CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 51

Matthew R. Calarco
Derrida on Identity and Difference:
A Radical Democratic Reading of The Other
Heading

ABSTRACT

What is the significance of and logic behind Jacques

Derrida’s recent “political” writings? While Derrida’s work
refuses to obey any singular movement or register, he
does, nonetheless, make recurrent attempts to negoti-
ate between a politics of identity and difference. A sim-
ilar undertaking can be found in the radical democratic
writings of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. An
encounter between these thinkers is here carried out
in order to elucidate key themes in Derrida’s The Other
Heading. The reading aims at developing and contextu-
alising Derrida’s relation to radical democratic thought
so that his political strategies can be made more explicit.

KEYWORDS: Derrida, identity, difference, Europe, poli-

tics, democracy, capital

The landscape of contemporary political the-

ory is marked by a predominance of debates
surrounding identity and difference in politics.
More often than not this debate results in the
crystallisation of a binary opposition between
a politics of identity and a politics of differ-
ence. It is important to note, however, that
these two options are not the only alternatives

Critical Horizons 1:1 February 2000

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2000

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 52

available. A relatively recent and unique intervention into the political dynamic
of identity/difference has been suggested by radical democratic theory as
developed in writings by Derrida, Laclau and Mouffe, and others.1 Laclau
and MouffeÕs version of radical democracy attempts to develop political strate-
gies that negotiate the tension between identity and difference rather than
privileging either side of the binary, or attempting to overcome the dialectic
altogether. In the remarks that follow, I will attempt to demonstrate that
Jacques DerridaÕs work on European identity in The Other Heading follows
and enacts this radical democratic logic, and that divorced from this back-
ground understanding, the political dimension of his work remains largely
hidden. To locate the radical democratic moment in DerridaÕs text, and in
order to set up a discussion of radical democracy, it will be necessary to give
a fairly careful reading of his text The Other Heading. Ultimately, I suggest
that the Derridean and radical democratic approach to the debates over iden-
tity and difference offers a more promising direction for contemporary polit-
ical theory than does a politics of pure identity or difference.

The text The Other Heading was first delivered as a public lecture by Derrida
in 1990 at a colloquium on ÒEuropean Cultural Identity,Ó then revised and
shortened in order to appear in the newspaper Liber. From the outset, the
political edge of DerridaÕs text is apparent. Much like his earlier essay ÒThe
Ends of ManÓ in which he marks his paper as coterminous with the politi-
cal events of May 1968, Derrida here notes that his text and the colloquium
at which he is delivering it are marked by a definite political pressure, an
Òimminence.Ó This imminence takes the form of the debates over identity in
general and European identity in particular. What makes this situation espe-
cially pressing is that all over Europe horrible injustices are being perpetrated
in the name of European identity:

Hope, fear, and trembling are commensurate with the signs that are com-
ing to us from everywhere in Europe, where, precisely in the name of identity,
be it cultural or not, the worst violences, those that we recognise all too well
without having yet thought them through, the crimes of xenophobia, racism,
anti-Semitism, religious or nationalist fanaticism, are being unleashed . . .2

It is the imminence of these crimes and injustices that motivates DerridaÕs

remarks and frames his discussion of identity and identity politics.

52 • Matthew R. Calarco

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 53

The topic of European identity is of late a much discussed one, and Derrida
confides to the reader that he himself carries a certain ÒwearyÓ feeling, a feel-
ing of being an ÒoldÓ European. But Derrida is not alone in this feeling;
Europe as a whole, he suggests, carries with it an air of age and exhaustion.
These two statements together form the first of DerridaÕs two ÒaxiomsÓ: 1)
in the text, his form of address shifts from the individual, European ÒIÓ to
the ÒweÓ of European identity, and 2) he takes note of EuropeÕs state of
exhaustion, its finitude. Counter to the latter half of this first axiom, how-
ever, Derrida acknowledges that Europe is also ÒyoungerÓ than ever Òsince
a certain Europe does not yet exist.Ó For Derrida, out of this state of exhaus-
tion and finitude arises the possibility of a new Europe. But, Derrida asks,
how is this Òyounger than everÓ Europe to begin again? Should it aim at a
re-establishment of traditional European identity, a reunion with the tradi-
tional conception of European identity? Or should Europe orient itself in
another direction, toward another possibility? As may already be clear, Derrida
here poses the question of the future of an exhausted Europe within the famil-
iar framework of identity and difference.

