleuzean political theorizing as a method of dramatization. 24 It should be noted, however, that a common understanding held by the ancient Greeks regarded stupidity as an inability to participate in politics: “For the ancient Greeks, stupidity cannot be seen as belonging to the domain of the political” (Ronell 2002, 40). In the next chapter I will examine in more detail the historical changes in the ways stupidity matters to politics. 25 Jean-Luc Nancy makes this point clear when he states, after quoting Deleuze’s words on stupidity, “Individual stupidity is itself communal. The communal as it is vulgar (profound vulgarity), dull, stupid. Partition of stupidity: what arrives when the meaning itself of partition (of community) is found absent” (Nancy 1988, 18). His reference to Deleuze is noteworthy, for there he employs Deleuze’s words on stupidity in arguing for his central idea of communality (la communauté), the common predicate of the political and philosophical. For his idea of communality, see Nancy (1999). 26 Regarding the debates concerning the historical accuracy of Arendt’s reflection on Eichmann and totalitarianism, as well as the meaning of those two works in Arendt’s entire edifice of political thought, I am deeply indebted to Morikawa’s conclusive study (Morikawa 2010). 27 About this antagonism in Arendt’s thought, see Villa (1999, Chapters  7, 9). He also tries to loosen this antagonism in Villa (2001), where he develops his own idea of “Socratic citizenship.” While I  share his concern for the antagonism between thinking and politics, I believe the antagonism should be displaced rather than loosened once we have another, more convincing conceptualization of thinking. 28 Inspired by recent insights of neuroscience, William Connolly argues that thinking is a “complex, layered activity, with each layer contributing something to an ensemble of dissonant relays and feedback loops between numerous centers” (Connolly 1999, 10, italics mine). What stupidity reveals, I argue, is the moment of such dissonant jolts within thinking. 29 Indeed, the functional, though not semantic, equivalent of Derridean or Levinasian otherness in Deleuze’s philosophical system may be the notion of “minority,” which Deleuze develops in A Thousand Plateaus.

Problematizing 59 30 While many point out the importance to Deleuze’s earlier works for his later, more political works with Guattari, few scholars try to explicate a political philosophy of Difference and Repetition itself. For example, in one of the most conclusive studies on the political philosophy of Deleuze, Patton (2001) mostly focuses on the work with Guattari. While he does not fail to emphasize the importance of Deleuze’s earlier works, Difference and Repetition serves to illuminate his lasting philosophical concerns leading up to What is Philosophy, and his yet-full-fledged political philosophy of power and force is attributed to Nietzsche and Philosophy. As one of the few studies to articulate the political philosophy of Difference and Repetition, see Marrati (2001), who focuses on the idea of “minority.”

2 Tracing Democracy and intensified problematic of stupidity in Rousseau, J. S. Mill, Tocqueville, and Flaubert Introduction Having established the problematic of stupidity in the previous chapter, this chapter contextualizes the problematic by tracing the trajectory in which the location and role of stupidity have changed throughout the history of political thought. The focus of this exploration is to clarify the shift brought about by modern democracy, the prevalent political form under which we live.1 This shift is important not only because we live in a modern democratic society, but also because there is an affinity between democracy and stupidity; democracy, as the rule of people through the opinions of equal individuals, sharpens the problematic of stupidity with its openness to whatever qualities of thought. Simply put, modern democracy internalizes stupidity into the political arena—and this is why we are now all too familiar with accusing “stupid politicians” and “stupid masses.” The problematic of stupidity articulated in the last chapter already alluded to this affinity between stupidity and modern democracy. As Deleuze states, stupidity “is possible by virtue of the link between the Ground and individuation” (Deleuze 1994, 151; 1968, 197), that is, the intersection between the ontological condition of deep plurality and ontic individualities. Democracy, too, becomes possible by virtue of a similar relationship between individual citizens and the collective polity: as individuality stems from the ontological ground—the whole, under democracy, every individual citizen maintains the relationship with her polity as the collective whole.2 In the Rousseauian ideal, each individual partakes of the collective in that the general will stems from the good for all, not from the individual’s independent interest. This is why democracy takes individual opinion seriously; each opinion bears truthfulness as we see opinion as an expression of our general concern, not of individual interest. We can observe a similar structure in the Deleuzean notion of individuation, in which each individuality expresses (though imperfectly) the whole. Moreover, as stupidity subverts the hierarchy of good and bad thinking, the egalitarian idea of democracy disregards the hierarchy between the ruling elites and the blind masses. Simply put, democracy is a form of rule of which the structure is parallel to that of stupidity. By this affinity or parallel between stupidity and democracy, I do not mean that stupidity has nothing to do with other forms of politics such as aristocracy and

Tracing 61 kingship. The problematic of stupidity in political thought is as old as the entire history of political thought itself. In fact, some problems, such as the antagonism between politics and philosophy, can be traced back to the very inception of the tradition of Western political thought, when Socrates was sentenced to death by the Athenian citizenry. Nevertheless, the ways in which specific forms of politics have responded to the problematic of stupidity vary along the span of Western history.3 Although the problematic of stupidity is an ineluctable element of the political, that is, our plurality, the problematic has appeared in different forms depending on particular historical conditions, inciting different sets of corresponding solutions.4 Such solutions, however, have not eradicated the problems to which they respond. Then, what kind of problem does modern democracy formulate out of the problematic, and what kind of solutions do democratic theories offer? In the following, I  single out a quintessential problem that stupidity poses under modern democracy in our use of clichés—the phenomenon in which we spontaneously utter the words of others as if they were the expressions of our own opinions. In the previous chapter I have already demonstrated how individual thought appears as cliché. Now this cliché-making mechanism becomes a political problem under democracy, for democracy makes individual thought—that is, opinion—its basis. In the first half of the chapter, I explore how modern democracy intensifies the problematic of stupidity. Whereas stupidity was subtly excluded from the formal political realm in previous political forms, under modern democracy stupidity becomes a problem with which politics needs to deal within itself. As we shall see in the next section, political thought before the advent of modern democracy, namely ancient Greek society, safeguarded itself from direct engagement with stupidity mainly with two premises that made participation in politics a matter of qualification even under their democratic regime. The first premise mainly appears in Plato’s writings and concerns the knowledge necessary for politics: politics requires not only virtue but also a specific craft (technē) that rulers need to master regardless of their general intellectual capacity. When the Greeks debated the antagonism between philosophy and politics, the debate concerned whether philosophy, rather than rhetoric or other crafts, qualified as the craft for politics. In other words, the debate was not directly between smart philosophy and stupid politics. The second premise, of which exemplary expression I find in Aristotle’s writings, prescribes that participation in politics require qualification. Individuals, or the masses, in themselves are politically irrelevant, so that their thoughts do not matter in politics unless they are directed by communal interests. Under these two premises, stupidity resulting from the interrelatedness between individuality and the ground was barred from politics. Rather, the deficiency of intelligence appeared as idiocy, a deficiency external to politics. The rise of modern democratic ideals—a watershed point I find in Rousseau— dissolved these two premises; now stupidity appears as a problem of politics. In the third section, I  trace this dissolution focusing upon Rousseau’s idea of individuality.5 His celebration of unique and equal individuality, and his conceptualization of a just political order based upon such individuality dissolved

62  Tracing the qualification-based politics. As a consequence of this dissolution, individual opinion, or doxa, matters directly to politics, and stupidity, which is deficient yet endogenous to intelligence, appears as an inherent problem of politics. As I will discuss later in this chapter, Rousseau was a harsh critic of opinions. Nevertheless his new notion of individuality ironically led to the proliferation of mimetic opinions. By analyzing this shift, I also reveal how this internalization makes cliché a new locus of stupidity, as an inherent problem of modern democracy. Having revealed the democratic internalization of stupidity, the second half of the chapter addresses how political thought after Rousseau tackled this new configuration of stupidity. In the fourth section, I focus on J. S. Mill’s and Alexis de Tocqueville’s orientations to the “tyranny of opinion” (Mill 1991, 9) as well as Rousseau’s own response to the problem of people’s opinion-formation. They were more or less inspired by the intensified problematic of stupidity and offered solutions still prevalent among contemporary liberals and democrats. Nonetheless, their proposed solutions appear insufficient to grasp the new configuration, in which democracy, while trying to repel stupid clichés, in fact proliferates them. To go beyond these proposed insufficient solutions, the fifth section turns to Flaubert’s observation of opinion-formation under democracy. Drawing upon his writings, I propose strategies of immanent negotiation as a more sustainable approach than those solutions offered in response to our conditions of stupidity and democracy.

The time of idiocy: externalization of stupidity in political thought before Rousseau To understand the historical shift in the loci of stupidity, we need to briefly look at how political thought before the advent of modern democracy dealt with—or failed to deal with—stupidity. Of course, a detailed analysis of the loci of stupidity throughout the entire history of Western political thought is beyond the scope of this book. While acknowledging the risk of oversimplification, I nonetheless want to focus on a couple of general characteristics that mark a contrast to the loci of stupidity after Rousseau. Namely, my brief sketch summarizes the dominant practice vis-à-vis stupidity as that of externalization of stupidity from politics. By granting that certain people are incapable of the reasoning and judgment necessary for ruling, political thought of the period found the locus of stupidity outside the realm of formal politics. As the consequence of such externalization, the representative figure of stupidity, dim-wittedness, and imbecility appeared as idiocy, or the other of reason. By summarizing more than two thousand years of political thought as the period of externalization, I claim neither that externalization successfully safeguarded politics from stupidity nor that political thought of the period faced no problems related to the problematic of stupidity. There were moments when the problem of stupidity erupted—for example, when satiric authors criticized politics from the outside—drawing upon the viewpoint of the idiot. Moreover, problems such as the relation between philosophy and politics and between the ruling elite and the masses, posed by ancient Greek thinkers

Tracing 63 touched the core of the problematic of stupidity. Nonetheless, two basic assumptions enabled such problems to appear different from the way the problematic troubles us, modern democrats. One is the assumption exemplified in Plato, who maintains the necessity of craft or expertise (technē) in political ruling. The other assumption, of which representative expression I find in Aristotle, concerns the peculiar separation of politics, defined as the realm of communality, and the realm of individuals.6 The political reality of the ancient Greeks does not always reflect these two assumptions. Often those who lacked the necessary expertise dominated the offices, and some leaders acted to pursue their individual interests.7 Yet these two assumptions helped Greek political thought avoid facing the problematic of stupidity. In the following, I clarify these two assumptions, respectively, by examining the ways in which ancient Greek thought posed the problem of philosophy and politics and that of the elite and the masses. The assumption of technē appears mainly in Plato’s texts, while the separation between the communality and the individuality is observable among broader range of thinkers. The antagonism between politics and philosophy, while certainly related to the problematic of stupidity, is not necessarily a direct engagement with stupidity in its Greek formulation. Let us see how the antagonism manifests itself in Plato’s works. Socrates, that is, through the words of Plato, regarded the unexamined life to be worthless, if not stupid. Moreover, Socrates’s preference for the solitary inner dialogue of philosopher over public fame in the polis underscores one fundamental assumption that the problematic of stupidity challenges, that is, the distinction between thought and politics, between solitary reflection and activity among plurality. Plato’s Republic, despite its recommendation of the philosopherking, presents ruling as a duty from which philosophers should, following as long a reign as necessary, return to “the Isles of the Blessed and dwell there” once their “labor” of ruling is over (Republic, 540b). It is not only philosophy that criticized the other—that is, politics—as stupid activity. The antagonism allowed politics as well to ridicule philosophers’ stupid reflection and their inability to deal with people. In Gorgias, Callicles, a spokesman of rhetoric, ridicules the ineptness of philosophers for politics, saying that the philosopher is “inexperienced in the ways of human beings” (Gorgias, 484de). The Socratic question certainly established an archetype of the debate that has stimulated and disturbed the history of political thought up to the present. Nevertheless, one assumption held in Plato’s thought kept this dichotomy between politics and philosophy away from direct engagement with the problematic of stupidity, that is, from questioning the plural, subversive element in thinking. The way Plato debated the relation between politics and philosophy is different from ours; the main point of contention for Plato was over the adequate knowledge and reasoning for participation in politics, not over the necessity of knowledge or reasoning in general.8 While Socrates harshly attacks sophistry and rhetoric in Plato’s dialogues, he shares with his adversaries an assumption that ruling requires mastery of knowledge and reasoning as technē.9 In Gorgias, for example, the debate concerns whether rhetoric qualifies as knowledge necessary for ruling, not the possibility of any such knowledge for ruling. It is based on this

64  Tracing ground that Socrates disavows rhetoric as flattery, the shameful shadow of the craft of legislation (Gorgias, 465a-b). A similar assumption that sees certain reasoning as the prerequisite for ruling is observable in Aristotle as well, despite the difference over the status of phronēsis between him and Plato.10 In developing his well-known formula of the political animal in Politics, Aristotle connects the capacity for ruling with reasoning: “that which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature lord and master” (Aristotle 1996, 1252a) and he “who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature” (1254b).11 For Aristotle, it is beyond doubt that legislators need to be “intelligent” in the sense that such intelligence is considered qualification (1327b).12 With regard to another problem of the dichotomy between the few and the many, or the elite and the masses, too, the ancient Greeks did not debate the political capability of the masses in the same way as did later critics of mass democracy. Certainly, there were numerous remarks lamenting or criticizing the deficient intelligence of the masses in ancient Greek political thought. However, it would be misleading to regard the debate as simply over whether the masses lack intelligence and are vulnerable to doxa or not. If we look at the debate from such simplified antagonism, we cannot, for example, understand Aristotle’s defense of the collective judgment of the many, of “the mass of freemen and citizens” ­(Aristotle 1996, 1281b). Like many of the other thinkers of the period (and probably most of the political thinkers throughout the history of political thought), he was also wary of the intelligence of the many, of a “danger in allowing them to share the great office of state, for their folly will lead them into error, and their disharmony into crime” (1281b). Notwithstanding this danger, he concludes that “if people are not utterly degraded, although individually they may be worse judges than those who have special knowledge, as a body they are as good or better” (1982).13 In fact, his defense of the judgment of the many reveals one assumption common to both his defense and criticism of the masses, an assumption utterly different from ours. Whether he criticizes or defends the many, for him the wisdom and opinion of the many have nothing to do with their proper, or private, individuality. In other words, if their judgment is regarded as deficient, it is neither because judging with others ruins their individual reasoning abilities nor because they are incapable of handling matters distant from their immediate concerns. To the contrary, the judgment of the many can be untrustworthy because they remain individuals, apart from the common (to koinon). It is on this assumption of the deficiency of the individual—not the many, as such—that Aristotle defends the judgment of the many, even though “each individual, left to himself, forms an imperfect judgment” (Aristotle 1996, 1281b).14 The individual, which in Greek is called idiōtēs—the word later becomes “idiot”—is seen to be incapable of participation qua individual in politics, the domain of the common.15 By granting that ruling in politics requires a specific craft of reasoning and that the individual qua individual is deprived of the necessary intelligence for politics, canonical ancient Greek thought located stupidity outside politics, exempting politics and political thought from direct engagement with the problematic of

Tracing 65 stupidity, or at least from the way we face the problematic in modern democracy. For the potential problematicity of thinking activity itself becomes a secondary concern in the debate over the desirable skill of reasoning, and individuals’ opinions do not matter to politics under the division between the individual and the common. If people evaluate opinion (doxa), the evaluation rests on the entitlement of those who present their opinions or the shared custom preserved in opinions (see Peters 1995, 4–6). The relations among politics, thinking, and individuals being defined as such, the phenomenon of stupid thought was to be found outside the formal realm of politics. As previously mentioned, the ancient Greeks held an individual living in the private realm to be idiōtēs, the word that is the origin both of “individual” (idio signifies individual) and “idiot”.16 Even though idiōtēs for the Greeks did not mean idiot as we know it, the word suggests how it came to stand as a representative figure of deficient intelligence. With this shift of meaning, idiot came to represent the other of reason as well as of politics.17 Within this antagonism between idiot on the one hand and reason and politics on the other, stupidity as an endogenous problem of reason and politics would not be posed as an urgent question. It is true that this antagonism does not necessarily mean that idiocy expresses no voice against politics or reason. Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly, for example, renders folly the other of reason, and human society a satirical role to criticize the hidden and real folly of the latter (Erasmus 2003). Such criticism, however, is based upon the rhetoric of reversal, which overturns the hierarchy between reason and folly, without questioning the very division between reason, or human society, on the one hand and idiocy on the other.18 In other words, phenomena such as folly, idiocy, and imbecility did not appear in politics or thinking, as proper and endogenous problems. This practice of exclusion underwent gradual dissolution with the rise of new political thought after the seventeenth century. Individual judgments of those who had been unqualified to participate in politics came to play crucial roles. With this shift, individual opinion (doxa) was no longer the other of reason. Instead, individual opinion became internally connected to the reason. This new status of opinion means for politics more straightforward confrontation with the emergence of the category of stupidity—opinion that is neither true nor wrong. Now stupidity came close to appearing in the realm of formal politics as a problem, shaking its ground. However, it was not until Rousseau’s time of writing that stupidity appearing in our doxa, or opinions, became an urgent political problem and condition with which to be dealt. Hobbes’s notion of the natural right, for example, overturned the classical order of politics that had starkly divided the realm of politics (as that of commonality and communality) and the individual. The natural right of the individual, according to Hobbes, lies in freely preserving one’s life according to one’s own reason and judgment (Hobbes 1994, 115). Individual reason and judgment, though their dominion is limited to the individual’s life in the state of nature, are now located within the realm of reason, not outside it. This natural right over one’s own use of reason and judgment does not necessarily

66  Tracing mean the dissolution of a hierarchy of thought. Indeed, as we will see, stupidity appears problematic to Hobbes only to a limited extent, so that stupidity does not destabilize commonwealth. Yet, it is noteworthy that Hobbes, presumably under the influence of skeptic philosophy, acknowledges the diversity of individual ideas.19 According to Hobbes, “[t]he things desired, feared, hoped, &c” vary according to “the constitution of individuals and their educations,” even though we can analyze the similitude of the mechanism in which variety of thought and passions are formulated and govern a “whole nation” by reading such similitude (Hobbes 1994, 4).20 With this acknowledgment of the variety in thoughts, politics now faces a kind of thought that is neither right nor wrong. Indeed, it is partly due to such variety that the state of nature remains the state of war. While other animals lacking reason know of no difficulty in formulating society, Hobbes wrote, the very reliance on reason by human beings puts them into the state of war. For, amongst men there are very many that think themselves wiser, and abler to govern the public, better than the rest; and these strive to reform and innovate, one this way, another that way; and thereby bring it into distraction and civil war. (Hobbes 1994, 108) In this way, people’s “stupidity” becomes a threat to commonwealth: “Thus stupidity and eloquence unite to subvert the commonwealth” (Hobbes 1998, 140, italics in original).21 The confrontation of stupidity, however, is not a lasting condition for Hobbes’s commonwealth. The sovereign’s rule extends beyond the mere material lives of his people, including their judgment and opinions: [I]t is annexed to the sovereignty to be judge of what opinions and doctrines are averse, and what conducing, to peace; and consequently, on what occasions, how far, and what men are to be trusted withal, in speaking to multitudes of people, and who shall examine the doctrine of all books before they be published. For the actions of men proceed from their opinions, and in the well-governing of opinions consisteth the well-governing of men’s actions, in order to their peace and concord. (Hobbes 1998, 113) The feasibility of such domination is not important here.22 What is crucial for our exploration of the shifting loci of stupidity is the limited role given to people’s opinions in Hobbes’s thought. In the Hobbesian system, opinions matter only concerning one’s own individual life even in the state of nature, playing no role in the establishment of commonwealth or its governance (Mansfield 1971, 99–103).23 The emerging idea of public opinion in the political thought of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries did not break the divisions between political

Tracing 67 reasoning and private opinion, between qualified public personality and the mere individual. John Locke, for instance, presents “law of opinion” (Locke 1996, 152) as one source of social authority in addition to divine and civil laws. In so doing, he anticipates civil society, or what Habermas calls the “bourgeois public sphere” (Habermas 1991, 89–102; Koselleck 1988, 53–61), but to a limited extent. As Habermas points out, Locke’s law of opinion, lacking a critical, that is, reflective, function to be exercised in deliberation, signifies no more than private men’s “ ‘habits’ that later on public opinion would critically oppose as prejudices” (Habermas 1991, 92).24 For individual opinions to become a basis of political reasoning, it took Rousseau’s radical dissolution of the divisions between individual opinion and truth, and between individuality and commonality/communality.

The time of stupidity: Rousseau and the internalization of stupidity under modern democracy As seen in the previous section, political thought in ancient Greece externalized stupidity from the formal political arena with two assumptions: one assumption defines politics as a matter of technē, certain knowledge and skill, and the other divides commonality in the public realm from individuality in the private. As a result, Greeks saw stupidity outside of politics, as unqualified idiocy. The advent of modern thought in the seventeenth century shook the ground of qualificationbased politics, but only to a limited extent. Thus, their dissolution of the ancient presumptions did not go so far as to problematize stupidity as a political problem as we see it in contemporary politics. The emergence of modern democracy, however, changed the political landscape that safeguarded politics away from direct and constant engagement with stupidity. By granting individual opinion with equal political value, modern democracy dissolves the two qualifications that were necessary for political participation. First, politics ceases to be a secluded realm requiring special skill or knowledge. Although calls for the skills necessary for politicians have not become extinct, even these calls cannot deny that politics, as far as it remains democratic, must be accountable to ordinary people. Second, individual opinion is now seen as a base of political deliberation. Under this new form of politics, idiocy turns into stupidity within politics. In this section, I  trace the dissolution and the problematization of stupidity through examining Rousseau’s texts. Why Rousseau? At first glance, his work may seem to offer strong counterarguments against my thesis regarding the internalization of stupidity under democracy. Rousseau is not a simple exponent of democracy as we know it. The ideal political community he admires is Sparta. Democracy, he states in The Social Contract, is a form that is not only difficult to maintain in a large community but also vulnerable to civil strife. According to him, such a form of government is suited only for “a people of Gods” (Rousseau 1997e, 92; 3:406). Indeed, his ideas of the general will and lawgiver are subject to relentless criticisms as proto-totalitarian elements by democrats despite his influence upon modern democratic thought.25 Accompanying such non- or antidemocratic ideas is his strong distrust for opinion, which he regards a collusive

68  Tracing illness in the society of his time. Rousseau argues that his general will, in which there is no room for individual opinions, frees people from stupidity. According to his description, the emergence of the civil state via social contract is “the happy moment that .  .  .  out of a stupid and bounded animal [un animal stupide et borné] made an intelligent being and a man” (Rousseau 1997e, 53; 3:364, italics mine). Furthermore, he does not so much think highly of reason as sentiment. Thus it might seem misleading to locate Rousseau as a key figure in the history of political stupidity. Notwithstanding all this counterevidence, Rousseau’s orientation toward equal individuality marks a departure that changed the political configuration of stupidity. By basing morality and politics upon the individual consciousness that is stripped of any title or qualification, Rousseau turned individual—a former idiōtēs—into a basic component of politics. At the same time, idiocy as the exemplary shadow of intelligence, as the outside of reason, came to be replaced by stupidity as the exemplar of intelligence located within reason. Hobbes already initiated this modification by granting natural right over individual reason and the individual. Yet, in Hobbes’s political thought, individual reason and judgment had no broader political significance except over one’s own preservation in the state of nature. In contrast, Rousseau’s individual conscience bears a communal significance beyond oneself, for a larger community or even for general humankind. In other words, individuals participate in politics qua individuals.26 Formerly seen as the other of reason, idiocy—deficient individual opinion—now turns into what Robert Musil calls a “big and little sister of reason” within politics (Musil 1990, 269). Rousseau and other democrats are no different in founding their respective political ideals upon this new notion of equal individuality. Or rather, as I will show in the next section, the anti-democratic measures in Rousseau’s political thought are nothing but responses to problems caused by his own new notion of individuality. With such a hypothetical perspective, I want to interpret Rousseau’s texts contra his own responses, to identify the content and effect of the fundamental shift he brings about with regard to individuality. In the following, I first examine how Rousseauian individuality dissolves the traditional assumptions of the necessity of skill in politics and of the division between commonality and private realms. Then, by focusing on its internal mechanism, I analyze how Rousseauian individuality, despite its hostility to the world of mimetic opinions, leads to the proliferation of clichés—the new problem of stupidity. Rousseau’s new orientation toward individuality is a product of the fundamental motif that drives his diverse writings—vindication of human freedom and innocence.27 Multiple strands of his thought, despite alleged mutual inconsistencies among them (such as the incongruence between the Second Discourse’s natural man and The Social Contract’s citizen), all result from his conviction that man is in his proper nature free and innocent, a conviction that he articulates into the well-known formula at the beginning of The Social Contract: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” (Rousseau 1997e, 41; 3:351). Similar diagnoses

Tracing 69 are abundant throughout his writings. For example, Discourse on the Science and Arts, in identifying the source of unfreedom in science and arts, deploys a similar expression, to which Rousseau responds with a different solution: “While the Government and the Laws see to the safety and well-being of men assembled, the Sciences, Letters and Arts, less despotic and perhaps more powerful, spread garlands of flowers over the iron chains with which they are laden” (Rousseau 1997c, 6; 3:9, italics mine). This diagnosis of man in chains is coupled with the assertion of the righteousness of individual consciousness in one’s original state, of each untrammeled individual. In Emile’ s “Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” he celebrates his notion of individuality as the following: Conscience, conscience! Divine instinct, immortal and celestial voice, assured guide of a being that is ignorant and limited but intelligent and free, infallible judge of good and evil, which makes man similar to the Gods; it is you alone that makes up the excellence of my nature. Without you I feel nothing in myself that raises me above the beasts, except for the sad privilege of leading myself astray from error to error with the aid of an understanding without rule and reason without principle. (Rousseau 1979a, 290; 4:600, italics mine)28 It is noteworthy that Rousseau sees that the individual can rise “above the beasts,” that is, beyond stupidity. In fact, it is by having consciousness that Rousseau’s individual risks becoming stupid. This celebration of individual consciousness as the “infallible” judge departs from the qualification-based orientation toward politics that Ancient Greek political thought exemplified. First, this individual consciousness dissociates the capacity for judgment from specific skill, founding the latter instead onto “ignorant” conscience. While, for example, Aristotle disqualifies political participation of common individual because not everybody is equipped with the necessary skill for ruling (phronēsis) or educated for it, Rousseau sees in the natural consciousness the source of judgment. For Rousseau, goodness and freedom of man lies in the natural individual without any specific quality, that is, what Deleuze calls “man without name” (Deleuze 1994, 90–91; 1968, 122). Thus, at the beginning of The Social Contract, Rousseau proudly claims his entitlement as an ordinary citizen in discussing politics as an ordinary person: “I shall be asked whether I am a prince or a lawgiver that I write on Politics? I reply not, and that is why I write on Politics” (Rousseau 1997e, 41; 3:351). Following this statement Rousseau finds his justification to discuss politics in his suffrage—that is, qualification—in a particular community: Born a citizen of a free State, and a member of the sovereign, the right to vote in it is enough to impose on me the duty to learn about political affairs, regardless of how weak might be the influence of my voice on them. (Rousseau 1997e, 41; 3:351)

70  Tracing However, it would be misleading to ascribe this justification solely to his attachment to Geneva.29 Rather, Rousseau’s project, including his political writings, is ultimately founded upon the recovery of the freedom and goodness of the individual. Secondly, this individual but equal distribution of consciousness dissolves the separation between individuality and communality in the tradition of political thought. Individuals are no longer idiōtēs outside community. Instead, they take on a certain communal, if not public, quality while remaining separated.30 The beginning paragraph of Confessions presents a most audacious expression of this communal quality of individual consciousness: I am resolved on an undertaking that has no model and will have no imitator. I want to show my fellow-men a man in all the truth of nature; and this man is to be myself. Myself alone. I feel my heart and I know men. I am not made like any that I have seen; I venture to believe that I was not made like any that exist. If I am not more deserving, at least I am different. As to whether nature did well or ill to break the mold in which I was cast, that is something no one can judge until they have read me. Let the trumpet of judgment sound when it will, I will present myself with this book in my hand before the Supreme Judge. I will say boldly: “Here is what I have done, what I have thought, what I was. I have told the good and the bad with equal frankness. I  have concealed nothing that was ill, added nothing that was good, and if I have sometimes used some indifferent ornamentation, this has only ever born to fill a void occasioned by my lack of memory; I may have supposed to be true what I know could have been so, never what I know to be false. I have shown myself as I was, contemptible and vile when that is how I was, good, generous, sublime, when that is how I was; I have disclosed my innermost self as you alone know it to be. Assemble about me, Eternal Being, the numberless host of my fellow-men; let them hear my confessions, let them groan at my unworthiness, let them blush at my wretchedness. Let each of them, here on the steps of your throne, in turn reveal his heart with the same sincerity; and then let one of them say to you, if he dares: I was better than that man.” (Rousseau 2000, 5; 1:5, italics in original) The above paragraphs demonstrate the characteristics of Rousseau’s individuality in their eloquence, and they evince the paradoxical impasse of the same individuality in its complexity, the impasse that perpetually disturbs the realization of the ideal of individuality while inciting the desire for the ideal. Rousseau’s individual claims importance because of its uniqueness. The underlying tone of the paragraphs is Rousseau’s conviction of the uniqueness of his individuality. Not only does he embrace the difference between himself and others, but he also maintains novelty in writing Confessions, though it is unlikely that he was unaware of previous works, including Montaigne’s Essays and Augustine’s

Tracing 71 Confession. Nevertheless, his individuality is not simply distinctive in its difference from others. Rather, it is distinctive in that he is convinced of the value of his uniqueness to others. You, Rousseau asserts, should know Jean-Jacques. On the very first page of Confessions, he asks readers the following: Whoever you may be, whom destiny or my trust has made the arbiter of the fate of these notebooks, I entreat you, in the name of my misfortunes, of your compassion, and of all human kind, not to destroy a unique and useful work. (Rousseau 2000, 3; 1:3, italics mine)31 It is such conviction about the general importance of each separate individual that distinguishes Confessions from its predecessors.32 Augustine, for example, starts his Confession by humbly begging for God’s mercy to talk of himself: “[A] llow me to speak before your mercy, though I am but dust and ashes (Gen. 18: 27). Allow me to speak: for I am addressing your mercy, not a man who would laugh at me” (Augustine 1998, 6, italics mine). As worthless as “dust and ashes,” he addresses his Confessions to God. Nearly twelve hundred years after Augustine, Michel de Montaigne inserts at the beginning of his Essays a brief message to readers in which the assertion of his humbleness is not entirely different from Augustine’s. “This book was written in good faith,” Montaigne excuses, “in it I have set myself no goal but a domestic and private one. I have had no thought of serving either you or my own glory” (Montaigne 1965, 2, italics mine). While both Augustine and Montaigne do not address their inward reflections to their readers and remain humble about the values of their individual stories, Rousseau embraces the communal value of his story. We should not ascribe this to mere differences in their personal dispositions. The humbleness of Augustine or Montaigne may disguise expressions of their audacities, as Rousseau criticizes “the false naivety” of Montaigne, who, “while pretending to confess his faults, is very careful to give himself only lovable ones” (Rousseau 2000, 505; 1:516–17). Yet, what is more important than the sincerity of each author is the structure of narrative that enables Rousseau to proudly claim the need for us to know his authentic self.33 We should not take his statement solely as the expression of the invention of a new inward self.34 While Rousseau is anxious that readers recognize his inner, authentic self, his statement goes beyond mere yearning for recognition toward the need for others to understand him in the general interest of human beings. Why, then, does he believe in the importance of his Confessions for others? The world needs to know the unique story of Jean-Jacques, despite all his differences from other men, because it presents the truth. The truth here does not only mean the truthfulness of his narrative but also the truth of man in general: “I  want to show my fellow-men a man in all the truth of nature” (Rousseau 2000, 5; 1:5, italics mine). As previously mentioned, Rousseau regards individuals to be equally free and good in nature. For him, all constraints and vices stem from society. While Jean-Jacques may look vile to others, his innermost self, his conscience/consciousness—in the French language, the word conscience means

72  Tracing both—preserves the natural goodness that is equally attributed to each individual. The purpose of Confessions is to vindicate the innocence of human beings through presenting his own authentic inner self that vile society never understands. Simply put, his authentic individuality, while unique in its existence and separated from others by the veil society imposes upon them, bears communal quality by virtue of its natural goodness.35 Therefore, narration of his personal history, that is, his conflictive interaction with society, is intended to reveal human innocence as well as the vice and unfreedom of society. Or, more precisely, Rousseau’s confession attains universal communality by explicating the crystallization of Jean-Jacques, a unique individual. For it is only through his conflict with society that he can show his innocence. As Starobinski illustrates, to vindicate human innocence and goodness, Rousseau presents his “beautiful soul” isolated from society: The proposition that society is the opposite of nature leads immediately to the statement: I am opposed to society. . . . Society is collectively the negation of nature; Jean-Jacques would make himself, as a solitary individual, the negation of society. (Starobinski 1988, 37, italics in original) Now it is clear how Rousseau’s individuality dissolves the second assumption concerning the separation between communality and individuality. While Aristotle regarded idiōtēs to be constrained in their private, individual concerns, Rousseau’s individuality is connected with the whole human being qua unique individual; now individual opinion matters as a general public concern because of its natural goodness preserved in unique individuality against vile society. By virtue of this connection, one’s inner judgment attains common and communal value. In Logic of Sense, Deleuze finds in Rousseau the emergence of a new mode of enunciation. Rousseauian orientation grounds language upon the “finite synthetic unity of the person” so that “the I and representation” coexist (Deleuze 1990, 138; 1969, 163).36 While the Platonic philosopher achieves truthfulness of his words by ascending from the individual constrained in a cave to the infinite world of Ideas, that is, by stripping off the particularities that constrain him, Rousseau’s unique individuality grounds the infinite world of representation upon his unique individuality against society.37 Rousseau’s orientation does not only dissolve the two qualifications that sustained ancient political thought’s externalization of stupidity, it also has some resonance with the problematic of stupidity. First, by finding the source of our good judgment in individual conscience that “may be ignorant but infallible” (Rousseau 1979a, 290; 4:600), his individuality does not allow the establishment of a hierarchy between sophisticated and base thought, at least concerning its qualification; individual consciousness is no longer doxa as opposed to epistēmē. Second, by finding a communal moment in the speech of the individual, it displaces the simple antagonism between the one and the many. This similarity suggests Rousseau’s problematization of stupidity; by sharing similar orientations, Rousseau’s thought makes stupidity an internal problem that cannot easily wither

Tracing 73 away. Such problematization or internalization, however, does not mean that Rousseau’s thought is stupid or that Rousseau affirms stupidity. Indeed, Rousseau’s words deny or suppress stupidity. While he embraces ignorance of individual conscience, for example, he calls it an “infallible judge” (Rousseau 1979a, 290; 4:600), putting aside the possibility that conscience can be erroneous or even stupid. Rousseau also holds that the goodness of individual conscience, despite its general relevance to others, is maintained in its solitude from others. In the opening paragraph of Confessions, for example, he writes “myself alone.” This separation counters the second thesis of stupidity. In fact, as we have seen, society—interactions among plural people—is rather the source of evil. As he expounds in the Second Discourse, natural men, while enjoying their respective freedom at an early stage of history under the condition of scattered living, fell into chains of unfreedom and vice once they entered society. Through the need for communication, they acquired language that made them intelligent, and at the same time, “imbecile” (Rousseau 1997b, 141; 3:142). The same diagnosis sets the tone of The Social Contract despite its proposal of ideal political society. People assemble to construct sovereignty through general will, but in this assembly they do not communicate with one another. “If, when an adequately informed people deliberates, the Citizens had no communication among themselves, the general will would always result from the large number of small differences, and the deliberation would always be good” (Rousseau 1997e, 60; 3:371, italics mine). Communication is corrosive to human freedom because it makes people subject to the opinions of others. As noted in the previous chapter (and as I will illustrate in the following), stupidity forms the world of monotonous opinions, or clichés. Given Rousseau’s criticism of people’s subjugation to uniform opinions, should we rather regard the diverse visions Rousseau proposes, namely the social contract, as in line with the same strategy as those offered before him, that is, to externalize people’s stupidity outside of politics? Notwithstanding his thorough criticism against opinion—products of stupid intelligence of men in society (the Second Discourse)—and notwithstanding his firm conviction that citizens cannot be stupid (The Social Contract), I maintain that Rousseau’s thought contributes to the internalization of stupidity in political thought after him. He is a paradoxical protagonist of stupidity in that his notion of individuality, while meant to repel subjugation to opinions, leads to the proliferation of opinions, which then turn into clichés; that is, into received ideas. To see this ironical effect of Rousseau’s thought, I  want to again focus on his notion of individuality. This paradoxical effect of Rousseau’s individuality originates in its double characteristics of uniqueness and universality. As previously mentioned, Rousseau holds that each unique individual bears universal communality through attesting to the natural goodness and freedom of human beings. The uniqueness does not contradict its universal commonality and communality, but rather they sustain each other within Rousseau’s conviction: human beings are born free but everywhere in chains. To vindicate this maxim, Rousseau appeals to his authentic uniqueness as evidence but only on the condition that it is hidden to society. In a sense, the power of his argumentation depends upon the

74  Tracing extent to which society misunderstands him. Because Jean-Jacques is “not made like any that exist” (Rousseau 2000, 5; 1:5) in the corrupt society of his time, he can claim his authentic goodness, which has not been contaminated by the evil of society. Here lies a dilemma of Rousseau’s individuality; because this individual is hidden from society, he can show his authenticity and natural goodness through perpetual conflict with the society around him. If society starts to understand him, such reconciliation means vile society contaminates his authentic individuality. Thus, the conflict in the relationship needs to be perpetuated; revelation and recognition of unique individuality will never be achieved. This subverted logic, moreover, drives the individual into an inauthentic pursuit of authenticity. Pressed by the fear of being assimilated into society, or the realm of imbecility, Jean-Jacques acts against its expectations and morals. But his revolt is inauthentic in that his passive reaction against society is still under the influence of society. As a result, his behavior becomes theatrical, or even mimetic. It is theatrical in that Rousseau needs to mold his individuality in an antagonistic relationship with society (thus, he needs to produce conflicts with society). And his theatrical behavior becomes imitative: in presenting his innocent individuality, he models it following examples of imaginary or historical heroic people. Focusing on Rousseau’s obsession with imaginary lives and pseudonym, Starobinski states: With few exceptions, he never sought to hide his true identity but instead to acquire a new identity and make it his own. He donned masks not to dupe others but to change his own life. When Rousseau lies, he believes in his lies, just as he believed he had become Tasso while reading Gerusalemma Liberata and Roman while reading Plutarch. Rousseau becomes absorbed in his fiction to such a degree that no hiatus remains between the old “reality” that he leaves behind and the fiction that fascinates him. (Starobinski 1988, 59) Starobinski’s observation would be entirely applicable to Emma Bovary, the heroin of stupidity whom I discuss later in this chapter. The irony here is that Rousseau, while criticizing the imbecility of society where people are subject to deceptive opinions, becomes subject to the image of others. In so doing, Rousseau’s criticism of imbecile society translates the imbecility into the logic of authenticity and intensifies it. In fact, Rousseau’s imbecile subjugation is more formidable: while people in society—in salons, at court—play with opinions as masks, Rousseau believes his mask to be an authentic expression of himself. With this confusion, or dissolution of the distinction between fiction and reality, imbecility of deceptive opinion turns into the stupidity of cliché, in which we can no longer distinguish opinions qua masks and authentic opinions: the Rousseauian individual speaks and lives the opinion of others without knowing it. The same dilemma appears in Rousseau’s orientation to language and communication. Rousseau’s vindication of universal human goodness with unique individuality faces a fundamental difficulty when it attempts to express such

Tracing 75 individuality. If people in society are “in chains” and if, as such, those people as a whole are antagonistic to Rousseau, how can he persuade them of his authenticity with unveiled eyes? In terms of communication, the difficulty of Rousseau’s project lies in finding an authentic language uncorrupted by opinions. As previously seen, for Rousseau, language is a critical moment that turns good and free people in nature into those unfree and corrupted with vanity and opinions. Then, are not Rousseau’s own narration, expression, and communication, too, subject to this corruptive quality of language and opinions? At the level of internal conviction, Rousseau can rely on the simple fact that society is against him. Standing, or purged outside society, he can claim for his authenticity as a reservoir of natural goodness of human beings. However, as soon as he starts showing his authenticity to others, the simple antagonism between corrupt society and innocent individual becomes untenable. Now Rousseau as an author needs to enter society again, showing his innocence through the medium of corrupt society, the language of opinions. Rousseau is not ignorant of this difficulty of communication. Indeed, he talks of a “melodic language” as another, authentic language different from our degenerated imitative language. According to his “Essay on the Origin of Languages,” this melodic language, as a primitive form closer to the origin of language, enables people to communicate their immediate passions without distorting them by virtue of the power of sensuous melody, while our contemporary language is a degenerate form that, having lost its sensuous melodious quality, is able not to move or persuade people but only to preach sermons (Rousseau 1997a, 295–99; 5:424–29).38 However, he cannot dissolve the difficulty of communication by appealing to the melodious language. For, the language has already degenerated so thoroughly that the “final catastrophe occurred which destroyed the progress of the human spirit” (Rousseau 1997a, 296; 5:425). The melodious language is no longer available. Rousseau seems to retain the prospect of turning the degenerate language back into the melodious language; indeed, he writes in a style designed to do so. The idea of the lawgiver in The Social Contract echoes this hope when Rousseau presents himself as a genius who, equipped with the power to change human nature itself, could give entirely new institutions and laws to people.39 Nonetheless, the lawgiver does not solve the difficulty of communication either. As Rousseau himself admits: “The wise who would speak to the vulgar in their own rather than in the vulgar language will not be understood by them” (Rousseau 1997b, 70; 3:383). Even if the lawgiver or genius could deliver authentic language to people, s/he needs to address it in the inauthentic language people use. In the end, this difficulty pushed Rousseau toward the denunciation of communication with others in Reveries of the Solitary Thinker. Written as a “return to the rigorous and sincere self-examination that I  formerly called my Confession,” the Reveries no longer wished to gain the public’s support: “Everything external is henceforth foreign to me. I no longer have any neighbors, fellow-men or brothers in this world” (Rousseau 1979b, 31–32; 1:999). However, we, the readers, are tempted to ask: why did he keep writing?

76  Tracing Despite his disavowal of the reading public, the very fact that Rousseau wrote the Reveries shows his yearning and dependence on communication.40 Instead of exploring Rousseau’s personal trajectory, here I want to focus on the effect Rousseau’s orientation toward individuality had for the subsequent period, the time of democracy. Rousseau’s legacy lies in his liberation of speech and call for individual authenticity. As we have seen, Rousseau’s orientation toward individuality is different from that of his predecessors in its universal significance. The universality here does not only refer to that of Rousseau’s unique individual, but also to that of its need for everybody. His appeal to readers in the first paragraphs of Confession attempts to awaken others by calling for their judgment of Jean-Jacques. Those readers can do so because they, too, can be unique individuals when they are apart from the vile society around them (this is a conclusion from the aforementioned premise that natural human beings are free and innocent). Rousseau’s appeal asks everybody to become unique individuals. However, as individuals, readers need to be able to narrate their own unique stories because, as seen above, the hallmark of uniqueness depends on such a narrative. Awakened by Rousseau’s confession, a multitude of readers starts to narrate their own stories, believing themselves to be unique.41 Yet, their narrations are prone to the same difficulty of communication as Rousseau faced: though they believe in authenticity, they lack ability to distinguish their authentic voices from inauthentic ones. Indeed, the very fact of their being awakened to become individuals shows their fundamental dependence on another’s opinion. Does Rousseau not say that his Confessions would not have any “imitator”? And Rousseau’s pursuit of authenticity itself slides into inauthentic imitation of others. In terms of its effect, Confessions rather marks the birth of a time when everybody speaks in the voice of others, which they believe to be their proper and authentic voices. Such proliferation of opinions is the consequence of Rousseau’s individuality. Intended to rescue “infallible” conscience from the stupid opinions of society, Rousseau’s individuality paradoxically results in the proliferation of stupid opinions, that is, the voice of others now enunciated as the authentic voices of individuals’ uniqueness. Simply put, Rousseau turned the idiocy located outside politics and reason for idiocy into stupidity within them. This proliferation of individual voices is congruent with democracy. It is congruent not only because of Rousseau’s influence upon democratic thought or the importance of individual opinion for democratic politics. Rather, more importantly, we experience such a proliferation of voices because democracy is based upon the equal individuality Rousseau espouses. The Rousseauian equal individuality I have explored so far is constituted of three moments: nobodiness, everybodiness, and becoming-ness. First, the individual is nobody because vile society hides his true nature. Second, the individual is also everybody by virtue of the common human goodness preserved in authenticity. Third, to reveal and attain authenticity, the individual needs to become somebody different from nobody. These triangulated moments of individuality constitute what Sieyès ascribes to

Tracing 77 “the Third Estate,” the democratic sovereign, in his manifesto of democracy, What is the Third Estate?, written under the influence of Rousseau.42 The first page of the manifesto reads: The plan of this work is quite simple. There are three questions that we have to ask of ourselves: 1 2 3

What is the Third Estate?—Everything What, until now, has it been in the existing political order?—Nothing What does it want to be?—Something (Sieyès 2003, 94)

The subject here is the entity rather than the individual. But what is more important is the parallel structure between the Rousseauian individual and the democratic subject. Sieyès’s formulation is only made possible by the structure of individuality which Rousseau’s writings exemplified. And the result of such democratic orientation to the Third Estate and individual is, as we will see in the following sections, the proliferation of voices in which authenticity is always indiscernible from inauthentic imitation.43

Solutions to democratic stupidity: Rousseau, J. S. Mill, and Tocqueville Having clarified the historical shift in the configuration of stupidity in politics from externalization to internalization, in this section I  examine reactions in political thought to this new configuration, including Rousseau’s lawgiver, John Stuart Mill’s liberal individuality, and Tocqueville’s association.44 Political thought after Rousseau did not entirely fail to notice this new constellation of stupidity in politics, the constellation caused by the ideal of the notion of equal individuality. If the word “stupidity” rarely appeared in their writings, some of the central problems the post-Rousseauian political thinkers tackled, such as the capacity of judgment of an ignorant mass, the predicament of individualism, and the tyranny of opinion stem from this new constellation. Furthermore, their diagnoses and proposed solutions have been providing perspectives under which the influential ideas of political theory operate today, including Kantian impartial morality, Schmittean decisionism, liberal individuality, and civil society. Nevertheless, their respective diagnoses, I argue, fail to acknowledge the condition of stupidity, the condition that the very idea of individual opinion making, while meant to repel the stupid opinions of others, reproduces stupid clichés. Consequently, their solutions do not adequately respond to the manifestations of the problematic of stupidity in democratic politics. This insufficiency bears a fundamental implication for political theorizing: the need to turn a mode of political theorizing from solving problems to negotiating problems. The insufficiency of these solutions attests to the ineluctable quality of stupidity, rather than faults inherent to the specific solutions. Although these thinkers acknowledge the difficulty of solving

78  Tracing the problem once and for all, their orientations are still directed toward solution. If the problem of stupidity is ineluctable, it implies the need to negotiate the problem rather than to give solutions.

Rousseau’s lawgiver It was Rousseau himself that responded to the very constellation his writings exemplified. Moreover, the impasse of Rousseau’s solution—the lawgiver— implies the need for negotiation, which post-Rousseauian political thought in the nineteenth century addresses but does not fully develop. Nonetheless, by establishing an entirely new society via political measure, Rousseau’s solution faces an impasse. His impasse suggests that political theory should negotiate in realms other than that of formal, institutionalized politics—that is, in the realm of society. A reaction to the internalized stupidity is already observable in The Social Contract, at two junctures, of which the second theoretically precedes the first.45 The first concerns the difficulty of distinguishing the general will from the will of all, or public interest from private interest. People can make errors; they cannot always discern the public interest, as they could confuse it with the aggregation of private interests. This difficulty of distinguishing the two is troubling for democratic theories. How can we reason and reach the correct public interest, when democratic politics are often governed by the aggregative democracy of private interests? On the theoretical level, however, theorists pose promising solutions. For Rousseau, the distinction can be made by letting individuals stay true to their individual authentic, proper voices. It is true that Rousseau’s solution provoked a series of dissatisfaction and alternative solutions. How can we identify what is proper to each? Dissatisfied with Rousseau’s answer, Habermas and deliberative democrats turn to Kant, introducing, instead, the impartial moral standpoint of “what is proper to each.” Habermas’s solution echoes in his narrative of the development of the “bourgeois public sphere” (Habermas 1991), in which he regards the Kantian notion of critique as an appropriate antidote to Rousseau’s lack of critical attitude.46 Surely, Habermas and the deliberative democrats are not entirely satisfied with Kant, for whom moral imperative can introduce the despotism of (moral) truth. The difficulty can be solved by introducing a discourse ethics, or public deliberation, that helps us to agree on reasonable morality beyond respective private interests. Thus, the problem seems to be solved. In fact, the second juncture in Rousseau runs deeper, limiting the relevance and the scope of these solutions. At the second juncture, such resolution is not available. The second difficulty, the problem of “blind multitude,” concerns the very capacity of people’s judgment: “How will a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wills because it rarely knows what is good for it, carry out an undertaking as great and as difficult as a system of legislation? By itself the people always wills the good, but by itself it does not always see it. The general will is always upright, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened” (Rousseau 1997e, 68;

Tracing 79 3:380, italics mine). Unable to judge, the blindness of the multitude disavows the above solutions to the first altogether. The problem here does not concern correct reasoning, but rather, the existence of such a body that reasons. How can we first reach an agreement to establish the polity, whereby constituencies start reasoning? Lacking such body, “[a]ll are equally in need of guides” (Rousseau 1997e, 68; 3:380). Rousseau’s own solution to this blindness is the lawgiver. The lawgiver, with whom Rousseau compares “the mechanic who invents the machine” (Rousseau 1997e, 69; 3:381), creates law with his extraordinary intelligence. As an extraordinary figure, the lawgiver is external to the people: “In a word, he must take from man his forces in order to give him fares which are foreign to him and of which he cannot make use without the help of others” (Rousseau 1997e, 69; 3:381–82). In a broader perspective, the lawgiver anticipates two notions in the Western thought after Rousseau. One is the idea of genius. The idea of the lawgiver as a godlike figure whose gift surpasses that of ordinary people and whose originality does not allow imitation resonates with the idea of genius that the German Romantics developed under the influence of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. The other legacy of Rousseau’s lawgiver is the political paradox that lies behind diverse problems such as the Schmittean political decisionism. This is the chicken-and-egg paradox in which there needs to be good people to have good laws, which are supposed to come from good people. To break this paradox, thinkers such as Schmitt call for a sovereign decisionistic instance that initiates order, and more importantly, people. In both cases, this problem of the blind multitude and the solution of lawgiver attest to the long-lasting desire (as well as difficulty) for sovereignty, for a radical founder. The lawgiver, however, cannot solve the very question Rousseau poses. As Connolly and Honig point out, the problem of the blind multitude poses the issue of the chicken and the egg. It is actually a paradox. Rousseau himself touches upon the paradoxical nature of the problem when he identifies the impasse of the lawgiver (see Connolly 2004, ch. 5; Honig 2009, ch. 1). Because the extraordinary wisdom of the lawgiver is foreign to people, Rousseau states, “The wise who would speak to the vulgar in their own rather than in the vulgar language will not be understood by them” (Rousseau 1997e, 70; 3:382). To bridge this gap, Rousseau claims that the lawgiver needs the authority of God: This sublime reason [of the lawgiver] which rises beyond the reach of vulgar men it is whose decisions the lawgiver places in the mouth of the immortals, in order to rally by divine authority those whom human prudence could not move. (Rousseau 1997e, 71; 3:383–84) He wants the lawgiver to elucidate only a simple theology to avoid the kind of complexity that leads to multiple interpretation. However, as Honig persuasively shows, even sacred scripts cannot prevent the proliferation of multiple interpretations.47 The solution of radical founding retains the political paradox: the

80  Tracing extraordinary wisdom needs to be articulated in communal words. Even if the wisdom is beyond our finite common understanding, this distance cannot prohibit us from interpreting that wisdom. Thus, what the paradox illuminates is not the need for radical founding of a polity or people, but rather, the need for an ongoing process of politics—of interpretation and responses—which, in a sense, the paradox sustains. Indeed, this openness of political paradox to interpretation itself is the result of Rousseauian individuality. Interpretations proliferate because there is no longer the qualification of political reasoning. With the old division between craft (technē) on the one hand, of which philosophical truth (epistēmē) was a powerful candidate, and mere opinion (doxa) on the other, dismantled, ordinary opinions become politically meaningful voices. Put differently, Rousseau’s solution of the lawgiver, or its incapacity, marks the limit of a conventional political orientation that would exclusively focus on the foundation of new polity. This limit suggests the necessity of developing a novel way of coming to terms with this new problem; in fact, J. S. Mill and Tocqueville open up new ways of doing so by focusing on society and the individual rather than the founding of new polity or an ideal form of government.

John Stuart Mill’s liberal individuality Whereas Rousseau’s lawgiver is an attempt to found and contain people’s judgment within the sovereign law, it does not directly address stupidity as a new phenomenon under modern democratic politics. Political thought in the nineteenth century, namely the thinking of John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville, show a more direct engagement with the new constellation of stupidity under democracy— the rule of people grounded by the opinions of equal individuals. Their engagements with the new constellation appear along two new frontiers. First, they address the problem of democratic politics in society beyond the narrow sphere of formal politics; with their broader focus, they acknowledge that democracy is not only a matter of the mere form of ruling but also sustained by a new configuration of individuality and equality. Rousseau touches on the social aspect when he describes the power of the lawgiver to influence human nature beyond its narrow political effect. In addition, Rousseau’s Second Discourse addresses inequality in society, which attests to the emergence of society as a new social arena. However, political thought in the nineteenth century (exemplified by J. S. Mill and Tocqueville) contrasts with that of Rousseau in that the former addresses the social realm that is constituted of equal individuals and as such covers all corners of life as the new political phenomenon established by the democratic principle of equal individuality. While the society Rousseau criticizes is the class society marked by inequality, the society Mill and Tocqueville observe is the totalized social realm of equal individuals, which is, in a sense, the result of Rousseau’s call for individuality.48 This emergence of society does not contradict my earlier claim about the internalization of stupidity into politics. What appears as the inclusion of individuals under politics here means the dissolution

Tracing 81 of a specifically privileged locus of politics. This new social realm, as the second difference, leads Mill and Tocqueville to problematize individuals’ opinions in a different way from the classical dichotomy between epistēmē and doxa. Under a democratic society in which every individual matters equally, without any de jure room for a preestablished hierarchy, opinions appear to take a different value. They are no longer held in antagonism against, or considered subject to, truth; rather, opinions come to have their own quality in that opinion neither supplants truth nor devalues truth. Still, individual opinion comes to be seen as an autonomous political force independent of its subjugation to truth. Now stupidity, as an unsophisticated opinion that is neither correct nor wrong, becomes a political concern. Ernst Renan, for example, captures this shift perceived by his contemporaries, when he calls for the need for democracy to be taught among people, so that “stupidity has no right to rule the world” (quoted in Kelly 1992, 241). In the following, I explore how J. S. Mill and Tocqueville responded to this emergence of stupidity, by focusing on their respective orientations toward the “rule of opinion” as an autonomous social force in contrast to the Platonic rule of truth. Mill’s On Liberty addresses this new constellation of stupidity in politics when he presents the “tyranny of the majority” (Mill 1991, 8) as a new problem that democracy introduces into contemporary society. By calling for “Civil, or Social liberty” against the social tyranny that “leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself” (Mill 1991, 5, 9), he acknowledges a fundamental shift of democratic politics that goes beyond the narrow sphere of politics; the power of opinion penetrates into individuals. Mill’s liberty, therefore, concerns “the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual” (Mill 1991, 5), resisting categorization into the camp of “negative freedom” as many commentators do.49 The problem for Mill is not limited to mere interference into individual rights, rather it extends to addressing a tendency of society to foster “mediocrity” through the imitation of others, that is, through clichés (Mill 1991, 73): As is usually the case with ideals which exclude one-half of what is desirable, the present standard of approbation produces only an inferior imitation of the other half. Instead of great energies by vigorous reason, and strong feelings strongly controlled by a conscientious will, its result is weak feelings and weak energies, which therefore can be kept in outward conformity to rule without any strength either of will or reason. (Mill 1991, 77) The opinion of the masses makes mediocrity a prevalent tendency in society against which Mill defends the creativity of individual perfection. If Mill’s purpose was to defend an individual from external intervention, he would not need to criticize the imitation of others. As far as individuals regard their actions or opinions to be their own, their subjective deception of creativity would not matter. For Mill, however, imitation and lack of originality appear as the malaise

82  Tracing of democratic society. Indeed, the mimetic mediocracy appears to Mill a sign of stupidity: Stupidity is much the same all the world over. A stupid person’s notions and feelings may confidently be inferred from those which prevail in the circle by which the person is surrounded. Not so with those whose opinions and feelings are an emanation from their own nature and faculties. (Mill 1989, 140–41) In addition, the same concern for imitation stands at the core of Mill’s own existential struggle against the influence of his father, James Mill—the struggle through which he becomes an original thinker, the “crisis in my mental history” that he describes in his Autobiography. One of the tormenting obsessions of the period, Mill recollects, is “the thought of the exhaustibility of musical combinations”: The octave consists only of five tones and two semi-tones, which can be put together in only a limited number of ways, of which but a small proportion are beautiful: most of them, it seemed to me, must have been already discovered, and there could not be room for a long succession of Mozarts and Webers, to strike out, as these had done, entirely new and surprisingly rich veins of musical beauty. (Mill 1960, 102)50 This obsession with the repetition of the same is consonant with his distaste for mimetic clichés (he confesses that his personal depression partly stems from his pessimism about the future of mankind—thus, his obsession concerns not only his personal enjoyment of music but also the future prospect of society). Such criticism and fear of mimetic mediocrity may be reminiscent of the critics of mass society in the twentieth century. However, Mill’s liberal principle does not allow him to ally with this camp. Rather, his admiration of the diversity of taste against monotonous society shows an affinity for the value-pluralistic and perfectionist strands of liberals.51 On several occasions, Mill presents diversity itself as a value to be retained, regardless of whether it is used as an instrument for any higher principle.52 “If it were only that people have diversities of taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after one model” (Mill 1991, 75). Simply put, his diagnosis goes well beyond the narrow realm of negative liberty and touches upon the predicament of modern, democratic, egalitarian society that I extracted from Rousseau’s notion of individuality. To his contemporary society thus diagnosed, however, Mill’s solution draws upon a resource similar to that used by Rousseau: individuality. According to his succinct articulation in On Liberty, It is desirable, in short, that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself. Where, not the person’s own character, but

Tracing 83 the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress. (Mill 1991, 63) Mill’s recommendation of individuals’ “different experiments of living” (Mill 1991, 63) may seem to be an appropriate and sufficient solution at first glance, given his central concern against the rule of the masses over individuals: “At present individuals are lost in the crowd. In politics it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world” (Mill 1991, 73). And Mill’s call for individual perfection remains a powerful inspiration among current liberal and democratic theories that hope to go beyond the prevalent but narrow idea of anti-perfectionist liberalism, responding to the late-modern condition of democratic society.53 Regarding this solution of liberal perfection, critics often question its compatibility with Mill’s liberal principle that is seemingly a straightforward manifestation of negative liberty.54 But a more fundamental question to be asked here is about the capacity of Mill’s proposal to solve the problem, that is, the tyranny of the majority, or the world of clichés. Even if we succeed in implementing the liberal individuality among constituencies, it does not necessarily solve the problem of mimetic desire among individuals. Liberal individuality may diversify the opinions of people, but such diversification may be most likely to replace the tyranny of opinion with that of opinions—pluralism of clichés. A mere liberal resistance against conformism is not enough to solve the obsession Mill had in his personal crisis, the exhaustion of novelty: having diverse melodies does not preclude the proliferation of familiar melodies. The difficulty with Mill’s solution is that the very desire underlying his ideal of individuality is paradoxically the cause of the problem as well. As we have seen in the previous section, the notion of equal individuality—that is, everybody wishing to shed anonymity to become somebody—ironically produces individuals who mimic the opinions and actions of others while believing themselves to be authentic. Furthermore, despite being inspired from “Pagan self-assertion” (Mill 1991, 69), which Mill thinks is unavailable in the Christian-European tradition of his time, Mill’s individuality, too, shares three elements of Rousseauian individuality.55 First, Mill’s individual is threatened by the pressure of dissolution into anonymity under the tyranny of the majority. Second, his individual strives for unique originality. Third, despite differentiation from others, Mill admires the individual not only for private happiness but also for contributing to the progress of the larger society, stating individuality to be “the chief ingredient of individual and social progress” (Mill 1991, 63). Notwithstanding these shared elements, Mill proposes the very cause of the problem as a solution when he ascribes a weak individual to mere “outward conformity,” the lack of “strength either of will or reason” (Mill 1991, 77). Again, the strength of will or reason is not enough to solve Mill’s melancholy over the exhaustion of newness. In fact, the very idea of music in terms of novelty and originality is relatively new; without this idea, the

84  Tracing exhaustion cannot appear as a problem. Mill’s solution fails to acknowledge this complicity between the cause and solution.

Tocqueville’s association Alexis de Tocqueville shares with Mill an insight on the malaise of democratic society, while offering a different kind of solution that is presumably more influential than Mill’s among current democratic theories. In diagnosing contemporary politics, Tocqueville, too, sees democracy not only as a matter of formal institution but also as a matter of a fundamental shift in society, or moreover, as a matter of way of life.56 For him, democracy’s distinctiveness lies in the equality of condition and its generative cause, individualism rather than institutional settings. Moreover, Tocqueville concurs with Mill on the diagnosis of democratic malaise, under which isolated individuals succumb to public opinions. According to Tocqueville, this sway of public opinions leads to “democratic despotism.”57 In times of equality, because of their similarity, men have no faith in one another; but this same similarity gives them an almost unlimited trust in the judgment of the public; for it does not seem plausible to them that when all have the same enlightenment, truth is not found on the side of the greatest number. .  .  . The same equality that makes him independent of each of his fellow citizens in particular leaves him isolated and without defense against the action of the greatest number. The public therefore has a singular power among democratic peoples, the very idea of which aristocratic nations could not conceive. It does not persuade [one] [sic] of its beliefs, it imposes them and makes them penetrate souls by a sort of immense pressure of the minds of all on the intellect of each. (Tocqueville 2000, 409) By problematizing the rule of opinion, however, Tocqueville does not deny democratic rule based on people’s opinion, equality, and individualism. Nor does he mean to replace the rule of opinion with that of truth, either. Along with Mill, he acknowledges the irresistible and irrefutable tendency toward democratic society as a condition constraining his solution: mere denial or criticism of democracy from an external standpoint is no longer relevant and should be replaced by a new political science that would critically engage democratic society from within. In fact, he seems to go further than Mill to acknowledge the pervasive quality of democratic ideals in society when, for example, he mentions the idea of the individual’s perfectibility under democratic equality. While the idea of perfectibility itself is as old as human society, Tocqueville argues, democratic equality “gives it a new character” (Tocqueville 2000, 427): in a time of democratic equality,

Tracing 85 people’s pursuit of perfection and development becomes infinite, while predemocratic society kept such pursuit modest and circumscribed. By ascribing this drive toward infinite perfectibility to democracy, he understands that individual perfection, which Mill proposes as a solution to democratic society, is nothing but an effect of the democratic society itself. Indeed, Tocqueville shares a deep awareness of the constraint of his time upon his own observation, that his diagnosis, too, is set by the democratic society, emanating from within it. Pointing out the influence of American democracy on language,58 that is, the preference for abstract words and ideas, he does not fail to notice that his own observations reflect this preference as well: I have often made use of the word equality in an absolute sense; I have, in addition, personified equality in several places, and so I  have come to say that equality does certain things or abstains from certain others. One can affirm that the men of the century of Louis XIV would not have spoken in this way; it would never have come into the mind of any of them to use the word equality without applying it to a particular thing, and they would sooner have renounced the use of it than have consented to make equality into a living person. (Tocqueville 2000, 457) Tocqueville may be aristocratic in his personal disposition, torn between his nostalgia for virtuous and static aristocratic society on the one hand and the irrefutable reality of emerging democratic society on the other. However, it is misleading to view his diagnosis as made from a standpoint outside democratic society. Tocqueville’s awareness of the pervasiveness of democracy, moreover, credits his observation with a certain insight on stupidity. Although he does not employ the term, his analyses of democracy problematize the democratic intensification of stupidity along two lines. The first is the central role individual judgment plays under democracy. According to Tocqueville, democratic individuals rely upon their respective reasoning as the sole source for their judgments. Relying upon one’s own reasoning here does not mean that they are more rational than those in feudal society—Tocqueville, as we will see later, notices a certain erroneous quality of individual judgment as well as its tendency toward subordinating particulars to general ideas—but that individuals’ opinions (that is, doxa based on their judgments) play the central role in society and politics.59 With his observation of individuals’ preference for general ideas, Tocqueville’s notion of individualism captures the moment of totality—the individual being everybody—that assumes the general importance of distinctive individuals for society, as well as the other two moments of individuals’ being nobody and becoming somebody. It is easy to see that his notion of individualism penetrates the latter two moments when he notices the individual’s similarity with others, which threatens the individual’s disappearance into the anonymity of nobody, and the ambition to become an independent and distinctive individual.60 Finally, the preference for general ideas

86  Tracing among individuals attests to the moment of totality, elucidating how individuals assume the importance of their respective opinions vis-à-vis the entire society. According to Tocqueville, general ideas, which fit the condition of equality whereby particular differences are assimilated to sameness, lead individuals to speak on behalf of general causes: Previously I  showed how equality of conditions brought each to seek the truth by himself. It is easy to see that such a method will imperceptibly make the human mind tend toward general ideas. When I repudiate the traditions of class, profession, and family, when I escape the empire of example to seek by the effort of my reason alone the path to follow, I am inclined to draw the grounds of my opinions from the very nature of man, which necessarily leads me, almost without my knowing it, toward a great number of very general notions. (2000, 413–44, italics mine) In this way, the independence of one’s own judgment ironically leads individuals to speak on behalf of general humankind, society, etc., while “without knowing it,” assuming one’s independence. Second, we can see that such dependence on general ideas underlies the subjugation to the opinions of others, or even imitations of others. Although Tocqueville himself does not analyze the connection explicitly, it is not difficult to see in his account the mechanism of this slide into subjugation and imitation. Unable to grasp the particulars, individuals rely upon general causes that apply to everybody, or imitate the precedents that seem to resemble their situations. Thus, as Tocqueville notices about an incident in the 1848 February Revolution, protagonists of the revolution imitated the words and deeds of those of the 1789 French Revolution, which were inadequate as exemplary models at that time: In this case the imitation was so evident that the terrible originality of the facts remained concealed beneath it. It was a time when every imagination was besmeared with the crude colours with which Lamartine had been daubing his Girondins. The men of the first Revolution were living in every mind, their deeds and words present to every memory. All that I  saw that day bore the visible impress of those recollections; it seemed to me throughout as though they were engaged in acting the French Revolution, rather than continuing it. (Tocqueville 1896, 68) Tocqueville’s observation here is resonant with Marx’s famous assertion in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon that revolutions are carried out “[t]he first time as high tragedy, and the second time again as low farce” (Marx 1996, 31), as well as with Flaubert’s description of the revolution in Sentimental Education, in which characters speak and play only in clichés. Democratic society’s desire for perfection and novelty relapses into the reproduction of the same and ignorance

Tracing 87 of novelty amidst events around them (such as the difference between 1789 and 1848). This is the stupidity of 1848. Tocqueville’s proposed solution to the predicament of democratic society, however, appears insufficient. His proposals for solution vary significantly even within Democracy in America, but here I focus on his idea of association.61 Association, whether civil or political, counters the predicament of democratic society, namely the despotism of opinion, in two ways. First, free associations prevent individuals’ subjugation to monotonous opinion by giving them the necessary measures to spread their own opinions and influence others. With this influential group power, individuals can disseminate their new ideas to the broader society and a wider politics. Second, in addition to helping to voice one’s own ideas, association teaches isolated individuals how to interact with others, opening their otherwise closed, homogenous society to plurality and differences. Through participating in associational activities, people come to learn the skill of cooperating with others—the skill that is most actively pursued in politics. Tocqueville’s solution to the problem of the tyranny of opinion through association has inspired contemporary democratic theory’s preoccupation with civil society. Despite disagreements among them, republican, deliberative, and communitarian theorists concur in regarding civil society as the key to reviving participatory democratic practices among citizens against the privatization and atomization of citizens and bureaucratization of politics.62 For example, we can see in Tocqueville the image of deliberating members of association, which although the purpose is not necessarily political, nonetheless has a positive effect on politics—a vision similar to Habermas’s “literary public sphere” (Habermas 1991). By this, Habermas maintains that deliberating citizens can make reasonable public decisions. Thus, Tocqueville’s solution of association exemplifies one dominant strand in democratic theory. Association appears to promise an antidote to the tyranny of opinion. Despite its huge influence on the literature on civil society, I maintain that Tocqueville’s association is insufficient to solve the problem it is meant to combat. The difficulty lies in his implicit assumption that communication held within and between associations should be less prone to distortion and control than those among privatized individuals and those between individuals and centralized bureaucracy. “Reciprocal action of men upon one another,” which Tocqueville claims to be the key to enlarging hearts, developing minds, and renewing ideas, can be operative only in associations that sustain and renew “the circulation of sentiments and ideas” (Tocqueville 2000, 491). Moreover, without this reciprocal communication, we can fall prey to imposition or indoctrination by a tyrannical government. Tocqueville further claims that this is so because we cannot distinguish the counsel of government from its orders. He may well be right. The associations certainly bring diversity into societal and political spheres, preventing the excessive centralization of government. But it remains unclear whether we can distinguish counsel from orders even in communications within associations. Rather, Tocqueville seems to believe in spontaneous, free, and authentic communication in close, face-to-face human interactions, contrary to his acknowledgment of the

88  Tracing pervasive quality of cliché in the democratic era. Put in Habermasean terminology, Tocqueville’s associational civic public sphere ignores the possibility that the communication held in such associations may not be clearly distinguishable from controlled public opinion.63 Tocqueville’s optimism about the undistorted communication within associations leads him to overlook the danger that small associations, too, can harbor mediocrity and clichés rather than renew ideas. As we will see in Flaubert’s observations, associations may diversify in quantity the range of acceptable opinions, but they do not necessarily bring novelty adjusted to changing situations.64 A mere replacement of opinion with opinions would not dissolve the despotism of cliché. Underlying Tocqueville’s insufficient solution is his judgment that individualism is an error, that is, a deficiency to be corrected. While calling individualism “reflective and peaceable sentiment,” as distinguished from mere selfishness, he nonetheless ascribes individualism to “erroneous judgment”: “Selfishness is born of a blind instinct; individualism proceeds from an erroneous judgment rather than a depraved sentiment. It has its source in the defects of the mind as much as in the vices of the heart” (Tocqueville 2000, 482). As previously mentioned, Tocqueville sees abstract individualism to be an irresistible tendency under the condition of democratic equality, but he finds a certain positive element as well as problem in this tendency. Moreover, Tocqueville’s orientation toward democratic malaise, as well as Mill’s, suggests the cogency of negotiation—the direction I argue based on Flaubert. Certainly, they do not regard their antidotes as being effective enough to solve the despotism of opinion once and for all, as Rousseau hoped his lawgiver would. Notwithstanding these nuanced orientations, Tocqueville concludes that individualism is an error. The same applies to Mill, who sees his celebrated individuality simply in opposition to social conformism. As such, individualism now loses its fugitive and stupefying quality, turning into a problem to be solved. And Tocqueville’s solution, reciprocal communication of opinions in and between associations, is to be clearly distinguished from the despotism of opinion. But the distinction between the two modes of opinions is not susceptible to clear demarcation. In sum, Tocqueville problematizes individualism and democratic rule of opinion, only to solve them as errors. However, what if—as I  have suggested—spontaneous opinion-formation in association is indiscernible from the despotic or tyrannical imposition of opinion? What if individualism is not an error, but part of a larger problem? Then, individualism and opinion fall into the zone of stupidity where you cannot tell right from wrong, spontaneity from imposition, original novelty from imitation. At the same time, if we are unable to dispel individual opinion as erroneous, how can we deal with stupidity?

Negotiation with democratic stupidity: Flaubert My exploration of the shifting relationship between politics and stupidity in the history of political thought reveals how modern democracy intensified the problematic of stupidity with its internalization of stupidity into the political arena:

Tracing 89 by founding itself upon Rousseauian individuality, democratic politics harbors within itself stupidity that now appears as the zone of indiscernibility between original opinion and imitative cliché. Post-Rousseauian thinkers such as Mill and Tocqueville address this intensification as the tyranny of opinion but fail to grasp this indiscernibility as they regard the problem of democratic despotism as something that can be countered and corrected by solutions. However, if these solutions do not eradicate the problem of opinion, how can we deal with the problem? Surely, I cannot fully answer this question—but it will be the guiding question in the following chapters of this study, in which I will explore the Kantian orientation toward critical activity, namely toward judgment, as a strategy of negotiation. In the rest of this chapter, I want to briefly look at one key direction by examining a resource relatively unfamiliar to political theorists, that is, Flaubert’s writings, which Deleuze calls one of the “best literatures” (Deleuze 1994, 151; 1968, 196) haunted by the problem of stupidity. Scholars of Flaubert concur on his preoccupation with the theme of stupidity, or bêtise: his main writings—Madame Bovary, Sentimental Education, and most of all, Bouvard and Pécuchet and The Dictionary of the Received Ideas—thematize stupidity along multiple dimensions, such as in country life and love affairs, in political turmoil, and in the thirst for knowledge. Despite the variety of situations, Flaubert’s writings present a similar observation both in regarding stupidity as an effect of the Rousseauian, democratic notion of individuality and in detecting its expression in clichés. Political theorists, however, rarely pay attention to Flaubert, based on a common misunderstanding of Flaubert as an anti-democratic, or even anti-political, writer of l’art pour l’art, thus ignoring the richness of his insight.65 In fact, Flaubert’s orientation toward stupidity stems from his “realism,” that is, his acknowledgment of its inescapable condition, which allows no clear solution. While political thinkers such as Mill and Tocqueville finally turn stupidity (or, in their words, the tyranny of opinion) into solvable error—an illusion to be eradicated—Flaubert, in acknowledging its stubbornness, manages to maintain the elusiveness of stupidity as such. Flaubert’s acknowledgment, more importantly, results in the distinctive contribution of his orientation toward stupidity. Realizing its depth and elusiveness, Flaubert negotiates the problem of stupidity through immersion in stupidity itself. Such negotiation does not solve the problem of stupidity, but for Flaubert it brings about the effect of stupefaction. Stupefaction, which Flaubert experienced himself (in an encounter with “Thompson”) and produced in his writings, shocks us into silence at first. However, the stupefying encounter can also ignite new thoughts and push us into thinking. In one of his earliest remarks on stupidity, Flaubert views stupidity as an effect of the new notion of individuality that I identified in Rousseau. In a letter to Parain, dated October 6, 1850, Flaubert reports his encounter with stupidity, a gigantic sign on an ancient column of Pompey written by a British man, “Thompson”: Stupidity is unshakable; nobody can attack it without succumbing to it. It has the quality of firm and resistant granite. At Alexandria, a Thompson,

90  Tracing from Sunderland, wrote his name upon a column of Pompey in six-foot high letters. We could read the letters from five leagues away. There is no way of looking at the column without seeing the name of Thompson, and consequentially, without thinking of Thompson. That moron is incorporated into the monument and perpetuates himself with it. No, he overwhelms the monument by the magnificence of his gigantic letters. . . . All imbeciles are more or less like that Thompson of Sunderland. (1926–1930, 2:243) What struck, or stupefied, Flaubert in his preoccupation with stupidity is Thompson’s cheerful equating of himself with the historic site of the ancient world. Such a comparison would be unimaginable without the notion of individuality that Rousseau’s Confession exemplifies; as Rousseau claims the importance of his own singular individuality for the general public, so Thompson inscribes his individual name upon the world’s monument. The same connection between stupidity and individuality is observable in Flaubert’s novels. Emma Bovary, for example, is a successor of Jean-Jacques in her wish to become an authentic individual through romance.66 Moreover, Madame Bovary is a post-Rousseauian novel in that it reveals the underlying dependence of the pursuit of authenticity upon imitation. As we have seen, Rousseau’s notion of individuality implicitly leads to the imitation of others despite, or because of, its eloquent aversion to inauthentic imitation. In a similar manner, Emma’s desire to become her authentic self is always inspired by the novels she reads.67 Emma’s tragedy, if we can call her desire for authenticity a tragic hubris, is not that she draws her romantic desire from mediocre literature or that she ignores her own social standing as a rural middle-class woman, but that she is ignorant of the imitative quality of her desire. Flaubert’s Dictionary of the Received Ideas (hereafter called Dictionary), too, elucidates the complicity between individual distinctiveness and imitation with its entries, which are composed of stock phrases we utter as if they were distinctive opinions of our own. In problematizing imitation and cliché, Flaubert’s observation resonates with those of Mill and Tocqueville. In addition, when Flaubert, in his letter to Louis Bouilhet, dated September 4, 1850, describes stupidity as emanating from the “desire to conclude” (1926–1930, 2:239; 1980, 128), his account comes close to Tocqueville’s observation about the democratic preoccupation with general ideas: the former’s presentation of stupidity takes the form of a general statement that reduces the complexity of reality into simplified explanations or assertions that are, according to Jonathan Culler, constituted by “[c]lichés, propositions, theories, assumptions” (1974, 178). In the Dictionary, many entries are followed by explanations or, even imperatives that contain absolute terms like “always,” “never,” or “every”: FLATTERERS. Never miss the chance to quote: “By God, I cannot flatter”; and “Every flatterer lives off the fool who listens to him.” PROGRESS. Always “headlong” and “ill-advised.” (Flaubert 1954, 36, 69)

Tracing 91 These propositions are stupid clichés; by uttering them we assume their universal applicability, and as a result, we overlook the multifaceted reality of things.68 If Flaubert’s writings present observations similar to those of Mill and Tocqueville, then what is the use of turning to Flaubert, a writer renowned for his “style as craftsmanship” (Barthes 1968, 62–66) and contribution to l’art pour l’art? Political theorists and thinkers rarely engage with Flaubert. When they do, they usually categorize him as a disguised conservative of bourgeois society, or at best a defender of cultural liberty against the democratic despotism.69 Both of these views stem from the myth of Flaubert as the “hermit of Croisset,” that is, a pure artist who distanced himself from society for the sake of writing.70 For those critical of Flaubert, his aloofness from society appears as an escape from necessary political consciousness, while others see his self-distancing as a barrier against the conformism of society.71 In fact, what makes Flaubert’s writings valuable resources for political theorizing is his immersion into the politico-social world of bêtise rather than a retreat from it. By “immersion,” I mean Flaubert’s strategy of presenting the fullness of stupidity without taking the higher standpoint of author or reader. His immersion into bêtise is, for example, observable when he presents his own opinions vis-à-vis those of others as equally stupid opinions. As many scholars point out, some of the entries in the Dictionary and opinions expressed by characters in his novels, namely by Bouvard and Pécuchet, reflect Flaubert’s own opinions.72 If the stupidity highlighted by democratic society was something from which we could dissociate, he would not have included his own views in his writings. Indeed, in his letters, Flaubert aligns himself with the stupidity of Bouvard and Pécuchet; in his letter to Edma Roger de Gennettes in April 1875, he states “their stupidity is mine, and it is killing me” (1926–1930, 7:237; 1982, 217): and in another letter to George Sand on November 14, 1871 he describes the stupidity as “formidable and universal,” allowing no escape (1926–1930, 6:307). As Culler points out, for Flaubert, “identification of stupidity does not depend on one’s ability to formulate the ‘correct’ alternative view” (1974, 159). In other words, for Flaubert, stupidity is not a fallacious illusion to be eradicated but a reality to be confronted. Furthermore, the inability to demarcate stupidity means the inability of escape through writing. Indeed, Flaubert’s “realist” novels themselves become expressions of stupidity. The common understanding regards Flaubert as distancing himself, for better or worse, from society—the sphere of bêtise—through the art of writing. According to this view, Flaubert turns the stupidity of society into an aesthetic object, of which the aesthetic quality would be different from the banal and stupid writings and communications in our ordinary lives. But if stupidity is universal, or ubiquitous, his writing would not be exempt from its pervasiveness. This is why Flaubert regards the act of writing itself as “the act of stupidity” (Ronell 2002, 11–13; Culler 1974, 157). Likewise, in contrast to the widely held notion of the dichotomy between politics and literature, Jacques Rancière points out that Flaubert’s novels are democratic, calling Flaubert’s writings “the literary formula for the democratic principle of equality” (Rancière 2011, 11).