With his second axiom Derrida appears to align himself with the difference
pole of the identity/difference binary. His second axiom is that Òwhat is proper
to a culture is to not be identical to itself.Ó3 On DerridaÕs insightful reading of
the logic of identity, any subject that takes up an identity position does so in
relation to a certain difference with that identity. This Òstrange and violent
syntaxÓ ensures that any identity will always be marked by its constitutive
outside, its own difference to itself. Thus, no exhausted culture can point to
a single, pure origin or identity in order to recapture it and model itself on
this identity in the future. Based on this preliminary analysis of identity, the
answer for an exhausted EuropeÕs future seems fairly straightforward: since
it is impossible to return to a single, pure identity, the only option is to cul-
tivate the differences to that identity and to move away - without looking
back - from the traditional conception of Europe. (Derrida will want to chal-
lenge this seemingly obvious conclusion later in the text.)

Many readers would be tempted to close The Other Heading at this point, sat-
isfied that Derrida is a typical multiculturalist and postmodernist. On those
grounds, the reader might either reject DerridaÕs position because he is irre-
sponsible with respect to European tradition and identity, or celebrate that

Derrida on Identity and Difference • 53

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 54

same conclusion on the pretense that his text is another edifying instance of
a call for a politics of difference and a ÒdeconstructionÓ of European colo-
nialism. As with all of DerridaÕs texts, however, there is more than one layer
of argument, and each unfolding complicates both DerridaÕs position and
any interpretation of it. And those content with a passing familiarity with
Derrida will fail to see that, when read carefully, his text undermines the
position of both those who prematurely congratulate or hastily criticise his
apparent ÒpostmodernÓ celebration of difference.

Returning more closely to the text, then, we find that DerridaÕs deconstruc-
tive intervention into identity is focused not only on an imminence prompted
by the injustices in European identity politics, but also by the following ques-
tion posed by Paul ValŽry in his discussion of European identity: ÒWhat are
you going to do TODAY?Ó Why does Derrida choose to focus on this brief
quotation from ValŽry? What special promise does today hold? DerridaÕs
answer is that Europe today is located in a singular, unprecedented time and
position. For perhaps the first time, Europe does not have to identify itself
simply for or against a traditional idea of Europe. Both the all too familiar
talk of a ÒNew Europe,Ó viz., a pro-Eurocentrism popular at the time of
DerridaÕs lecture (and still popular in certain forms today), and the oppos-
ing trend of anti-Eurocentrism risk oscillating between the fixed poles of the
identity/difference binary. Derrida suggests that today there is another pos-
sibility beyond these two programs.

Before examining this possibility in more depth, allow me to return to an

extended treatment of the logic of identity through an analysis of the title of
the text under consideration. The title, The Other Heading (in French, LÕautre
cap), is polysemous; as Derrida explains, Òle capÓ can mean title, chapter, let-
terhead, and heading among other things. In French one can also say Òfaire
capÓ or Òchanger de capÓ meaning to have a heading or change headings.
Throughout the text, Derrida plays on this term ÒcapÓ especially in the form
of a head or a heading, developing relations between a thingÕs heading and
its telos, extremity, and eschaton. As he notes, ÒheadingÓ usually coincides
with a calculated, deliberate orientation. Traditionally, it has been men who
decide on headings, which suggests an obvious link between heading and
phallic points. Indeed, Derrida notes that teleology and eschatology have tra-
ditionally been menÕs business. The title, The Other Heading, suggests another

54 • Matthew R. Calarco

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 55

direction is on the horizon, that there is a changing of goals or headings. It

could even mark a change in the sex or age of the captain.