92  Tracing While predemocratic politics constructed the hierarchy and boundary of what counts as acceptable speech, that is, deliberative discourse—and this boundary of acceptable speech is parallel to the qualification of craft (technē) in ancient Greek thought—democratic society dissolves such boundaries and hierarchies.73 Upon this “radical egalitarianism,” the dismantling of the order of language, rests Flaubert’s work, which no longer distinguishes specific forms of literary writing from other writings, beautiful subjects from vile subjects, literary language from ordinary, vulgar language (Rancière 2011, 10). Simply put, Flaubert’s novel is based on the very same condition—democratic equality—that internalized stupidity into politics. As democratic politics of opinions become the theater for stupidity, Flaubert’s work, too, becomes the expression of stupidity in clichés. And it is the expression of stupidity, not of Flaubert the artist, because radical egalitarianism means the dissolution of a higher perspective from which the artist or statesman addresses the entire order. Herein lies Flaubert’s “realist” style of writing marked by employment of a free indirect style. Narrating from the multiple perspectives of characters without unifying them under a single position of narrator or protagonist, his free indirect mode presents the world as seen from each of their viewpoints.74 With the multiple, yet indefinite, perspectives produced by his free indirect style, Flaubert makes reality speak without recourse to conceptual generalization, through immersion in the object. Flaubert articulates his democratic style of immanence in a letter to Louise Colet, December  17, 1852, in which he explains the purpose of the Dictionary: “That would lead to the modern democratic idea of equality, using Fourier’s remark that ‘great men won’t be needed’; and it is for this purpose, I would say, that the book is written” (1926–1930, 3:67; 1980, 176). As democracy demolishes the “great men” who would encompass the order in politics, Flaubert’s Dictionary displaces an author’s standpoint with anonymous words of people, of on (people, they). While Flaubert does not offer “solutions” to stupidity the way Mill and Tocqueville do, his realist style nonetheless point towards a certain means with which to negotiate stupidity. On the contrary, in the aforementioned quote, he affirms “the modern democratic idea of equality.” Surely Flaubert does not hide the ironical tone of his affirmation, when in the same letter he explicates the “modern democratic idea” as “doing away, once and for all, with all eccentricities, whatever they might be” (1926–1930, 3:67; 1980, 175–76). But it is misleading to regard his irony to mean the repudiation of democracy. As we have seen, the democratic dissolution of hierarchy disables such irony as widely understood, that is, as a rhetoric of meaning the opposite of what one states. Such rhetorical irony presumes the existence of a higher code that is different from the language employed in literal expression: the higher code is not available to those who speak only the ordinary, common language, but needs to be identifiable to some people as an independent and fixed code.75 In the case of Flaubert’s remark above, there must be a higher code according to which some readers who are equipped with the craft of reading can interpret the uttered affirmation to secretly mean negation. Democracy’s radical equality of language, however, no longer allows such a higher perspective. Thus, despite its (ironical) ambiguity, Flaubert’s remark is at

Tracing 93 least not the denial of democracy. At the same time, it does not mean the affirmation of the status quo or the unconditioned affirmation of the opinions of people, either.76 The Dictionary, as well as his other writings, takes on a certain critical orientation to democratic opinions from within. Otherwise, these opinions would become the truth and there would be no need for writing. What is, then, the critical, yet neither entirely affirmative nor negative, purpose of his writings? Flaubert’s immersive orientation toward democratic stupidity fosters stupor in his readers. In the same letter to Colet, he expects the Dictionary to be a “lead shot” to readers: I think that the whole thing would be a formidable lead shot [plomb]. There would not be a single word invented by me in the book. If properly done, anyone who read it would never dare open his mouth again, for fear of spontaneously uttering one of its pronouncements. (1926–1930, 3:67, 1980, 176, italics in original) His “formidable lead shot”—not only of the Dictionary, but also of his novels— stupefies his readers in the following three steps. First, his writings present democratic stupidity as an unavoidable shot for anybody who reads them, rather than for a limited number of people who share the higher standpoint, by showing the totality and elusiveness of his writings. Like scattering shotgun pellets, they hit all the readers. Moreover, as the second step, the unavailability of a higher standpoint makes the unavoidability of stupidity “formidable,” allowing no easy recovery from the wounds. Even after readers recognize stupidity as their own problem, they cannot be free from it. The final and most important step is the stupefaction of readers. The readers would never dare to open their mouths, because they are stupefied into reflecting upon stupidity as their own problem, not as an error to be corrected. This stupefaction would not make us correct but would at least drive us into reflecting upon the quality of our own thinking as in Heidegger’s “food for thought.” Having identified Flaubert’s strategy as that of negotiation with democratic stupidity, we need to note the difficulty in developing his strategy for political theory. His “formidable lead shot,” in illuminating the futility of the pursuit of a solution, risks falling into the opposite extreme of muting all communication essential for political activity. In the letter to which I have been referring, Flaubert states that anyone who reads the Dictionary “would never dare open his mouth again, for fear of spontaneously uttering one of its pronouncements.” As we have seen in the previous chapter concerning Bartleby’s “I would prefer not to,” such fear of utterance would contain emerging thought in its potentiality free from clichés but only by silencing any communication. Indeed, mere silence would not free us from stupidity: the fear of appearing stupid is already stupid for turning the Dictionary itself into the correct answer, a new cliché. Thus, the mutation, even though it is a very reflective reaction to stupidity, would betray the immanent negotiation with its vain attempt to move oneself outside stupidity.

94  Tracing This difficulty calls for the need of a philosophical style of immanence, for the danger of mutation partly stems from the very literariness of Flaubert’s writings. Even though his immanent style of writing is different from an aesthetic isolation from society, the problem of authorship remains: in the end, most of us are not writers. Flaubert himself manages to avoid both the pitfalls of pursuit of a solution and mutation by presenting democratic society through his “realist” novels. But how can we, as readers, immanently engage stupidity? This is the question the following chapters will pursue.

Concluding remarks Throughout this chapter, I have examined the locus of stupidity in democracy. While stupidity is a persistent problem for politics, modern democracy is different from other forms of politics in internalizing the condition of stupidity into its own mode of ruling; by founding the rule upon people’s opinions, modern democracy dismantles the obstacle that prevents opinions, or doxa, from entering the political arena. In analyzing this democratic condition, I focused on the notion of the Rousseauian individual. What became clear through my analysis is that the Rousseauian individual, which is conceived as a fortress against an imbecilic society, ironically results in a proliferation of stupidity that takes the form of clichés. As we have seen in the second half of this chapter, this democratic condition is resistant to solution, requiring a more viable mode of negotiation. For such a mode of negotiation, I turned to Flaubert’s strategy of immanent writings, the realist style marked by the plurality of perspective and the nondiscriminatory adoption of opinions. His realism, however, remains insufficient as a model of political theorizing: Flaubert’s stupefying style risks bringing about mutation in its readers. If stupidity stupefies us, are we left only with the choice between becoming authors, who depict the reality of the world through immersion into society, or silenced readers? In search for a way out of this choice between becoming author and becoming stupefied, the following two chapters try to rephilosophize the Flaubertian style of immanence. As Deleuze states in naming Flaubert one of the best writers on stupidity, “Philosophy could have taken up the problem with its own means and with the necessary modesty” (1994, 151; 1968, 197). How could philosophy have appropriated the Flaubertian insight on immanence? This appropriation needs to be done “with modesty,” without reimposing the epistēmē upon democratic opinions. In the next chapter, I pursue this possibility of “modest” philosophizing by turning to Kant, “the philosopher of the French revolution” (Arendt 1982, 36, 44).

Notes 1 Surely the term “modern democracy” is contestable. While acknowledging the importance of debates over the origin and characteristics of “modern democracy”(see, for example, Tuck 2016), in this study I  regard “modern

Tracing 95 democracy” as distinguished from the ancient democracy in its commitment to popular sovereignty and equal citizenship. Namely, this study focuses on the very idea of equal individuality as an underlying social principle rather than on specific forms and practices of government. 2 By this parallel structure I do not mean that Deleuze’s “individuality” is individual as we understand it in the contemporary social-political condition. Deleuze’s individuality refers to neither the individual citizen in politics nor the modern individuals of the theorizations by Rousseau, J. S. Mill, and Tocqueville, which I explore later in this chapter. Nevertheless, they are not entirely different either. Indeed, Deleuzean individuality, with its link to the ontological ground as the cause of stupidity, illuminates in the modern notion of individuality hidden assumptions that make stupidity both problematical and difficult to grasp. While drawing little on Deleuze explicitly, this chapter intends to reveal those assumptions beyond the respective understandings of individuality held by Rousseau, Mill, and Tocqueville. 3 I mean by “politics” institutional forms, while by “the political” I mean the condition of plurality. For the difference between the two, see footnote 4 in the previous chapter. 4 On this asymmetrical relation between “problem” and “solution,” wherein the former cannot be reduced to the latter, I elaborate more in the fourth section of Chapter 4, drawing upon Deleuze’s reading of Kant. 5 Rousseau is by no means a simple proponent of modern democracy. Neither was he a hidden architect of the French Revolution. However, it is undeniable that Rousseau initiated a new mode of political theory that was based on the ideal of equal individuality. Also, the current scholarship on modern democracy and Rousseau sees an increasing number of studies that focus on techniques of government—that is, governmentality—offered by Rousseau rather than on the novelty of his notion of individuality (see e.g., Johnston 1999, Chapter 4). Rousseau’s political texts such as “The Government of Poland” (Rousseau 1997d) develop multiple instruments of government that resonate (while showing differences as well) with Hobbes’s idea of government. My exploration of Rousseau’s notion of individuality does not deny the importance of Rousseau’s orientation toward governmentality. As Strauss (2002) points out, Rousseau’s proposed techniques of government are to some extent the consequence of his notion of individuality; the Rousseauian individuality requires a certain mode of policing as an act of government. In other words, we need to probe into Rousseau’s notion individuality to assess his orientation toward governmentality as well. 6 This division between individuality and communality overlaps with the more familiar dichotomy between the private and public. While being more or less indebted to much from the studies on the latter dichotomy, such as works by Habermas (1991), Koselleck (1988), and Arendt (1998), my historical analysis employs the less familiar terms of “individuality” and “communality” to emphasize the communal and communicative moment latent in individuality instead of allocating what belongs to the private and to the public among individuals. 7 For the reality and practices of Athenian politics, see Ober (1989) 8 Recent scholarship emphasizes Plato’s appropriation of the democratic practice of parrhesia (frank speech) as a philosophical practice, claiming that Plato is more sympathetic to democracy than usually thought (Monoson 2000, Chapters 2, 6; Saxonhouse 2006). As an unrestricted speech, parrhesia may seem to destroy the qualification of technē and bring stupid opinions into political discourse. Nevertheless, it seems to me, we need to pay closer attention to a limited way Plato employs parrhesia. First, as a practice of daring to speak truth, parrhesia is a means to convey public truth. Second, according to Saxonhouse, parrhesia is opposed

96  Tracing to aidōs, not to technē in Platonic discourse. In other words, parrhesia does not question the qualification of technē itself. 9 Sørensen (2016) reveals that the question for Plato lies in whether the demos can possess such technē, not whether democracy per se is misguided. 10 “Practical wisdom [Phronēsis] is the only excellence peculiar to the ruler: it would seem that all other excellences must equally belong to ruler and subject. The excellence of the subject is certainly not wisdom, but only true opinion; he may be compared to the maker of the flute, while his master is like the flute-player or user of the flute” (Aristotle 1996, 1277b). 11 For Aristotle’s notion of “natural slave” based on intelligent capacity, see Goodey (1999). 12 Beiner underlies this prerequisite of intelligence for political ruling when he describes phronēsis as “specification of epistemic capacities that render men qualified, in a greater or lesser degree, to judge” (Beiner 1982, 134). 13 Aristotle’s defense of the wisdom of the many has inspired democratic interpretations of Aristotle, namely those by epistemic democrats. However, as Lane (2013) points out, Aristotle credits the wisdom of the many with more limited roles of electing and monitoring officials than those interpretations expect. Schofiled (2011), too, argues that the wisdom of the multitude plays a restricted role. 14 Garsten emphasizes the difference between the Greek and the modern democratic orientation toward individuality. While the latter maintains that one is free when obeying the law to which one gives consent, for Aristotle the question was how individuals can coordinate with each other so that they produce actions of political unity. See Garsten (2013). 15 This sharp division between individual and politics as ideal does not mean individuals do not play a role in actual politics. Sparkes refers to a case in which Pericles is criticized for enjoying the huge influence over Athenian citizens in his capacity as a private citizen (i.e., idiōtēs) (see Sparkes 1988, 101). 16 “Demostenhenes . . . argues that all law was divided into two types: that which concerned private life (peri tōn idiōn) and that which concerned the duties to the polis of anyone who wished to act as politician (politeuesthai)”(Ober 1989, 109). For different meanings of the term idiōtēs, see Ober 1989, 108–118. 17 Regarding the externalization of idiocy as the other of reason and as the prevalent mode of engagement with a deficiency of intelligence, I espouse the analysis Foucault develops in his History of Madness (Foucault 2006). 18 For a discussion of the mere fool and the “wisdom of the fool,” see Springborg (2011). 19 Regarding the influence of skeptic thought over Hobbes, see Skinner (1996). 20 Furthermore, Hobbes’s nominalism leads him to find a third category of thought that is neither right nor erroneous: absurdity. “[W]hen we reason in words of general signification, and fall upon a general inference which is false, though it be commonly called error, it is indeed an ABSURDITY, or senseless speech. For error is but a deception, in presuming that somewhat is past, or to come, of which, though it were not past, or not to come, yet there was no impossibility discoverable. But when we make a general assertion, unless it be a true one, the possibility of it is inconceivable. And words whereby we conceive but the sound are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense” (Hobbes 1994, 24). This absurdity prefigures Kant’s internal illusion, and as such, evinces a proto-acknowledgment of stupidity as an internal problem of thinking. Hobbes, however, concludes that such absurdity can be corrected by giving adequate names to objects. 21 In Hobbes’s terminology, stupidity means the “slow imagination” that is opposed to the “natural wit,” that is, swift succession of one thought to another under steady direction (see Hobbes 1994, 38).

Tracing 97 22 A similar solution appears in The Social Contract, in which Rousseau introduces the idea of the lawgiver. In proposing the measures for ruling the population, both Hobbes and Rousseau attest to the emergence of governmental reason. Despite their similarity concerning governmental reason, however, The Social Contract marks a radical difference from Hobbes’s idea in that Rousseau does not maintain the separation between individual reason and political reason. 23 Rousseau, too, is critical of the value of public opinion. He calls for the lawgiver who introduce the law to people. Nonetheless, he does not categorically rule out the possibility that peoples’ opinions can find the general will. cf. Rousseau 1997e, 60; 3:371–2) 24 While sharing his evaluation on Locke, I do not necessarily agree with Habermas’s entire narrative on the development of the bourgeois public sphere in The Structural Formation of Public Sphere, as I will explain later in this chapter. 25 Some studies in the current scholarship try to challenge the totalitarian interpretation of general will. Bernardi (2006), for example, likens the establishment of general will to a chemical transformation, in which entity changes its characteristics. By so doing he attenuates the totalitarian element of general will. 26 Balibar considers this coexistence, or interdependence between individuality and communality, a central characteristic of what he calls the “citizen subject.” According to Balibar, the citizen subject appeared when the equality of individuals became the norm. With the ideal of equality, individuals’ subjugation of the transcendent God was no longer viable to maintain the community and was to be replaced with the idea of each individual’s equal participation for the common good. He sees the paradigmatic statement of such an idea in Hegel’s phrase in Phenomenology of the Spirit, “Ich, das Wir, und Wir, das Ich ist” (a Me who is a We and We who is a Me), but Rousseau marks the watershed point in the birth of the citizen subject. “In John, Christ is the only one who says “I” (or “Me”) for all, up close to the Father. In Hegel, but after Rousseau, the “I” has become a property that belongs to each and everyone, or to whatever citizen-subjects but on the condition that he or she is “indivisibly” part of the “common”” (Balibar 2017, 135; 2011, 230) 27 Both Ernst Cassirer (1954) and Jean Starobinski (1988) describe Rousseau’s project as a theodicy that attributes the source of evil neither to God nor human beings. According to Starobinski, for Rousseau, “Emil is produced by history and society without altering the essence of the individual. The flaw in society is not a flaw in man’s essential nature but in the relations among men. . . . But he always has the opinion of securing his salvation by turning inward” (Starobinski 1988, 20). Current scholarship on Rousseau seems to show less interest in connecting his political and literary writings, except for some works including Taylor (1989). This study, however, focuses on a common thread between the two. 28 The same sentences appear in his Moral Letters as well (Rousseau 2007, 197). 29 The literature has revealed that Rousseau has in his mind the reformation of Geneva when writing his Geneva manuscript—the early draft of The Social Contract. Thus it may sound reasonable to interpret these quotes as expressing his commitment to Geneva. However, it is noteworthy that the quotes appear in The Social Contract, for which Rousseau deleted specific references to Geneva. 30 Sato (2014) argues that the final purpose of Confessions for Rousseau is to establish a community of confessors. However individual and singular Rousseau’s confession may be, he expected his confession to provoke confessions of others, thus formulating a community of confessors. Sato finds Rousseau’s attempt in formulating such a community in the final scene of Confessions, where Rousseau read of the manuscript at the house of Madame d’Egmont. The reading, however, resulted in silence among the audience members.

98  Tracing 31 In the preface of the Neuchâtel edition, he argues the need for readers more outspokenly: “I should like each person, in order that he might learn to judge himself correctly, to have at least one other point of comparison; that he should know himself and one other person, and that other person will be me” (Rousseau 2000, 643). 32 Studies on the genre of autobiography find the novelty of Confessions in its relation to truth: with Rousseau, autobiography became a method to reveal the truth, which has the value for everybody. cf. Ishikawa 1994, 17–21; Kelly 1987, 2004. 33 Much literature regards the underlying motif of Confessions personal. According to them, Rousseau hoped Confessions to vindicate his innocence concerning the charges held by his contemporary reading public. However, equally important are his call for one another to reveal their hearts and his emphasis on the usefulness of Confessions. In fact, without the communal quality, Rousseau’s attempt of self-­ vindication would not succeed: he needs the audience interested in his personal story. 34 Representative interpretations that focus on Rousseau’s inwardness tend to pay less attention to the structure of narrative (see, e.g., Trilling 1971; Taylor 1989). 35 The Second Discourse presents men in the state of nature as lacking interests in others. This state of isolation, however, is not a lasting condition in Rousseau’s texts and thus does not contradict my emphasis on the communal quality in Rousseau’s thought. For better or worse, men are thrown into society, from which they together need to seek a way out. 36 In Logic of Sense, Deleuze calls Rousseauian unique individuality “personality,” distinguishing it from what he calls the “individual,” the analytical identity of individual being (Deleuze 1990, “Nineteenth Series of Humor”). 37 As such, Rousseau’s orientation to individuality anticipates Kant’s project to ground the infinite world of representation onto the finite thought of individuals. Regarding the relationship between finitude and infinity in Kant and the problems it causes, see the next chapter. 38 Related characteristics in Rousseau’s work are his reliance on sense and feeling as the guides of action and his delegation of thought. Thus, it seems misleading to find in Rousseau the origin of democratic orientation toward individual reflection. However, despite his recurrent criticism of thinking activity (especially reasoning), Rousseau’s orientation toward individuality marks a stark departure from the tradition before him, and the effect of his new orientation reaches the issue of reflection regardless of his own attitude toward thought. 39 Textual evidence suggests the connection between Rousseau’s criticism of degenerated language in the “Essay on the Origin of the Languages” and his idea of lawgiver in The Social Contract. The “Essay,” originally written as a part of the Second Discourse, ends by explicating the political consequence of the degeneration of language. There Rousseau laments that people are fettered under the degenerated language. While the melodious language enabled people to assemble with one another to exchange, deliver, and hear eloquent persuasion, our society and language keep people scattered and “impossible to speak” (Rousseau 1997a, 299; 5:429). This diagnosis of his contemporary political condition resonates with the argument in Second Discourse, which he suggests would be followed by The Social Contract. For a detailed elaboration, see Scott (1997). 40 See Starobinski (1988, 251–53). 41 As I  suggested earlier Confessions failed in provoking others’ confessions when Rousseau read his manuscript. Nevertheless, his writings contributed to the proliferation of similar autobiographical writings. 42 Current scholarship reveals Sieyès owes as much to other thinkers and contexts as Rousseau. For example, even the idea of general will, they argue, has its roots

Tracing 99 outside Rousseau (Frank 2011). Nonetheless, these studies do not deny the influence of Rousseau upon Sieyès. 43 Regarding the possible effect of Sieyès’s formula upon the production of autonomous subjugation to others, I owe much to Tominaga (2005). 44 They are not the only thinkers to grapple with the new constellation of politics and thinking. The list can be longer. Indeed, I exclusively take up them mainly because of their influences over later political thinkers. In addition, their orientations delineate a subtle but important difference from Flaubert’s, which I find presents one of few attempts to squarely address stupidity under modern democracy. 45 In tracking the problems of The Social Contract—and of democratic politics—my explanation is indebted to Bonnie Honig’s interpretation (2009, Chapter 1). 46 For Habermas, therefore, Kantian critique basically means the introduction of an impartial normative standpoint, which appears most systematically in the Second Critique. As I will explore in the next chapter I find the critical moment of Kantian critique in a different orientation, in Kant’s acknowledgment of the finitude of human thinking that I  regard fully developed in the Third Critique. 47 The same problem haunts the work and words of genius. Indeed, the very fact that even sacred law is open to multiple interpretations seems to be the condition of politics (Cf. Nancy 1999, 107–73). 48 Regarding Rousseau’s contribution to the emergence of society, see for example, Arendt (1998, Chapter 2). Regarding post-Rousseauian society being, in principle, egalitarian and all-encompassing, I do not intend to underestimate the bourgeois character of the civil society that Hegel and Marx criticize. Yet, here I want to emphasize the indispensable role the Rousseauian orientation of individuality plays for civil society in its entirety, instead of pointing out the historical reality of a limited bourgeois civil society. 49 Cf. Berlin (1969). 50 For an interpretation emphasizing this obsession for novelty in Mill, see Cavell (2005, 84). 51 Perfectionism usually refers to the view maintaining that government should encourage individual pursuit of the good (see, e.g., Wolfe and Hittinger 2003), and as such, it tends to recommend a specific conception of good morality. However, here I adopt Cavell’s notion of “perfectionism without perfection,” which does not recommend a specific moral code and denies ultimate perfection while emphasizing the individual pursuit of moral perfection (Cavell 2005, 1–18; see also Flathman 1996, 2006). 52 Cf. Ten (2004, 42–44). 53 See, for example, Rosenblum (1987) and Kateb (2003). 54 “[T]he sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any number of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm from others” (Mill 1991, 14). 55 As Urbinati persuasively argues, Greek thought plays a crucial role in forming Mill’s orientation to individuality and politics. Yet, this Greek influence does not contradict the modernity of Mill’s diagnoses and ideas. 56 For a study that assesses Tocqueville’s political thought as a democratic theory beyond narrow institutions, see, for example, Manent (1996, Chapter 1). 57 While the first volume of Democracy of America addresses the problem as the “tyranny of majority,” the second volume, on which my analysis focuses, addresses it in a wider perspective as the “tyranny of opinion.”

100  Tracing 58 “These abstract words that fill democratic languages, and of which use is made at every turn without linking them to any particular fact, enlarge and veil thought; they render the expression more rapid and the idea less clear” (Tocqueville 2000, 457). 59 Therefore, “judgment” in Tocqueville’s writings is not the same as Kant’s notion of reflective judgment, which I explore in the next chapter. However, it is important that Tocqueville notices the central role individual judgment plays in democracy. 60 Surely, when Sieyès calls the Third Estate “nobody,” he has in his mind its marginalized status in his contemporary hierarchical society. Yet, what is important is that the structure itself persists in democratic society, where anonymity presses individuality into insignificance. 61 The other proposals include grassroots democracy of township, the doctrine of well-understood self-interest, religion, and most of all, political freedom, which underlies all of those proposals. Here I  focus on the idea of association (1) because the idea most directly responds to the despotism of opinion that Tocqueville problematizes in the second volume of Democracy, and while he does not mention the township in the second volume, he does not necessarily discuss religion or self-interest as solutions to the problem, and (2) because the idea of association has a significant influence on current literature regarding civil society. See Uno (1998). 62 See, e.g., Taylor (1995) and Cohen and Arato (1994). 63 Chambers (2009) points out a similar tendency to privilege face-to-face deliberation within small communities as undistorted communication, echoing the current notion of deliberative democracy. 64 By pointing out the insufficiency of Tocqueville’s solution, however, I do not suggest the need for other solutions that could better save our communication from cliché. Actors of the 1848 revolution may have imitated the acts and words in the 1789 revolution. Yet, what is important here is that those imitations are by no means illusions to be corrected by words and deeds that would be more appropriate to the “reality” in 1848. Rather, the reality of 1848 involved clichés—that is, imitations of 1789. 65 One of the few studies of political theory that deals with Flaubert, George Armstrong Kelly’s The Humane Comedy (1992), situates Flaubert as a nonpolitical “Parnassian liberal” (Kelly 1992, chapter 6) and aligns Flaubert with Tocqueville, but as a more extreme case. 66 For a study that analyzes Madame Bovary as operating within Rousseau’s idea of authenticity, see, for example, Trilling (1971). In his studies analyzing the phenomenon of mediocrity by drawing upon The Dictionary of Received Ideas, Hasumi (1988, 2009) attributes the origin of Flaubertian, or Bovarian mode of narrative to Rousseau’s Confessions. By analyzing the linkage between modes of language and personal identity, Strauss (2002) reveals the legacy of Rousseauian orientation toward identity in Flaubert’s works. 67 For the function of mimetic desires in Flaubert’s novels, see Girard’s classic study (Girard 1966). 68 While Flaubert is known as an admirer of science, the value of science for him, according to Culler (1974, 168), lies in the establishment of facts, not in developing a law-like general explanation for facts. 69 Jean-Paul Sartre exemplifies the former view in his criticism of Flaubert’s inability to engage with the reality of bourgeois society (Sartre 1988). Among the latter view, George Armstrong Kelly counts Flaubert as a representative figure of “Parnassian liberalism,” which, with its critical, ironical, and elitist skepticism of democracy and attachment to the idea of human freedom, is characterized by the “retreat from political competition to spheres of culture and criticism, where it stands its ground” (Kelly 1992, 222).

Tracing 101 0 Regarding this myth, see Urwin (2004). 7 71 A similar antagonism between literature and politics is observable in the debate over “politics and literature” among modern Japanese intellectuals, the debate through which many assess the political stance of Hideo Kobayashi, the literary critic and thinker whose work I explore in the fourth chapter. 72 Derrida (1984) reveals the identity between Bouvard and Pécuchet’s assessment of Spinoza’s philosophy and the view Flaubert expresses in his letter. Regarding the Dictionary, see Culler (1974, especially 159–60). 73 “In a sense, all political activity is a conflict aimed at deciding what is speech or mere growl; in other words, aimed at retracing the perceptible boundaries by means of which political capacity is demonstrated” (Rancière 2011, 4). For Rancière’s orientation toward Flaubert and the contribution of realist style to democratic theory, see Panagia (2018, chapters 3, 4). 74 See, for example, Colebrook (2002, chapter 6). In addition, Colebrook emphasizes that the use of the same free indirect style in the writings of Foucault and Deleuze, namely in Difference and Repetition. 75 For the classical mode of irony, see Behler (1990, Chapter 3). 76 The letter was written during the period of the Second Empire. Yet, the nondemocratic form of government does not entirely mean that the period has nothing to do with democracy or is against it. Rather, I interpret Flaubert’s ironical affirmation of democracy under the Second Empire as pointing out the democratic structure of individuality that was already prevalent in that society regardless of the form of government.

3 Facing/missing The problematical thinking and Kant’s critical project

Introduction Having examined how the problematic of stupidity appears more urgently than ever under democracy, I explore a mode of political theorizing that acknowledges the problematic of stupidity in the following two chapters. To repeat, the problematic I elaborated in the first chapter is composed of the following two theses: I

Stupidity is an inherent problem of thinking: we become stupid because we think. As an internal problem, stupidity resists any attempt of demarcation. Thus, it is impossible to distinguish stupid thought from more sophisticated kinds of thought by any pregiven standard. II Not only a problem of thinking, stupidity is also an inherent problem of politics: stupidity reveals the political character of thinking. Against a conventional dichotomy between thinking and politics, the dichotomy holding the former as a solitary activity and the latter as plural one, stupidity attests to the political—that is, the plural character of thinking. Thus, political theory, if it is attentive to this problematic, needs to theorize politics (1) without judging the thinking of people with pregiven standards, and (2) without assuming the dichotomy between solitary thinking and the political, which is prevalent in conventional political theory and philosophy.1 Search for a different kind of political theorizing, however, faces an immediate difficulty: if theory based upon the presuppositions of the righteous and upright thinking is misleading, then with what resource can we start constructing such a mode of theorizing? If political theory has always assumed the presuppositions the problematic illuminates—that is, the hierarchy of thought and the solitary nature of thinking activity—the problematic would call for an entirely new mode of political theorizing that is radically different from the existing traditions. Certainly, Deleuze’s “image of thought,” upon which I draw in articulating the problematic, criticized the traditional ways of philosophizing for presupposing the image, that is, the norm of representation with common sense and goodwill. Nevertheless, the ubiquity of the dogmatic image of thought in the history of thought does not necessarily signify that we need to dissociate from the

Facing/missing 103 tradition. Rather, as I emphasized in the first chapter, the ubiquity suggests the impossibility of philosophy’s being entirely free from an image of thought. This is why I  call for a mode of theorizing that acknowledges the problematic, not one that is free from the problematic. Indeed, as I suggested in the introduction of this study, the history of political philosophy in this sense can be seen as varied responses to the problematic, thereby offering rich resources for the present search for a new mode of theorizing. Among those resources, this chapter focuses on Kant’s theory of judgment, because political interpretations of Kant’s theory, initiated by Arendt, suggest that it can speak to the problematic of stupidity. Arendt’s interpretation can help us respond to the first problematic concerning the hierarchy of thinking, as for Arendt, Kant’s reflective judgment shows the willingness to judge without pregiven standards. In addition, Arendt’s emphasis of sensus communis touches upon the second problematic concerning the distinction between thinking and politics. According to Arendt, sensus communis reveals that reflective judgment anticipates communication with others, thus bridging the boundary of thinking and politics. My analysis, however, reveals that Kantian critique does not succeed in pushing such orientation to its logical end. The trouble here is that in dealing with judgment Kant simply externalizes the problematic moment out of the judgment in general, thus securing the function of our judging capability with a presupposition about its innate righteousness. Such externalization appears most obviously when Kant concludes that stupidity is “the lack of judgment” (Kant 1998a, A133/B173). Out of this externalization, Kant neutralizes his great discovery of the problematicity of thinking—the discovery that thinking is neither upright nor righteous, thus causing the problematic of stupidity. Simply put, while Kant’s critical project is driven by his acknowledgment of the problematicity of thought— and the problematicity should include stupidity—he pulls back from his initial acknowledgment when it comes to judgment. In showing the abortion of critical project and externalization of stupidity, both of which appear in Kant’s orientation toward judgment, I do not mean to criticize Kant simply for his negligence of stupidity. Rather, my point is to show how Kant eventually repeats the conventional resolution vis-à-vis the problematicity of thinking by externalizing the problematicity out of thinking, keeping the image of upright and righteous thinking (that is, the image of thought) intact. I do not regard Kant’s externalization of stupidity merely as a minor problem that we can simply remove from his edifice of thought, either. In fact, we should consider it a point at which Kantian project shatters itself. For, as I argue by drawing upon Deleuze, the Critique of Judgment constitutes the central kernel of Kantian transcendental critique. What is at stake is not merely Kant’s specific attitude toward judgment or stupidity but his entire orientation toward thinking—that is, his critical project. If Kant’s critical project, despite its promise, appears insufficient, what else can provide us with a resource in tackling the problematic of stupidity? While I will tackle this question more in detail in the next chapter, the final section of this

104  Facing/missing chapter probes one promising direction by drawing upon Deleuze’s interpretation of the Critique of Judgment, the interpretation which, in a sense, reads Kant against Kant, bypassing through impasses in Kant’s project to seek a different possibility within it. Through this exploration, I  present an idea of affirmative critique, a kind of critique that retains its acknowledgment of the finitude of thinking.

Judgment, critique, and the problematicity of thinking The question of political judgment has been receiving revived attention since the publication of Hannah Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (hereafter called Lectures in this chapter).2 The theory, in Arendt’s orientation, can be seen to respond to the problematic of stupidity with (1) its resistance against political philosophy’s judging politics according to a given standard, and with (2) its focus on judgment as a communal—hence political—mode of thinking. Kant’s faculty of judgment, Arendt states, is distinctive in that it does not operate with logical reasoning. Logical reasoning cognizes or determines the truthfulness of thinking according to its fidelity to given laws, expelling other modes of thinking that do not conform to such laws as less sophisticated, or merely as erroneous. Judgment, namely, reflective judgment, on the other hand, is not subject to such a pregiven universal standard. As the faculty to deal with particulars, Kantian judgment does not legislate (Kant 2000, 5:177). Specifically, reflective judgment, in which Arendt finds a model of political judgment, does not depend on any given laws but operates without those laws, ascending from the particular to the universal (which Arendt rather freely translates as “the general”). As such, reflective judgment encourages one to think for oneself without recourse to an external authority—Kant calls such thinking Selbstdenken. With this focus on particulars, judgment appears to respond to the first thesis of the problematic—that is, it appears as a mode of thinking that does not rely upon any pregiven standard to differentiate qualities of thought. Thus, political judgment seems to respond well to the need for a political theory as a theory attentive to the problematic of stupidity. In addition, Arendt’s orientation toward Kant’s theory of judgment responds to the second thesis of the problematic of stupidity: the displacement, or dissolution, of the antagonism between philosophy and politics. What becomes clear instead is the plural, or communal, character of thinking, which Arendt partly finds in, and partly constructs from, the Kantian notion of reflective judgment. As Arendt states, “the condition sine qua non for the existence of beautiful objects is communicability” (1982, 63). Judgment as a mode of thinking is different in that it anticipates others’ needs to be able to be communicated (even if our judgments may not lead to a shared conclusion). While the other two main faculties, understanding (Verstand) and reason (Vernunft), contain their own a priori legislation from which to follow cognition or a moral imperative, the faculty of judgment does not legislate, with its principle remaining subjective (Kant 2000, 5:176–79). In cognition and moral reasoning, on the one hand, the a

Facing/missing 105 priori legislation saves us from the need to communicate with others in cognizing or to find categorical imperatives such as “thou shall not lie.” In judging the beauty of a particular object, on the other hand, our judgments remain subjective. For example, when we judge that “this rose is beautiful,” we cannot claim that the rose is objectively beautiful. Nevertheless, in making our statements on beauty, we “solicit everyone else’s assent” (5:237). Judgment is premised upon communicability because it is neither objectively decided nor sealed entirely in individual subjectivity. In other words, the faculty of judgment addresses the plural—and political—dimension of our thinking. The political dimension appears most obviously in Kant’s discussion of sensus communis. At the climax of her Lectures, Arendt delves into section 40 of the Critique of Judgment, where Kant formulates taste, the faculty of aesthetic judgment as sensus communis. If aesthetic judgment requires the agreement of everybody, how can we ground this requirement? For Kant, the ground for such requirement lies in our common sense: By “sensus communis” must be understood the idea of a communal sense, i.e., a power for judging that in its reflection takes account (a priori) of everyone else’s way of representing in thought, in order as it were to hold its judgment up to human reason as a whole and thereby avoid the illusion which, from subjective private conditions that could easily be held to be objective, would have a detrimental influence on the judgment. (Kant 2000, 5:293–94, italics and bold in original) Then, Kant proceeds to articulate three maxims of sensus communis as common sense, or “common human understanding” (Kant 2000, 5:294): the maxim of a reason that is never passive, that of a broad-minded way of thinking, and that of a consistent way of thinking. And in the sensus communis and its maxims, Arendt finds qualities that distinguish judgment from cognition, for the sensus communis, which Arendt calls “community sense,” is “the specifically human sense because communication, i.e., speech, depends on it” (Arendt 1982, 70). Thus, with its attention to (1) a mode of thinking that cannot be judged by external standards and (2) the plurality of thinking, the theory of judgment will appear as a way to envision a political theory that deals with the problematic of stupidity. Moreover, despite a common accusation concerning her “arbitrary” reading of Kant, we can address the aforementioned characteristics of the Lectures—the resistance against a universal standard and the communality of judgment—in Kant’s entire critical project, beyond the narrow interpretation of the Critique of Judgment.3 First, concerning distaste against the pregiven standard of judgment, Kant’s attitude toward thinking activity in general expresses reservation against constructing a hierarchy of thinking, against privileging philosophy over other modes of thinking. Kant was the first “professional thinker” who established the philosopher’s status as a profession of thinking. But, it is also Kant who relentlessly called

106  Facing/missing for the Enlightenment and Selbstdenken—to think for oneself. As Arendt quotes, his well-known remark on Rousseau reveals his belief in equality not only of people but also of their thinking: By inclination I  am an inquirer. I  feel a consuming thirst for knowledge, the unrest which goes with desire to progress in it, and satisfaction in every advance in it. There was a time when I believed this constituted the honor of humanity, and I despised [the] people, who know nothing. Rousseau has put me right. This binding prejudice disappeared, and I  learned to honor man. I would find myself more useless than the common laborer if I did not believe that [what I am doing] can give worth to all others in establishing the rights of mankind. (Arendt 1982, 28–29; cf. Cassirer 1981, 89) Based on this belief, Kant’s critique no longer purports to establish a hierarchy of thinking or a doctrine. Rather, according to Arendt, it “recommends itself by its modesty” (1982, 33, italics mine)—here the word “modesty” resonates with Deleuze’s call for philosophy’s modesty vis-à-vis stupidity (Deleuze 1994, 151; 1968, 197). In a similar manner, concerning the political characteristic of philosophy, with the breakdown of the dichotomies between philosophy and the ordinary people, between solitary wisdom and unsophisticated thought, the corresponding dichotomy between the one and the many withers away. Here it is noteworthy how the two themes Arendt finds in the Critique of ­Judgment—Selbstdenken and the public use of reason—stem from Kant’s manner of approaching philosophy, of philosophizing (philosophieren) in general— namely, in his notion of “critique.” In the earlier part of her Lectures, she calls attention to Kant’s anti-Platonic attitude toward philosophy, the attitude that expresses itself as critique. Instead of transcending our experiences (as Plato’s philosopher does) or ordering qualities of experiences into a hierarchy, the Kantian manner of philosophizing devotes itself to articulating the condition of possible experiences, an activity he calls transcendental critique. Moreover, his critique, which Arendt paraphrases as “critical thinking” (Arendt 1982, 32), has a political implication. Critical thinking is, Arendt states, “a new way of thinking and not a mere preparation for a new doctrine” (1982, 32). Kantian critique is “negative” in that it offers only the possible condition of our thinking and experience, of which actual use is left to us—the reading public, the ordinary citizens. In doing so, Kant affirms the Selbstdenken, which he states as the goal of Enlightenment under the motto “Sapere aude! [Dare to be wise!] Have courage to make use of your own understanding!” (Kant 1996, 8:36, italics in original). Furthermore, this Enlightenment idea of Selbstdenken addresses other important elements of the Third Critique: communicability and enlarged mentality. As Kant makes it clear in “What is Enlightenment?,” the condition sine qua non for Selbstdenken is not the solitary thinking of the philosopher, but the “public use of reason” (Kant 1996), that is, argument among the reading public.4 In sum, by attributing the

Facing/missing 107 Selbstdenken and publicity as well as consistency (for, logical consistency is one of the central subjects of the deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason) to the basic orientation of critique, Arendt’s reading appears to be a consistent appropriation, if not a loyal exegesis, of Kant’s philosophy rather than an arbitrary and selective reading. Furthermore, her undertaking of Kant’s critique makes her interpretation of the Third Critique not only consistent but also pertinent to our purpose of articulating a political theory of stupidity. The Arendtian rendering of Kant’s critical project emanates from his discovery of the “scandal of reason,” an endogenous problematicity of thinking that bears a similarity to the problematic of stupidity. As Arendt adequately states, what drives Kant into his critical project is his finding of the scandal of reason: the fact that, in Arendt’s words, “reason contradicts itself” (1982, 32). In its narrowest sense, the scandal of reason refers to the state of metaphysics that cannot settle the dispute between dogmatism and skepticism. But, in its broader and deeper sense, the scandal designates a fundamental predicament— Heidegger would call it an ontological predicament concerning the finitude of human reason—in human thinking, for which Kant gives a concise formula at the very beginning of the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason: Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason. (1998a, Avii) Kant’s statement above shows a resonance with the problematic of stupidity that I have been elaborating, especially with its first thesis about thinking’s internal chiasm with stupidity. As stupidity cannot stop us from thinking, so is human reason destined to think; knowing the finitude of our reason does not stop us from exercising our reason. Moreover, reason’s inability to solve its problems suggests that these problems are not errors that can be corrected and repelled but that they are closer to stupidity. Is stupidity not one of these problems? As I will explore in the next section, certainly many Kantians (including the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century neo-Kantians and contemporary Kantians such as Habermas) tend to regard reason’s problems as avoidable, if not solvable. However, Kant in the quote above explicitly states that we cannot expel the predicament of reason. In fact, as Norbert Hinske shows, Kant’s acknowledgment of the problematicity of reason runs deep throughout his entire critical project, pointing to the communicative dimension of thinking—which suggests its similarity with the second thesis of the problematic of stupidity. Kant’s acknowledgment, according to Hinske, appears in his statement that there is no such thing as total fallacy.5 Such a thesis is conducive to Kant’s claim on the publicity. Indeed, “one of the central concepts of contemporary political philosophy, that is, the concept of pluralism, has its origin in [Kant’s] theory of fallacy [of Kant]” (Hinske 1980, 43). To sum up, Kant’s critical project attests to his acknowledgment of

108  Facing/missing the problematicity of thinking, and by virtue of this acknowledgment, his critical project presents a rich resource in elaborating a mode of political theorizing congruent with the problematic of stupidity.

From Arendt to Kant As we have seen in the previous section, Kant offers a rich resource in responding to the problematic of stupidity. And Kant’s utility does not only appear in Arendt’s specific interpretation of Kant or Critique of Judgment. Rather, it stems from Kant’s discovery of the scandal of reason and permeates through his entire critical project. However, two questions remain. The first question concerns Kant’s philosophy. Is Kant not the philosopher of universal law? Kant is known as a foundationalist philosopher who laid the ground for our natural science and moral law. In fact, many critiques sympathetic with Kant attack Arendt for her negligence of the valid standard of action, which Kant develops in the Critique of Practical Reason and the Metaphysics of Morals. How can we reconcile these contrasting views? The second question concerns the role of theory of political judgment. Current debates on political judgment revolve around the normative dimension of political judgment: they concern in what way political judgment can improve our political life and how to secure such improving power. This line of exploration includes Kantian critics of Arendt (who aims at offering the valid standard of judgment) as well as those seemingly loyal to Arendt. But those normative orientations risk falling into the problematic of stupidity, which underscores our fundamental incapacity to distinguish a better philosophical claim from other ones. As it becomes clear in the following, to fully address these questions requires an in-depth exploration of Kant’s own texts. But we need to tackle these questions first by focusing on Arendt. Let me start with the first question. The point of contention for the “neo-­ Kantians” (Benhabib 2001) is the inability of Arendt’s orientation to offer a standard of valid judgment. Habermas, as one of the earliest critics within this camp, contends that her rigorous dichotomy between opinion (as that which belongs to the political) and truth (as that which belongs to philosophy)—a dichotomy that can be transferred into another but related dichotomy between practice and theory—bars her from offering a viable truth claim (Habermas 1977, 21–22). For Habermas, political theory needs to be able to offer a standard for truth and validity of political claims. Thus to him Arendt’s focus on judgment appears to be an undue isolation of the Third Critique from Kant’s entire system. While the neo-Kantians are critical of the solipsistic moral law characteristic of Kant, they are loyal to the Kantian ideal of universal validity of moral law. Thus other authors endorse and sharpen the Habermasean criticism, implementing it with Habermas’s discourse ethics. For example, Seyla Benhabib criticizes Arendt’s separation of politics and morality, claiming that the separation makes it impossible to ground political judgment in a desirable morality. Benhabib is sympathetic to Arendt’s resistance against the subsumption of political opinions under the

Facing/missing 109 tyranny of truth, and thus to her disavowal of the Critique of Practical Reason, in which Kant presents morality in the form of a categorical imperative. Yet, Benhabib contends that a mere emphasis on political judgment and public communication does not qualify Arendt’s orientation as a political theory; it needs to be able to offer standards of morality. According to Benhabib, we can avoid that insufficiency by connecting the model of public communication Arendt developed from Kant’s reflective judgment with the model of morality offered by the Habermasean discourse ethics, which, unlike the Kantian model of morality of the categorical imperative, assumes the role of communication in moral matters. By so doing, she concludes, we can attain “agreement among citizens generated through processes of public dialogue,” which is “central to the legitimacy of basic institutions” (Benhabib 2001, 183). In a similar manner, Albrecht Wellmer questions Arendt’s separation of judgment (and hence, of politics) from truth. By uncritically accepting Kantian “presuppositions that concern a scientific conception of truth and a formalistic notion of rationality,” Arendt fails to acknowledge a more communication-based conception of truth and morality, and consequently fails to address “a conception of rationality and of intersubjective validity” (Wellmer 2001, 176, italics in original). As Benhabib promises to implement Arendt’s dissociation of the Third Critique from the Second Critique with the discourse ethics, Wellmer appeals to the same discourse ethics to implement the role of the First Critique. Underlying these lines of criticisms by the neo-Kantians is ironically, Arendt’s Kantianism. It is ironical because these critics concur that Arendt exercises great freedom, or arbitrariness, in approaching Kant’s texts. As Arendt herself makes explicit, in expounding the political philosophy of Kant, she turns to the first half of the Critique of Judgment, which deals with aesthetics. The idiosyncrasy of her reading becomes deeper with the accompanying two moves: not only does she focus on the Third Critique but she also dismisses, first, Kant’s political writings, such as The Doctrine of Right, calling them “mere pleasure trips” or irrelevant (Arendt 1982, 7), and second, even more importantly, Kant’s moral philosophy appearing in the Critique of Practical Reason and the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.6 It is not without reason that Arendt seems to isolate the Third Critique for, according to her, political philosophy is different from moral philosophy. Arendt is adamant in keeping the political, that is, the mode of which condition is the plurality of human beings, distinct from solitary realms of truth and morality such as the Kantian categorical imperative; the latter can be tyrannical when applied to plural political activity. Arendt’s isolation of the Critique of Judgment and the realm of the political, however, appears to her critics as the lack of a system that Kant could have offered, a system that could provide theory with a standard of validity. This isolation appears insufficient without any connection with the moral and cognitive ground upon which validity of political judgment should be established. However, the pursuit of validity conflicts with the problematic of stupidity, namely its first thesis on the lack of standard. Moreover, the validity risks betraying the ideal of Selbstdenken, for the universal validity can interfere with the

110  Facing/missing individual’s spontaneous thinking.7 These problems lead us to ask which orientation is loyal to Kant, Selbstdenken or validity? Before further pursuing this question in the next section by analyzing Kant’s texts, I turn back to Arendt’s interpretation of Kant, which finally leads to the second question concerning the normativity of the Kantian orientation toward judgement. As we have seen, what is at stake in debates over Arendt’s alleged arbitrary appropriation of Kant is the lack of normative standard. While Kant offers rich resources in articulating the normative standpoint, Arendt, strangely to her critics, ignores these resources. Indeed, it is not only the neo-Kantians that criticize the lack of normative validity in Arendt. Ronald Beiner, for example, laments the lack of normative orientation from the standpoint of the Aristotelian perspective, calling for a need for theory to guide good political action. While the Aristotelian guidance for action does not aim for universal validity, Beiner shares with neo-Kantians the view that theory of political judgment should prescribe normative orientations. As I  have argued earlier, the avoidance of normative standpoint can help tackle the problematic of stupidity. However, such avoidance will leave a question: What does the theory do if it gives up the normative standard?8 Is such a theory possible? To be sure, Arendt occasionally touches upon the question of validity as one emanating from dealing with judgment (see, e.g., Arendt 1982, 20, 69–70). But nowhere does she take it up as her main concern.9 Rather, as Linda Zerilli rightly points out, Arendt’s undertaking of judging activity is not “the production of a normative basis for political action” (Zerilli 2005, 178–79). Her exploration of judgment is oriented toward accounting for the faculty of judgment rather than solving problems, such as that of validity, that arise from our judging activities. The finding that results from such an account is the affirmation of our public freedom, which lies in “constructing and discovering community and its limits” (178). Let me paraphrase Zerilli’s claim in more detail. As I mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, aesthetic judgment can be neither deducted from objective law nor entirely left to subjective preference. Outside the objective truth and subjective arbitrariness, our judgments require the agreement of others. As Deleuze succinctly puts it, “We don’t hold it against someone for saying: I don’t like lemonade, I don’t like cheese . . . [b]ut we harshly judge someone who says: I don’t like Bach, I prefer Massenet to Mozart” (Deleuze 2004, 60). While it is possible that someone prefers Massenet to Mozart, and while we cannot postulate everyone’s agreement in actual situations, aesthetic judgment requires (ansinnen) this agreement from everyone (Kant 2000, 5:216). Now this requirement reveals the communicative, community-related dimension of judgment, because in aesthetic judgment, one “lays claim to the consent of everyone” (5:216). It is in this communicative dimension of aesthetic judgment that Arendt and Zerilli find the function of “discovering and finding community,” which Zerilli also calls the “world-building practice of judging” (Zerilli 2012, 8). By uttering our judgment to others, we solicit others’ assent, thus initiating, discovering, and joining a community wherein we can exchange our judgments. This does not guarantee,

Facing/missing 111 however, such communities are steadily maintained or just, as our capacity for judgment does not guarantee the successful establishment of agreement or our making just or good (morally or aesthetically) judgments. Again, what Critique of Judgment can show is only that judgment requires agreement of others, not that we achieve it. This is why Zerilli rightly adds “its limits” (Zerilli 2005, 178) in our capacity for discovering or finding community. In making an aesthetic or political judgment, we may not be able to attain the agreement of others. In fact, others may be strongly opposed to or simply ignore our judgments. Nonetheless, such failures do not deny that our judging activity can open up a space for community: first, even disagreement requires a common space that makes the utterance of disagreement possible. Second—and more importantly—Arendt’s account does not concern itself with how to construct, maintain, or find a particular community. Arendt’s point in turning to Kant’s exploration of judgment is to affirm public freedom, but in such a way as to affirm our capacity for community rather than to build an ideal or morally good community.10 In this light, Zerilli states that Arendt “refuses to define this activity in terms of the production of a normative basis for political action” (Zerilli 2005, 178). The affirmation of our public freedom simply and solely comes from such an account of our judging faculty, rather than positing or postulating some normative standard upon it. This view by Zerilli helps liberate Arendt scholarship (and political theory influenced by Arendt) from a certain image of political theory, the assumption that political theory should prescribe a “normative basis of political action” upon which our political activities and institutions are to be justified. Moreover, this liberation from the “validity problematic” (Zerilli 2005, 187n41) of political theory—which I hereafter rephrase as the “justification problematic”—helps us address the first question, the question concerning Arendt’s alleged arbitrary interpretation of Kant. As we will see in the next section, we can trace such nonjustificatory oriented theorization back to Kant’s fundamental undertaking of thinking at the very inception of his critical project. But let us continue examining Zerilli’s argument. Despite adequately grasping Arendt’s nonjustificatory orientation, it remains unclear whether Zerilli’s interpretation is free from normative orientation and effective in responding to the first thesis of the problematic. And this leads to the second question: to what extent is Kant’s theory of judgment free from the validity problematic? For example, Zerilli, in criticizing “the validity problematic” prevalent in current political theory, holds that “[Arendt’s] point is . . . to press us to think about what we are doing when we reduce the practice of politics to the contest of better arguments” (Zerilli 2005, 159–60). Here, political theory of judgment stands as a negative meta- or countertheory, because its objective is not to act upon our activity of judgment.11 Such a negative conception of the political theory of judgment is actually consonant with the negative role Kant gives to his critical project. For Kant, the role of critique remains negative in that it does not do any other thing than clarify the boundaries of our experience. The aim of philosophy, Kant contends,

112  Facing/missing consists “of revealing the deceptions of a reason that misjudges its own boundaries and of bringing the self-conceit of speculation back to modest but thorough self-knowledge by means of a sufficient illumination of our concepts” (1998a, A735/B763, italics mine). As such, critique renounces its exclusive access to thought and returns it to us as ordinary human beings. Or, perhaps we can say, Kant returns wisdom from the hands of philosophers to our common sense, as Kant ironically puts it: “[D]o you demand that a cognition that pertains to all human beings should surpass common understanding and be revealed to you only by philosophers?” (A831/B859) Nevertheless, does Zerilli’s theory of political judgment not transgress the limits of negative theory when she claims that “we need to develop the faculty of judgment” (Zerilli 2005, 163, italics mine)? On what grounds does she justify her claim? Here, her seemingly adequate interpretation of Arendt seems to evince a slippage—or, what Kant would call an “exaggerated pretension” (1998a, A794/B822). Starting from criticizing the normative-oriented conception of political theory, she ends up justifying a normative claim by holding that we need to cultivate the faculty of judgment. In fact, Zerilli elsewhere becomes less reserved in making normative claims, calling for the need to retain our “common world” (Zerilli 2012). As we have seen, our judging activity opens up a space where our opinions can be exchanged and communicated. Certainly, she is cautious not to extract a manual of “how to judge” or become engaged with “boundary-securing activity” to determine the legitimate sphere of judging activity (7–8). However, she is adamantly opposed to “the loss of a common world in which significant differences of perspective can be publicly voiced and critically judged” (9). Now Zerilli maintains that we need to secure this space—the common world—constituted of the plurality of opinions. Though obviously normative, this claim may sound fairly reasonable on first glance. Nevertheless, it raises questions. What can destroy such a common world? Certainly, disagreement cannot destroy the common world, since disagreement is what, in fact, opens up and sustains the space of communication. Moreover, if judgment is an activity we conduct in our ordinary lives, how is it possible that we lose such a common world as it stems from our ubiquitous activity of judging? Here the ubiquity does not mean empirical existence but the transcendental condition. Or, if we can stretch the term “transcendental” in a Heideggerian way (as Arendt does), the world discussed here is of ontological character, the mode of our existence. How can we ground, then, the necessity of an ontic world, or the ontic world in general, in the ontological account of our worldliness? Anticipating these questions, Zerilli states that the common world is “much more than” an ontological fact of human plurality as The Human Condition seems to suggest (Zerilli 2012, 22). “Were the common world ontologically given,” she contends, then it would be hard to see how it could ever be lost. But in Arendt’s account it surely can. We do better to think of the common world as a political achievement, however rooted it may be in the ontological idea of human plurality. (Zerilli 2012, 22–23)

Facing/missing 113 According to Zerilli, the common world is “much more” than the–ontological |worldliness because the former is sustained through the political faculty of judgment, which enables us to acknowledge plurality. In this ontic–ontological relation, judgment serves to actualize the ontological worldliness into an actual world.12 Zerilli’s call for the common world is also consistent with the context in which Arendt introduces the faculty of judgment at the end of the volume Willing in The Life of Mind. At the end of this second volume of her posthumous work, Arendt anticipates the move toward the topic of judgment by emphasizing the need for the faculty to accompany the fact of plurality. Moreover, Arendt’s reading of the Critique of Judgment suggests this normative move when, in the final session of Lectures, she finds in the Kantian theory of political judgment the “original compact” guaranteeing human communicability, the compact she formulates under a kind of categorical imperative: “The, as it were, categorical imperative for action could read as follows: Always act on the maxim through which this original compact can be actualized into a general law” (Arendt 1982, 75). Finally, as we will see in the next section, Kant’s own orientation allows such a normative move. Nevertheless, contextual consistency does not solve the philosophical question posed earlier: How can we lose a mode of judgment that is common to our daily activity? Judgment plays a kernel role not only in art or extraordinary political events, but also in every corner of life. Then, how is it possible for us to lose the activity of judgment? For Arendt, our common world ceases to exist when we lose our capacity for judgment. It is true that Arendt sees the loss of a common world in historical events such as totalitarianism and Eichmann’s “stock phrase” (Arendt 2003, 159; 2006, 49). But it is a different question whether her account of judgment philosophically explains it. Rather, should we question here Arendt’s conception of judgment? In the first chapter, I pointed out a hidden assumption in Arendt’s understanding of our thinking activity: the assumption that thinking should never go astray. The same kind of assumption seems to apply to her orientation to judgment because judgment always appears unproblematic in constructing our common world. If judgment knows no problematical element within it, however, does it not contradict the very starting point of Arendtian–Kantian critique, problematicity of thinking? The answers to this question, however, will be found in Kant’s Critiques rather than in Arendt’s work, as I will show in the next section.

Critique of judgment as the limit of critical project Through analyzing Arendt’s Lectures against the criticisms on it, the previous section identified Arendt’s undertaking as a Kantian critique. In terms of the original purpose of this chapter—to search for a mode of political theorizing that acknowledges stupidity—the affinity between the Arendtian orientation and the problematic of stupidity I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter is now found in Kant’s own critical project. Kant’s discovery of the “scandal of reason” suggests his acknowledgment of the endogenous problematicity of thinking (just

114  Facing/missing as the first thesis of the problematic maintains stupidity to be an endogenous problem of thinking), and the discovery of scandal leads him to emphasize the communal character of judgment under the maxim of an “enlarged mentality” (which implies an affinity with the second thesis’s point on the plural character of thinking). Simply put, Kant is the philosopher who introduces the problematicity of human thinking in the course of modern philosophy, under whose influence this study of stupidity operates as well. With these clarifications, now it is possible to examine Kant’s own orientation, for the previous section left a couple of questions unanswered. First, the identification of the Arendtian orientation with Kant’s critical project might appear contradictory to the common understanding of Kant as the philosopher of the justification problematic who presented a systematic philosophy to secure our claims to knowledge and modern science. By repudiating the criticisms of Arendt by the neo-Kantians such as Habermas, do I  disregard their understanding of Kant altogether? The second question concerns the seemingly inconsistent normative move in the Zerillian–Arendtian orientation: Does Kant, or Arendt, maintain the acknowledgment of endogenous problematicity? If not, what hinders this acknowledgment? In this section, I start by addressing the first question. By closely looking at how those two images of Kant—the philosopher of the validity problematic and that of Selbstdenken—emerge in his Critiques, I will show that (1) the two images are two different responses to the scandal of reason, that is, the problematicity of thinking and (2) the Critique of Judgment reveals the limits of the justification problematic. These two findings, however, do not only attest to the final supremacy of the Arendtian orientation over the validity problematic in Kant. Rather, the Third Critique reveals the impasse of the Arendtian orientation that stimulates Selbstdenken as well. An extensive analysis of the impasse surrounding Kant’s notion of sensus communis will show the breakdown that manifests as an externalization of the endogenous problematicity of thinking. In doing so, the latter half of this chapter will address the second aforementioned question. Moreover, my analysis of Kant’s externalization of problematicity will show the relevance of this externalization for the study of stupidity as well, for as we will see, Kant externalizes the problematicity as stupidity. Earlier in this chapter, we detected the origin of the Arendtian orientation toward Selbstdenken and enlarged mentality at the very incipience of Kant’s critical project, that is, the preface to the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. In the preface, Kant calls for such critical thinking by appealing to the spirit of Enlightenment: “[O]ur age is the genuine age of criticism, to which everything must submit” (1998a, Axi–xii, bold in original). On the other hand, however, the same acknowledgment can prompt the justification problematic that Zerilli and Arendt try to dissociate from their theory of judgment and upon which neoKantians like Habermas draw. The critical project, Kant states in the very same preface, sets itself up as the court of reason, by which reason may secure its rightful claims while dismissing all its groundless pretensions, and this not by mere decrees but according to its own

Facing/missing 115 eternal and unchangeable laws; and this court is none other than the critique of pure reason itself. (Axi–xii, italics mine, bold in original) By sorting out rightful claims from ungrounded claims, the critique secures the realm wherein human thinking can claim its valid use. Moreover, while the Critique of Pure Reason focuses on our cognitive faculty and leaves the moral—and for some readers, political—dimension for the Critique of Practical Reason, the preface already anticipates the political role of such justificatory theory with its employment of political metaphor.13 According to Kant, the state of metaphysics underwent a civil war between the despotic rule of dogmatism and the intrusion of barbaric skepticism, the civil war that finally led to anarchy. Against the anarchy, the court of pure reason brings about the “state of law” (A752/B780). To give a fair and valid ground to which competing claims can appeal for a verdict— is this not what we usually regard as the role of normative political theory under the name of justification? Thus, these two seemingly contradictory images coexist in Kant’s critical project. Surely, Arendt does not fail to notice it. In fact, as we have seen, the tension between the two images is the very reason that Arendt focuses on the Third Critique. Nonetheless, given that these two images exist in the general orientation of Kant’s critical project, both emanating from his discovery of the scandal of reason, it requires a more detailed analysis. It is insufficient to allocate each image to a specific Critique (such as attributing the validity problematic to the First and Second Critique and the Selbstdenken to the Third). Let me first examine how Kant develops the first, the justification problematic. In securing legitimate human thought, Kant detects its source of predicament and possibility in the allocation of faculties, which he discusses in depth in the second division, the “Transcendental Dialectic” of the First Critique.14 There, Kant describes the nature of dialectical reasoning in a way that is reminiscent of the fate of human reason mentioned in the first edition’s preface. Dialectical reasoning leads to erroneous conclusions, as Kant shows in the antinomies of reason in which two contradictory conclusions can be deduced about the same object. For example, we cannot decide whether the universe is finite or infinite, because we can develop fair reasoning for each without any logical fallacy. What makes the dialectic more troubling is that it is unavoidable. In fact, the dialectic springs from “the nature of reason”: They are sophistries not of human beings but of pure reason itself, and even the wisest of all human beings cannot get free of them; perhaps after much effort he may guard himself from error, but he can never be wholly rid of the illusion, which ceaselessly teases and mocks him. (Kant 1998a, A339/B397) In short, the dialectic is an endogenous problem of thinking. Then, how can we secure our thought, at least, from error?

116  Facing/missing The Kantian—that is, the critical—answer is that we can detect the source of such a fallacious dialectic and, hence, secure human reason within due limits, even if we cannot avoid the dialectic itself. The source of the fallacious dialectic, Kant argues, lies in applying our faculties mistakenly. When, for example, we reason about the universe, we confuse the Idea of universe—which cannot be given in our experience and is subject only to our pure reason—with the object of possible experience that belongs to the domain of understanding. Thus, the antinomy about the finitude of the universe occurs because the reason presents the universe as if it is an object of experience that needs to be given as intuition in space and time while it cannot. In so doing, the use of reason becomes transcendent, that is, it goes beyond its proper domain of possible experience and gives rise to illusion. Now that its cause has been identified, we can distinguish fallacious dialectics from legitimate thinking by limiting the use of our faculties—in the context of the First Critique, reason and understanding—within their proper domains. More specifically, these faculties can secure their legitimate uses (1) by keeping the reason, pure and practical, within its regulative use, to which I  will return later, and (2) with one faculty legislating, putting the others to work. Simply put, the due allocation of faculties makes the endogenous problem of thinking manageable, thus enabling the justification problematic in the Kantian project, especially in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason. The resolution of the dialectic through the allocation of faculties, however, is not available when it comes to the critique of judgment. In the First and Second Critique, central faculties, that is, understanding and practical reason, respectively legislate and coordinate with other faculties. Yet, the characteristic of Critique of Judgment is that judgment does not identify any such specific faculty that legislates. In fact, if any faculty legislates in judging, it would then subsume particulars under given legislation and would no longer be reflective judgment. Thus, the Third Critique occupies the position of a “mediating link” in the system of faculties (Kant 2000, 5:177). Critique of Judgment can still establish the principle regarding the necessity and universality to which our exercise of judgment appeals. However, this principle remains subjective. Moreover, the basis of this principle—the condition of judgment—is nothing but a harmonious and free play of the two faculties of understanding and imagination: “Hence taste, as a subjective power of judgment, contains a principle of subsumption; however, this subsumption is not one of intuitions under concepts, but, rather, one of the power of intuitions or exhibitions (the imagination) under the power of concepts (the understanding), insofar as the imagination in its freedom harmonizes with the understanding in its lawfulness” (Kant 2000, 5:287, italics in original). While the critique of judgment as a mere mediating link depends upon the system of faculties rather than grounding it, this meditational character does not decrease the importance of judgment for the critical project. The role of judgment, whether it be reflective or determinate, is not limited to aesthetic judgment. The simplest cognitive statement, S is P, is already a judgment. Surely, Kant credits reflective—aesthetic and teleological—judgment with a status distinguished from that of such logical judgment as occupied the traditional studies

Facing/missing 117 on the matter. But, this does not imply the total separation of the two types of judgment. Rather, reflective judgment serves as a foundation of all judging activities because it presents the former condition of judgment, stripped of the guidance of concept and its faculty, understanding:“[I]ts basis [of judgment of taste] is only the subjective formal condition of a judgment as such” (Kant 2000, 287). Simply put, by dealing with the activity of judgment ubiquitous in all our intellectual operations, the Critique of Judgment offers a foundation for the entire critical project.15 Now, Zerilli, or Arendt, may welcome this meditational and foundational character of the Critique of Judgment, because it liberates the critique from the justification problematic, thus allowing us to make the Kantian critique solely concerning the other moment, Selbstdenken. However, such liberation would risk the entire critical project. Now the Critique of Judgment is liberated from one pillar of the justification problematic: the legislation of the leading faculty. But, as I will show, the Kantian critique still retains the other pillar: the allocation and collaboration among faculties without grounding it. Without offering the foundation of the collaboration of faculties, the Critique of Judgment risks being presumptuous. In using the word “risk,” I am not concerned that the critical project would lose its systematic unity without the prescription for justification, for which neo-Kantians criticize Arendt. Rather the Critique of Judgment touches upon the limit of the critical project in terms of its fundamental motif, its raison d’être, that is, the acknowledgment of the endogenous problematicity of thinking. Therefore, by examining this risk, my exploration addresses the second question mentioned at the beginning of this section—the question concerning the seemingly inconsistent slippage into normative claim. Rather than dealing with the problematicity, does the Critique of Judgment not encourage a presumption about the harmonious function of our faculties, thus secreting a normative theory of judgment? To evaluate the risk more clearly, we need to closely examine that which does and does not lie within the Kantian principle of the free play between imagination and understanding. As previously stated, the ground of our judgment (of taste) is the harmony between imagination and understanding (and the ability to communicate it), defined as the aesthetic sensus communis.16 Sensus communis, however, should not be the final ground for Kant’s critical endeavor, for it does not address the condition in which such harmony is possible. How can we presuppose that more than two faculties spontaneously come into such harmonious accord? While it is possible that such harmony exists on the empirical ground, mere empirical possibility still lacks the needed transcendental ground to distinguish de jure sensus communis from contingent accord. Then, what would allow the Third Critique to assume the transcendental status of sensus communis? Kant repeatedly reminds us of the unavailability of the objective ground of sensus communis, which would provide the faculty of judgment with its own legislation, thus turning reflective judgment upon the particulars into determinate judgment. Therefore, the question about sensus communis takes us back to the answer our exploration has been revolving around: the critique of judgment is different from the other critiques in that it cannot specify the rule for reflective judgment—this special status liberates us from the

118  Facing/missing justification problematic, at the cost of leaving the critique ungrounded. However, the problem here is that the Critique of Judgment does not entirely maintain this reserved stance concerning the role of critique. The Critique of Judgment could open a mode of theorizing different from the justification problematic. Kant, however, precludes this possibility by introducing an assumption concerning the harmonious accordance of judgment. To address these points, it is helpful to examine where and how Kant finds the problem internal to judgment. Only by locating the problem within judgment can Kant maintain the original discovery that drove him into the critical project: the discovery that stupefied him into thinking—the endogenous problematicity of thinking.17 In fact, Kant holds that our aesthetic judgment is still problematic in its empirical use: “[I]n the aesthetic power of judgment . . . the subsumption may easily be illusory [trugen]” (2000, 5:290–91). What would such illusory use look like?18 After admitting the illusory use of judgment, however, Kant quickly adds the following: But this does not in any way detract from the legitimacy of the power of judgment’s claim in counting on universal assent, a claim that amounts to no more than this: that the principle of judging validly for everyone from subjective bases is correct. For as far as the difficulty and doubt concerning the correctness of the subsumption under that principle is concerned, no more doubt is cast on the legitimacy of the claim that aesthetic judgments as such have this validity (and hence is cast on the principle itself), than is cast on the principle of the logical power of judgment (a principle that is objective) by the fact that [sometimes] (though not so often and so easily) this power’s subsumption under its principle is faulty as well. (2000, 5:290–91) Therefore, as soon as the Critique of Judgment faces its problematicity, that is, the failure in subsumption, Kant quickly covers up the problematicity. Two presuppositions sustain Kant’s avoidance of problematicity: one is the sensus communis and the other the faculty of judgment. As previously mentioned, the impasse of sensus communis is that it remains a presupposition because of its non-groundability. Since sensus communis is the basis for judgment, the former’s impasse cannot but affect the latter. Judgment, always singular in dealing with the particular, cannot be a faculty. Where there is only contingent, factual harmony among faculties, judgment cannot but appear as a factual, singular act. Otherwise, judgment would require its own terrain rather than depending on harmony between imagination and understanding and also require its own legislation. Nevertheless, Kant speaks as if we are equipped with the faculty of judgment. In speaking of our power of judgment, Kant employs the term “the power of judgment (Urteilkraft),” as different from faculty (Vermögen), which means mental capacity. For example, the original German title of the Critique of Judgment is Kritik der Urteilkraft. According to Longuenesse, Vermögen means “possibility”

Facing/missing 119 or “potentiality” that we, as owners of the capacity, bring into its actualization, whereas Kraft means actual force (Longuenesse 1998, 5). However, Kant does not always maintain this cautious distinction, when, for example, he writes, “The subjective condition of all judgments is our faculty [Vermögen] to judge, i.e., the power of judgment [Urteilkraft]” (2000, 5:287/151, italics mine).19 With this rhetorical operation, Kant presents our actual judgments as if they emanate from our potential capacity. More importantly, our capacity/faculty to judge, as well as harmonious sensus communis, does not know any problematicity within it. This is what lies beneath the slippage we found in Zerilli’s interpretation of Arendtian theory of judgment, the slippage from nonnormative theorization into a blatant, unconditional normalization of judging activity.20 Let me summarize the problem I have been exploring in this section. The main focus of my exploration is the status of the Critique of Judgment in Kant’s critical project—whether it is seen as the justification problematic or as Selbstdenken. Kant’s critique starts with his discovery of the endogenous problematicity of our thinking activity. The problematicity—the scandal of reason—cannot be solved or dispelled. As such, it is clearly distinguished from error or fallacy: we can correct or dispel fallacy by identifying its sources (such as those in reasoning or misrecognition) and fixing them. Against this problematicity, however, Kant seems to offer a diagnosis in “Transcendental Dialectic” in the Critique of Pure Reason, where he addresses the problem as antinomy and paralogisms, which he attributes to the illegitimate use of faculties. The “Dialectic” remains ambiguous about whether it offers a solution, because Kant cautiously maintains that dialectical reasoning is inevitable. But, in this premise, Kant makes an important move toward domestication of the problematicity, for the problems—antinomies and paralogisms—are no longer within our faculties, but placed outside each of them, the function of which is innately right as long as we allocate them in their appropriate terrains. Now it is a problem we can detect and handle. Nevertheless, the Critique of Judgment suspends this strategy of domestication and thus could force Kant’s critique to re-square with the problematicity: a squaring that would give it central importance for the critical project as well as make it a model for the political theory of stupidity. In judgment that does not have a leading faculty to legislate to allow other faculties to coordinate under its guidance, we cannot cover up the problematicity by simply assuming the innate righteousness of faculties. In fact, Kant again and more decisively externalizes the problematicity as the lack of the faculty of judgment, or as what he calls “stupidity.” According to Kant: The lack of the power of judgment [Urteilskraft] is that which is properly called stupidity, and such a failing is not to be helped. A dull or limited head, which is lacking nothing but the appropriate degree of understanding and its proper concepts, may well be trained through instruction, even to the point of becoming learned. But since it would usually still lack the power of judgment (the secunda Petri), it is not at all uncommon to encounter very learned men

120  Facing/missing who in the use of science [Wissenshaft] frequently give glimpses of that lack, which is never to be ameliorated. (Kant 1998a, A133–34/B173–74, italics mine)21 This statement is paradoxical, because for Kant, we can never lack the faculty of judgment. While it is possible that we are misguided or unlearned in using the faculty, we can never lose the faculty of judgment itself. But, as long as Kant retains the presupposition of the successful exercise of judgment under the harmonious sensus communis, this paradox is inevitable, showing the limit of his Critiques. So, despite Kant’s acknowledgment of the problematicity of thinking, Kant’s critical project appears insufficient due to the externalization of stupidity. If Kant’s orientation is insufficient, is Kant’s entire orientation useless for my exploration of stupidity? I do not think so, because again, it is Kant who discovered the problematicity in our thinking activity. Given his great discovery of the scandal of reason, it is better to utilize this resource than merely to disregard it. But which part in Kant’s edifice can we modify against Kant’s own effacement of problematicity, and how can we do so? Before addressing this question in the next section, I want to respond to one potential rejoinder to my analysis, which concerns the status of sensus communis. Arendtians, or Zerillians, may counter my criticism of Kant that sensus communis is an Idea, not demanding actual harmony to apodictically exist but requiring its regulative use so that we guide our faculties under the Idea. Thus, they may continue, my criticism against the nongroundedness and ungroundability of sensus communis misunderstands the status of Kantian Idea. As I argue in the following section, we cannot maintain such interpretation, but by examining the relationship between sensus communis and Idea we can find a clue to resolve the impasse of the faculty of judgment. By accepting sensus communis as an Idea, critics would argue, we can avoid the sensus communis impasse wherein it cannot find the ground it needs. Ideas, for Kant, refer to objects that we can think or sense but cannot cognize with understanding. For example, rational Ideas, such as “the absolute (unconditioned) unity of the thinking subject,” the world as “the absolute unity of series of conditions of appearance,” and God as “the absolute unity of the condition of all objects of thought in general” (Kant 1998a, A334/B391, bold in original), occur to our reason without corresponding intuitions. As such, they cause “illusion [Scheine],” leading to paralogisms and antinomies in our reasoning when we regard them to be objects of understanding and to constitute our experience. Despite such fallacious effects, Ideas can bear a positive role as well when restricted within regulative use. While Ideas cannot be engaged with “extension” (A671/B699) of our experience, they can “direct” our faculties (A644/B672). In so doing, Ideas actualize our use of faculties as well as present a unity of objects to which we exercise our multiple faculties: “[The Idea] shows not how an object is constituted but how, under the guidance of that concept, we ought to seek after the constitution and connection of objects of experience in general” (A671/B699). Ideas cannot explain how they are possible, but they still serve us to constitute possible experience.

Facing/missing 121 Then, is sensus communis an Idea? A characteristic Kant attributes to sensus communis reveals a similarity to that of an Idea: indeterminate in its spontaneous accord, sensus communis is outside the guidance of understanding. Moreover, if we regard sensus communis as an Idea, the dilemma threatening it will wither away. On the one hand, if sensus communis can be grounded as a concept, it would require understanding to legislate over its mechanism. However, that would subsume the Third Critique under the terrain of the First Critique. Or worse, it would turn Kant’s aesthetic into dogmatic idealism by destroying the system of faculties and crediting the concept with a transcendent role. On the other hand, if sensus communis is a mere empirical fact, it would remain ungrounded, making judgment mere contingent fact. By containing sensus communis within the realm of a regulative Idea, we can liberate it from the risk of the determinate law of concept and empirical contingency. In addition, Kant himself seems to support this interpretation when he speaks of sensus communis as the “idea of communal sense” (2000, 5:293, bold in original). Notwithstanding these advantages and textual clues, we cannot see sensus communis as an Idea. Given the role sensus communis, as the basis of judgment, plays in the Kantian system of faculties, this interpretation returns the entire critical project, not only the critique of taste, into the realm of Ideas. Sensus communis is an indispensable juncture for the multiple faculties to work—to communicate and collaborate with one another. Without the actual possibility of harmonious communication among them, we can no longer be assured of the possibility of cognition as well as morality and judgment, all of which are premised upon the actual coordination of faculties.22 Therefore, we cannot regard sensus communis merely as a Kantian Idea. Nonetheless, it is true that sensus communis maintains a special relation with an Idea. And this relationship enables the focus of my exploration of Ideas, which in turn, helps one to modify Kant’s edifice so that it becomes more attentive to the probmlematicity of thinking. Sensus communis is a medium by which our faculties are subjectively connected with an Idea: “[Aesthetic Idea is] related to an intuition, in accordance with a merely subjective principle of the mutual harmony of the faculties of cognition with each other (imagination and understanding)” (Kant 2000, 5:342). Although both rational and aesthetic Ideas are different from cognition, the latter demonstrates itself through “symbol” (5:351), making the Ideas of the noumenal world as if accessible via sensus communis. Simply put, sensus communis is a “trace” of the rational Idea (Ferry 1993, 88; Kant 2000, 5:300): There is thus a free and contingent agreement between the imagination and the understanding, an agreement completely unforeseeable and ungovernable— which is why there can be neither a poetic craftsmanship (ars poétique) nor any science of the Beautiful however defined. And this agreement of the sensual and the intellectual faculties in turn functions as a symbolic trace, as a beginning for the bringing into reality of those Ideas of reason which, as we have seen, to be “presented.” (Ferry 1993, 92, italics in original)

122  Facing/missing Therefore, Kant seems to suggest that aesthetic judgment can touch on problematicity by virtue of this symbolic demonstration of Ideas. This formula elucidates the important role of Ideas in Kant’s entire critical project: Ideas lie at the strange conjunction between problematic human thought and the absolute world beyond human thought. Let me examine how Ideas affect finite thinking toward the infinity. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant explains how our reason as the faculty of Ideas offers the Idea of the absolute to understanding as in the following: Now a transcendental concept of reason always goes to the absolute totality in the synthesis of conditions, and never ends except with the absolutely unconditioned, i.e., what is unconditioned in every relation. For pure reason leaves to the understanding everything that relates directly to objects of intuition or rather to their synthesis in imagination. It reserves for itself only the absolute totality in the use of concepts, and seeks to carry the synthetic unity, which is thought in the categories, all the way to the absolutely unconditioned. We can therefore call this the unity of reason in appearances, just as that which the category expresses can be called the unity of understanding. Thus reason relates itself only to the use of the understanding, not indeed insofar as the latter contains the ground of possible experience (for the absolute totality of conditions is not a concept that is usable in an experience, because no experience is unconditioned), but rather in order to prescribe the direction toward a certain unity of which the understanding has no concept, proceeding to comprehend all the actions of the understanding in respect of every object into an absolute whole. Hence the objective use of the pure concepts of reason is always transcendent, while that of the pure concepts of understanding must by its nature always be immanent, since it is limited solely to possible experiences. (Kant 1998a, A326–27/B382–83, bold in original, underlining mine) Ideas, which themselves concern the absolute, affect human faculties by “prescribing the direction” in thinking. By this expression, Kant means that the Ideas drive human thinking to work. Or, using another expression Kant gives to aesthetic Ideas, Idea “prompts much thought” (2000, 5:314). Now, this thought-provoking character of Kant’s Ideas reminds us of the thought-provoking character of stupidity. As we saw in the first chapter, Deleuze presented stupidity as a thought-provoking phenomenon: as “the transcendent element which can only be thought (‘the fact that we do not yet think’ or ‘What is stupidity?’)” (1994, 153; 1968, 198). According to him, stupidity provokes thinking by driving us into thinking.23 This similarity leads us to see Ideas as the moment when Kant’s acknowledgment of problematicity is best retained. Indeed, it is through Ideas that we are driven to face ineluctable problems such as illusions and antinomies: the problems that Ideas raise generate our thinking.

Facing/missing 123 However, we cannot be entirely satisfied with Kant’s edifice when looking for a mode of theorizing that acknowledges the problematic of stupidity. As we have seen throughout this section, the Kantian critical project first opens onto and then effaces his acknowledgment of problematicity, whether in promulgating the validity problematic or relying on the presumptions of unproblematical judgment. In fact, Kant’s orientation to Ideas already anticipates his move toward the effacement of problematicity. In the previous quote, Kant introduces the distinction between immanent and transcendent uses of faculties. According to Kant, by maintaining our use of Ideas to be immanent, we can avoid the deceptive illusions of reason caused by Ideas and achieve the legitimate use of our faculties.24 Thus, when properly limited within immanent use, Ideas can rather efface the problematicity of thinking. Despite his effacement of problematic Ideas, his distinction between immanent and transcendent uses of faculties evinces a moment against such neutralization by implying the problematic use of judgment. According to Kant, it is our judgment that distinguishes the immanent use of Ideas from the transcendent use: “[A]ll errors of subreption are always to be ascribed to a defect in judgment, never to understanding or to reason” (1998a, A643/B671). Here, his ascription to judgment seems to imply that judgment can be illusory and problematic. Nonetheless, as I have emphasized in this section, Kant eventually sustains the unproblematic faculty of judgment. Let me summarize the exploration thus far. I found an impasse in Kant’s orientation toward judgment in its incapacity to ground sensus communis, the spontaneous harmony of divergent faculties. Shifting our focus onto Ideas, we found that the Kantian Ideas retain his acknowledgment of problematicity; Kant also neutralizes his problematic Ideas with the immanent use of faculties. And here again, Kant ascribes the misuse of faculties, or disharmony among them, to a “defect in judgment,” thus adding more weight on judgment as a critical juncture in the Kantian project. But we have seen that Kantian judgment cannot include any problematicity, the harmonious structure of which appears in sensus communis. Simply put, the presupposition of the harmonious collaboration of faculties circulates within Kantian critique without any grounding. Nonetheless, my exploration of such circulative structure is not entirely fruitless. Indeed, by situating the question about sensus communis in connection with Ideas, it is now possible to open the Kantian edifice toward a criticism and modification that I believe help our original attempt: to envision a mode of political theorizing that acknowledges the problem of stupidity, a mode hinted at in Deleuze’s insight on the problematic status of Kantian Ideas.