The oppositional distinction between the heading and the Òother headingÓ
as explained thus far, however, remains trapped within the logic of identity,
defining difference in terms of the original identity of the heading. Derrida
is, of course, interested in this antinomy, but he also seeks to orient his text
in a wholly other direction, to the other of the heading, something that is other
than headings altogether. As he explains this orientation, re-calling oneself
to the other of the heading would be to engage in a relation to the other that
no longer obeys the logic of the heading. This would consist of relating to
the other in a relationship no longer governed by the traditional logic of iden-
tity. Derrida argues that the singular moment of Europe, EuropeÕs today, coin-
cides with an unavoidable confrontation with this question of the heading
and the other of the heading. What heading will an exhausted, but younger
than ever, Europe take? Towards identity, difference, or perhaps the other of
both? As we shall see, Derrida directs himself toward all three of these gestures.

With the words, ÒI should myself interrupt these recollections and change
headings [changer de cap],Ó Derrida moves from a discussion of European
identity and EuropeÕs heading into a discussion of responsibility.4 This move
is occasioned by the realisation on DerridaÕs part that the self-reflection on
European identity - both his own and that of his contemporaries - is worn-
out. The logic of identity is in many ways the legacy par excellence of moder-
nity, a tradition that many today would argue is itself a bit weary. Those
considered to be ÒpostmodernÓ thinkers, for example, often look beyond this
modern tradition to its other, refusing to participate in modernityÕs obses-
sion with the logic of identity and its totalising narratives (I have in mind
here LyotardÕs early work and BaudrillardÕs more recent writings). Derrida
is usually lumped in with these thinkers, along with Foucault and Lacan, to
form a seemingly homogenous group called Òpostmodernists.Ó What makes
this grouping somewhat spurious in DerridaÕs case in particular is that he
does not seek to move outside of or totally beyond the modern tradition. On
the contrary, Derrida understands the modern tradition as leaving us a legacy
to which we are responsible: Ò. . . we must ourselves be responsible for this
discourse of the modern tradition . . . We did not choose this responsibility;
it imposes itself upon us . . .Ó5

Derrida on Identity and Difference • 55

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 56

We are responsible for this modern tradition, Derrida tells us. Yet, this respon-
sibility is far from straightforward since Europe and the modern tradition
have left us a contradictory and paradoxical legacy. As Derrida insists, the
question of the heading of Europe left to us is not a singular question. It
involves a call to be responsible both to EuropeÕs heading and to the other
of its heading. Derrida calls this an aporia, a double bind, or a double oblig-
ation. Yet how might we begin to assume such an aporetic responsibility, one
that is contradictory and double? How can we make ourselves both the
guardian of European identity as well as - and at the same time - guardians
of an idea of Europe that consists in not closing off its identity, in not clos-
ing itself off to the other of the heading?

This double bind between European identity and difference would, accord-
ing to the logic of non-contradiction, force us to choose between continuing
or opposing European identity. We have already mentioned that the Òpost-
modernistÓ solution to this double bind is to oppose European identity and
its modernist legacy with a postmodern celebration of difference. Thinkers
in the modernist tradition would choose the other option: protect European
identity and the modernist legacy against any opposing force. It is just this
binary logic, however, that Derrida is resisting. Rather than opting for one
side over the other, Derrida maintains that radical responsibility lies in nego-
tiating the tension between the two responsibilities and renouncing neither
of these imperatives. As I will attempt to show in more detail below, this is
the radical democratic logic of political responsibility.

Examining this radical democratic logic, however, is perhaps premature at

this point. After all, what is the source of these double obligations? Why must
duty be aporetic and paradoxical? To answer these questions, I turn now to
a discussion of capital which takes up the bulk of DerridaÕs text and sheds
light on the double legacy of European identity and modernity.