Toward a Post-Kantian critique: Deleuze’s “Problematic Ideas” When I turned to Kant’s Critique of Judgment to find an alternative model of political theorizing, my exploration faced a question: What does such a political

124  Facing/missing theory look like? To this question, our examination of Arendt’s interpretation and Kant’s own writings have revealed what the crucial elements of such a political theory would be, if not what it is. First, the Kantian theory of judgment needs to be based upon the fundamental acknowledgment of the endogenous problematicity of thinking. Second, this acknowledgment needs to lead the political theory of judgment to address Selbstdenken in each of us and dissociate itself from the justification problematic. Third, as a result, political theory plays a negative role, ascribing the role of thinking to common sense as sensus communis. I am not opposed to any of these three claims. However, the trouble is that they still remain elusive, especially regarding what sensus communis addresses. Moreover, the Kantian critique appears unable to maintain its fundamental acknowledgment of problematicity, rather giving way to unconditional normativity. It is so not only because Kant’s critique contains a tendency toward securing legitimate human knowledge as neo-Kantians understand it but also because another moment that is against the former tendency slips into making a normative claim, as we have seen in Kant’s affirmation of sensus communis and Zerilli’s affirmation of the Arendtian worldliness. This slippage results in externalizing the endogenous problematicity into a mere deficiency called “stupidity.” Therefore, our questions become as follows: 1 2

How can we modify Kantian critique to maintain the endogenous problematicity of thinking? In so doing, what does political theory look like?25

In the rest of this chapter, I focus mainly on the first question, and briefly on the second one, drawing upon Deleuze’s modification of Kant’s Ideas as explicated in the fourth chapter of Difference and Repetition, entitled “Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference.”26 Through answering the first question, our examination of Deleuze will give us clues to the second question, with which the following chapter will deal more extensively. At the beginning of “Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference,” Deleuze proposes to regard Kant’s Ideas as problems. “Kant never ceased to remind us that Ideas are essentially ‘problematic.’ Conversely, problems are Ideas” (Deleuze 1994, 168; 1968, 218). What does “problems” mean here? Kant points out that Ideas—the unity of thinking subject, the world, and the God—impose insoluble questions that appear, for example, in an antinomy about the finite beginning of the universe. However, for Deleuze, these questions are not problems per se. Indeed, as we have seen, the “Transcendental Dialectic” is mainly dedicated to dispel these questions as false problems, as the negative of thought. By so doing, the First Critique establishes the legitimate use of our cognitive faculties. Those questions defined as false problems would have no positive meaning in the Kantian critique thus defined. Nonetheless, it is also true that Kant occasionally gives a different status to problems that even the dialectic does not settle. For example, Kant states: “They [dialectical inferences] are sophistries not of human beings but of pure reason itself, and even the wisest to all human beings cannot get free of

Facing/missing 125 them” (1998a, A339/B397). Also, he ascribes to seemingly negative errors a not entirely negative role: “As long as we keep to this presupposition [of the Idea of supreme intelligence] as a regulative principle, then even error cannot do us any harm” (A687/B715, bold in original). It is in the ineluctability and even positive effects of problems that Deleuze affirms Kant. Let me clarify the problematic status of Ideas through which Deleuze rearticulates Kant’s orientation. First, Ideas qua problems are insoluble. To say this is by no means tantamount to regarding Ideas as aporias or to maintaining that we cannot attain any answers or solutions at all. Rather, the insolubility means that no solution can cover the problems in their entirety. This is what Deleuze means when he says, “Problems are of the order of events—not only because cases of solution emerge like real events, but because the conditions of a problem themselves imply events such as sections, ablations, adjunctions” (1994, 188; 1968, 244). Ideas for Kant exceed experience: rational Ideas are concepts without corresponding intuitions, and aesthetic Ideas are intuitions without corresponding concepts.27 Lacking corresponding intuitions or concepts, Ideas themselves do not constitute experiences, but they prompt the use of our faculties, which constitute our representation making, that is, experiences. In other words, experiences can be seen as solutions that are dependent upon Ideas as problems, whereas the former can never fully explicate the latter. Second, such insolubility of problems, as well as the asymmetrical relation between Ideas and experiences, enables us to see experiences as events rather than as valid representations. Now the focus of critique moves away from the validity of representation to the emergence of representation. Deleuze in his lecture on Kant emphasizes that the Critique of Pure Reason regards every experience—­ cognition—or representation as an “apparition” that occurs each time, thus opening up a path for phenomenology and the subsequent contemporary philosophy (including, for example, Heidegger’s philosophy of the Geschehen of Being) (Deleuze 2003). The orientation cannot be exhausted by merely articulating the possible condition of legitimate experience (contrary to the way neo-Kantians see it), or even merely regulative ideas, pointing to an account of genesis of experience (and of thought). Such a generic account helps us to see the web of experiences as interconnected occurrences of events. This view, however, should not be taken as the total reduction of representation into events, as I cautioned in the first chapter and will discuss later. Deleuze’s emphasis on the genesis of experience rather helps us to see the moment of genesis in the world of representation. Third, as the first and second characteristics suggest, Ideas as problems are generic moments that drive our faculties. Kant makes an insightful claim about aesthetic Idea: that it “prompts much thought” (2000, 5:314). Ideas give rise to our thinking. How? They do so by giving the necessary unity—which Deleuze calls “horizon” (1994, 169; 1968, 219)—and direction around which we exercise our faculties. As such, this horizon leads to a reconfiguration of the image of sensus communis, which I will explore later. While drawing upon Kant, Deleuze departs from Kant in developing the notion of Ideas in Difference and Repetition. Simply put, his criticism is centered

126  Facing/missing on the contention that Kant does not maintain his discovery of problematic Ideas in the end. We, too, have found that Kant does not maintain the problematicity of thinking. What kind of modification does Deleuze make to Kant’s Ideas, and how does it help to avoid the Kantian effacement of problematicity? Moreover, after the modification, what does theory as critique look like? Deleuze’s criticism of Kant operates along several fronts, of which a full account would be beyond the scope of the current chapter.28 Here, I want to mention only some of them as far as they concern the three aforementioned points. What seems inconsistent in Kant is that the dialectic finally turns endogenous problematicity into the negatives that are exogenous to the exercise of each faculty. With the presumptions about innate righteousness of faculties and their harmonious collaboration, Kant makes the problems solvable. We have seen how sensus communis remains ungrounded in Kant’s Critiques while playing a seminal role in them, including in the “Dialectic.” In the following, I will examine how Deleuze’s criticism of Kant responds to these predicaments. One of the central targets in Deleuze’s criticism of Kant is sensus communis. It is clearly observable in several of his writings, such as the “Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Aesthetics” and Kant’s Critical Philosophy, and the chapter “Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference” is no exception. The bottom line of his criticism, while showing slight differences in its focus among these works, is that sensus communis results in a fusion of transcendental and empirical domains. Kant’s critical project is aimed at articulating the transcendental ground of possible empirical experiences, that is, articulating the condition that is de jure prior to experience and that makes the latter possible. As such, the transcendental field needs to be independent of the empirical: otherwise, it would result in a vicious cycle in which the condition includes an element of that which the condition needs to account for. Deleuze articulates this vicious cycle concerning the status of a problem in Kant as follows: [A] problem is solvable only to the extent that it is “true”, but we always tend to define the truth of a problem in terms of its solvability. Instead of basing the extrinsic criterion of solvability upon the internal character of the problem (Idea), we make the internal character depend upon the simple external criterion. (1994, 179; 1968, 232) It is this vicious circle that Deleuze finds in sensus communis. By introducing sensus communis, Kant can maintain the unity of the system of permutations among faculties, secure communicative collaboration among them, and turn the problems into the negatives. However, as I have repeatedly shown, he can do so only by inscribing sensus communis with an ambiguous status between the transcendental and the empirical. It is possible that the exercise of our diverse faculties corresponds with one another. But placing it on the empirical field requires grounding in the transcendental field so that we can regard the fact of accordance to be more than a contingent occurrence. Placing sensus communis on the

Facing/missing 127 transcendental field might seem to fulfill this need, but then sensus communis, lacking further grounding, would make the transcendental imperfect and fused with the empirical congruence of the faculties. Then, how does Deleuze deal with these predicaments to maintain the problematicity of Ideas? More specifically, how does the Deleuzean orientation push Kantianism without (1) the presupposition of sensus communis as harmonious concordance; (2) the fusion between the transcendental and the empirical; and (3) the negative determination of problems? Next, I  will briefly examine Deleuze’s alternatives to each of these issues.

Sensus communis as discordant harmony The incapacity of grounding sensus communis raises a question: if sensus communis is an indispensable hinge to unite the theory of faculties, which makes the theory ungrounded, why not discard the theory of faculties altogether? We have seen that the two presuppositions together help the dialectic of pure reason manage the Ideas as solvable: sensus communis that guarantees the harmonious collaboration of faculties and the innate uprightness of faculties. Does our questioning the former presupposition (about sensus communis) inevitably lead to questioning the latter? Indeed Deleuze’s modification (and, thus, not negation) of sensus communis changes the theory of faculties as well while maintaining its fundamental premise that separate faculties bear their distinctive mental functions.29 While criticizing Kant’s presupposition about the harmonious accordance of faculties under sensus communis, Deleuze neither dissolves the faculties into pure disparities nor dismantles them altogether. Instead, he holds the relationship among faculties to be one of violent communication, and by doing so, situates the faculties vis-à-vis the problematic Ideas rather than unproblematic sensus communis. He calls such violent communication among faculties “discordant harmony”: “the discord between the faculties, which followed from the exclusive character of the transcendent object apprehended by each, nevertheless implied a harmony such that each transmits its violence to the other by powder fuse” (Deleuze 1994, 193; 1968, 250). The problematicity of Ideas makes us think.

Transcendent use of faculties They do so, however, in such a way as to escape our experience, that is, representation. An encounter with an Idea exercises a faculty to its limit, a model that Deleuze finds in what Kant calls the transcendent use of a faculty. For example, antinomies occur when reason tries to grasp what can only be thought or cannot be given to intuition. Such is a case of the transcendent use of faculty. In other words, in the transcendent use of faculties, “Thought should find within itself something which it cannot think, something which is both unthinkable and that which must be thought” (Deleuze 1994, 192; 1968, 249, italics in original). Not only do Ideas drive faculties into their respective transcendent uses, but also they initiate a violent communication among them.

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Affirmative critique Our transcendent use of the faculties constitutes not “good-sense” or “common sense” but “para-sense”—paradoxes. The paradoxes are by no means negatives or errors to be eliminated or corrected by the adequate, concordant use of our faculties under sensus communis. They are moments in which we encounter the problem of thinking. Using a term reminding us of the connection with stupidity, Ideas, with the transcendent use of faculties, serve as stupors: they escape our upright or righteous thinking as they drive us into the actuality of thinking. Therefore, the common sense that the Kantian critical philosophy addresses now appears as the discordant harmony constituted of violent transmittance among faculties, whereby the transcendental use of one faculty serves as a stupor for other faculties, and by doing so, gives rise to our thinking activity. Deleuze’s replacement of sensus communis with discordant harmony, the stupefying communication driven by Ideas, also modifies the orientation of Ideas and of the critical project itself. For Kant, problems caused by Ideas push our thinking and experience. Differentiated functions of the faculties, as with the case of rational Ideas in which concepts cannot find corresponding intuitions, need to be marginalized, or even covered, by the harmony under sensus communis. Thus, for Kant the status of these problems remains mostly negative, although they evince a different moment in the regulative use. Deleuze, however, opens a way to see the problematic Ideas rather as positive moments, an encounter with which generates thinking. Now, problematic Ideas appear as objects of affirmation, instead of negatives to be avoided, eliminated, or corrected (Deleuze 1994, 207; 1968, 267). This modification turns the critical project into an affirmation of the movement of thinking—the movement which aims at grasping “events.” Given the impasse in Kant’s orientation—the incapacity of sensus communis to ground itself in the transcendental field and the externalization of negatives— Deleuze’s alternative of affirmation seems an appealing one. I, in principle, agree that political theory needs to affirm the problematicity of thinking, of which stupidity is one phenomenon.30 To maintain its acknowledgment of the problematicity brings us some merit, such as affirming our ordinary thinking process, without falling into the justification problematic or teleological affirmation of worldliness. However, it is true that such an image of affirmative critique remains yet to be developed. “Affirmation” is an ambiguous term requiring a careful interpretation. When Deleuze speaks of “affirmation,” we are tempted to take him to mean that we can directly reach the world filled with affirmative essences—that is, to use Deleuze’s much-celebrated word, the world of the “virtual” (Deleuze 1994, Chapter  4; 2004, 32–51). The very use of the term “Idea” helps to foster such an inverted image of Platonism—I say it is inverted because, in this image, Ideas lie in this world. Deleuze’s heavy reliance on differential calculus in “Ideas and Synthesis of Difference” probably encompasses this line of interpretation. For example, Deleuze states as follows: “The Idea knows nothing of negation” (1994, 207;

Facing/missing 129 1968, 267). Does differential calculus offer a method to directly affirm the virtual world of Ideas? Such an interpretation, however, appears untenable. First of all, Deleuze does not espouse a philosophy that goes beyond representation. Direct knowledge of the virtual means to grasp the world prior to representation because it is representation that subdues pure difference (to which differential calculus testifies) under the image of the negatives. But we have already repudiated such a reading of Deleuze in the first chapter, arguing that his criticism of representation by no means suggests our need and possibility of going beyond representation. Second, we should not regard differential calculus as a method. It does not represent a mathematical method.31 We cannot fail to notice that Deleuze’s exploration of differential calculus is aimed at its philosophical interpretations by thinkers such as Salomon Maïmon, Hoëene Wronski, and Jean Bordas Demoulin. Moreover, these interpretations are “dialectic,” not “metaphysical” (Deleuze 1994, 178; 1968, 231). In fact, as the third refutation, Deleuze’s explication does not stop at pointing out the moment of differentiation, which needs to be followed by differenciation: “We call the determination of the virtual content of an Idea differentiation; we call the actualization of that virtuality into species and distinguished parts differenciation” (207). Thus, the differentiation of Ideas at the level of the virtual precedes differenciation qua actualization, that is, representation, and the former initiates the process. This is why representation as solutions does not exhaust the problematic Ideas. But it does not mean that we can do without the latter moment in our experience.

Concluding remarks In this chapter I have turned to the Kantian theory of judgment as a promising model of political theorizing that speaks to the problematic of stupidity. My turn to Kant, however, immediately faces a question about what such a political theory would do—the question that led my investigation to start by assessing Arendt’s influential, yet elusive interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. Through my assessment of Arendt and Kant, I have addressed some crucial elements of their political theorizing: First, Kantian theory of judgment needs to be based upon the fundamental acknowledgment of the endogenous problematicity of thinking. Second, this acknowledgment leads political theory of judgment to address Selbstdenken in each of us, dissociating itself from the justification problematic. Third, as a result, political theory plays a negative role, addressing the role of thinking to the common sense as sensus communis. Yet, my exploration also revealed that these three elements remain insufficient as long as they maintain the harmonious image of sensus communis. To break this presupposition, I drew upon Deleuze’s criticism of Kant and reformulated the Kantian image of political theorizing. A Kantian political theorizing, through this Deleuzean modification, manifests as a critique that affirms problematical Ideas through grasping events. This reformulated image of theory, however, still requires clarification. First of all, it has yet to be clear how critique can be an affirmative activity. I have already

130  Facing/missing countered, to be sure, a misleading interpretation of Deleuzean affirmation at the end of the previous section. However, simply repudiating the direct cognition of Ideas is not sufficient to envisage a concrete image of critical affirmation, or affirmative critique—a seemingly oxymoronic practice. Does not facing stupefying events present two risks: either judgmentally criticizing events as stupidity or being stupefied into the passive affirmation of all? Second, if we can avoid these two extremes, it remains unclear what kind of political stake such affirmative critique has? For an image of affirmative critique, we may consult Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, which presents a philosophy of events drawing upon Stoic philosophy. “[T]he discovery of incorporeal events, meanings, or effects, which are irreducible to ‘deep’ bodies and to ‘lofty’ Ideas—these are the important Stoic discoveries against the pre-Socratics and Plato” (Deleuze 1990, 132; 1969, 157–58). This Stoic philosophy of the event, moreover, would provide us with an ethical orientation based on the ontology of events, for “[t]he Stoic system contains an entire physics, along with an ethics of this physics” (Deleuze 1990, 143; 1969, 167–68). However, ethics is not the same as politics. And Deleuze talks little about politics in Logic of Sense. Indeed, when we read the following quotes, Deleuze’s Stoics may seem like an ethically as well as intellectually privileged status is given to the philosopher once again: “It is only true of the free man, who grasps the event, and does not allow it to be actualized as such without enacting, the actor, its counter-actualization” (Deleuze 1990, 152; 1969, 178–79). Certainly, Deleuze’s ethical take is different from that of conventional morality. Yet, it is insufficient in elaborating a political theory. This concern leads us to the final question about the character and accessibility of event. Is event equipped with a singular quality that requires the philosopher’s insight to penetrate? Although it would be reasonable, and even desirable, that philosophy or political theory have its own modest but distinctive role, what would guarantee its protection against judgmentalism? Deleuze, on several occasions, states that there are false problems as well. If it is the philosopher’s role to penetrate the right problem, does Deleuze not merely reproduce the classical image of the philosopher? Although it would be possible to address these questions in Deleuze’s works, especially in Logic of Sense, I will follow a different path to explore them in the works of a Japanese thinker, Hideo Kobayashi, for these questions haunted his entire career as a literary critic. As we will see in the next chapter, one of the fundamental motifs in his literary criticism is to establish an immanent criticism that would not judge literature with an external standard. In so doing, his criticism tries to affirm an event that occurs as artwork. Moreover, while being a relentless defender of literature’s own value against politicization, Kobayashi’s criticism is indeed premised upon his deep insight into the political, an insight that enables us to reconfigure his criticism as a political project. In fact, his scandalous commitment to the Japanese war policy during WWII makes such an attempt of reconfiguration more pertinent. Finally, the trajectory of his criticism—from the criticism of event to the passive affirmation of tradition, the ordinary, and war— reveals the difficulty as well as the possibility of the political theorizing that I have been pursuing throughout this study.

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Notes 1 About the dichotomy between solitary thinking and plural politics, see Chapter 1. 2 While Arendt’s Lectures has been one of the most important resources of inspiration for current studies of political judgment, these studies of political judgment range widely in scope, and include the revivals of the classic strand of phronēsis (Beiner 1984), the rhetorical tradition of persuasion (Garsten 2006), studies on the aesthetic dimension of politics (Ankersmit 1996; Ferguson 1999), as well as others. Even among those studies inspired by Kant’s Critique of Judgment, foci vary, including the experience of the sublime (Lyotard 1985, 1999; Miyazaki 2009) and its influence on twentieth century philosophy on intersubjectivity (Ferry 1993). Then, why focus on the Arendtian strand? In this chapter, I focus on Arendt’s Lectures and on her critics because, as I will show in the next section, Arendt’s orientation illuminates the importance of Kant’s philosophy. What is, then, Kant’s importance? His importance partly lies in his being “the philosopher of the French Revolution,” as often suggested. Despite the lack of a direct influence of Kant’s philosophy on the Revolution and his ambiguous attitude toward the Revolution, there is at least a parallel between the philosopher and this event that marks the beginning of modern democracy. Thus, examining Kant will be useful for my exploration, which highlights the relationship between democracy and stupidity. A more important factor is that, in a sense, Kant is a pioneer of my current project. As this chapter will reveal, Kant’s “critical” project stemmed from his discovery of the problematicity of thinking—by which I mean the condition wherein thinking can go astray. 3 Given the state of current scholarship on Kant’s political philosophy, it might look misleading to follow Arendt’s interpretation of Kant. The current scholarship focuses on Kant’s vision of a republican ideal and the path toward it, as well as how Kant formulated this vision (Kerstings 1992; Ellis 2005; Maliks 2014; Kim 2017; Amitani 2018), while Arendt emphasizes the Critique of Judgment. In addition, they take seriously Kant’s later political writings, namely “Doctrine of Rights,” which Arendt calls “boring and pedantic” (Arendt 1982, 7–8). Nevertheless, we can still regard Arendt’s orientation as Kantian, if not loyal to Kant’s own political vision. Simply put, Arendt’s orientation pays more attention to a way of thinking politically that Kant’s Critiques enable and less attention to explicating an ideal form of politics, which the current scholarship mainly focuses on. Of course, to follow Arendt’s orientation here does not mean to see Arendt’s Lectures as free from misinterpretation or error. 4 In this line, not only Arendt but many commentators point out Kant’s limitation of the use of judgment and public reason on the reading public, or on spectatorship. Cf. Garsten (2006, Chapter 3). While I admit the split of action and spectatorship remains a problem for Arendt and Kant, I do not delve into this matter for, as we will see, what sustains the split is an assumption about the righteousness of thinking. 5 For example, in the Jäsche Logic, Kant states, “Every error into which the human understanding can fall is only partial, however, and in every erroneous judgment there must always lie something true. For a total error would be a complete opposition to the laws of the understanding and of reason” (Kant 1992, 9:54, italics in original). 6 However, it should be noted that Arendt, while dissociating the “political philosophy that Kant never wrote” (Arendt 1982, 30) from his writings on ethics, does not dismiss all of his political writings. Toward the end of Lectures, for example, Arendt combines her interpretation of the Third Critique with “Perpetual Peace.” 7 It is true that the second critique introduces very idea of autonomy and moral law to avoid the heteronomy. Also, the scholars of discourse ethics are keen on the

132  Facing/missing problem of heteronomy so they aim at combining the ideals of universal validity and autonomous consent. I do not delve into discussing the point. Here it will suffice to point out the universal validity, if it can secure autonomous morality and validity, can affect upon individual thinking and decisions. In a sense this conflict is parallel with that between deliberative and agonistic democrats. See, for example, Mouffe 2005. 8 To give up the normative standard by no means is tantamount to making theory value neutral as scientific approach claims theory should be. 9 Her concern becomes clear, when, for example, we look at how she turns to the question of thinking and judging in “Thinking and Moral Consideration,” in which she poses the question of whether thinking and judging bring about moral prescription. But she does not pursue the condition or procedure to bring about the right moral prescription (Arendt 2003, 160). 10 Regarding Arendt’s notion of freedom, see Arendt (1993, Chapter 4), and Morikawa (2010, Chapter 5). 11 Another question about Zerilli’s interpretation is that she seems to credit Arendtian orientation with the phrase “democratic theory of political judgment.” As we have seen, it is not necessarily evident that Arendt’s undertaking qualifies as a “theory” and less evident whether it is “democratic.” While Arendt’s undertaking can be seen as democratic in that it encourages people’s Selbstdenken, Kant’s Critiques seem to address a deeper question of what democratic political theory can be—a question to which I will return at the conclusion of this study. 12 Lacoue-Labarthes, too, points out the difference between ontological worldliness and ontic world in Arendt: “In so articulating aesthetics and politics [by drawing upon the Critique of Judgment], she nonetheless does not ignore that the world which artwork enables—the ‘common world’ (or the public space, or the ‘partition of the world with other’)—is never confused with the world. The common world is inscribed into the world, and this inscription, that is, articulation, takes place where art calls for judgment” (Lacoue-Labarthes 1985, 170). 13 While the central concern of the First Critique is cognition, as Kerslake shows, the scope of its preface goes beyond that narrow concern, addressing the fundamental orientation of critique (Cf. Kerslake 2009, Chapter 2; MacKenzie 2004). 14 Kant scholarship, including Heidegger’s monumental exploration of the role of imagination, seems to have revolved around explicating the part on reduction (Longuenesse 1998, 3–5). However, if we pay more attention to Kant’s discovery of the scandal of reason, the dialectic and his doctrine of faculties bear more importance than is usually appreciated. For example, Kerslake (2002) sees the dialectic as an indispensable continuation of the reduction. My interpretation emphasizing the role of the theory of faculties in Kant’s critical project owes to Deleuze’s reading of the Kantian theory of faculties as a “system of permutations” (Deleuze 1984, 68). 15 Given the historical sequence in which Kant wrote the three Critiques—Kant wrote the Critique of Judgment after the other two, and he wrote it despite his original plan for writing only the First and Second—to emphasize the importance of the Third might seem odd. But Deleuze (2004), for example, maintains that Kant finally came to ground the entire critical project in the Critique of Judgment. 16 Whereas Arendt focuses on the intersubjective dimension of Kant’s sensus communis (though this intersubjectivity remains subjective), my exploration focuses on its intrasubjective dimension: that sensus communis assures the harmonious accord among the faculties within a subject. The difference in the foci, however, does not imply that we can separate the intersubjective moment from the intrasubjective one, for ultimately, they are the two sides of the same coin: because sensus

Facing/missing 133 communis assures intrasubjective accord, we can think of the possibility of experience and can be free from the dangers of skepticism and solipsism. 17 Surely, Kant mentions the negative of the beautiful. While many ugly phenomena, such as war, can be beautifully represented in works of art, Kant maintains, “only one kind of ugliness cannot be represented in a way adequate to nature without destroying all aesthetic satisfaction, hence beauty in art, namely, that which arouses disgust [Ekel]” (2000, 5:312. Bold in original). However, such quality of ugliness is not the kind of the negative I look for in my exploration. I deal with the negative—or, the problem, not error—on the side of our judgment, not on the side of objects. For Kant’s handling of ugliness, see, e.g., Ronen (2008, 21–26). 18 By the “problem” of judgment, I do not mean error or fallacy, though Kant’s use of the word “illusory” suggests such fallacious illusions. In other words, my point is that the First Critique subdued—or solved—the problematicity of thought by turning the problems into illusions; the Third Critique, however, cannot present any problematic judgments, including those in the form of erroneous judgments. 19 About the distinction between Kraft and Vermögen, see the concise explanation in Caygill’s edited dictionary on Kant (1995, 190–92). I owe much to Longueness’s account (1998, 5–6), which focuses on Kant’s explanation in Lectures on Metaphysics (Kant 1997, 17:72). 20 Thus, I do not ascribe this slippage to Zerilli’s own interpretation but to an inherent problem in Arendtian, and moreover, in Kantian orientations. Certain metaphysics of potentiality and actuality are at play in their orientations. For example, we have already detected one expression of such metaphysics in Arendt’s presupposition of innate capacity for thinking in the first chapter. The same holds true for her notion of worldliness. 21 This statement appears in the Critique of Pure Reason, not in the Critique of Judgment. However, as my analysis shows, Kant’s presupposition of a harmonious, unproblematical function of the faculty of judgment in the Third Critique supports the quoted statement. 22 To fulfill this need for grounding actual accordance among faculties while avoiding legislating the law of judgment, Deleuze seeks a generic account of sensus communis in Kant’s analysis of sublimity. The wager is to turn Kant’s transcendental Idealism on the possible condition of experience into transcendental empiricism that gives an account of the actual genesis of experience. Although my undertaking of Kant is largely indebted to Deleuze’s interpretation and criticism, here I do not deal squarely with Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism. My points about the emergence of event and affirmative critique, nonetheless, are mostly under the influence of this empiricism and compatible with it (see, e.g., Deleuze 2004). 23 See the third section of the first chapter. 24 “Everything grounded in the nature of our powers must be purposive and consistent with their correct use, if only we can guard against a certain misunderstanding and find out their proper direction. Thus the transcendental ideas too will presumably have a good and consequently immanent use, even though, if their significance is misunderstood and they are taken for concepts of real things, they can be transcendent in their application and for that very reason deceptive. For in regard to the whole of possible experience, it is not the idea itself but only its use that can be either extravagant (transcendent) or indigenous (immanent), according to whether one directs them straightway to a supposed object corresponding to them, or only to the use of the understanding in general regarding the objects with which it has to do.” (Kant 1998a, A642–3/B670–1, bold in original) 25 Yet another question concerns the possible internal connection between the stupidity as Kant defines to be a lack of judgment and that with which we have been

134  Facing/missing dealing throughout this study. If Kant’s critique makes a significant contribution to illuminating the problematicity of thinking, does it also help to clarify stupidity as one of the problems? I address this question in the note following this chapter. 26 In the structure of argument in Difference and Repetition, the “Ideal Synthesis of Difference” chapter follows the passive synthesis explicated in the second chapter, “Repetition for Itself.” Regarding the passive synthesis, I explained its role in the second section of the first chapter. The role of the “Ideal Synthesis” chapter is to bring the passive synthesis to the genesis of representation that the final chapter, “Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensible,” addresses. 27 Aesthetic ideas, however, can present themselves as figuration through artwork that is the product of genius’s spirit. As we will see later in the note following this chapter, this path provides a clue for relocating the locus of stupidity in Kantianism. 28 The main texts in which Deleuze tackles Kant are his 1963 monograph, Kant’s Critical Philosophy (Deleuze 1984), the essay “The Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Aesthetics,” which was also published in 1963 (Deleuze 2004, 56–71), and “On Four Poetic Formulas That Might Summarize the Kantian Philosophy” (Deleuze 1997, 26–35). Among those writings, the 1963 “Idea of Genesis” essay is probably the most relevant piece for my exploration of Deleuze’s orientation toward Kant in that the essay presents both criticism and creative reinterpretation of Kant’s critical project by Deleuze. In the essay, finding an insufficiency of the critical project in Kant’s lack of a generic point of view, Deleuze reinterprets Kant’s writing on the sublime in the Critique of Judgment as an account of genesis Kant could have developed. Although I do not ignore the importance of Deleuze’s argument in the essay, in this chapter I focus on Deleuze’s modification of the Kantian Ideas. If the Ideas are the focus of the essay, it is necessary to see how Deleuze modifies the Kantian Ideas first to fully understand the coverage of Deleuze’s argument in the “Idea of Genesis” essay as well. 29 “Despite the fact that it has become discredited today, the doctrine of the faculties is an entirely necessary component of the system” (Deleuze 1994, 143; 1968, 186). Deleuze’s criticism of Kant is not directed at Kant’s employment of the notion of faculties itself but at his failing to account for the emergence of the actual use of each faculty. What is crucial for my study of stupidity is that Deleuze articulates the violent actualization of our use of faculties as stupefying moments. Opposed to the subsumption of philosophy under the mode of friendship, Deleuze presents the act of thinking as generated by stupor: “The act of thinking does not proceed from a simple natural possibility; on the contrary, it is the only true creation. Creation is the genesis of the act of thinking within thought itself. This genesis implicates something that does violence to thought, which wrests it from its natural stupor and its merely abstract possibilities” (Deleuze 2000, 62, italics mine). For Deleuze’s undertaking of the notion of faculties, see Hughes (2009, 72–8) and Bryant (2008). 30 A more detailed account and exploration of what it means to “affirm” will be developed in the next chapter. 31 “Differential calculus in the most precise sense is only a mathematical instrument which, even in its own domain, does not necessarily represent the most complete form of the expression of problems and the constitution of their solutions in relation to the order of dialectical Ideas which it incarnates. It nevertheless has a wider universal sense in which it designates the composite whole that includes Problems or dialectical Ideas, the Scientific expression of problems, and the Establishment of fields of solution” (Deleuze 1994, 181; 1968, 235).

4 Being Kobayashi and his unrepentance of wartime critique

Introduction My exploration of Kant’s critical project in the previous chapter revealed one dilemma that haunts critical activity. Critique, emerging from its acknowledgment of the endogenous problematic character of thinking, needs to be immanent to this problematic condition. Any transcendent criterion that judges our thoughts and actions betrays the condition of thinking. At the same time, refusing the transcendent standard endangers the very raison d’être of critique. If critique cannot present any stable criterion for us to critically engage, why do we need it at all? Indeed, critique without criteria would appear to harmfully promulgate the uncritical affirmation of the status quo. However, as soon as critique criticizes our thoughts and actions, it transcends our finite condition. Simply put, critique needs to navigate a narrow aisle between transcending the condition of endogenous problematicity of thinking and falling into uncritical affirmation of that condition.1 The first thesis of the problematic of stupidity elucidates this difficult condition of critique. Again, the first thesis reads as follows: Stupidity is an inherent problem of thinking; we become stupid because we think. As an internal problem, stupidity resists any attempt of demarcation. Thus it is impossible to distinguish stupid thought from other, more sophisticated kinds of thought by any pregiven standard. Stupidity resists the automatic demarcation between sophisticated thought and stupid thought. However, the etymology of the term “critique” suggests that its stake lies in the very act of krinein, of demarcating.2 Thus critique seems to conflict with the problematic of stupidity: critique must acknowledge the problem of demarcation, yet critique is demarcation. My exploration of the Kantian critique in the previous chapter attests to this antagonism. While trying to remain within the condition of the finitude of thinking, the Arendtian theory of judgment introduces an assumption transcendent to the condition of problematicity: that of harmonious, nonproblematical judgment. In searching for a mode of political theorizing that acknowledges the problematic of stupidity,

136  Being my exploration so far has revealed the persistence of the dilemma of critique rather than solving it. Toward the end of the previous chapter, I briefly examined a possible response to the dilemma by drawing upon Deleuze’s reinterpretation of Kant’s notion of Ideas. The Deleuzean orientation, however, leaves two questions. One concerns the affirmation of events: Is the Deleuzean affirmation of events free from the danger of falling into uncritical affirmation of whatever happens? The other is the political implication of the Deleuzean orientation: if the Deleuzean critique addresses the ethical orientation to events, is it open to political critique as well? In this chapter, I attempt to respond to this dilemma by taking up the work of the Japanese thinker and literary critic Hideo Kobayashi (1902–1983). The trajectory of his writings from the 1929 award-winning essay “Multiple Designs” to those written around WWII can be seen as a struggle with the dilemma of critique. In fact, his early orientation to critique shows a similarity to those orientations I discussed in the previous chapter in that they are motivated by the problematical condition of thinking.3 For example, the first paragraph of “Multiple Designs” reads as follows: It may be a blessing or a curse, but there is nothing in all the world that is ever once and simply resolved. Language, a gift conferred on humanity along with consciousness—our sole weapon in the advance of our ideas—never cease to exercise its magical power as of old. There is no language so sublime that it does not beg vulgarity, no language so vulgar that it does not partake of the sublime. Indeed, if language were to dispel its confounding magic over the human heart, it would be but a passing phantom. (1:133; 1995, 19)4 He begins his career as a critic by pointing out the ineluctable persistence of ideas and the insolvability of the problems ideas cause. Kobayashi’s motif in the paragraph resonates with the first edition preface of the Critique of Judgment— the first paragraph of Kant’s “critical period”—that emphasizes the “destiny” of human reason that reason cannot stop tackling insolvable questions. In the development of Kobayashi’s thought from the late 1920s to the postWWII period, his critical activity gradually fell toward one pole of the dilemma of critique: that of the uncritical affirmation. As we will see later in this chapter, the difficulty of maintaining his orientation to critique pushed him toward silent admiration for people’s common sense and for Japan’s wars during the 1930s and 1940s, which finally led to his alleged war collaboration during WWII. Moreover, after WWII, he refused to have regrets, stating, “because I’m imbecile, I won’t regret.” His remark seems to testify to another consequence of the dilemma of critique different from that of Kant: while Kant fails to maintain his critical project with his externalization of stupidity from the faculty of judgment, Kobayashi seems to retreat from critique standing on the side of imbecility by claiming to be stupid. And with this retreat, he comes to affirm whatever happens in politics. Thus, his trajectory seems to exemplify the difficulties of affirmative

Being 137 critique: the unconditional affirmation of the status quo and the inability to actively engage with politics. Despite his alleged war collaboration, refusal to have regrets, and slippage into the uncritical affirmation of imbecility, his writings nonetheless offer a glimpse of another possibility. By reading Kobayashi’s writings against his own trajectory of thought, it becomes possible to find a space within which to negotiate the dilemma of critique to which he surrendered his early critical attempt. This rescue operation would help answer the two questions we found in Deleuze’s orientation toward critique. My exploration of Kobayashi will reveal how affirmative critique can be maintained as a politically relevant activity. In addition to his unique contribution to the immanent critique, Kobayashi offers rich resources for the study of stupidity also because of the non-Western geopolitical context where he was situated, for the non-Western modernity underscores the dilemma of critique. Rapid modernization qua Westernization translates geographical difference between the West and the non-West into the temporal difference and further into the intellectual hierarchy between the developed and the backward. Under this dichotomy critique oscillates between uncritical acceptances of the Western ideal and of the non-Western reality. At one end, the modernist intellectuals wary of the backwardness of their native society accept the external Western ideas. At the other, anti-modernists criticize the exogenous model of the modern West and affirm the endogenous wisdom of their ­society. The latter orientation had a serious political implication as Japanese anti-modernists more or less supported the wartime nationalist ideology of “Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”5 Surely most intellectuals do not simply fall into these two extreme ends. Rather, they—most prominently, Kobayashi—respectively combatted the dilemma of moving between the two ends. Thus, their thoughts help negotiate the dilemma. Furthermore, Japanese society in Kobayashi’s time presents a unique historical case where reflection upon stupidity bears a political force. Regret often proceeds with the realization of one’s own past misjudgment. In realizing our past wrongdoing that we did not regard as wrong at the time of the act, we utter, “How could I have been so stupid?”6 Indeed, as we will see later in the fourth section, those expressing regret over their war collaboration in post-WWII Japan often referred to their past “stupidity” and “imbecility.” For example, the assigned lines in the first postwar audition for the largest film company were “I was an i­ mbecile/ Really an imbecile/ I  was an imbecile” (Oguma 2002, 63). Such regret over one’s past stupidity illuminates the mechanism through which the realization of our stupidity drives reflection on the possibilities that our past stupidities—poor judgments—made unavailable.7 Is the realization of stupidity a primary force driving our reflection? Widely shared among people, the postwar surge of regret was a political phenomenon. As we will see later in the chapter, this widespread sense of regret was one of the central motifs that drove Japanese people to support postwar democratization.8 Yet, that political movement of regret was not without difficulty: in regretting one’s stupidity in the past, how can this new reflection distance itself from

138  Being stupidity? If, as I have argued, stupidity is an endogenous problem of thought, does regretting past stupidity risk effacing one’s current stupidity? These are the questions I pursue in examining Kobayashi’s criticism of the post-WWII discourse of regret—criticism to which political theorists have rarely paid serious attention. In the following, I start by sketching the trajectory of Kobayashi’s thought. By tracing the development of his thought from the 1929 essay “Multiple Designs” until his alleged war-collaboration writings and his postwar provocative refusal of regret, I present Kobayashi’s career as the path in which his “immanent critique” yielded to uncritical affirmation vis-à-vis the dilemma of critique. In the latter half of the chapter, I examine another possibility in Kobayashi’s thought to counter his actual intellectual trajectory. In so doing, I present Kobayashi’s literary criticism as a political critique. While many readers of Kobayashi defend or criticize his writings on the ground of a dichotomy between politics and literature, I argue that Kobayashi’s writings do not always adhere to this dichotomy. For an analysis attentive to the blurred border between politics and literature, I draw upon the criticism by Masao Maruyama (1914–1996), presumably the most important political thinker in postwar Japan.9 The comparison with Maruyama is illuminating not only because he offers one of the few interpretations squaring the political implications of Kobayashi’s thought with Kobayashi’s own conception of politics, but also because of Maruyama’s influential theorization of postwar discourse of regret. Contrasting Maruyama’s positive evaluation of the postwar discourse of regret with Kobayashi’s refusal of regret, my examination of Kobayashi’s notion of “real regret” reveals a political moment that even Maruyama fails to acknowledge: the reflection through exchanges of opinions. While Maruyama’s theorization of regret evades the dilemma of critique, it appears that Kobayashi can better negotiate the dilemma politically.

Immanent critique: “Multiple Designs” In this section, I  briefly sketch out Kobayashi’s notion of critique in his early writings from 1929 to 1933. I  focus on his 1929 essay, “Multiple Designs.” This essay, which scholars unanimously recognize as one of his exemplary writings, already presents his basic orientation toward critique.10 Beyond being a clear manifestation of his orientation, the essay also anticipates the difficulties that led him to his provocative attitude toward the Japanese invasions to China and the Pacific War in the 1930s and 1940s. In this section, I first present Kobayashi’s basic orientation as that of an “immanent critique,” that is, a project of being critically engaged with events in the world without recourse to standards external to the objects of critique.11 Then I  highlight the similarity between Kobayashi’s “immanent critique” and the critical projects taken by Arendt, Kant, and Deleuze. In so doing, I read the trajectory from Kobayashi’s early writings to his alleged war collaboration as an exemplary case of the dilemma of critique, rather than as a mere personal episode. “Multiple Designs”12 is aimed at refuting external critique, that is, the style of critique in which the criteria of judgment are deduced from theories external

Being 139 to people’s lived reality, theories he calls “designs.” They are called “designs” because these external criteria have nothing to do with the internal essence of artwork. He finds the styles of such external critiques in various movements in the literature theory of his time, especially in Marxist literary criticism. His point is that those movements are nothing but external “designs”: by sticking to external and universal standards of “theory,” they lose the sense of reality about the world in front of them, where works of art emerge as “events”: Any art of quality possesses a certain reality, like that of someone’s glance piercing your heart. If a sign cannot be read as a living structure that moves one toward a passion for reality, then it can be no more than a manual. With a manual, someone can be instructed that by turning right he will reach town. But it cannot make someone who is seated stand up. People do not move because of a manual. They are moved by events. (1:139; 1995, 24) The Marxist theory of literature, with its application of the historical dialectic, tries to make a program in which artwork is created to encourage revolution and evaluated according to the values of the Marxian worldview. However, such a theory itself can neither guarantee nor explain the creation of great artwork, because the creation of artwork is an event within the duration of lived time. Such an event, Kobayashi argues, is based upon and brings about a sense of wonder at the world with its “infinite faces” (1:144; 1995, 28), that is, its contingent potentialities. How, then, can critique grasp an event without recourse to any external theory? To this question, he ironically supports subjective criticism that is based upon the critic’s own subjective impression: “To say that the subject of criticism is the self and the other is to say there is but a single subject, not two. For is not criticism finally the skeptical narration of our dreams?” (1:135; 1995, 21, italics mine). Critique is not an application of given theory that claims to be universal but an analysis of the affect that artwork raises within the critic. This brief summary of Kobayashi’s orientation already shows similarities to the notions of critique of Arendt, Kant, and Deleuze that I discussed in the previous chapter. First and foremost, Kobayashi, too, conceives critique as an activity of reflective judgment. His distaste for the theories that rest upon externally founded criteria shows an affinity with the emphasis on reflective judgment in the Third Critique, Arendtian orientations to political judgment, and Deleuze’s reading of Kant.13 In other words, they all direct their critical activities to the particulars rather than the universals. From this similarity concerning reflective judgment, the second similarity with Arendt and Deleuze follows. For Kobayashi, attaining the universal validity of judgment is not the purpose of critique: At this point I would like to address a vulgar expression that presumes itself fashionable: “the universality of criticism.” Has there ever been an artist who has stalked this monster, universality? Artists without exception seek the

140  Being particular. It has never been the artist’s desire to set forth a truth that holds good in all worlds, in all contexts. (1:135–36; 1995, 21, italics mine) If artworks are the particulars, what kinds of meanings do those particular artworks have for us as critics, readers, and spectators? Why should we bother to understand those particular works without giving them universal meanings? This question leads to the third and final similarity between Kobayashi and Deleuze concerning problematic events as the objects of critique. I have mentioned that Kobayashi conceives the creation of artwork as an event. Such creations are called events because of their capacity to affect others (he uses the word “passion”): events, beyond artists’ intentions, potentially pass through us, say, as stupors. Comparing with a manual—that is, external—theory, Kobayashi describes this affective quality of events, stating that people are “moved by events” (1:139; 1995, 24).14 Moreover, such an affective event does not simply move people with passions but also moves them to reflection. As we saw in the previous chapter, Deleuze’s “event,” emerging from problematic Ideas, means a thought-provoking experience that is irreducible to a fixed set of prior thoughts. In prompting people to think, Kobayashi’s “event” appears close to Deleuze’s notion of “event.” In fact, Kobayashi ascribes a similarly problematic status to artwork. His following statement about the problematic quality of the novel, for example, almost reads like Deleuze’s argument in the fourth chapter of Difference and Repetition, where he argues for the priority of problem over solution: A novel does not solve problems. It does create the possibility for their solution. Great novels always embrace us in waves of surging thought and emotions. But if we so desire, at the point where these sensations cool and crystalize, we can engage a multiplicity of problems, as well as the possibilities for their solution. (1:147; 1995, 30–31) Moreover, “Multiple Designs” intersects with the broader problem of stupidity by addressing the dilemma of critique as its central concern. As we saw, the dilemma of critique lies between its resistance against demarcation and its threatened raison d’être. If critique is to do without external theory, how can it judge events? If it needs to proceed through closed demarcation, does it also risk losing its power? Furthermore, why do we need critique at all? In repudiating external critique, Kobayashi is conscious of those problems. Indeed, the entire argument of “Multiple Designs” is aimed at addressing those questions. He articulates this question in the following ironical form: Just as poets and novelists inhabit a literary world, so too do literary critics. The poet’s desire is to create a poem, and storyteller’s to write a fiction. Does the literary critic have something analogous—to write literary criticism? This is a question rife with paradox (1:134; 1995, 20)

Being 141 By posing this question, Kobayashi is not merely asking questions about the autonomy of literary criticism vis-à-vis poetry and novel. If the autonomy of critic is the wager, critics can simply establish their own theories, which Kobayashi resists. The question rather asks why one writes criticisms and how critique is possible. I have already touched on his answers. According to Kobayashi, critics engage with criticisms because the events of artwork drive them to reflections. Critique is possible as a “skeptical narration of our dreams,” because there is “a single subject, not two [of self and other],” that is, a communal process operative beyond the two (and here the communality cannot be reduced to the shared commonality). Underlying those answers is his idea of “destiny.” In its simplest sense, destiny signifies the course of time into which creators sink as they produce their artworks. However, Kobayashi infuses an original twist into the term “destiny.” He draws his notion of time from Bergson’s idea of duration. Both creators and spectators (critics) are immersed in this duration of time. By “our dreams,” he implies the subjective projections neither of spectators nor of creators. Rather, our dreams refer to the common durational process from which artwork emerges as an event. Kobayashi suggests this intersubjective quality of destiny in the following formula: “historical consciousness is of neither greater magnitude nor lesser significance than self-consciousness.” Thus critique is possible as immanent critique by virtue of the destiny, duration that embodies both artists and critics. Moreover, as the Bergsonian term “duration” suggests, “destiny” does not signify a fixed trajectory of time, at least at this point in Kobayashi’s intellectual career. Rather “destiny” is a process full of contingencies which neither artists nor spectators can fathom or control. This is why “our dreams” need to be skeptical. Destiny, or duration, can never be fully articulated as harmonious unity. It is a mistake to regard Kobayashi’s early writings as a conservative apology for tradition per se. His idea of durational embodiment might sound like a call for harmonious common sense. Or worse, his employment of the term “destiny” as a societal factor beyond one’s control, combined with his harsh criticism of Marxism, might make his orientation similar to the conservative claim for the living tradition (of Japan) lying beneath common sense. Such an image holds true to some degree for his later writings on the war. In addition, during the time period when “Multiple Designs” was written, he had already made occasional references to “the sound common sense.” Nevertheless, we cannot miss the word “skeptical” in his affirmation of subjective criticism: a criticism cannot be an internal critique if it remains a mere “narration of our dreams.” Moreover, Kobayashi acknowledges more than anybody else during this period the loss of tradition in Japan. In his 1933 essay, “Literature of the Lost Home,” he openly asserts that he does not understand the notion of a “birthplace” or “home.” This statement is remarkable given its historical context. By 1933, the call for “returning to Japanese tradition” had already become influential among Japanese intellectuals (Arakawa 1989, 133). The outbreak of the Manchurian Incident in 1931 and the following economic recovery from the Great Depression harbored a tone of nationalism and enmity against

142  Being Western culture. Also, the period from 1929 (when Kobayashi wrote “Multiple Designs”) to 1933 saw the rapid destruction of the Marxist movement, which had once been the prevailing force among intellectuals and writers. It is the period when intellectuals (most of them were former Marxists released from prison after their conversion [tenkō]) started to turn toward the idea of “tradition,” “Asia,” and “Japan.” In such an intellectual climate, however, Kobayashi asserted that modern Japan had lost its “home” and “tradition.” Not only does he acknowledge the loss of tradition, he embraces it: “Can we fear that anything remains to be taken away, we who have lost the feel for what is characteristic of the country of our birth, who have lost our cultural singularity?” (2:375; 1995, 54).15 For him, those contemporary calls for the “Japanese spirit,” or “Asian spirit” are empty. They could not exist in the modernized Japan of his time. While, as we will see in the next section, he came to speak of “tradition” in a more positive tone around 1936, in 1933 his focus on duration and fate had little to do with restoring tradition: rather, he saw modern Japan as in “chaos and anarchy” and tried to make a critique from within that chaos: “I wish to stick to the reality of this chaos. By taking this chaos as an opportunity, I am resolved to stick to a germ of the problem . . . of ‘why critique is difficult’ ” (3:17). Being immanent to the chaotic reality, “critique is difficult.” However, his immanent critique is based on the acknowledgment of this difficulty.

“Disqualified Critic”: Kobayashi’s writings from 1936 to 1945 So far, I have revealed how Kobayashi’s immanent critique, despite the lack of direct influences, has similarities with the critical orientations of Arendt, Kant, and Deleuze. In addition, Kobayashi was unique in his acute awareness of the difficulty of critique. The similarities and awareness make Kobayashi’s orientation a promising development for further pursuance of our search for the critical orientation vis-à-vis stupidity. Kobayashi’s search for immanent critique, however, does not solve the dilemma of critique. The difficulty lies in making internal critique communicable when no tradition is available. Unable to solve this problem, he gradually withdrew from the work of literary (and social) criticism: he turned to quiet admiration of great works of art and, ironically enough, to the reevaluation of tradition. In other words, the dilemma pushed his critical activity into an uncritical affirmation of the world, depriving critique of its raison d’être. In addition, this trajectory suggests the political implication of his immanent critique. Kobayashi’s turn to uncritical affirmation occurred partly as a response to political events of the time, that is, Japan’s invasion of China and the Pacific War. By “political implication,” I  do not mean to merely criticize Kobayashi’s alleged war collaboration. Rather, the entanglement between Kobayashi’s literary criticism and politics presents the key for reevaluating the contribution his immanent critique can make to political theory. However, we first need to look

Being 143 at his alleged war-collaborating remarks by following the internal development of his criticism. A sign of this withdrawal from the project of internal critique appeared as early as 1930—just one year after the publication of “Multiple Designs.” In a series of aphorisms titled “Disqualified Critic,” Kobayashi confesses his inability to write literary criticisms. The specific problem he expresses is how to avoid both solipsism and dogmatism in subjective criticism. However, this specific problem is only a symptom of a broader problem, that of communicating the “events” (of artwork) within the language set in a lost home and tradition. As we have seen, the problem of external critique, the problem of judging artwork with external standards, was definitive for him. However, his subjective criticism—the “skeptical narration of one’s dream”—brings about another problem: what guarantees that the subjective narration would be communicable, not to say valid, for others? The problem would not have been so serious if a strong tradition had existed involving both artwork and critics, for in that case, the validities of artwork and critiques would be judged according to standards embodied in the tradition. However, for him, the situation in Japan at his time was one of chaos and anarchy disconnected from tradition. Tradition is not available for the critic. Here “destiny” appears insufficient to ground the communicability of critique, because the destiny—Bergsonian duration—is not a language for Kobayashi. What appears most problematic under this condition is that language, the very medium both of literature and criticism, cannot escape this condition of losing contact with real experiences in duration. In “Multiple Designs,” he points out this poverty of language: language, having lost contact with lived experiences, becomes the basis of “designs.” But as a critic, he needs to analyze and articulate events (i.e., creation of artwork) within this lifeless language. How is it possible to write critique with language but without making it another “design”?16 In the course of his intellectual career, this difficulty can be divided into two dimensions, artwork and critique, each of which led him to withdraw from his original attempt at internal critique. First, concerning the quality of artwork, this difficulty appears in the form of his frustration at contemporary writers who cannot produce work of sufficient merit to deserve critique. Whereas Japanese society had lost its Eastern, Japanese, or feudal tradition, he complains, there is no work that crystallizes this homeless chaos into words: instead, writers stick to anachronistic ideas such as the binary between modern Western life and Eastern mind (2:375; 1995, 55–66). He was dissatisfied with contemporary writers who had not succeeded in bringing the contemporary situation of chaos into articulation. Kobayashi’s disillusion at the poverty of contemporary literature makes him turn to old masterpieces such as Dostoevsky’s books instead of contemporary novels. With this change of subject, he relinquished his internal critique of contemporary writings.17 The second dimension concerns his style of criticism: his sense of the limits of chaotic language led him to be silent when considering such great art as Dostoevsky’s. In “Multiple Designs,” Kobayashi argued for skeptical narrative, that is, linguistic narration. However, along with the change of subject in his criticism

144  Being came a change in character as well. In dealing with classic masterpieces of art, he no longer interprets, he simply admires. Now he drops his skeptical narrative and states instead, “Only what stands still and refutes any interpretation is beautiful” (7:359). Such beauty appears to him to be beyond words.18 Unable to communicate subjective criticism, his aspiration for internal critique withdraws into silent admiration of great masterpieces. What is important for my exploration is the correlation between Kobayashi’s withdrawal and the war: it was the war, rather than the narrow world of art and literary criticism that prompted him to take up a new style of criticism. His withdrawal into silent admiration might not have made his trajectory so provocative, had it stayed confined to the admiration of classical artwork. His trajectory would have remained as one episode of an ordinary path in which many young, ambitious writers critical of their times gradually become apologists of great traditions. Kobayashi’s case would not become politically important either. We could simply call him an aesthetician and move on to works more relevant to political theory. Indeed, Kobayashi’s withdrawal is in one sense a result of the sociopolitical environment during the 1930s and 1940s: he finds the living tradition in war. From 1937 (when the Sino-Japanese war broke out) to 1941, he wrote intensively about social issues, especially about the war. Those writings show the same structure as his new mode in literary criticism. What emerges in his new stance is the aestheticization of war and the rediscovery of tradition. “My Impressions at Manchuria” (1939) is the representative text showing Kobayashi’s rediscovery of tradition: Everybody agrees that the incident [=the Sino-Japanese War from 1936] has its unexplored complexity and unexpected trajectory. And many would-be intellectuals accused the government of indecisiveness and poor handling of the incident. . . . Nevertheless, while the incident has escalated, the unity of the [Japanese] people does not waver at all. What kind of wisdom supports this unity? This is not because of such a simple thing as unconscious unity underlying the blood of Japanese nation. Rather, it is due to a kind of extraordinary smartness and wisdom, which trained their matured and complex tradition under the rapidly flowing influence of Western culture after the Meiji period [since 1867]. This wisdom does not express any words, but simply acts. No thinker has managed to speak adequately about this wisdom. At least I feel so. The Japanese people silently dealt with the incident. This is the largest feature of the incident. Those demagogues of the incident may be fooled into believing that their leading principle succeeded. But this is no more than an illusion all demagogues have. (6:15–16, italics mine)19 If we are to judge the text as evidence of Kobayashi’s war collaboration, the essay remains quite ambiguous. The overall tone of this essay is not clear. Though apparently it is not a criticism of the incident, it is also far from being

Being 145 passionately in favor of the war. In fact, in the same essay, he criticizes the prevailing nationalistic ideologies of the time. Moreover, his criticism of the “demagogues” of “leading principles” resonates with his attack on external theories in “Multiple Designs.” However, if we focus on the structure of his criticism, we find a parallel relation between his new stance toward artwork and the wisdom of people about the war: as critic Kobayashi silently admires the artwork without any interpretation, the people silently deal with war. He projects his aesthetic stance upon the people, to which, as his 1946 remark shows (“I silently dealt with the incident”), he himself belongs. Or rather, he finds the embodiment of his aesthetic stance in the people. As he finds silent acceptance of the war on the side of people, the act of war becomes aestheticized as artwork.20 In another essay “War and Peace” (1942), he writes about an aesthetic response he had while looking at pictures taken during the attack on Pearl Harbor. While he tries to remind himself that “these pictures honestly depict a fiery hell trapping thousands of people,” he cannot help but be amazed at the beauty of the “rather calm qualities” of the pictures: I again began looking at the photograph on my lap. Surely this was precisely how the bombers had viewed it. . . . The eye of the heartless camera sees in a way very similar to men who have transcended thought of life and death, for the will to battle, too, kills all useless speculation. (7:348; Dorsey 2009, 225) As great artwork that resists any interpretation, the beauty of war reveals itself only to bombers stripped of “all useless speculation.” After years of frustration at the lack of artwork, he finally finds an aesthetic experience in the contemporary world of war. However now the artwork goes beyond the reach of critique. By finding (1) great artwork (that does not necessarily have to be pure artwork, for events of the war can also be beautiful objects) that transcends interpretation (“designs”) on the side of subjects, and (2) spectators who, with the help of deeper tradition, silently accept the work, he unfortunately abandons the problem he was grappling with so productively: the quest for immanent critique. For clarification, let me situate those two moves of Kobayashi’s critique in a Kantian framework of aesthetic judgment, as I did in clarifying his immanent critique as that of reflective judgment. As is well known, Kant mentions two things that assure the validity of aesthetic judgment: one is the “genius” on the side of creators, to which artwork gives an exemplary validity (Kant 2000, 5:176–78); the other is sensus communis on the side of spectators, which makes it possible for us to postulate agreement in our aesthetic judgment (Kant 2000, 5:159–62). Employing this Kantian framework, we can say that Kobayashi found “genius” in great writers such as Dostoevsky as well as bombers at Pearl Harbor who stifled “all useless speculation.” Concerning spectators, he found sensus communis embodied in Japanese tradition as it is hidden in ordinary people’s lives, that is, in the fact that people “silently deal with the Incident.” In fact, “common sense” appears as a key notion in Kobayashi’s writings after 1936.

146  Being However, this new stance no longer has language to communicate with. Even worse, there is no longer the need for reflection. Because all he needs to do as a “disqualified critic” is to admire events that move him “without any speculation.” Therefore, even after the war, he can respond to criticisms against his alleged war collaboration, stating that I quietly dealt with the Incident [=Sino-Japanese War] as one ignorant citizen. I dealt quietly. Now I have no regret about it. Whenever a big incident occurs, people claim it would not have happened or it would have been otherwise only if things were such and such. It is human revenge against necessity. An empty revenge. Do you think the ignorance and ambition of a group of people caused the war? Did the war not occur without those people? I cannot hold such an optimistic view of history. I think the necessity of history is more formidable. Since I am an imbecile, I won’t regret. Let the smart people regret a lot. (8:31–32)21 The “destiny” that once seemed to him to enable immanent critique now appears as “formidable necessity” beyond language and speculation. As there is no need of “useless speculation” upon events, he feels no need to regret—that is, to reflect upon events and upon his unreflective acceptance of such events. Instead of reflecting upon events, he uncritically succumbs to his imbecility.

Interim assessment: what is living and what is dead in the Immanent critique of Kobayashi? In the previous section, we followed Kobayashi’s path of immanent critique. Facing inability to communicate events, he turns into a silent, unreflective admirer of events. How, then, can Kobayashi’s path help in illuminating the dilemma of critique? Does it simply demonstrate the unavoidability of the dilemma of critique? Moreover, does it attest to the impossibility of immanent critique? While I do not maintain that the dilemma is solvable, I do think that critique—namely, the immanent critique of events—is possible. In the rest of the chapter, I argue for immanent critique despite Kobayashi’s failure. In proceeding I examine prevalent interpretations of Kobayashi’s wartime writings. Through responding to those interpretations, I  present the possibility of interpreting Kobayashi’s immanent critique as an immanent political critique. Common interpretations, whether they defend or attack Kobayashi, approach Kobayashi’s wartime writings on the grounds of distinction between politics and literature (or art). His exponents see his wartime writings as “literature” and exempt Kobayashi from political responsibility; his opponents accuse him of mistakes or “political immaturity,” dissolving the boundary between politics and art.22 Several mixed evaluations fall between the two poles of criticism.23 Kobayashi’s own attitudes toward politics support those views based on the distinction between politics and literature. For example, once asked about his

Being 147 “preparation for war as a writer” during the Sino-Japanese War, he replied that he had no such preparation, stating: There can be no special preparation for war that is peculiar to writers. Should the time come to take up arms, I would happily do so and perhaps even die for my country. I can neither conceive of any other preparation for war nor feel there is any need to do so. It is totally meaningless to claim that one would take up arms as a writer. In battle, only soldiers fight. (5:250; 1995, 151) It is misleading to see this wartime statement simply as literature’s surrender to politics. For he appeals to the same distinction between politics and literature in the postwar roundtable: when he refuses to regret, he is reported to have uttered, “I hate politics” (Honda 1946, 64).24 Both critics and defenders of Kobayashi draw upon his distaste for politics by either criticizing him for his lack of political commitment or exempting his literary writings from political responsibility. Nevertheless, the defenses and criticisms do not fully capture the internal problem that Kobayashi’s writings disclose. First, the distinction between politics and literature is not as clear as Kobayashi, or his readers, maintain. As we saw in the previous section, his wartime writings do step over this boundary. If he was resolved to stay out of politics, why did he write about the war? Moreover, the same logic underlies both his political writings and literary writings, making the distinction more dubious. He admires the bomber pilots of Pearl Harbor in the same way he admires the beauty of classical works.25 Second, even if Kobayashi could maintain the boundary, and even if it were not for a matter of censorship, it would be still debatable whether he could write criticism. Sympathetic commentators find a passive resistance in his wartime essays. But what does he write there? He still writes, but he writes nothing but silent admiration of beauty. They can still be called writings—and I do not deny the quintessential beauty of his wartime prose—but they do not qualify as the immanent critique that Kobayashi originally attempted. As my analysis in the previous section has shown, he lacks not only the very words to express critique but also lacks reflection. In other words, we need to assess Kobayashi’s wartime writings and their consequences as part of the dilemma of critique he faced. Masao Maruyama, arguably the most eminent historian of political thought and public intellectual in postwar Japan, presents a more nuanced assessment by questioning Kobayashi’s conception of politics. Maruyama points out the peculiar conception of politics among Japanese writers, including Kobayashi. According to him, modern Japanese writers tend to regard politics as the absolute totality that governs all corners of life. Maruyama ascribes such a conception of politics to the influence of Marxism over Japanese intellectuals. As Kobayashi acknowledges, too, it is Marxism that introduced a systematic edifice of rational ideas into modernizing Japanese thought. Marxism’s philosophical systematicity leads to conceiving of politics as the systematic governance of reality because Marxism is political as well. In sharing the totality-based conception of politics, Marxist

148  Being writers and their critics coalesce in one way: while the former aims to govern literature by “politics” understood through a Marxist worldview, Kobayashi, in criticizing Marxists’ politicization of literature, defends literature as a human and irrational realm free from any rational abstraction. As a result, Maruyama argues, Japanese writers of the period fail to appreciate the human, nonrational essence of politics (Maruyama 1961, Chapter 2). What, then, is the consequence of such a conception of politics for Kobayashi? In his analysis of Kobayashi’s wartime writings, Maruyama concludes that he fell into Schmittean decisionism, into unconditional affirmation of reality through the negation of conceptual thinking. For Maruyama, Kobayashi is not only a decisionist, but also an exemplary figure of Japan’s rapid modernization, which imported various streams of thought one after another but never experienced the internal development of those thoughts and thus failed to establish a worldview: After relentlessly unmasking “designs” in a country lacking the universal, what emerged in front of him was the absolute facts that stand still against “interpretations” and “opinions.” The acute personality of Kobayashi knew nothing but to bend his knee to such facts. (Maruyama 1961, 119–20, italics in original) According to Maruyama, the problem with Kobayashi is that his thought does not allow communication among diverse views, since he remains silent before facts. As we shall see, Maruyama sees communication as necessary to unify such diverse views under a universal standard. Maruyama’s criticism concerning Kobayashi’s lack of communicability endo­ rses my conclusion of the previous section on Kobayashi’s writings during the late 1930s and 1940s: as we saw in the previous section, Kobayashi lapses into silent admiration of events. Moreover, Maruyama’s criticism illuminates what is living and what is dead in Kobayashi. To consult Maruyama’s criticism, however, does not mean to accept all of his assumptions. Rather, by critically deploying Maruyama’s appraisal of Kobayashi, we can read Kobayashi’s immanent critique as political thought against Maruyama’s conceptions of politics and thought. Such a reading is helpful not only in rescuing something from Kobayashi’s immanent critique but also in countering Maruyama’s own political thought. As we will examine, Maruyama’s influential endorsement of postwar democracy is based on the availability of a given universal standard. As a result, contrary to Maruyama’s hope to maintain the communication of plural views, his political thought exemplifies split views—what Kato (1997) calls a “schizophrenic division”—on the war and postwar democracy in postwar Japanese society. Let me start with the positive contributions of Maruyama’s criticism. His criticism helps to refute the ungrounded dichotomy between politics and literature held by Kobayashi as well as in many interpretations of him. This opens up the possibility to read Kobayashi’s writings as a political criticism against the disguise of literary criticism.

Being 149 However, when we attempt to rescue Kobayashi’s writings as political thought, Maruyama’s criticism also presents an obstacle: Maruyama’s call for universality. Criticizing Kobayashi’s distaste for universal abstraction, Maruyama emphasizes the need for thought to reach to the “common interpretation of reality” (Maruyama 1961, 121–22). However, does not such a call for universality destroy Kobayashi’s attempt of immanent critique by reintroducing an external standard? Maruyama might respond to my concern about external universality by distinguishing the search for universality he favors from the application of external universality that both he and Kobayashi detected in Marxist literary criticism. Or, to use Kantian terminology, it is one thing for reflective judgment to rise from the particulars to the universal and another for determinate judgment to apply a universal standard. Nevertheless, Maruyama’s call for universality seems to overstep the boundary of reflective judgment toward determinate judgment. Does he not suggest the need to actually establish—at least once—universality when, for example, he attributes the fate of Kobayashi’s thought to the condition of Japan’s “lacking the universal”? Underlying Maruyama’s call for the universal is his conception of historical development, with which he diagnoses Japan’s aborted modernization. According to him, Japan’s modernization after the Meiji Restoration of 1867 fell into the wartime “ultranationalism” because it lacked the necessary internal historical development to go through the establishment of a universal idea—the development western Europe went through with Christianity and the modern Enlightenment. Though he does speak of the need for “internal” development, does not his notion of a “necessary” internal development already indicate its externality? With his diagnosis of Kobayashi’s problem as an exemplary tragic case of Japan’s rapid modernization, Maruyama slides into determinant judgment that applies an external model of historical development to the particular case of Kobayashi as well as to modern Japan. In terms of the dilemma of critique, Maruyama acutely assesses Kobayashi’s siding with the unconditional affirmation of reality, but he does so only by falling onto the other side, judgmentalism based on transcendent criteria.26 If Maruyama’s criticism is correct, are we left with an either/or choice between the two poles of the dilemma of critique, that is, Kobayashi’s uncritical affirmation of reality and Maruyama’s determinate judgment of historical development? This question brings us back to the positive contribution I addressed above: Maruyama’s notion of politics. As we have seen, Maruyama criticized the totality-based understanding of politics among Japanese authors. Against their identification of politics with the rule of total theory, Maruyama contends: “The political is not originally schematic, and the schematic is not political” (Maruyama 1961, 88). If Maruyama’s understanding of politics is correct, does he not betray himself by judging Kobayashi’s politics with the scheme of history? As Sugita points out, there are two moments that are not always compatible in Maruyama’s writings: one moment is his call that politics should be governed by the universal principle of historical development and the other is a moment of Nietzschean perspectivism that grasps every political situation as a “bundle of possibilities”—an insight

150  Being toward the contingency of the future and plurality of perspectives (Sugita 2010, 464–65). In fact, this second moment of a “bundle of possibilities” in reality resonates with Kobayashi’s orientation in his immanent critique. As we saw in the second section, Kobayashi’s understanding of “events” and even “destiny” shows his appreciation of multiplicities of reality amidst the duration of time. Then, by following the second moment toward the plurality of perspectives in Maruyama, it is possible to read Kobayashi against Maruyama’s first moment of the universal principle and develop a way to negotiate the dilemma of critique. In examining interpretations of Kobayashi’s wartime writings, I showed that (1) it is misleading to disavow or approve Kobayashi’s writings by drawing upon the distinction between literature and politics and that (2) Kobayashi’s writings can be read as political writings dealing with the dilemma of critique. However, there remains a question to be clarified before reexamining Kobayashi’s writings. Even if Kobayashi’s immanent critique can be seen as a political critique, the possibility of reinterpretation itself is not sufficient to rescue Kobayashi’s thought from its slide into the silent admiration of events. In the above I  emphasized Kobayashi’s appreciation of the multiplicity of events. But have we not already seen that Kobayashi, as Maruyama criticizes, “bent his knee to” facts beyond interpretation? To the question concerning Kobayashi’s slippage into silent admiration, I  respond by interpreting Kobayashi’s writings as the “bundle of possibilities.” Although I do maintain that during the late 1930s and 1940s Kobayashi mostly, if not entirely, fell into silent admiration of facts, I  argue that there is another possibility in his early orientation toward the multiplicity of facts. I examine this other possibility of Kobayashi’s immanent critique in detail in the following two sections. For now, I briefly counter the criticisms against Kobayashi by clarifying two points. The first refers to Maruyama’s slight misinterpretation of Kobayashi. Although Maruyama regards Kobayashi as a destroyer of abstractions who relentlessly unmasks “designs,” Kobayashi’s attitude toward “designs” is more nuanced. For example, toward the end of “Multiple Designs,” Kobayashi makes the following ironical statement: “It was not at all my intention to belittle those designs by suggesting some alternative. It is just that not having too much faith in any one design, I have tried to believe equally in all of them” (1:151; 1995, 34, italics mine). Thus Kobayashi’s immanent critique is not a mere rejection of designs but in a sense a pluralization of the perspectives that appear in designs. The second point concerns Kobayashi’s alleged nonrepentance. At the end of the previous section, we saw Kobayashi’s refusal of regret: “Since I am an imbecile, I won’t regret.” His refusal seems to fit his silent admiration of events and destiny, given his statement about the “formidable quality of the necessity of history” appearing in the same roundtable. Nevertheless, we should not take Kobayashi’s refusal entirely as the denial of all human regret. Indeed, in a later essay he repeats the same denial while admitting the possibility of “real regret” (9:87). His acknowledgment of real regret (hansei) implies that he admits the possibility of reflection (hansei) despite his overt tone since the mid-1930s promulgating

Being 151 the silent affirmation of events. What, then, is real regret? And why does he still refuse to regret? In the next section, I  will clarify Kobayashi’s notion of “real regret.” Through this clarification, the political relevance of Kobayashi’s immanent critique as well as its predicament will become clearer.

Maruyama and the “Community of Remorse” Kobayashi’s remark on “real regret” appeared in 1949, three years after the 1946 roundtable where he had refused to express regret: I am ready to make the same indiscreet statement. For the situation remains the same. . . . Rather it becomes more popular to talk in the name of regret or clearance, to talk about one’s own past as if it is the other’s. Such a chattering has nothing to do with real regret. In doing so, it plays with the past. This is worse than defeat itself. As individual life is in duration, organism of culture does not know discontinuity in its development. Honest narration of one’s own past requires a deep internal sense about one’s own singular life that continues from yesterday to today. Those who cannot narrate their own experiences honestly are incapable of a critique of culture. (9:87) Yes, he still refuses to regret, saying that he is ready to repeat the remark “I won’t regret.” Its logic looks similar, too: the way people regret is merely chattering, playing with the past. Nonetheless, we find a slightly different tone in this 1949 remark. Here he talks about “real regret,” which he phrases as a “critique of culture” based upon “honest narrative.” Although the “formidable quality of the necessity of history” denies the human capacity for the understanding of and intentional action upon events in the 1946 remark, he at least admits the possibility of “critique,” as well as “regret,” in the later remark. Moreover, there is a common thread connecting his 1949 remark and his earlier prewar writings. In the second section we saw the central roles words such as “narration,” “duration,” and most importantly, “critique” play in his early writings. The employment of those words suggests that he pursues “real regret” in accordance with his early immanent critique. But why does he pose the “real regret” here? He presents “real regret” against “the situation” in which it is popular “to talk in the name of regret or clearance, talk about one’s own past as if it is the other’s.” To explore the scope of Kobayashi’s “real regret,” it is necessary to contextualize it within what he calls the popular chattering of the postwar period, which Maruyama refers to as the “community of remorse.”27 By comparing his “real regret” with the community of regret, the political relevance of his immanent critique becomes discernible. As Kobayashi mentions, regret is a widespread phenomenon in postwar Japan.28 During the long war, the starting point of which can be traced back to the

152  Being Manchurian Incident of 1931 and the Sino-Japanese War of 1937, people more or less conformed to the government’s policy. They did so not only because they were forced by an authoritarian government but also because they spontaneously supported the war. However, what resulted was mass killing and the bellicose hypocrisy of the wartime government. Against that background, there emerged a widespread sense of regret.29 It is Maruyama who extracts the political implication from this phenomenon of regret. Naming the phenomenon of regret as the “community of remorse (kaikon kyōdōtai),” Maruyama finds in the widespread regret among diverse people a moment of solidarity driving postwar democratization. Maruyama’s emphasis on the diversity of the “community of regret” reminds us of his criticism of the lack of communication in Kobayashi’s attack on “designs” (opinions and interpretations). According to him, “the community of regret” that included “surprisingly diverse kinds of people,” is based on “the wide-spread feeling that intellectuals should share the sense of solidarity and responsibility at the re-start after the war”(Maruyama 1996b, 256). Although each of those intellectuals had some doubts, or even opposing opinions, toward the government policy, they were unable to raise their doubts or discontents into a viable political force. In fact, under strong censorship and with the lack of political freedom and dominantly aggressive prowar public opinion, they were forced to suppress their doubts and cooperate passively or even actively. After WWII, these intellectuals’ regret served as a motivating force, driving them toward unified support across their differences in political attitude (e.g., differences between Marxists and liberals) for the postwar democratization movement. For democracy, with its assurance of free speech and political participation, enables dissidents in society to voice their opinions and solidify themselves as a viable political group. Moreover, these intellectuals’ regrets led to their active political participation and solidarity, because they regretted that their preferences for negative freedom (especially among liberals and university intellectuals) prevented them from forming an active political force against the war. In other words, those intellectuals came to have a sense of active political responsibility as citizens.30 With his observation about the “community of remorse,” Maruyama clarified how the sense of regret provided a political impetus to form democratic solidarity in post-WWII Japan. In fact, his observation served as an ideal that inspired liberal and democratic intellectuals, as well as offered an analytical tool to explain the postwar democratic movement in Japan. As an analytical tool, it explains, for example, the popular support across political factions for the Anpo movement in the late 1950s, a protest against Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi’s initiative to renew the US-Japan Security Treaty.31 In its normative dimension, Maruyama’s idea of “community of remorse” functioned as an inspiration for postwar liberals and democrats in its call to memorize the experience of defeat as the origin upon which the present is to be judged. Maruyama as a public intellectual repeatedly called for a “return to the beginning” (Maruyama 1996a) that is, the moment of regret in the wake of defeat: he claimed that the value and sincerity of postwar intellectuals can be tested by the extent to which those intellectuals retained the

Being 153 memory of regret as their origin. As a normative idea, Maruyama finds in the regret following defeat not only people’s criticism of their own past but also a motive that guides and judges their political consciousness. While Maruyama’s contribution to the political relevance of regret is undeniable, his aspiration, I argue, universalizes the contingent fact of defeat. Focusing on regret as the result of the internal reflection of each person, his notion may seem to offer a viable account of internal critique. However, his theorization of regret slides into a determinant judgment by privileging the fact of defeat as the standard, as well as by being unable to account for how such internal regret occurs. In fact, his notion of regret covers only those cases where the right answers could have been available even before the defeat, if it had not been for external obstacles. Those cases in which a newly attained standard of judgment modifies the judgments of the past are outside of his scope: he pays little attention to the possibility that the standard of judgment is not evident and dependent upon historical contingency of Japan’s defeat. Maruyama’s hidden reliance on determinant judgment becomes clear when we look at the examples he mentions. In his 1977 essay, he refers to four groups of people in the “community of regret.” The first is the former Marxists, who regretted “their intellectual and moral weakness that they could not retain their beliefs in the shifting intellectual atmosphere of the time.” The second is the “so-called liberal intellectuals” who “regretted their conformism.” The third is “specialists and engineers” who regretted “their ignorance and lack of wider, global perspective.” The fourth is “young students having believed in ‘the holy-war’ and ‘the non-defeat of holy land’ to become soldiers,” who regretted “their ignorance and lack of critical mind.” What is common to those cases is that their misjudgment can be ascribed to ignorance or weakness. It is as if they could have attained the right judgment once and for all if those obstacles were not present. What Maruyama’s characterization of regret misses is the very alteration of the standard of judgment—after all, was it not the contingent event of defeat that afforded them the realization of their wrong judgment? What if Japan had won the war? What would the right judgment be then? In other words, Maruyama fails to consider that the ability to make the right judgment was dependent upon a contingent factor, that is, the defeat in the war. Maruyama’s ignorance of historical contingency leads to the inability of the postwar progressive intellectuals (of which Maruyama is a leading figure) to negotiate the plurality of perspectives among and across communities, making his ideal of solidarity fragile. In other words, the postwar democratic movement was incapable of having meaningful communication with those who did not share their sense of regret. A commentator on Maruyama points out that there exists another community of regret alongside Maruyama’s democratic community of regret: this other community consists of conservatives and right-wing groups who regret Japan’s defeat and feel that the people lost and forgot their sense of justice (of war) and tradition (Takeuchi 2004, 292–94). In the post-WWII Japanese society, those two communities (of regret) divided the society’s understanding of the WWII into a polarized situation.32 Certainly such bipolarity is not limited to Japanese society. However, here I emphasize that Maruyama’s understanding

154  Being of regret prevents ways to seriously consider that other conservative community of regret, as well as ways to make meaningful interactions beyond and between those two communities. In fact, despite apparent disagreements over the respective content of their regret, those two communities converge upon the fact that regret is based on judgments with fixed, given standards. In other words, their regret comes from determinant judgment where the universal is already given: the two communities are different only in the standard upon which each of them bases their regret (postwar democracy or national tradition before 1945). By basing their judgments upon external standards, the two communities—whether it is Maruyama’s “community of regret” or another conservative community—tend to miss altering standards of judgment that enable the phenomenon of regret. What is needed is a critique that is more attentive to the mutating and contingent character of judgment and plurality of judgments, a critique that I argue Kobayashi offers. This will enable us to think in more productive ways about reflective moments and regret.

Kobayashi’s “Real Regret”: imbecility in the present The “community of remorse” directed the widespread regret among people toward democratic solidarity, however, only to a limited extent. Their limit lies in mistaking the contingent historical condition of defeat for a fixed standard of judgment, resulting in the inability to communicate with others. In terms of the dilemma of critique, the “community of remorse” falls into the fixation of judgment. Seeing how the postwar “community of remorse” fails to acknowledge the contingent and shifting quality of judgment, we may now better grasp the scope of Kobayashi’s refusal of regret and his call for “real regret.” His emphasis on the durational quality of history and our lives obviously shows his criticism of the assumption of fixed standard of morality among those who belong to the “community of remorse.” To fathom his criticism, in this section, I want to focus on the reason why he refuses to regret—to focus on his notion of imbecility. Kobayashi refers to his imbecility in refusing to regret. But the terms “imbecility” and “stupidity” frequently appear among those who express regret as well. As mentioned earlier, the assigned lines in the first postwar audition for the largest film company were “I was an imbecile/ really imbecile/ I was an imbecile,” which reflects the widespread feeling among people of the time (Oguma 2002, 63). Kotaro Takamura (1883–1956), one of the representative Japanese poets of the period, published a series of poems titled A Brief History of Imbecility (Angu shōden 1947—its literal translation is “a short biography of the dark-stupid”—), which his contemporary readers took as an expression of regret for his wartime collaboration. Later, in 1961, a small group of old people in a countryside town built a monument called “the monument of stupidity.” The members of the group had been leaders of veterans and politicians during the war, all of whom were purged from public service after the war for their wartime activities. The

Being 155 inscription reads: “We build this monument in order to tell of the existence of stupid people to the future . . . wishing there would no longer be wrongdoings.” This acknowledgment of imbecilities, however, shows one stark difference between Kobayashi and those who regret. While Kobayashi mentions his imbecility in the present tense (“I’m imbecile”), the examples I mention above state their imbecilities in the past tense (“I was imbecile”).33 Does not the confession of imbecility in the past suggest that they are no longer imbecile? If so, what makes them reflective and smart? This subtle rhetorical structure of imbecility, under which smart people regret past imbecilities, is what Kobayashi criticizes when he states that they “talk about their own past as if it is that of the others.” Kobayashi’s 1941 essay on imbecility criticizes such a move from imbecility to smartness. There, he argues for the “perfect” quality of imbecility that smartness cannot break: It is a notion difficult to avoid that imbecility is more or less lacking in smartness. But there are plenty of opportunities to avoid it. Everybody utters, for example: What a fool!; Nothing is more formidable than the imbecile; I can’t understand how one can be so imbecile. They present opportunities to understand the simple fact that imbecile does not lack anything, standing perfect as such. But we usually miss the opportunity, and return to our meaningless smartness. Despite our precious discovery of the formidability of imbecility, we quickly feel relieved to think “but they are imbecile.” In sum, we take such opportunity as a mere exception. Because we sense dissolution of the ordinary relation between smartness and imbecility, our inertia pushes us back to recover the ordinary relation. A wasteful recovery. When we get scared of imbecility, we glimpse the reality of our lives. (7:233) We should not mistake the perfection of imbecility with the separation of imbecile from us. Rather, Kobayashi states it as the reality of life; imbecility is perfect because it underlies the condition of our lives. In other words, imbecility is other only in the sense that imbecility is within us as an ineluctable quality we cannot remove.34 Our being relatively smart cannot beat our imbecility. Therefore, we can never be free from our imbecility. This constraint of imbecility is what he means by claiming that we cannot talk of our past imbecility as if it were that of others. “Smart people” regret their past because they assume they could have avoided the war. For Kobayashi, such smartness is wasteful because our fundamental imbecility remains as our condition, ready to beat the relative smartness. In addition, Kobayashi’s reflection on imbecility helps respond to the political impasse the “community of remorse” leads to: a lack of communication. His reflection does so by revealing the communal moment in our experience. As I  stated above, imbecility is the “perfect” other in that it lies within ourselves and not outside us. But this internal otherness can be glimpsed through our

156  Being encounter with the imbecility of external others (i.e., others we interact with in our daily lives), which, so to speak, stupefies us into the realization of “the reality of life.” Thus, imbecility makes us face the double relationship with otherness: the encounter with the external other makes us realize the internal other, the imbecility. And according to Kobayashi, this double relationship with otherness is the “reality of life” that underlies every human experience. He writes: “Experience is not something we do for ourselves, but a collective thing” (7:235). In other words, the encounter with imbecility reveals the communal character of experience. By “communal character,” I do not mean harmonious unification among the constituencies sustained by tradition or common good.35 Rather, communality suggests an element of imbecility in the heart of communication. Kobayashi’s following remark suggests such interactive quality: Here stands a strange creature called other. Certainly this creature is a human being. But calling this a human being would be wrong. For the creature has nothing similar to you in face, disposition, character, and fate. It’s better to call the creature other. No use in attempting to understand the other. Well, so you experience the other instead of understanding. Go ahead and have your experience. I mean, interaction. (7:235) With this communality in experience, Kobayashi can direct our encounters with imbecility toward open interaction with others (both internal and external), rather than foreclosing interaction as the “community of regret” does by uniting the community with the common experience of regret and a misunderstanding of the relation of “reality” to judgment. Kobayashi’s emphasis on the “reality of life” and “experience” is, for example, observable in his words on “stupid” dead soldiers who willingly supported the war. Mentioning Listen to the Voice from the Sea (Kike Wadatsumi no Koe), the selected letters, diaries, and poems of students who, having entered the military, died during WWII, he criticizes the selective stance of the book’s editors: The editors selected the writings of students according to the formers’ expressed view on culture. They picked up the writing by those who had spoken of the misery and meaninglessness of war and had died unwillingly, while they disregarded the writings by those who had affirmed the war and gladly died. Everybody knows the reason of the selection. The reason is justified. I, however, think of the grief of parents who had such stupid sons whose writings were not chosen. I know such parents. He never thinks his son to be a militarist, and he himself is a peaceful person. It matters little, I know, that the writings of student soldiers are judged on paper when war criminals are hung to death. I understand this. But I think it’s wrong to have no doubt about the culture that makes such a judgment. (10:102, italics mine)

Being 157 He neither defends nor attacks the postwar standard of judgment. Indeed, he thinks equally highly of the anti-war writings included in the book. In a different essay on the book, he cautions against making judgment about their writings: I don’t discuss the content of the students’ writings appearing in the book. Nor do I point out the immaturity of their observations, criticisms, or sentiments. I don’t say that they lacked the correct insights on their surrounding conditions that pushed them to death. To speak of those things is not correct at all, even though they may sound correct. (17:211) Rather, he is concerned that the judgment, if fixed, undermines the potential encounter with others. Kobayashi’s “real regret,” however, remains unattainable to him unless he manages to maintain his initial project of internal critique. In fact, the general tone governing his affirmative remark on the students’ writings is silent admiration for them. Following his refusal to make judgments on the correctness of their writings, he continues: Those [writings] are neither cries nor howls of those embattled. Rather, they are expressions of persons who are fully sober and keen. Everybody there narrates his own existence to the best of his will and ability. As such, their correctness is beyond our reach. (9:198, italics mine) Again, he is silent about their correctness or righteousness vis-à-vis the event of war. We cannot overlook that Kobayashi refuses to regret in the end. Even if he has an idea of “real regret,” it is beyond his reach.