DerridaÕs French text allows for a clear play on capital in the masculine and
feminine that the single English term ÒcapitalÓ can mask. In French, the mas-
culine Òle capitalÓ refers to capital in the monetary sense and the feminine Òla
capitaleÓ refers to the capital of a city or country. These two different types of
capital, Derrida will argue, are our inheritance from European modernity. I
begin with a discussion of the feminine Òcapitale.Ó6 Derrida notes that the
issue of a single, central capital for all of Europe is no longer much considered

56 • Matthew R. Calarco

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 57

in European politics. Nonetheless, this does not mean that struggles for
European hegemony do not exist in other forms. Once again, Derrida posits
a double bind. In deciding on the status of a central European capital, we are
forced to consider the problematics of European cultural identity being Òdis-
persed into a myriad of provinces, into a multiplicity of self-enclosed idioms
or petty little nationalisms, each one jealous and untranslatable.Ó7 On the
other hand, Europe also must resist being subjected to and standardised by
a centralised authority. The task in working through the question of capital
is to avoid the extremes of monopoly and dispersion, of pure identity and
pure difference. For Derrida, responsibility consists precisely in squarely fac-
ing this aporia between identity and difference and attempting to create polit-
ical strategies to work with and through this tension. As he phrases it:

Responsibility seems to consist today in renouncing neither of these two

contradictory imperatives. One must therefore try to invent gestures, dis-
courses, politico-institutional practices that inscribe the alliance of these two
imperatives, of these two promises or contracts: the capital and the a-cap-
ital [a-capitale], the other of the capital. That is not easy.8

Indeed, it is not. In fact, the project of creating a politics that accommodates

contradictory imperatives seems upon initial consideration to be impossible.
But, as Derrida argues, impossibility or aporia is the enabling condition for
the emergence of genuine responsibility. When we are presented with a sit-
uation to which we are able to apply some type of moral or political calcu-
lus, responsibility has no place. Responsibility, as Derrida understands it,
consists in making decisions when no clear and easy choice is available.9 The
responsible task in the face of the aporia of capital, then, is to create politi-
cal gestures and practices that do not hide the tension between monopoly
(identity) and dispersion (difference), but work within it. Radical democracy,
as I attempt to show below, is an attempt to enact such a politics.

We have yet to examine capital in its French masculine form, capital in the
monetary sense. Here, too, Derrida seeks to negotiate a double path; this time
it is between anti-capitalist dogmatism and the counter-dogmatism that bans
any discussion of capital and considers Marxist critiques too reductionist. To
draw out this double orientation, Derrida analyses ValŽryÕs use of the term
capital in his The Freedom of Spirit. ValŽryÕs text is important for us today,
Derrida suggests, because it is marked by an imminence that parallels our

Derrida on Identity and Difference • 57

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 58

own in many ways. ValŽryÕs text was written in 1939, and in it he Òrecalls
the imminence of a tremor that was not only going to reduce to rubble - among
other things - what was called Europe. It was also going to destroy Europe
in the name of an idea of Europe, of a Young Europe that attempted to assure
its hegemony.Ó10 Derrida recalls for us that this move was countered in ValŽryÕs
time by Western democratic nations that sought to destroy Nazism and its
unification of Europe. Throughout this section, Derrida suggests that our
ÒtodayÓ is not all that different from ValŽryÕs own. The democratising forces
at work today seem to be constantly haunted by a return to the basest nation-
alisms, racisms, and religious fanaticisms, similar to the threatening forces
against which ValŽry responds.

ValŽry locates this threatening imminence in a threat to culture in the form

of capital. What makes the European/Mediterranean capital unique for ValŽry
is its ability to Òmake civilisation.Ó He calls the Mediterranean a Òveritable
machine for making civilisation.Ó11 The European capital accomplishes this
through navigation - carrying its capital, merchandise, ideas, and methods
to other nations. Yet the extension of European capital (in both senses of the
term) is threatened when specifically European human existence is threat-
ened. European capital (the material stuff of capital) is useless, ValŽry argues,
without ÔmenÕ who need and know how to use it. The essence of European
man that ValŽry seeks to protect is quite similar to the capitalist ÒEconomic
ManÓ of liberal democratic theory, or as Derrida phrases it, the man whose
essence is the Òmaxim of maximisationÓ [la maxime de maximalitŽ].12