“The Real Regret” in communication: another moment in Kobayashi In the last two sections, I have tried to elucidate Kobayshi’s idea of “real regret,” a regret based upon the internal critique of events. However, what has become clear through my exploration of Kobayashi’s writings is rather a difficulty in pursuing real regret and internal critique: the difficulty of communicating about events with others with the chaotic language that has lost its tradition and is filled with “multiple designs,” that is, ideas which are neither universal nor internal to actual events. In Kobayashi’s intellectual trajectory, this difficulty forced him to give up any words of critique and instead to “silently deal with things” before aestheticized events that “transcend all useless speculation.” Is “real regret” with immanent critique an impossibility after all? In this section, I want to rescue another possibility in Kobayashi’s early writings (before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War) that can contribute to the pursuit of “real

158  Being regret.” Though Kobayashi’s own path led to the mutation of immanent critique, I argue that this was not an inevitable fate. As a guiding beacon, the 1946 essay by Ango Sakaguchi, writer and literary critic who was a close ally as well as harsh critic of Kobayashi, is illuminating: As far as I know, Hideo Kobayashi is the only writer who underwent a true and internal transfiguration during the war. He did not write a single line admiring or collaborating the war. He simply fell into Japanese resignation alongside the steps of the war. Readers, and even Kobayashi himself, may think his fall was natural and necessary. But I don’t think so. Without the war, he could have been otherwise. . . . In sum, he grew up under the influence of war, for his soul was growing. He may have been a sincere patriot. He did not collaborate with the wartime policy, but with all of his soul and body he collaborated with the destiny of country. Then under the influence of war, or of his passion for the country which was unknown to him, he was dragged into the depth of Japanese resignation. . . . The fact that he fell into resignation rather than becoming an advocate of resistance or collaboration may look to him natural, but I don’t think it was a “desirable” transfiguration for his literature. It seems to be a transfiguration more of defeat than of victory/He was defeated by the fate of country. (Sakaguchi 1998, 416) Here Sakaguchi laments the “destiny” that dragged Kobayashi into his defeat as a writer. As we have seen, “destiny” plays a central role in Kobayashi’s thought. In his writings after the mid-1930s, “destiny” bears a fatalist characteristic that is beyond our control and even words. In his postwar remarks, for example, he refuses to regret on the grounds of the formidable quality of history and instead silently admires those who act in the face of such destiny, such as those student soldiers. However, his notion of destiny implies a different orientation in his early writings. First of all, destiny refers to durational quality that is certainly beyond our control but filled with contingencies. If destiny is open to multiple potentialities, Kobayashi’s intellectual path could have been otherwise as well. Where, then, is the juncture of Kobayashi’s thought that could have driven him otherwise? Of course, as Sakaguchi writes, the war is a decisive moment. But this is far from a satisfactory answer to the search for possibility. If the war had not occurred, what kind of possibility in Kobayashi’s edifice of thought could have made him otherwise? I find such a possibility in Kobayashi’s diagnosis of the loss of tradition and his interpretation of Marx. As I mentioned in the previous sections, he understood that Japanese society of his time had lost its tradition and proposed that writers base their writings upon the condition of “lost home.” Moreover, his understanding of the condition of “lost home,” while harboring a yearning for the living tradition, shows that the very condition of “lost home” makes individual experiences of writers communicable and thus open to critique. To see the latter

Being 159 moment, let me examine what he understands as the process of modernization and the loss of tradition. For Kobayashi, the process of modernization appears as that of “socialization of self,” which he sees, albeit in a nuanced way, as a positive moment for literature until the mid-1930s. By the “socialization of self,” he means the permeation of modern society into the selves of individuals to the degree of the effacement of separated and autonomous individuality. He finds in the arrival of Marxism the completion of this process (3:390; 1995, 78).36 Marxism, not as a style, but as social thought, brought about socialization of private life and the realization of the complete socialization among authors. Marxism teaches that our individual consciousness is no more than the constitution of social relationships. Before the introduction of Marxism, writings about authors’ internal selves involved uncritical affirmation of their private inner selves. After Marxism, however, writing about authors’ selves becomes a critical and public task. But if Marx’s contribution remains the introduction of social and critical consciousness to authors, it is still insufficient to ground communicability. What is crucial in our attempt to find a possibility of immanent critique lies in Kobayashi’s understanding of Marx’s central idea of “commodity”: “Those who propagate the notion of the inseparability of modern consciousness and historical materialism are just playing intellectual games. What controls modernity is not things, in the Marxist sense, but what Marx explicitly called commodities” (1:149; 1995, 32). Marx teaches that capitalism turns everything into interchangeable commodity. On the one hand, this brings about an understanding that individuals, now losing their distinctive qualities, can hardly express their distinctive experiences as their own. On the other hand, however, the same simple fact that all things, especially language, become interchangeable commodities enables communicability of singular events.37 Kobayashi makes this latter point clear when he writes as follows in referring to Marx: “Society is a fragment of nature; individual is a fragment of society; and the human spirit is nothing but a factory that produces words, nothing but a society whose individuals are words” (1:226). For Kobayashi, experience is a communal activity that is based on the sociability of language as its condition. It is true that Kobayashi’s own attitude toward Marxism or the idea of commodities is ambivalent. Certainly he laments the destruction of aesthetic qualities of singular and inexplicable events: by turning everything into interchangeable commodities, Marxism, or the entire modern society, makes only clichés (designs) out of those events. However, Kobayashi sides with the condition of socialized language, relinquishing the purification of language.38 Moreover, it is this interchangeability of experiences that underwrites the possibility of his subjective criticism, “the skeptical narration of our dreams”(1:135; 1995, 21) as internal critique. For it is on the ground that both critics and writers are socialized as interchangeable commodities that subjective narration can be internal critique. One may ask, however, if such interchangeability of language leads to a monotonous uniformity of expressions. If not, does communication based upon such

160  Being interchangeability appear subject to the universal standard of exchange rate, as in Wells’s “clearing house of misunderstanding”? Not necessarily. It is one thing to say that expressions are interchangeable and another to claim that we are equipped with a universal currency to evaluate their exchange values. Rather, communication appears as a singular event every time: for each expression, its communicability depends on the addressees who are others to the expression.39 With this idea of communicability, now we see the possibility of both “real regret” and immanent critique in Kobayashi’s thought. It is a serious betrayal against the duration of time to judge our past deeds with a standard attained later, as if the latter were the universal, pregiven yardstick. But that does not necessarily mean that we have no words to communicate our deeds, for our experiences are already permeated with interchangeability. Indeed, the interchangeability of experience counters Kobayashi’s tendency to privilege some events as beyond interpretation. Those acts of the bomber pilots at Pearl Harbor or the student soldiers may reveal the reality of life and may be “correct.” But their correctness is not beyond our reach—our words and interpretations. As Kobayashi states about the encounter with imbecility, the real life that those acts reveal, I argue, is not of extraordinary quality in that it transcends our commodity-like ordinary life but the reality of experience embodied in our ordinary lives. In other words, those “honest narrations” are nothing but designs. And Kobayashi is right in claiming the need to believe all of those designs. We need to believe those designs, however, through our endless communication about them, not through silent admiration.40

Concluding remarks In this chapter, I have explored how Kobayashi dealt (and could have dealt) with the dilemma of critique. With his refusal of designs, the dilemma led Kobayashi’s immanent critique to face the lack of a medium through which critique communicates with its objects and audience. This difficulty of communication drove him to the silent admiration of extraordinary events such as the writings of geniuses and wars that are beyond interpretation. With silent admiration, however, Kobayashi’s writings ceased to be critiques. Against this turn to silence, I presented an alternative possibility Kobayashi’s writings harbor. By focusing on the interchangeable character of experience that his reading of Marx evinces, we can now view all of our activities as partaking in communality. Under this condition, the real experience that Kobayashi admires appears as nothing but commodity-like “design,” which, ironically enough, grounds the communicability of immanent critique. Since this communicability does not guarantee the quality or validity of each critique, it would not solve the dilemma. Rather, it enables the immanent critique to negotiate the dilemma without relinquishing its critical moment by dramatizing the dissonant moments in the world of commodities—the world of designs, of stupid clichés. The world of designs may look monotonous to ­inattentive eyes. Yet because these multiple designs are not organized by a universal standard, dissonances among them inspire us to initiate new reflections.

Being 161 In addition to assessing Kobayashi’s writings in terms of the dilemma of critique, my exploration helps to respond to the questions the previous chapter addressed about the Deleuzean orientation to Kant’s critique, that is, the question about the affirmative quality of critique and its political implication. About the affirmative quality of critique, to “believe all designs” does not mean to surrender to the objects that are “beyond interpretation.” Rather, the critique is an affirmative activity in the sense that it affirms every design as the expression of the “reality of life,” that is, as our problematical condition of experience and thinking. Such affirmation may criticize the object of critique; However, instead of concluding its critical activity by fixing the standard, it remains open to further development. With this open character, immanent critique has political implications. By political character I mean the plural, communal characteristic of critique. Based on the communal character of experience, the immanent critique is implicitly plural activity. Moreover, it becomes explicitly plural when it gives rise to exchanges of responses. In fact, we can find an example of the plural exercise of critique in Sakaguchi’s response Kobayashi’s writings. By critically responding to Kobayashi’s silence, Sakaguchi’s writing initiates a new series of exchanges. Is it not possible to see such a series of exchanges as a community, a different community of regret? Such a community is different from Maruyama’s own notion, as well as from the second community of conservatives, because this third community is more of a theoretical hypothesis rather than an empirical reality.41 This notion of community is also different in its very nature: while Maruyama’s “community of remorse” unifies its members as a central principle, my idea of “the third community of regret” is defined by the very process of interaction that contains diversity and disagreement within it. As we have seen, Maruyama’s community of remorse and the second, nonarticulated community of conservatives are based upon the shared judgment that they made mistakes which they could have been aware of at the time of their actions. However, the third community of regret I  propose here contains disagreements among the judgments themselves: the disagreements themselves—those disagreements concerning what was done, what could have been done, and probably even concerning the very nature of regret—serve as moments to initiate an interactive process of communication and exchange. Although regret as a continuous series of reflections cannot serve to unite the people under one organizing principle, such a community without agreement can help in sustaining people’s reflection upon their past as the very foundation of political activities. In closing this chapter, I want to reiterate my exploration in relation to stupidity. Kobayashi’s reference to imbecility in his refusal of regret already shows how his thought is attentive to the condition of our problematic thinking. Moreover, we can find a deeper relation between his insight and the findings I  have developed throughout this study. The key to this relation is Kobayashi’s idea of “design.” His notion of “design” shows a similarity to the phenomenon we have focused on, the expression of stupidity—that is, stock phrases and clichés. Kobayashi, for example, called the Marxism of his contemporaries a design because

162  Being the Marxist criticism of literature was nothing but the repetition of the Marxism scheme and terminology, that is, stock phrases. In fact, Kobayashi once compared the banality and nonsense in the writings of Marxist criticism by Kiyoshi Miki to Flaubert’s Bouvard and Pécuchet (1:212). What makes Kobayashi’s critique relevant to the study of stupidity, however, is not this similarity between his “designs” and clichés but his underlying orientation toward “designs.” Given his criticism of designs and affirmation of silent imbecility and wisdom, it may look as if he rejected garrulous stupidity in favor of silent imbecility. Not necessarily so. As pointed out earlier, Kobayashi once acknowledged that stupidity is perfect, allowing no space outside. Simply put, there is no such imbecility as distinct from stupidity. Indeed, what makes Kobayashi’s writings insightful is his claim that he believes all of the multiple designs of his time. By believing those multiple designs—and the word “multiple” is of crucial importance here—he suggests the plurality of our communications despite their monotonous disguise. He affirms our stupidity, not that of others: he is stupid. This affirmation, again, is not a silent admiration. For, as my exploration in the final section has shown, the reality of experience that our encounter with imbecility reveals is not the extraordinary quality of an event but “designs,” that is, our stupidities in our ordinary lives. As such, the reality of life permanently stupefies us into reflections that erupt as communicable acts of responsiveness not as silent admirations or mere disavowals.

Notes 1 As I have emphasized several times in the previous chapters, this dilemma by no means denies our ability to make judgments in specific cases. My focus here is the fundamental unavailability of universal and/or transcendent conditions, not on the relative desirability, validity, or goodness of specific judgments. As we can judge relative smartness or dumbness in specific contexts, we can attain a certain validity or goodness in many, though not all, judgments we make in our lives. In addition, I do not deny the importance of reflecting on such validity and goodness. I  maintain, however, that dealing with the fundamental unavailability of those qualities is unavoidable when we are engaged with theorization. 2 With its resistance to demarcation, the problematic of stupidity challenges the kind of internal critique communitarians, hermeneutists, Aristotelians, and conservatives would endorse. Even when they claim to distill standards of judgment from within our lived environment, the very act of presenting the standard contains the demarcation of standard from its surrounding environment. 3 This similarity does not suggest the actual influence of Kant, Arendt, or Deleuze upon Kobayashi. Indeed, he rarely mentioned Kant in his writings and did not live long enough to read many of Deleuze’s writings (Kobayashi died in 1980). I could not find any reference to Arendt in his writings. Given that he was more familiar with French authors than German or English ones, and given his selfclaimed distaste for politics, it is hard to imagine that he read any of Arendt’s works. Kobayashi himself acknowledged his indebtedness to those thinkers such as Alain, Rimbaud, Valéry, and Bergson. About Kant and Deleuze, Kobayashi makes interesting remarks. Concerning Kant, he claimed in one interview to have “almost forgotten what the Critique of Judgment says.” Yet he expressed a sense of discomfort toward Kant’s presupposition of harmony: “Kant first believed in

Being 163 harmony. Then he set off [for the Critique of Judgment]. There is no way of failing the experiment [of presenting successful aesthetic judgment]” (10:64). Both Kobayashi and Deleuze are strongly influenced by Bergson. Moreover, Kobayashi is said to have read Deleuze’s Le Bergsonisme. In a roundtable at 1979, Kobayashi is reported to have said that “the book titled Bergsonism by a young author named Deleuze is “good” (Gunji 1993, 262). On the comparison of their interpretations of Deleuze, see Maeda (1998). 4 Quotes and references to Kobayashi’s texts are from the 2002 editions of Complete Works of Hideo Kobayashi. Some of his essays are available in English translation in Anderer’s edited volume (Kobayashi 1995), and the nearly full English translation of Kobayashi’s “War and Peace” essay is available in Dorsey (2009). One problem in studying Kobayashi’s writings is the numerous revisions he made to his past essays whenever they appeared in new editions. Also, his revisions have resulted in differences of some critical sentences between in the 1995 Japanese complete works editions and in Anderer’s translation. Unless those differences show fundamental shifts in his thought, my quotations of Kobayashi’s works follow the 2002 Japanese edition. For a detailed analysis of Kobayashi’s revisions, see Morimoto (2002). 5 Analyzing a correspondence between Kobayashi’s trajectory toward the relinquishment of immanent critique and that of Japanese society toward the nationalist wartime ideology of “Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” my examination speaks to a debate in comparative political theory over the role and character of indigenous traditions in non-Western modernity. Since the Romantics’ yearning for the medieval and ancient societies, it has been a common practice to problematize the loss in modern society of value standards embodied in tradition. While the calls by communitarians such as Alasdair MacIntyre for the recovery of moral standards of judgment have become less audible (MacIntyre 1981; MacIntyre 1989), the debates over the desirability and possibility of traditional criterion of judgment have not become obsolete. Indeed, when we turn our eyes to comparative political theory, we find there debates over the possibility of internal development toward modernity in non-Western regions (e.g., Jenco 2007; Dallmayr 1996), over the background of religious fundamentalism (e.g., Euben 1999). A central issue at stake in these debates is the “postcolonial predicament,” that is, a predicament in identifying and maintaining indigenous forms of values and ways of living— that is, voices of their own—under the hegemony of imported (or imposed) Western modernity (Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993; Chakrabarty 2000). To these debates, Japan’s trajectory from the 1930s to 1945 presents a relevant historical case where a highly modernized—and modernization in Japan also meant Westernization—society fostered a nationalistic enmity against Western modernity under the intellectuals’ call for “Overcoming Modernity” and the official wartime ideology of liberating Asia from the Western powers (see, e.g., Harootunian 2001). Kobayashi’s intellectual career seems to reflect this trajectory: once having embraced the “chaotic situation” of “lost tradition” in Japanese modernity, his attempt of immanent critique gradually gave way to the silent admiration of Japanese people’s “wisdom” reserved in “their matured and complex tradition.” Here the relinquishment of internal critique takes the form of a return to Japanese tradition (although it is “complex” for Kobayashi). If, as I attempt to do in this chapter, there is a way to develop Kobayashi’s immanent critique against his own relinquishment, it would contribute to the current debates by suggesting a way to maintain critique without recourse to a universal standard external to culture or a criterion embodied in traditions. 6 Surely, on some occasions, we may have been wrong in doing something that we knew we should have not done. And the reason for the wrongdoing, for example,

164  Being may be our lack of courage. In this case, we regret our lack of courage and swear to be courageous the next time, and regret proceeds with determinant judgment. Yet on other occasions we may regret our past deed because it turns out to be wrong in retrospect while we judged our deed to be right at the moment. In this case, the standards of our judgment are altering, and our regret proceeds with reflective judgment. 7 The Japanese word for “regret” in the above remark is hansei 反省, which can mean “reflection” as well as “regret.” 8 My focus on regret, however, by no means suggests that regret is the moment in which stupidity matters to reflection. I  hold that stupidity is a crucial drive for most, not to say all, of our reflecting activities. For example, Flaubert’s encounter with stupidity drove him into reflection but not to regret. Nor do I claim that regret comes with defeat. The defeated people may or may not regret, and regret can happen to victors as well. Simply put, my exploration of regret in this chapter serves as a case study from which insights we can develop further insights concerning other moments of reflection. 9 Compared with innumerable studies on Kobayashi in literary criticism, there are few studies on him in political theory. The most influential among those few studies is Maruyama’s (1961), which I will examine in detail later in this chapter. However, two studies have appeared recently: Tsuzuki (2011) and Kim (2010). Kim’s study is remarkable in exploring the internal logic of Kobayashi’s thought that leads to Kobayashi’s construction of the nation as a natural fact. While my examination in this chapter agrees with his argument on Kobayashi’s turn to the nation, I argue that the nation is not the main point of contention and that a deeper problem as well as potential is to be found in Kobayashi’s broader orientation toward critique. 10 Prior to “Multiple Designs,” he wrote and published several short novels and pieces of literary criticism. But it is with the publication of “Multiple Designs” that he became widely recognized as a young literary critic. 11 “Immanent critique” is my own term. But it is common among the Kobayashi scholarship to regard the preference for immanence as his fundamental motif. For example, see Kamiyama (2010). 12 “Multiple Designs” won second place in the 1929 essay competition held by the journal Kaizo. The first place went to “Literature of Defeat” by Kenzi Miyamoto, a Marxist writer who, having been held in prison from 1933 to 1945, became the leader of the Japanese Communist Party after WWII. 13 Kobayashi writes as follows using terms reminiscent of Kant’s Critique of Judgment: “ ‘How simple,’ it is said, ‘to practice criticism by just following one’s own taste.’ But it is just as uncomplicated to practice criticism that follows an ideological yardstick. What is hard is to maintain tastes that are ever vital and alive” (1:134; 1995, 20, italics mine). 14 For Kobayashi, such events are not limited to the case of artwork. Following that quote, he continues: “A powerful idealism is an event. So is powerful art” (1:139; 1995, 24). While many criticize Kobayashi for his aestheticism, here his notion of events includes not only art but also ideational movements and even social events. I will return later to the criticism of Kobayashi’s aestheticism. 15 In another essay in 1936, he appreciates Marxism for wiping out the “residue of feudalism” in the minds of writers (3:392, 395; 1995, 80, 82). 16 Facing this problem, he once attempted to become a creator by writing a novel in the mid-1930s. However it was not long before he gave up the attempt. Nevertheless, the point here is rather that he could not have avoided the problem of language even if he had succeeded in his attempt to write novels. Insofar as those artworks are written in verse, rather than poetic language, even a creator cannot avoid the problem of language (and he is very aware of this).

Being 165 17 However, it should be noted that his turn to Dostoevsky is not necessarily a departure from Kobayashi’s attention to the condition of the modern world. For him, Dostoevsky is a writer who, under the condition of rapid Westernization and anarchic culture in Russia, made great novels out of “the lost home.” The real problem is that Kobayashi finally gave up writing his book The Works of Dostoevsky, which he planned as the second volume of his study of Dostoevsky after The Life of Dostoevsky. He could not find any other way than to silently admire Dostoevsky works in the end. 18 Such admiration of the beauty beyond words may look like a natural result of his criticism of designs. However, it shows an ambiguous but critical difference from “Multiple Designs,” in which he stated, “Not having too much faith in any of design, I have tried to believe equally in all of them”(1:151; 1995, 34). 19 In this quote, he compares the “would-be intellectuals” and “demagogues” on the one hand to the silent wisdom that “does not say any words, but simply acts” on the other. This dichotomy, while showing a delicate overlap with the dichotomy between thought and action and with the Arendtian distinction between vita comtemplativa and vita activa, resists complete subsumption to the latter. For even he seems to admire “action,” as the subject of such action is not a political leader or perpetrators of the war but ordinary people who maintain unity. Kobayashi admires people of action only when he finds a contemplative quality in those people. This applies to his admiration of bomber pilots at Pearl Harbor, whom Kobayashi admires for their “camera-like eyes.” 20 A detailed analysis of the logic of such aestheticization of war will require another study. Here, I  want to briefly mention two factors that contributed to his aestheticization of war. (1) First, Kobayashi already saw artwork as “events”—that is, happenings—rather than as representations. For such an understanding of art there will be no clear distinction between the world of pure art and the broader society: it is possible, for example, for social events like revolution to have an aesthetic quality as artwork, since they are both events. (However, as I will discuss in the following sections, this very understanding of event can help to broaden the scope of Kobayashi’s literary criticism toward political critique.) (2) The second factor is his awareness and embrace of the “loss of aura” in the mechanical reproduction of artwork. He was aware of the condition that he (and other Japanese of his time) enjoyed mechanically reproduced artwork—such as recorded music and printed pictures of Western paintings. Moreover, he embraced this condition as a new possibility for “the lost home” rather than lamenting the loss of direct experience. It might be possible, therefore, to regard his aestheticization of war as something not entirely different from the “aestheticization of politics” against which Benjamin cautioned in his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” 21 Kobayashi’s refusal of regret appeared in the roundtable for the journal Kindai Bungaku (Modern Literature) in 1946, a literary journal edited by a group of young pro-Marxist writers. Although Kobayashi was listed as one of the top twenty-five war-crime writers by the Communist Party literary journal Shinnihon Bungaku (New Japan Literature) in the same year by one of the participants of the roundtable (Odagiri 1946, 65), the attitude of the editors at the roundtable was not hostile. Rather, the editors were said to have tried to make Kobayashi engage with a more liberal or pro-Marxist political stance (Oguma 2002, 233– 34).1 Nonetheless, Kobayashi was adamant in refusing to regret. 22 Sympathetic critics also point out the pressure of censorship that needs to be considered when reading Kobayashi’s wartime writings. What many seem to us as support of war might have been disguised resistance. Indeed, Kobayashi’s essay on Pearl Harbor received a caution by the government, who found his attitude

166  Being too playful (Eto 2006, 92). In addition, many writers close to him testify that in the 1930s Kobayashi attempted forming a kind of “popular front” of writers to defend freedom of publication against the pressure of government (Tsuzuki 2011, 176). Thus, at least it is hard to regard him as an agitating war collaborator. The political viability of such “negative resistance” is, of course, a different question. 23 For example, Tsutomu Tsuzuki, as a sympathetic reader of Kobayashi, finds in Kobayashi’s essays during the Pacific War the investigation of the internal world as a citadel against the external political world. Emphasizing the fact that most of Kobayashi’s writings are about hermits in medieval Japan, Tsuzuki sees his writings as a defense of an internal self against political violence in the external world. What is regrettable, Tsuzuki concludes, is that Kobayashi lacked the interest in “spending some more energy on public life,” that is, to develop the external world from his internal world (Tsuzuki 2011, 184). Among those more critical of Kobayashi, the pro-Marxist writers who attended the roundtable with Kobayashi conclude that Kobayashi lacked the appropriate sociopolitical consciousness (Oguma 2002, 233–35). He did not care enough about the loss of life and the precedent it set. 24 This statement does not appear in the published record of the roundtable. But Honda, as a participant of the roundtable, writes that the statement appears in its stenographic record. 25 Morimoto (2002), with through textual analysis, offers a convincing account of how Kobayashi’s literary writings and political writings are based on the same logic. 26 It would be an oversimplification if I regard Maruyama merely as a universalist or even a dogmatist who sticks to the external and universal principle. As I touch on in the following paragraph, Maruyama’s writings contain two conflicting movements: one toward multiplicity of perspectives and the other toward the single, universal principle. In my exploration of Maruyama, however, I want to point out that the second movement toward universalism prevails in his criticism of Kobayshi and, as we will see in the next section, his conceptualization of regret. 27 Whereas Maruyama’s notion uses the word “remorse (kaikon)”, I employ the term used by Kobayashi, “regret (hansei)” in describing this third community so that the term can retain the dual meaning contained in the Japanese word hansei, regret and reflection. 28 For the background on this eruption of remorse, see Dower (1999, 233–39); Oguma (2002, 104–52). 29 One of few visible and sustained cases of resistance was that of the Communist Party members. However, by 1935, the organization of the Communist Party dissolved under continuous oppression by the government. The few who kept up the resistance were in prison or in exile, while the majority of the members expressed their conversion of political belief (tenkō), renouncing resistance. Among liberal intellectuals, some were forced into silence under censorship, while others sought to imply their resistance either by employing nuanced euphemistic expressions or by trying to influence the government in a more tolerable or milder direction through participating in it. In the end, however, those attempts on the side of liberal intellectuals, sometimes called “fragile resistance,” were ineffective in stopping the war. Indeed, those fragile resistances made it difficult to distinguish “resistance” from “cooperation”: after the war, those who had cooperated with government during the war sometimes expressed their cooperation as “resistance,” while others who had intentionally resisted were seen as “collaborators.” Whatever intention and reality may have been, the result was the same: there was hardly any clear resistance to the war. For this reason the realization among the

Being 167 intellectuals that they had been at least passive cooperators spawned a feeling of regret among them. 30 It is easy to understand that with this theorization of regret Maruyama had in mind his own political stance. As a scholar specializing in the history of Japanese political thought, he sometimes confessed his strong attachment to a quiet life of research rather than political participation. Nonetheless, his own experience during the war made him realize the need for active participation in the postwar democratic movement. Cf. Karube (2006). 31 Kishi was once imprisoned as an A-class war criminal after WWII. 32 Focusing on a frequent pattern in official expression of war responsibility in Japan—a pattern where public acknowledgment of responsibility by the government is followed by a statement denying war responsibility by a member of government, Norihiro Kato called post-WWII Japanese society “schizophrenically divided” (Kato 1997). 33 One exemption may be the monument of stupidity. Rather than acknowledging their past stupidity, they tell of the existence of stupidities to the future. About this monument, see Sasaki (1976). 34 With this understanding of the otherness of imbecility, Kobayashi’s notion of imbecility comes close to that of Deleuze’s otherness, the notion that others as nameless on (they, people) stands within the formation of individuality. See Chapter 1. 35 Extracted as the communality, Kobayashi’s insight on experience appears closer to Jean-Luc Nancy’s notion of “communality” and “community” in Nancy (1999). 36 Though he started his career as a literary critic with his criticism of Marxism in “Multiple Designs,” he appreciates Marxism for wiping out the “residue of feudalism” in the mind of writers (6:168; 1995, 81–87). Many readers, including Maruyama, point out Kobayashi’s positive evaluation. However, Maruyama’s reading regards Kobayashi’s evaluation to be only directed at Marx’s acute insights as a writer, stating that Kobayashi respects only “distinctive thoughts and ‘styles’ in the writings of Marx and Engels” (Maruyama 1961, 118, italics in original). Kobayashi in fact thinks highly of Marx’s ideas of commodity and currency as well. 37 For a study that finds in Kobayashi’s reading of Marx a positive appreciation of communicability, see Morimoto (2002, 59–62). Dorsey sees Kobayashi’s view of language as resembling that of Saussure (Dorsey 2009, 139). But Dorsey regards Kobayashi’s attitude as constrained by his romantic longing for the “lost home.” However, I  do not agree that mere romantic longing dragged Kobayashi into the relinquishment of critique. Kobayashi’s turn to quiet admiration should be taken as a consequence—though it is not a necessary destiny—of the dilemma of critique. 38 Based on his strong attachment to French symbolism, readers tend to take Kobayashi’s writings as aesthetic prose poetry. Although he actually wrote several poetry-prose pieces, we need to consider that many of his writings are not poetry but literary critique and that he was very attentive to the distinction between poetic language and prose (1:240–47). 39 Such an interpretation of Marx may look unorthodox to us as well as to Kobayashi’s contemporary Japanese Marxists, who took Marx’s teaching as a doctrine of scientific understanding of society and history. Yet current readers such as Kojin Karatani offer interpretation not unlike Kobayashi’s, in seeing Capital as an analysis of the emergence of relational commodities, not of the universal law of currency (Karatani 1995, 67–71). 40 Kobayashi’s orientation toward language and stupidity shows similarity with that of post-Kantian early Romantics, namely Friedrich Schlegel’s. Criticizing

168  Being commodified designs as imbecile, Kobayashi calls for a style of critique and literature in which genius would grasp singular events. Ironically, however, his critique must be based upon the very commodified language of designs he criticizes, and thus must appear as immersion into the world of imbecility. In a similar manner, Schlegel pursues “authentic language [reelle Sprache],” which marks the originality of genius (Schlegel 1971, 262). And the authentic language, too, is nothing but exchangeable commodity: according to Paul de Man, the authentic language is money (de Man 1996, 181). Moreover, Schlegel states that the authentic language reveals “error, madness, and simpleminded stupidity” (de Man 1996, 180–81). As de Man rightly points out, the authentic language is the language of Bourvard and Pécuchet, the language of stupidity, in which what we regard as products of originality appears to be clichés, as commodities are exchanged according to exchange rates. 41 However, I think “another community of regret” serves the empirical purpose of reexamining the discourses of regret in post-WWII Japan. As I pointed out in the first section, Maruyama’s “community of regret” is selective about what counts as “regret” and thus leaves many expressions of regret out of its scope. Against this arbitrariness in Maruyama’s notion, the idea of community I pose here would help to engender more complex interactions by a more diverse range of people. For example, can we see a community of interaction about regret in the 1946 roundtable where Kobayashi said, “I won’t regret.” It is true that the participants of the roundtable could not reach agreement, failing to form a unified community with Kobayashi. But did the roundtable inspire further reflections on the past among the participants? Or, as another example, when Ango Sakaguchi made his remarks on Kobayashi I quoted in the fourth section, does it mean that Kobayashi’s work brought Sakaguchi to reflect upon his own thought and writing before 1945, which happened under the strong influence of Kobayashi? Though here I do not have enough space to discuss this further, I  believe such reexamination will be helpful in reevaluating the intellectual history of post-WWII Japan.

Conclusion Potential of stupidity

“Stupidity,” Flaubert states, “consists in wanting to reach conclusions” (1926– 1930, 2:239; 1980, 128). Conclusions generalize particulars under universal statements, which then turn into clichés. By concluding, we risk foreclosing the problematical nature of events that stupefy us into thinking. This study is no exception to this stupidity of concluding. With this conclusion, I add another cliché and thus another stupidity to the discourse of political theory. However, conclusion is inevitable and even necessary. Conclusion is inevitable because silence vis-à-vis stupidity is not a viable option. Silence is certainly a tempting strategy that seems to safeguard our thinking against committing stupid acts. Flaubert’s writings, for example, sometimes stupefy us into silence: his Dictionary is aimed at shutting down stupid utterances among his readers, so that “anyone who read it would never dare open his mouth again” (Flaubert 1926–1930, 3:67; 1980, 176). Later Kobayashi silently admires the “silent wisdom” nurtured in a tradition that resists any articulation. And Agamben finds in Bartleby’s “I would prefer not to” the highest quality of thinking congealed in its potentiality. We sometimes become silent, it is true, to mean something. But these above instances of silence aim at meaning nothing so that we avoid being trapped in stupidity. Silencing, however, does not secure us against becoming stupid. The difficulty of silence is not only its inevitable affirmation of a status quo (which already contains stupidity), as seen in Kobayashi’s silence vis-à-vis Japan’s wartime policy. Rather, the difficulty lies in its ineptitude in securing us from stupidity. Even silence bears some meaning, which always harbors stupidity even when it is free from error. As my exploration of Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition shows, enunciation (i.e., representation) is inevitable. Moreover, representation is inevitable in the way that even silence bears some meaning, as seen in our exploration of Kobayashi, where events in the world are already immersed with meanings. Stupidity is unavoidable. Believing in the possibility of becoming free from stupidity, silence risks being swallowed by stupidity, again, as in the example of Kobayashi’s uncritical affirmation of Japan’s wartime policy. The unavoidability of stupidity rather calls for the active engagement with stupidity. Thus making a conclusion is necessary. Even if it is stupid, a conclusion can generate new thinking because stupification is not reducible to pure fixity or complete cessation of life. But how can the new emerge from the frozen fixity

170  Conclusion implied in the term “stupification”? Due to the finitude in our thinking, there is most likely no such conclusion that would solve the problem once and for all: as Kobayashi puts it, “There is nothing in all the world that is ever once and simply resolved” (1:133; 1995, 19). Every “conclusion,” therefore, turns into a stupid cliché. But by virtue of what Deleuze calls “the link between individualization and the ground,” that is, the sheer fact that events are already immersed in meanings, conclusion would also vivify its readers, sometimes including its author, into thinking. In this sense, an encounter with stupidity is a thought-provoking experience, similar to Heidegger’s “food for thought” wherein lies the “origin”— generation—of thinking. My study has examined several cases of such an encounter with stupidity: Flaubert’s encounter with the column sign “Thompson,” Kant’s sense of wonder at the “scandal of reason”—the stupidity of metaphysics— and Kobayashi’s encounter with the poverty of modern Japanese literature, to list a few, all attest to such generative moments of thinking. This unleashing, this genesis of thinking, is the potential of stupidity.

Potential of stupidity The tradition of Western philosophy has been preoccupied since its inception with the importance of thought-provoking events. Socrates in the Theaetetus regards the sense of wonder as the origin of philosophy (Theaetetus, 155d).1 Heidegger relentlessly calls attention to our “most thought-provoking thing,” that is, “the fact that we do not yet think” (Heidegger 2004). What accompanies these instances of acknowledgment, however, is the persistent desire to dissociate philosophy’s awakened thinking from the world of stupidity. Herein lies the conventional dichotomy that separates the realm of philosophy, of solitary thinking, from the realm of plural human affairs. As a result, those thinkers risk deflating the problematicity and plurality within thinking. Heidegger maintains the gap between solitary thinking and the mediocre ordinary world by seeing the latter as the sphere of thoughtlessness. Kant betrays his own great insight into the problematic thinking when he calls stupidity the “lack of judgment.” Kobayashi takes a flight from the problematical world of events into the tradition that he once denied. Against these conventional closures, I emphasize the immanent character of thinking. Thinking, emerging out of vivifying encounters among plural people, contains an element of stupidity. This stupidity in turn can drive others into new thinking. Seen this way, the ordinary world shows its two faces simultaneously. When Deleuze distinguishes two modes of repetition (Deleuze 1994, 23–26; 1968, 36–39), I take it that he points to this Janus-faced character of our plural world. The world may appear as mediocre and cliché, but at the same time it is filled with encounters and geneses of thinking. As such, our monotonous world is also the world of novelty, if we mean by “novelty” the genesis of thinking that may soon become stupid. To sum up, stupidity contains dual forces that are inseparable: on the one hand, stupidity attests to the force to simplify and reduce our thought to clichés; on the other hand, stupidity unleashes the unanticipated genesis of thinking with circulation.

Conclusion 171 The idea that thinking can best be stimulated through immersion in the ordinary world of stupidity leads to the reconsideration of the long-lasting dichotomy between thinking and politics. Far from being mutually exclusive, thinking and politics both have their condition in the deep plurality that cannot be reduced to the plurality of given entities. My explorations of Deleuze’s criticism of Heidegger, Kant’s contradictory handling of the faculty of judgment, and Kobayashi’s idea of criticism all reveal this coexistence of thinking and politics around plurality. My focus on this shared condition of plurality, with the problematicity of thinking as its outcome, suggests that the relationship between politics and thinking needs to be reconsidered along three lines: (1) the role of thinking in democracy; (2) the relationship between politics, thinking, and democracy; and (3) the vocation of political theory.