Derrida reads ValŽryÕs discourse on capital as an attempt to salvage not

Europe itself but the universality for which Europe is responsible. And Derrida
is not wholly unsympathetic to ValŽryÕs project. There is a certain responsi-
bility to the European heritage of capital which Derrida does not want to
overlook. What makes this responsibility difficult is that it cannot be a sim-
ple repetition of European capitalism if it is to be a genuine response. ValeryÕs
response to the threat of European capital is typical, and perhaps even irre-
sponsible; his response is to save the identity and essence of European man.
There is a paradoxical movement, however, in the attempt to save identity
as both ValŽry and Derrida are aware. A particular identity is always (para-
doxically) claimed as the universal ideal. No cultural identity claims to rep-
resent a differentiated group without appeal to some ideal universal. ValŽry

58 • Matthew R. Calarco

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 59

notes this paradox when he writes that the French are Òmen of universalityÓ
who Òspecialise in the sense of the universal.Ó13

Unlike ValŽry, Derrida decides to labour over this paradox and illustrate how
it creates the possibility of a responsible response to the imminence of EuropeÕs
today. The paradox of having an identity that is responsible for the univer-
sal is that the identity is immediately opened up onto its own difference with
itself. The European capital that seeks to be responsible to the universal runs
the risk of de-identifying itself. As Derrida describes this movement, the
European capital Ò. . . is related to itself not only in gathering itself in the dif-
ference with itself and with the other heading, with the other shore of the
heading, but in opening itself without being able any longer to gather itself.Ó14
From this tension between the identification and de-identification of European
capital (in both forms) arises the imposition of a double duty, and hence a
radical responsibility, one that answers to the call of European heading and
the other heading, as well as the other of the heading. Derrida lists nine such
double duties, which I quote in part below:

Hence the duty to respond to the call of European memory, to recall what
has been promised under the name Europe, to re-identify Europe . . . This
duty also dictates opening Europe . . . opening it onto that which is not, never
was, and never will be Europe . . . The same duty also dictates welcoming
foreigners in order not only to integrate them but to recognise and accept
their alterity . . . The same duty dictates criticising . . . a totalitarian dogma-
tism that, under the pretense of putting an end to capital, destroyed democ-
racy and the European heritage . . . The same duty dictates cultivating the
virtue of such critique, of the critical idea, the critical tradition, but also sub-
mitting it beyond critique and questioning, to a deconstructive genealogy
that thinks and exceeds it without yet compromising it . . . The same duty
dictates assuming the European, and uniquely European, heritage of an idea
of democracy, while also recognising that this idea . . . is never simply
given . . . but rather something that remains to be thought and to come [ˆ
venir] . . . The same duty dictates respecting differences, idioms, minorities,
singularities, but also the universality of formal law, the desire for transla-
tion, agreement, and univocity, the law of the majority, opposition to racism,
nationalism, and xenophobia. The same duty demands tolerating and respect-
ing all that is not placed under the authority of reason . . . For these thoughts

Derrida on Identity and Difference • 59

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 60

may in fact also try to remain faithful to the ideal of the Enlightenment . . .
while yet acknowledging its limits, in order to work on the Enlightenment
of this time . . . This same duty surely calls for responsibility, for the respon-
sibility to think, speak, and act in compliance with this double contradic-
tory imperative - a contradiction that must not be only an apparent or
illusory antinomy . . . but must be effective and, with experience, through exper-
iment, interminable.15

I have quoted Derrida at length here for two reasons: most obviously, to high-
light the specific double duties for which DerridaÕs deconstructive reading
of European capital calls, and more obliquely, to question the particular form
that these duties take. What exactly is at stake in characterising duties as dou-
ble or aporetic? Why are responsibilities and duties always presented by
Derrida in such a way as to prevent their fulfilment a priori?

Derrida himself offers an answer to this question elsewhere. In describing

the justification for the particular form that duty takes in his writings, Derrida
responds in his text Aporias that duty must take this aporetic form since Òone
must avoid good conscience at all costs.Ó16 For Derrida, a responsibility com-
pletely fulfilled or assumed is a responsibility done in good conscience. This
more straightforward understanding of responsibility is contrasted by Derrida
with his more extreme notion of radical or infinite responsibility, which in
characterising responsibilities as aporetic and contradictory, prevents the full
assumption or completion of any responsibility. Clearly, the avoiding of good
conscience suggests certain affinities with LŽvinasÕs writings - especially on
the topic of mauvaise conscience - many of which have recently been explored
by a number of authors.17 In his more explicitly political writings, however,
Derrida seems to have more in common with radical democratic theory than
with LŽvinasian ethics.18 Although there are significant parallels between
LŽvinasian ethics and radical democratic politics, the two do differ in signif-
icant ways. But rather than concentrate upon those differences, in the fol-
lowing section an elaboration of the basic structure of radical democratic
politics is given along with an explanation of how DerridaÕs work comple-
ments and draws from this project.

Derrida tells us that what motivates his text is injustices that have been occur-
ring in the name of European identity and a certain version of democracy.
What makes such injustices all the more distressing for those in the liberal

60 • Matthew R. Calarco

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 61

democratic tradition (a tradition for which Derrida argues we are responsible)

is that such resurgences of nationalism, racism, and sexism are happening in
spite of the increased democratising of European society - a movement that
was supposed to put an end to such injustices. As radical democratic author
Chantal Mouffe points out, even at its most triumphant point, the liberal
democratic project has not provided the Òsmooth transition to pluralist democ-
racy,Ó that many had predicted, but has instead Òopened the way to a resur-
gence of nationalism and the emergence of new antagonisms.Ó19 What are we
to make of this resurgence of antagonisms? Is there a way to create a politics
that addresses the fundamentally antagonistic character of the political sphere?

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe begin their radical democratic project
with the acknowledgement that society and the political signifiers that rep-
resent various social groups are never self-identical precisely because iden-
tity always produces its own antagonistic, constitutive outside. They argue
that antagonisms and conflicts are witnesses to the impossibility of society
ever fulfilling its own identity, what they call Òthe impossibility of closure.Ó20
Antagonism in this sense should not be understood as an objective ontolog-
ical condition of the political realm, but as an experience of the limits of iden-
tity and identity politics. The logic of identity ensures that the construction
of any social ÒweÓ always prefigures a ÒthemÓ that functions as the limit of
the Òwe,Ó preventing any full self-identity. This is why the crisis of identity
is central to the radical democratic project; if society were completely self-
identical and there were no conflicts or antagonisms, there would be no need
for democracy or democratic contestation. Realising that identities are always
in crisis and that antagonism is the necessary outcome of taking up identi-
ties necessitates a rethinking of the goal of achieving a self-identical and non-
antagonistic society.

Recognising that the political sphere is fundamentally antagonistic and con-

flictual does not necessarily negate the impossibility of unifying the various
antagonisms. Laclau and Mouffe argue that ÒarticulationÓ is one means of
achieving a unification - albeit a partial one - of the antagonistic political
field. Before examining the role of articulation, it may be helpful to define
the terms that Laclau and Mouffe utilise in their analysis. As they use the
terms: ÒelementsÓ are differences that are not discursively articulated, Òmo-
mentsÓ are differential positions within discourse, ÒdiscourseÓ is the structured

Derrida on Identity and Difference • 61

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 62

totality resulting from various articulations, and ÒarticulationÓ is any prac-

tice that establishes a relation among elements such that the identity of a dis-
cursive formation is modified in the process.21 Following DerridaÕs analysis
of the logic of identity, Laclau and Mouffe maintain that all identity is rela-
tional and marked by a ÒsurplusÓ that escapes that identity. They further
explain that since all discursive formations are disrupted and destabilised by
their own surplus of elements (their own constitutive outside), the transition
from elements (pure non-articulated differences) to moments (fixed discursive
identities) is never complete. In other words, the transformation of differ-
ences into intelligible identities is never fully achieved, hence the never-ending
task of creating and modifying political and social identities to cover over
the impossibility of full closure. Articulation is the name given to this task
of trying to halt the slide of pure elements/difference by bringing them under
a fixed moment/signifier. It is an attempt to give an identity to a field of dif-
ferences that would otherwise remain pure, unintelligible differences.