Sustaining democracy The political character of stupidity suggests that democracy is the form of politics that best actualizes the potential of stupidity, its generative force. Democracy, on the one hand, intensifies the problematic of stupidity. With its emphasis on equal individuality, modern democracy proliferates clichés—words of others that individuals utter spontaneously. On the other hand, through another effect of equal individuality that dissolves the hierarchy of thinking and qualification of speakers, democracy multiplies the opportunities for vivifying encounters. These encounters are possible because, as Deleuze states, individuation is never free from the ground, from its communal (not common) moment. Rousseau’s ideal of the authentic opinion of the individual results in cliché because of this communality. Indeed, as we saw in Kobayashi’s understanding of events, everything is already immersed in the circulation of language. Yet because of the same communality, the individual cliché bears a force that incites other ideas. More specifically, individual opinion bears this force because it stems not from commonness but from communality: meanings born in events are not governed by any universal law that would allocate a fixed meaning to each but rather circulate within plurality and travel through disparities. By focusing on the potential of stupidity—that is, unleashing through communal interaction and circulation of opinions—my study concurs with a common thread underlying that variety of democratic theory that defends free speech and deliberation. However, my acknowledgment of democracy does not share a persistent tendency among contemporary democratic theories toward safeguarding or purifying the democratic elements. The safeguarding strategy does not capture the risk and potential of the phenomenon of stupidity in democracy, while the strategy of purification misses the coexistence of the potential for unleashing and stupidity in democracy. Among those adopting the strategy of safeguarding, Habermasian deliberative democrats pursue securing the successful operation of public reasoning by specifying the conditions for reciprocal and reasonable communication. This idea has already been subject to many criticisms, most of which attack the feasibility

172  Conclusion and desirability of such undistorted public communication. Critics question, for example, the feasibility of deliberative democracy’s ideal of reasonable agreement through ideal communication.2 Others attack the risk of reducing political momentum to the pursuit of agreement (Mouffe 2000). While I share some of these concerns, I see the problem not so much in the feasibility of proposals as in their evasion of the problem of stupidity. Even if we attain reasonable agreement on our public concerns, and even if our resulting opinions are procedurally correct—that is, undistorted and unbiased—these opinions may remain stupid. Deliberative democrats see the greatest threat to public reasoning in uneven distribution of influence, power, authority, knowledge, and access to public discussion. While those inequalities are detrimental to our capability of deliberation, what they miss is that the reasoning of equal individual can well result in stupidity, the danger/promise that was examined in the second chapter. In addition, my exploration of democratic stupidity in the second chapter reveals that deliberation among small, face-to-face communities that many deliberative democrats, as well as proponents of participatory civil society applaud, cannot necessarily be a solution to distorted communication in mass societies. Small communities may be more resistant to indoctrination and control of opinions through media. But if we can set aside those exogenous obstacles to mutual deliberation, our reasoning is still prone to the endogenous mechanism of stupidity. Quiet and reciprocal discussions held by only two people, Bouvard and Pécuchet, are still stupid.3 An ideal public arena does not secure our reflection against stupidity. By pointing out the stupidity of reasonable agreement, however, I do not mean to criticize stupidity per se. The problem rather is that the debates pay less attention to the process wherein stupidity unleashes the circulation of opinions. Without this dynamic process wherein new ideas emerge, deliberation would miss the potential of our opinions. Deliberative democrats may counter my discontent by claiming that their purpose is to attain legitimate agreement. However, if the deliberation is aimed at encouraging “public-spirited perspectives on public issues” (Gutmann and Thompson 2004, 10) and “reflection and thoughtfulness about public policy” (Chambers 2009, 334), their negligence of the problem of stupidity attests to the inadequacy of their strategy of safeguarding public reasoning. Rather, as the critics point out, such safeguarding risks failing to acknowledge the potential of stupidity.4 A similar tendency toward safeguarding is observable among Arendtians such as Linda Zerilli, who is critical of the desire for foreclosing public deliberation in the current mainstream democratic theory. Zerilli, drawing upon her sympathetic and path-breaking interpretation of Arendt and Kant, rightly criticizes the reduction of democratic judgment to agreement (by Habermasian deliberative democrats) and the narrowness of Rawlsian public reason. By so doing, she further points out the narrowness of what she calls the “validity problematic,” which identifies the role of political theory with articulating the conditions for valid political decision. Nevertheless, Zerilli—along with Arendt and Kant—eventually attempts to secure a safe realm for democracy when she calls for the need to maintain our “common

Conclusion 173 world” wherein we enjoy our political freedom through our judging capacity. Here again, my study illuminates the problem with this Kantian-ArendtianZerillian orientation: its ineffectiveness. Preserving the “common world” can be a safeguard against the dissolution of democratic moments, or for Arendt, against thoughtlessness, only on the condition that our judging capacity could be lost. However, as my exploration of Kant’s notion of judgment revealed, there is no such common world that can be lost. It is true that both Kant and Arendt write as if our capacity for judgment can be lost. But such claims themselves contradict Kant’s underlying orientation toward human faculty, or in more general terms, the orientation that emanates from the awareness of the problematicity of our finite thinking. Indeed, underlying such a diagnosis is Kant’s assumption that judgment is not problematical, that it is free from stupidity. This assumption enables Arendt and Zerilli to postulate the common world of democracy against its other: thoughtlessness. In fact, my exploration of Kantian orientation revealed that there is no such “Other” of the common world: thoughtlessness should be recaptured as a stupidity that coexists within our problematical capacity for judgment in this common world. Moreover, in this coexistence there is no a priori valid standard to discern upright judgments from stupid ones. This coexistence, or indiscernible concomitance of stupidity and upright thought also leads me away from the other influential camp of democratic theory, the one that pursues purifying the democratic moment against the notions of regime and governance. While the first camp of safeguarders identified democracy with regimes or rules such as legitimate procedure, this second group of thinkers holds democracy to be the revolutionary eruption of those who are not represented by regime, rule, and foremost by the state.5 In so doing, they problematize the logic of sovereignty that contaminates or even dissolves democracy as the rule of people. For example, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri diagnose the current condition of democracy as the conflict between the state sovereign as organizing oneness on the one hand and the people as multitude on the other. The rule of sovereignty or oneness impedes or even contradicts the true democracy—the rule of multitudes. Thus they find the emergence of democracy in the decay of the sovereign state: The creation of the multitude, its innovation in networks, and its decisionmaking ability in common makes democracy possible for the first time today. Political sovereignty and the rule of the one, which has always undermined any real notion of democracy, tends to appear not only unnecessary but absolutely impossible. Sovereignty, although it was based on the myth of the one, has always been a relationship grounded in the consent and obedience of the ruled, and as they have gained the capacity to produce social relations autonomously and emerge as a multitude, the unitary sovereign becomes ever more superfluous. The autonomy of the multitude and its capacities for economic, political, and social self-organization take away any role for sovereignty. Not only is sovereignty no longer the exclusive terrain of the

174  Conclusion political, the multitude banishes sovereignty from politics. When the multitude is finally able to rule itself, democracy becomes possible. (Hardt and Negri 2004, 340) Focusing on the anti-democratic character of sovereignty, Giorgio Agamben presents a more pessimistic view concerning the constraint of sovereignty. Drawing upon Carl Schmitt’s definition that “sovereign is he who decides on the exception” (Schmitt 2005, 5), Agamben argues that this sovereign power, preceding the given boundary of people and the law, attests to the impossibility of democratic self-rule. Rather, every struggle for the recognition of political rights of individuals or groups makes those individuals and groups subject to the rule of sovereignty. Indeed, Agamben suggests that to be a human subject, to enjoy human bios as distinguished from animal zoē already means to be subject to sovereign power6—a suggestion that reminds us of Rousseau’s formula that the social contract (which produces sovereignty) makes intelligent citizens out of stupid animals. While for Rousseau the social contract makes people intelligent, for Agamben, this constitution of citizenry rather attests to sovereignty’s power to decide who should count. Thus for Agamben, I think, the only way to keep the democratic element away from its dissolution by sovereignty would be to remain in potentiality before the contamination by the logic of representation, as Bartleby does. Such attempts at purification, I contend, reduce politics to the binary antagonisms between sovereignty and multitude, bios and zoē, and state of ordinariness and state of exception. Consequently they lose their grip on the real play of politics operative in zones between these poles. Whether it be the eruption of the multitude or the sovereign event of decision, such extraordinary instances of politics are actually prepared and followed by ordinary but equally volatile processes of interpretation, appropriation, and contestation. As Honig points out, for example, even a seemingly formidable decision by Rousseau’s lawgiver is open to interpretation by constituencies that themselves are always emerging (Honig 2009, Chapter  1). Indeed, my exploration of stupidity attests to one of these porous zones. While Agamben sees only the binary logic between bios and zoē, meaningful human life and bare animal life, stupidity as human animality does not fit this binary logic. Rather, the a priori indiscernibility of stupidity from upright, better thought addresses a more complex relationship. If, as Agamben argues, the distinctive paradox of modern democracy lies in the sovereign’s direct targeting of zoē within the political community—the inclusion that corresponds to the point I developed in the second chapter that modern democracy internalizes stupidity within political realm—this internal zoē overlaps with bios. And the sovereign decision over the distinction between bios and zoē, between smart thought and stupidity is by no means clear. For this decision, too, joins the indiscernible circulation of stupidity with smart thought. Opposed to the various attempts to safeguard and purify, my study does not propose a defense of the status quo of liberal democracy. My point is that these attempts are misguided in their desire to distinguish thoughtful, smooth, and

Conclusion 175 pure democracy from its endogenous danger, not that we no longer need a critical investigation of the current state of democratic practices and ideas. This critique emerges from an immanent engagement with politics, conceived as an openended process of interaction and communication. As such, my orientation toward democratic politics concurs with what Bonnie Honig defines as a “response to everyday emergencies of maintenance” (Honig 2009, xvii). In my view, this perspective requires us to see democracy as a dynamic process in which stupidity and upright thought coexist, sustaining each other. This dynamic process, therefore, prompts us to find the emergence of singular novelty under the guise of stupid clichés, the “bare repetition” under “disguised repetition” (Deleuze 1994, 19–26; 1968, 31–39). In sum: our world is the world of mediocrity and stupidity. However, this very mediocrity and stupidity perpetually prompt us toward novel actions and ideas, just as Flaubert’s acknowledgment of stupidity prompted him to come up with his realism and Kobayashi’s silence incited Sakaguchi to respond to rescue the potential of Kobayashi’s early writings.

Politics, thought, and democracy My conclusion might seem to place democracy too close to politics or even make the two identical. By the same token, my exploration of the potential of stupidity might be taken as claiming that thinking itself is politics or even democracy. On the contrary, my point, which certainly points to an entanglement between those three, is rather to show the need to take a closer look at this entanglement. First, concerning the relationship between democracy and politics, my exploration by no means suggests that all politics is democratic, although I maintain that democracy has a distinctive relationship with the political. Democracy recommends several sets of values—the rule of people and equality of citizens—distinct from other forms of ruling such as oligarchy and aristocracy. Yet the trouble I detected in the current democratic theories points to its fundamental limit: the very moment that sustains democracy eludes the articulated formulae of democracy. This limit is observable not only in the current theories but also in Rousseau’s classic articulation, whereby his social contract, while promising to make “an intelligent being out of a stupid and bounded animal” (Rousseau 1997e, 53; 3:364), creates stupid individuals—the democratic zone of indiscernibility. Democracy is marked by its insufficiency. Insufficiency of what? Democracy is insufficient to solve the very condition of the political—plurality: it is the limit of organizing the plurality into harmony under a single principle of ruling. Surely this limit is not limited to democracy. Rather, as I  suggested throughout this study, every form of politics in human history so far shares this limit. Yet what is distinctive about democracy is its grounding itself on this very insolvability of the plural. If democracy were to mean rule by any single principle, it would appear anti-democratic in that the principle becomes tyrannical to the people. With its principle of equality—even if the democratic moment eludes this principle as well—democracy touches on the plurality of the political. This is why democracy highlights stupidity, a phenomenon intrinsic to the political. Through stupidity,

176  Conclusion democracy reveals what Nancy calls the impossibility of unconcealment of the political: “Democracy, for its part, only exposes the impossibility of exposing this essence [of the communal]” (Nancy 1999, 232). This formula of democracy, or the impossibility of giving a formula, may appear to manifest a certain anarchism. It is anarchism only in the sense that democracy reveals the lack of founding principle, that is, an-archē. But democracy is not political anarchism because the doctrine relies upon the inherent order of society, while asserting the illegitimacy of any artificial form. Indeed, democracy as an-archē reveals dissonances within the plurality, or multiple forces that circulate within plural agencies, while debunking attempts to foreclose the political. This is why democratic moments return on the very occasions in which political visions, including democratic ones, reveal their incapacity for settling the political. Second, my exploration illuminates a special linkage that thinking has with politics, and moreover, with democracy. As the first chapter revealed, stupidity counters our long-held assumption that thinking and politics are in an antagonistic relationship, according to which the former is a solitary activity and the latter a plural one. On the contrary, we remain stupid by virtue of the plurality of thinking. Again, this plurality contains dissonant forces and cannot be reduced to the plurality of fixed entities: even the seemingly solitary activity of thinking is immersed in dissonant forces that turn thought into clichés. By the plurality of thinking, I do not mean that thinking is politics. Rather, this plurality simply means that thinking, as well as politics, emerges out of plurality as their common condition. Stupidity reveals this condition of thinking: the unavoidability of stupidity and thought suggests the unsurmountability of plurality in thought. This in turn leads to the idea of a certain democracy of thought: every thought bears the equal limitation that it cannot dissolve the plurality. Such democratic equality does not mean a relativism in which every thought is equal in terms of its depth, sophistication, or proximity to truth. For such a relativist view effaces the very meaning of focusing on stupidity instead of error. Rather, they are equal in that each thought, with its equal vulnerability to stupidity, reveals the very condition of plurality.

Toward a modest political theory: the method of dramatization This democratic equality of our thoughts ultimately poses to political theorists the question of our vocation: what guarantees political theory’s role as a discipline of thought? The unavoidability of stupidity endangers the truthfulness or higher status of political theory vis-à-vis erroneous, lower thoughts and actions of our ordinary life. Stupidity is a ubiquitous problem that debunks the hierarchical relation between correct answers and errors, between sophistication and vulgarity, thus depriving political theory of its commanding status. The incapacity of democratic theories reveals the dissolution of this status. As Deleuze states about philosophy, political theory, too, needs to address the problem of stupidity “with its own

Conclusion 177 means and with the necessary modesty” (1994, 151; 1968, 197). What kind of “modest” political theory, then, is possible given the unavoidability of stupidity? I set off to tackle the question toward the end of the second chapter, where I  revealed the insufficiency of solutions posed by Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and Tocqueville, and suggested Flaubert’s style of writing as a way to negotiate the problem of stupidity. The last two chapters engaged this question more directly, presenting the possibility of affirmative critique that draws on the ideas of Kant, Deleuze, and Kobayashi. Kant’s notion of critique, first, prepares a ground. Emerging from the acknowledgment of the “scandal of reason,” that is, the endogenous problematicity of human thought, Kantian critique purports to keep philosophy modest against the “prominent tone of superiority” (Kant 2002). However, Kant’s critique effaces its original acknowledgment when he assumes the nonproblematical, harmonious function of judgment. Against this effacement, Deleuze offers an alternative that affirms problematic ideas. Finally, Kobayashi’s orientation toward criticism, which I argued shares the same intellectual perspective with Kant and Deleuze’s critique, shows how such critique can be politically relevant without becoming commanding: by virtue of the communality of events, critique can incite critical communication among its listeners, revealing the potential of stupidity. In so doing, political theory can be critical and communal activity. Comparison with realist political theory helps to clarify the modesty my proposed vision recommends. As stated in the introduction, a realist political theory, of which most prominent advocates include Raymond Geuss (2005, 2008) and Bernard Williams (2005) criticizes the hubris of normative theory and claims that political theory should be attentive to the reality of politics. In so doing, they introduce a certain modesty vis-à-vis politics into political theory. My exploration, too, suggests the need for political theory to become modest, that is, to respect thinking activities among ordinary people, and thus criticize the presumed higher position of theory over them. Realist political theory, however, shows relatively little concern for the problematicity of thought. Realist theorists criticize the intellectualism and idealism of conventional political theory. However, they do so to contrast the idealistic realm of theory with the real world of politics that Max Weber—one of their heroes—characterizes as “too stupid or base” (Weber 2004, 94). In other words, this dichotomy pays little attention to the “base and stupid” reality of thought (i.e., the problematicity) of thinking. As a result, they tend to reserve under the guise of modest realism a traditional image of the commanding role of theory. For example, Raymond Geuss holds the remaining roles of theory to be those of “understanding, evaluation, and guidance” (Geuss 2008, 55). For him, to give guidance to politics is still a task of political theory. Furthermore, such clear-cut dichotomy between theory (which, while idealistic, is in itself not problematical) and the problematical reality of politics leads to the negligence of the role that thinking activity plays in reality. It is true that Geuss pays attention to the role of thought in constituting a part of our “reality.” In acknowledging the constitutive role of ideas,

178  Conclusion beliefs, and imagination, moreover, Geuss comes close to a Nietzschean view. Appropriate questions to ask about those ideas and thoughts, Geuss argues, concern not their universal essence or desirability but the extent to and time at which they influence actual actions (Geuss 2008, 9–11). This displacement of the question bears a certain genealogical bent, which questions the values of ideas instead of pursuing the eternal value of ideas.7 Nevertheless, Geuss’s action-centered view tends to reduce his genealogical orientation to thought to questions about the interests and power of political actors, which ask: “Who [sic] what to whom for whose benefit?” (Geuss 2008, 25).8 In the end, Geuss’s realism maintains the dichotomy between “ideal” but non-problematical thought and the problematical reality of politics.9 Acknowledging the problematicity of thought, we can avoid the realists’ clearcut dichotomy between the reality with ideal construction. Flaubert’s “realism” examined in the second chapter points to such an acknowledgment. As a style of democratic negotiation, Flaubert’s realism suggests modesty rather than disregarding stupid society or recommending prescriptions from a standpoint above that reality. Being immanent to the reality, his realism instead presents it in its multifacetedness, whereby our reality is composed of our thoughts, aspirations, and ideas as well as our actions.10 As such, contrary to what some political realists claim, Flaubert’s realism is not an “aesthetic” realism that “reaffirms the illusion that we can seize hold of the real” (Honig and Stears 2011, 204). Rather, his realism is a style aimed at capturing the problematicity that penetrates both our actions and thought. But how can we translate this modesty—an immanent grasp of problematical reality—into a method?11 If Flaubert’s realism is not an aesthetic construction of the reality, it is undeniable that his realist novels cannot become political theory or philosophy.12 As Deleuze states, “Such literature was able to carry it [=the problem of stupidity] as far as the entrance to philosophy itself,” and philosophy, or political theory, needs to take up the problem “with its own means and with the necessary modesty” (1994, 151; 1968, 197). My study has sought these “means” by engaging with the Kantian critical orientation. The crucial element of Kantian transcendental critique lies in its problematization of human thought. Kant saw this problematic thought in what he called “the scandal of reason,” and I demonstrated that the same problematicity appears in our stupidity. Kant, however, retracts his acknowledgment when it comes to the hinge of his critical project: judgment. Instead of problematizing judgment, Kant introduces the assumption of a harmonious, nonproblematical function of judgment. In pursuing the critical project beyond Kant, I turned to Deleuze’s interpretation of Kant, in which he regards the Idea as thoroughly problematical. With this modification, the transcendental critique, or in Deleuze’s term, the transcendental empiricism, becomes an orientation to problematize our ground. Now I want to call this Deleuzean orientation of problematization the method of dramatization, following Deleuze.13 The term “dramatization” appears

Conclusion 179 first in Difference and Repetition to signify the process in which problematic (and indefinite) Ideas appear as representation. As such, dramatization belongs to the objective process. However, as Deleuze presents in his defense for Doctrat d’Etat, it is also a method of philosophical inquiry. The crucial difference between this method and that of traditional philosophy resides in its displacing the Socratic question, “What is X?” with another set of questions, “who?, how much?, how?, where?, when?” (Deleuze 2004, 94, italics in original). This replacement corresponds to the shift in his understanding of the Idea: the Idea for Deleuze is no longer the definite essences but is indefinite and problematical. In other words, the method of dramatization reveals the modes through and extents to which Ideas provoke and limit certain concepts that govern our life. In so doing, dramatization illuminates how certain concepts and practices become problems for us. How can this method of dramatization proceed?14 In fact, I have attempted a dramatization of stupidity throughout the present study. First of all, I formulated the problematic of stupidity and its capacity to articulate new configurations of thought even as it congeals into cliché, instead of asking what stupidity is. In so doing I set the central question of study: how does stupidity matter to us? Then the subsequent chapters dealt with other questions of dramatization. Who? Who is stupid? Who responds to stupidity?—we, the ordinary people, and philosophers and political theorists as well. To what extent? When? Where? To what extent does stupidity matter to us? When and where does it matter to us?—under the democratic ideal of equality and individuality. Moving within these questions, my study attempted a dramatization of stupidity, which finally led to illuminating the deep plurality that vivifies our thought and politics, that is, the problematic Ideas of thinking and the political. What is, then, the broader scope of the method of dramatization? If this method is appropriate to studying stupidity, what about its broader applicability over more conventional and central concepts such as equality and justice? Or, in other words, what kinds of resources does the tradition of political thought leave to us? In examining Rousseau, J. S. Mill, and Tocqueville, for example, I  criticized their solution-oriented construction of political thought. Does my criticism imply disregard for their thoughts altogether and call us to start from scratch? In fact, traditional political theories more or less involve the element of dramatization.15 Tocqueville’s work, for example, dramatizes the concept of individuality by asking how it came to matter to us in the democratic age (i.e., how it became a problem). As Mackenzie and Porter point out, Rawls’s Theory of Justice dramatizes the notions of justice and equality by setting up the narrative of original position, which clarifies how and to what extent inequality appears as injustice (Mackenzie and Porter 2011a, 483). These theories, however, tend to concentrate on proposed solutions and the prescription of definite answers to our problematic condition rather than acts of dramatization. Instead of pursuing once-and-for-all solutions, I maintain that these theories should be taken to be solutions as long as they would not exhaust or evaporate the problem they

180  Conclusion dramatize. As Deleuze suggests, these solutions are the events in the background of corresponding problematic Ideas that exceed and stand prior to the solutions. To regard political theories as events provoked by problematic Ideas does not mean the dissolution of the discipline into other forms of events. Such a dissolution would risk not only the dissolution of the discipline but also a simplified politicization of theory in which one would aim at translating theoretical activity into political struggle. Without denying the relevance of theoretical activity for political struggle, I maintain that political theory should be pursued as an activity of which distinctiveness lies in its conscious deployment of the method of dramatization. By taking various theories as dramatized solutions, my view will help foster mutual engagement among them through the communication of provoked dramatization rather than the contestation of ideal prescriptions—an engagement that this very study has pursued.

Notes 1 For the role of wonder in philosophy, see Rubenstein (2008). 2 For assessments of such criticism by those sympathetic to deliberative democracy, see Bohman (1998) and Chambers (2009). 3 For another example in which circumstances are closer to that of the ideal minipublic, we can refer to political discussions in Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, namely those held in clubs around 1848: “To be accepted you always had to speak disparagingly of lawyers and trot out expressions like ‘grist to the mill,’ ‘social problem’ and ‘workshop’ as often as possible” (Flaubert 1982–1983, 2:332; 2000, 327). Even in such a public-spirited environment, delivered speeches are nothing but clichés of the time. 4 In the same vein, epistemic democrats evaluate citizens’ thinking activity only so far as it reaches a desirable answer. 5 For this typology, see Nancy (2006). 6 “At once excluding bare life from and capturing it within the political order, the state of exception actually constituted, in its very separateness, the hidden foundation on which the entire political system rested. When its borders begin to be blurred, the bare life that dwelt there frees itself in the city and becomes both subject and object of the conflicts of the political order, the one place for both the organization of State power and emancipation from it. Everything happens as if, along with the disciplinary process by which State power makes man as a living being into its own specific object, another process is set in motion that in large measure corresponds to the birth of modern democracy, in which man as a living being presents himself no longer as an object but as the subject of political power” (Agamben 1998, 12–13). 7 About this displacement, see Deleuze’s discussion about how Nietzsche upended the activity of philosophizing in Deleuze (1983). Another interesting point that echoes my orientation is from Geuss’s Niezschean bent and his emphasis of the importance of political judgment, which reflectively acts upon contingent reality without simply deducing prescriptions from universal norm (see Geuss 2008, conclusion). 8 In criticizing their negligence of the problematicity of thought, the realists may counter, my perspective might appear to overlook their central claim that politics is primarily about power. Moreover, my affirmation of the communal activity of thought might appear to pursue the “beautiful soul” of harmonious community.

Conclusion 181 On the contrary, my view suggests the need to be attentive to the chiasm between power and thinking. Power not only disguises our thought with fallacious illusions, but our communal activity is rife with shocks that violently provoke our thinking. For the realists’ “power first” view, see Philp (2012). 9 Honig and Stears (2011) criticize the lack of contestability in Williams and Geuss’s notions of reality. Ochoa Espejo proposes “radical realism,” holding that reality includes individuals’ moral beliefs and value relations (Ochoa Espejo 2011, 199). 10 By regarding cliché as a part of our reality, Flaubert’s orientation toward reality presents a contrast to that of Arendt. Cliché is rooted in the condition of thought in modern society for both Flaubert and Arendt. While Arendt diagnoses cliché as a symptom of the loss of the sense of reality (Arendt 2006, 49, 53), Flaubert includes cliché as a component of reality. As such, Flaubert’s realism does not regard reality as something that can be lost or needs to be maintained—as some interpretations of Arendt suggest (cf. Zerilli 2005, 2012, 2016). See my examination of Arendt in Chapter 2. 11 Here “method” means a style of inquiry rather than a theory to be applied to judge reality. Method in the latter meaning would be what Kobayashi calls a “design” (i.e., theory standing above the reality to be judged). 12 A relevant problem here is the silencing effect of Flaubert’s novel. As I pointed out, his writings, with their style of stupefaction, tend to impose silence upon readers. It is impossible here to discuss whether such stupefied silence is a proper quality of literature. I think, however, this tendency is a part of the problem Kobayashi tackled when he asked: “Just as poets and novelists inhabit a literary world, so too do literary critics. The poet’s desire is to create a poem, and the storyteller’s to write a fiction. Does the literary critic have something analogous—to write literary criticism?” (1:134; 1995, 20). 13 Mackenzie and Porter’s pioneering work (Mackenzie and Porter 2011a, 2011b) examines the method of dramatization in political theory. Mackenzie and Porter regard the method of dramatization as a persistent orientation that is more or less observable in all of Deleuze’s writings. It seems to me, however, that Deleuze’s later writings and works coauthored with Guattari pursue a slightly different direction. When, for example, What is Philosophy presents the task of philosophy as the creation of new concepts, the task of creation is oriented more toward performative intervention than toward dramatization of concepts that already exist or were prevalent in the past. 14 Connolly presents one example of this method of dramatization when he introduces the seer as one of the two orientations of the theorist. This seer differs from the commonly accepted image of the political theorist “as an autonomous agent who stands outside the world to be explained and judged”(Connolly 2011, 148). Immanent to this world, the seer not only analyzes the worldly events and ideas but also dramatizes them. In so doing, the seer shows “proto-thoughts” and “possibilities of action” in the active world of becoming, the moments that are latent but do not always come up to the surface or are not recognized by involved agents: “It can be both mesmerizing and disturbing to respond with exquisite sensitivity to new proto-thoughts or possibilities of action as they bubble to the edge of actuality, to dwell within a forking moment as it unfolds in this way or that. Such is the way of the thinker” (Connolly 2011, 162). To his presentation of the seer, I want to add two further clarifications. First, the vision of the seer is never the reality of the world but rather a dramatized provocation— the clarification of which he will not deny. Second, the seer’s estrangement from the world of actions—symbolized in the blindness of Tiresius in the Oedipal tragedies (Connolly 2011, 152–56)—should not be taken as either a sign of her

182  Conclusion a priori incompetence in political action, or of a higher status from which she can prescribe solutions. Rather, this estrangement, I think, suggests the modesty and autonomy of the discipline of political theory. About the role of “seeing” in Deleuze, Nathan Widder points out that Deleuze sees Foucault as a “seer” (Widder 2012, 52–53). 15 Deleuze points out that sometimes the Socratic dialectic proceeds through dramatization. See Deleuze (2004, 95).

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Index

Adorno, Theodor W. 14 aesthetic judgment 105, 110 – 11, 116, 118, 122, 145 affirmative critique 128 – 9, 136 – 7, 177 Agamben, Giorgio 7, 8, 10, 174 analytical philosophy 7 animality 8, 23, 66, 68, 174, 175 Arendt, Hannah: Human Condition, The 110; on Kant’s theory of judgment 104 – 10, 173; Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy 104 – 6, 113; Life of the Mind, The 44, 113; on political relevance of thinking 9, 44 – 50; “Thinking and Moral Consideration” 44; on thoughtlessness 4, 9, 11, 22, 43 – 5, 47 – 8; Willing 113 Aristotle 61, 64, 72, 110 Arrow’s theorem, 7 artwork 130, 139 – 41, 143 – 5 association 77, 84 – 8 Augustine of Hippo, Saint 70 – 1 authenticity 74 authentic language 75 Autobiography (Mill) 82 Badiou, Alain 37 – 8, 52 Baudelaire, Charles 26 Beiner, Ronald 96n12, 110 Benhabib, Seyla 108 – 9 biopower 8 bios 174 “blind multitude” 9, 17, 78 – 9 Bloy, Reon 26 Bouilhet, Louis 4, 90 “bourgeois public sphere” 67, 78 Bouvard and Pécuchet (Flaubert) 32, 89, 162

Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Deleuze and Guattari) 15 clichés 4, 5, 9, 22, 24, 35, 36, 43 – 4, 48 – 9, 51, 53 – 4, 61 – 2, 68, 73, 77, 81 – 3, 86, 88 – 94, 159 – 62, 169 – 71, 175 – 6 cogito 27 – 36, 38, 41, 49 Colet, Louise 32, 92 – 3 collective decision making 7 common world 112 – 13, 173 “community of remorse (kaikon kyōdōtai)” 152 – 4, 161 Confessions (Augustine of Hippo) 70 – 1 Confessions (Rousseau) 70 – 2, 75 – 6 Connolly, William E. 19n14, 55n4, 58n28, 79, 181n14 critical thinking 106 critique 136, 138 – 42, 160 – 2, 177 Critique of Judgment (Kant) 79, 103 – 4, 106, 113, 116 – 24, 129, 136 Critique of Practical Reason (Kant) 108, 109, 115, 116 Critique of Pure Reason (Kant) 16, 24, 107, 115 – 16, 119, 122, 125 Culler, Jonathan 91 Dahl, Robert 10 degenerate language 75 Deleuze, Gilles: Capitalism and Schizophrenia 15; critique of cogito 27 – 36, 38, 41; Difference and Repetition 15, 16, 21 – 4, 125, 140, 169; “Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Aesthetics” 126; “Ideas and the Synthesis of Difference” 124, 128; “Image of Thought” 23; interpretation of Kant 26 – 31;

196 Index Kant’s Critical Philosophy 126; Logic of Sense 72, 130; on political relevance of thinking 42 – 53; on possibility of stupidity 26 – 7, 34 – 5; “problematic ideas” 123 – 30, 136, 177 – 80; role of stupidity in thought 5, 10, 21 – 7, 36 – 8, 40 – 2, 53; stupidity as bestial 8; stupidity as error 2; Thousand Plateaus, A 36, 37; “the virtual” of 7, 128; What is Philosophy? 33, 36 – 7 deliberation 10 – 11, 172 democracy: politics and 175 – 6; sustaining 171 – 5 Democracy in America (Tocqueville) 87 democratic stupidity: internalization under modern democracy 67 – 77; negotiation with 88 – 94; solutions to 77 – 88 Demoulin, Jean Bordas 129 Derrida, Jacques 7 Der Spiegel (newspaper) 1 Descartes, René: cogito 27 – 36, 38, 41; Discourse on Method 32; Meditations 23 decisionism 77, 79, 148 “design” 138 – 9, 161 “destiny” 136, 141, 158 determinant judgment 149, 153 – 4 dialectical reasoning 115, 119 – 20 Dictionary of Received Ideas (Flaubert) 4, 89, 90 – 1, 93, 169 discordant harmony 127, 128 Discourse on Method (Descartes) 32 “Disqualified Critic” (Kobayashi) 143 Doctrine of Right, The (Kant) 109 Dostoevsky, Fyodor M. 35, 143, 145 dramatization 178 – 80 Eichmann, Adolph 4, 9, 11, 22, 43 – 5, 48, 50 elite democratic theory 10 Erasmus, Desiderius 65 error 9, 14, 24 – 6 “Essay on the Origin of Languages” (Rousseau) 75 Essays (Montaigne) 70 event 130, 136, 139, 171 Flaubert, Gustave: Bouvard and Pécuchet 32, 89, 162; Dictionary of Received Ideas 4, 89, 90 – 1, 93, 169; engagement with stupidity 6, 24, 26; Madame Bovary 89, 90; negotiation

with democratic stupidity 88 – 94, 177, 178; Sentimental Education 89; on stupidity 169 folly 7 Foucault, Michel 14 – 15 genealogy 14 – 15 Gennettes, Edma Roger de 91 Geuss, Raymond 13 – 14, 177 – 8 “good sense” 23 Gorgias (Plato) 63 – 4 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant) 109 Guattari, Felix: Capitalism and Schizophrenia 15; Thousand Plateaus, A 36, 37; What is Philosophy? 33, 36 – 7 Habermas, Jürgen 67, 78, 108 Hardt, Michael 173 Hegel, Georg W. F. 7, 14 Heidegger, Martin 7, 38 – 41, 53, 93, 107, 125, 171 Hinske, Norbert 107 historical dialectic, 139 Hobbes, Thomas 65 – 6, 68 Honig, Bonnie 79, 174 – 5 Human Condition, The (Arendt) 110 “Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Aesthetics” (Deleuze) 126 Ideas 25, 53, 72, 120 – 30, 136, 140 idiocy 35 – 8, 62, 64 – 5, 68, 76 idiōtēs 64, 65, 68, 70, 72, 96n15 imbecility 154 – 6, 160, 161 immanent critique 137, 138 – 42, 145, 146 – 51, 160 individuality 26 – 7, 50, 61 – 2, 68 – 77 individual opinion 60, 62, 65, 67 – 8, 72, 76, 77, 81, 88, 171 individuation 26 – 8, 34, 50, 60, 171 intelligence 3, 8, 10, 28 – 9, 61 – 2, 64 – 5, 68, 73, 79, 125 internal critique 141 – 4 internal illusion 10 Job, Book of 32 judgment: aesthetic judgment 105, 110 – 11, 116, 118, 122, 145; Arendt’s interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Judgment 104 – 10, 113 – 15, 117; determinant judgment 149, 153 – 4; Kant’s theory of

Index  197 judgment 104 – 24, 129 – 30, 135 – 6, 145, 170, 171, 173; political judgment 54 – 5, 104, 108 – 13, 139; reflective judgment 103, 104, 109, 116 – 17, 139 – 40, 145, 149 Kant, Immanuel: attitude toward philosophy 106 – 7; concept of pure apperception 27; Critique of Judgment 79, 103 – 4, 106, 113, 116 – 24, 129, 136; Critique of Practical Reason 108, 109, 115, 116; Critique of Pure Reason 16, 107, 115 – 16, 119, 122, 125; definition of stupidity 44 – 5; Deleuze’s “problematic ideas” 123 – 9, 136; Doctrine of Right, The 109; Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 109; on Ideas 25, 53, 72, 120 – 30, 136; on internal illusion of reason 24 – 5; Metaphysic of Morals 108; moral imperative 78, 104; notion of critique 78, 106, 177; problematic of human thought 15 – 16; reformulation of cogito 27 – 9, 31 – 2; role of stupidity in inauguration 5; scandal of reason, 5, 107, 108, 113 – 15, 119 – 20, 170, 177 – 8; sensus communis 105; theory of judgment 104 – 24, 129 – 30, 135 – 6, 145, 170, 171, 173; transcendental dialectic 24, 25, 115, 119, 124 Kant’s Critical Philosophy (Deleuze) 126 Kishi, Nobusuke 152 Kobayashi, Hideo 6, 16; affirmative critique 136 – 7; alleged war collaboration 136 – 8, 142, 144, 146, 154, 158; “Disqualified Critic” 143; idea of “design” 138 – 9, 161; imbecility 154 – 6; immanent critique 130, 138 – 42, 146 – 51, 160 – 2; “Literature of the Lost Home” 141; “Multiple Designs” 136, 138 – 42, 143, 145; “My Impressions at Manchuria” 144; “real regret” 151, 154 – 60; rediscovery of tradition 141 – 2, 144, 158 – 9, 169, 170; “War and Peace” 145; writings from 1936 to 1945 142 – 6 Kristeva, Julia 47 Krugman, Paul 1

language 74 – 5, 92, 159 – 60 lawgiver 10, 67, 69, 75, 77, 78 – 80, 88 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Arendt) 104, 113 Levinas, Emmanuel 7 Liberty, On (Mill) 81 – 3 Life of the Mind, The (Arendt) 44, 113 Listen to the Voice from the Sea (Kike Wadatsumi no Koe) 156 “Literature of the Lost Home” (Kobayashi) 141 Locke, John 67 logical reasoning 104 Logic of Sense (Deleuze) 72, 130 Mackenzie, Iain 179 Madame Bovary (Flaubert) 89, 90 Maimon, Salomon 129 Maruyama, Masao 138, 152 – 4, 161 Marxist literary criticism 139 Marx, Karl 159, 160 Massumi, Brian 36 – 8, 52 Meditations (Descartes) 23 Metaphysic of Morals (Kant) 108 Miki, Kiyoshi 162 Mill, James 82 Mill, John Stuart: Autobiography 82; liberal individuality 77, 80 – 4, 179; Liberty, On 81 – 3; on “tyranny of opinion” 62, 81 – 3 Montaigne, Michel de 70 moral imperative 78, 104 moral reasoning 104 “Multiple Designs” (Kobayashi) 136, 138 – 42, 143, 145 Musil, Robert 1, 3, 6, 68 “My Impressions at Manchuria” (Kobayashi) 144 Nancy, Jean-Luc 12 natural right 65 Negri, Antonio 173 Nietzsche, Friedrich W. 14 nonthinking 35 – 41 Nozick, Robert 13 opinion: Aristotle’s orientation to 64; clichés and 32, 35; democracy and 9 – 10, 60 – 1; Greek political thought 64 – 8; individual opinion 60, 62, 65, 67 – 8, 72, 76, 77, 81, 88, 171; Mill’s orientation to tyranny of 62; public opinion 66 – 7, 83, 88, 152;

198 Index Rousseau’s criticism of people’s subjugation to 62, 73 – 6, 80; social choice theory 7; as source of social authority 67; thinking and 24; Tocqueville’s orientation to tyranny of 62 Ortega y Gasset, José 1, 4 Other 32 – 3, 54, 173 paradoxes 7 – 8 Parain, François 89 philosopher-idiot 35 – 8 philosopher-king 4, 12, 43, 52 phronesis 64 Plato 4, 43, 52, 61; Gorgias 63 – 4; Republic 63; Theaetetus 24, 170 plurality 43 – 51, 176 political judgment 54 – 5, 104, 108 – 13, 139 political theory: antagonism between thought and politics 11; image of 12 – 16; immanent critique and 142, 144; knowledge for ruling 63 – 4; method of dramatization 176 – 80; modesty wanted in 5; negotiation with democratic stupidity and 93; ongoing debates in 7; problematicity of thinking and 21, 34, 43, 102, 111 – 12, 128; relationship between democracy and politics 175 – 6; role of 1 – 2, 55, 77, 78, 108 – 9, 115, 124, 129 – 30; of stupidity 6, 53, 104, 107, 119; sustaining democracy 171 – 5 political thought: externalization of stupidity in 62 – 7; internalization under modern democracy 67 – 77; negotiation with democratic stupidity 88 – 94; political relevance of thinking 9, 44 – 50; solutions to democratic stupidity 77 – 88 Politics (Aristotle) 64 “Politics as a Vocation” (Weber) 4 polyarchy 9 Porter, Robert 179 poststructuralist-minded political theory 10 Praise of Folly, The (Erasmus) 65 “problematic ideas” 123 – 30, 136, 177 – 80 public opinion 66 – 7, 83, 88, 152 public reasoning 171 – 2 Ranciere, Jacques 91 Rawls, John 13, 179 “real regret” 154 – 60

reason: clichés and 81, 83; idiocy and 62 – 3, 68, 76; internal illusion of 16, 24 – 5; judgment and 104 – 9, 113 – 16, 119 – 23, 127, 136; of lawgiver 79; opinions and 86; scandal of reason, 5, 107, 108, 113 – 15, 119 – 20, 170, 177 – 8; stupidity as exemplar of intelligence located within 68; thinking and 40; war and 66 reasoning 3, 7, 25, 47, 62 – 5, 67, 79 – 80, 85, 104, 115, 119, 171 – 2 reflective judgment 103, 104, 109, 116 – 17, 139 – 40, 145, 149 regret 137 – 8, 151 – 60 Renan, Ernst 81 repetition 170 representation 40, 49, 169 Republic (Plato) 63 Reveries of the Solitary Thinker (Rousseau) 75 – 6 Riker, William 7 Rimbaud, Arthur 29 Ronell, Avital 6, 18n7 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques: concern over “blind multitude” 9 – 10; Confessions 70 – 2, 75 – 6; criticism of people’s subjugation to opinions 73 – 6; “Essay on the Origin of Languages” 75; idea of individuality 61 – 2, 68 – 77; lawgiver 10, 67, 69, 75, 77, 78 – 80, 88, 174; opinion-formation 62; Reveries of the Solitary Thinker 75 – 6; Second Discourse 80; Social Contract, The 17, 67 – 9, 73, 75, 78; sovereignty 8, 174 Sakaguchi, Ango 158 Sand, George 91 scandal of reason, 5, 107, 108, 113 – 15, 119 – 20, 170, 177 – 8 Schmitt, Carl 8, 174 Schumpeter, Joseph 10 Second Discourse (Rousseau) 80 sensus communis 25, 103, 105, 114, 117 – 21, 123 – 9, 145 Sentimental Education (Flaubert) 86, 89 Sieyès, Emmanuel J. 76 – 7, 100n60 social choice theories, 7, 10 social contact 8 Social Contract, The (Rousseau) 17, 67 – 9, 73, 75, 78 Socrates 11, 47, 52, 63 – 4, 170 sovereignty 8, 73, 173 – 4 Starobinski, Jean 74

Index  199 stupidity: act of writing as 91 – 2; as clichés 4, 5, 9, 22, 24, 35, 36, 43 – 4, 48 – 9, 51, 53 – 4, 61 – 2, 68, 73, 81 – 3, 86, 88 – 94, 159 – 62, 169 – 71, 175 – 6; communal dimension of 3 – 4; definition of 44 – 5; democratic internalization of 60 – 2, 67 – 77, 78, 80, 88 – 9, 92, 94; differences between thoughtlessness and 44 – 5; dramatization of 178 – 80; egalitarianism of 10; elusive and ubiquitous 2 – 5; encounters with 170; as endogenous problem for thinking 2 – 3, 7 – 9, 17, 22, 42, 53, 55, 65, 102, 107, 113 – 19, 124, 126, 135, 137 – 8, 172, 175, 177; internalization under modern democracy 67 – 77; internal relation between thinking and 22 – 6, 32 – 5, 38 – 43, 47; in its Greek formulation 62 – 7; as lack of judgment 103, 170; negotiation with democratic stupidity 88 – 94, 177, 178; as nonthinking 35 – 6; of philosophy 14; philosophy’s conventional misapprehension of 4 – 5; political character of 21, 24, 26 – 7, 30, 32 – 3, 35, 37 – 8, 42, 53, 102, 171; in political thought before Rousseau 62 – 7; potential of 170 – 1; problematic of 21 – 55; role in thought 5, 10, 21 – 7, 36 – 8, 40 – 2, 53; scholarship on 1 – 2, 6 – 16; solutions to democratic stupidity 77 – 88, 177, 179; source of 30; theses on 21, 33, 102, 135; thought-provoking character of 5, 34, 40 – 1, 122, 140, 170; as transcendental problem for thinking and the political 23 – 33 Theaetetus (Plato) 24, 170 Theory of Justice (Rawls) 179 thinking: image of thought 23, 33 – 42, 46 – 7, 49, 52 – 4, 102 – 3; internal negative 25 – 6; internal relation between stupidity and 22 – 6, 32 – 5, 38 – 43, 47; plurality of conscience in 43 – 51; political character of 12, 16, 21, 24, 26, 35, 40, 42, 44,

49 – 54, 102, 171; political relevancy of 9, 11 – 12, 44 – 50; as pure activity 39 – 40; representation in 49; role in democracy 9 – 11; role of stupidity in 5, 10, 21 – 7, 36 – 8, 40 – 2, 53; stupidity as endogenous problem of 2 – 3, 7 – 9, 13 – 14, 17, 22, 42, 53, 55, 65, 107, 113 – 19, 124, 126, 135, 137 – 8, 172, 175, 177 “Thinking and Moral Consideration” (Arendt) 44 thoughtful citizenship 9 – 11 thoughtlessness 4, 7, 9, 11, 22, 43 – 5, 47 – 8 Thousand Plateaus, A (Deleuze and Guattari) 36, 37, 52 Tocqueville, Alexis de: Democracy in America 87; idea of association 77, 84 – 8, 179; on “tyranny of opinion” 62, 80 – 1 tradition 141 – 2, 144, 158 – 9, 169, 170 transcendental dialectic 24, 25, 115, 119, 124 transcendent use of faculties 127 Trump, Donald 1 unthought 7 – 9 validity 108 – 11, 114 – 15, 145, 172 Villa, Dana 11, 58n27 vita activa 44, 45 vita contemplativa 44, 45 “War and Peace” (Kobayashi) 145 Weber, Max 4, 177 Wellmer, Albrecht 109 What Is Called Thinking? (Heidegger) 38 – 41 What is Philosophy? (Deleuze and Guattari) 33, 36 – 7 “What is the Third Estate?” (Sieyes) 77 Williams, Bernard 13 – 14, 177 Willing (Arendt) 113 Wronski, Hoëene 129 Zerilli, Linda 110 – 14, 117, 119 – 20, 132n11, 133n20, 172 – 3 zoē 58n18, 174