Within the terms of Laclau and MouffeÕs analysis, articulation is achieved by

constructing Ònodal pointsÓ (a term borrowed from Lacanian psychoanaly-
sis) which partially fix the meaning of non-articulated elements in a field of
differences.22 Perhaps the best explanation of the significance of nodal points
for radical democracy is provided by cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek in his
important text, The Sublime Object of Ideology. Regarding what I have been
calling a Òfield of differencesÓ or Òdiscursive formations,Ó Zizek (in a more
Althusserian/Lacanian vein) writes about Òideological spaceÓ as formed of
Ònon-bound, non-tied elements . . . whose very identity is Òopen,Ó overde-
termined by their articulation in a chain with other elements . . .Ó23 The way
to unify these non-bound elements, Zizek explains (following Laclau and
Mouffe), is through nodal points that ÒquiltÓ or stop the sliding of the mean-
ing of elements. Zizek writes: ÒThe ÔquiltingÕ performs the totalisation by
means of which this free floating of ideological elements is halted, fixed -
that is to say, by means of which they become parts of the structured net-
work of meaning.Ó24 Zizek offers the example of environmentalism as a nodal
point through which various different elements of an ideological space/dis-
cursive formation are unified and linked. Zizek argues that the meaning of
environmentalism and its links with other ideological elements can never be
fully determined in advance. For instance, one could be a state-oriented envi-
ronmentalist who insists that only state intervention will stop ecological

62 • Matthew R. Calarco

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 63

catastrophe, a socialist environmentalist who argues that the solution to the

exploitation of nature lies in a change in the means of production, or a deep
ecologist who believes that the environmental crisis can only be averted by
a spiritual return to our identity with nature. One could offer similar histor-
ical examples of feminism, class struggle, and democracy serving as nodal
points that quilt the field of differences within those struggles and give them
a common identity. The problem with these approaches traditionally, how-
ever, is that they are all essentialist and reductionistic insofar as they attempt
to reduce the field of differences down to side-effects of a ÒrealÓ or essential
core. The task of contemporary anti-essentialist political struggles, argues
Zizek, is to construct nodal points that escape the trap of reductionism and
essentialism.

Laclau and Mouffe suggest that radical democracy can serve as a non-essen-
tialist nodal point to unify and give a common identity to an otherwise diverse
field of political struggles (feminism, socialism, environmentalism, queer pol-
itics, anti-racism, etc.). What makes radical democracy somewhat different
from essentialist political movements is that the specific differences of vari-
ous political struggles are maintained even through the creation of a new
common identity. ZizekÕs explanation of this seemingly paradoxical project
is extremely helpful here. As he explains, the radical democratic project is:

. . . an articulation of particular struggles (for peace, ecology, feminism,

human rights, and so on), none of which pretends to be the ÒTruth,Ó the
last Signified, the Òtrue MeaningÓ of all the others; but the title Òradical
democracyÓ itself indicates how the very possibility of their articulation
implies the Ònodal,Ó determining role of a certain struggle which, precisely
as a particular struggle, outlines the horizon of all other struggles. This
determining role belongs, of course, to democracy . . . according to Laclau
and Mouffe, all other struggles [feminism, anti-racism, environmentalism,
and others] . . . could be conceived as the gradual radicalisation, extension,
application of the democratic project to new domains . . .25

Yet even though each particular struggle mentioned above can be seen as an
extension of and a struggle for certain democratic goals, democracy is by no
means the underlying essence or core of these struggles. As Zizek explains,
the Òdialectical paradoxÓ lies in the fact that the nodal point of radical democ-
racy, Òfar from enforcing a violent suppression of the differences, opens the

Derrida on Identity and Difference • 63

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 64

very space for the relative autonomy of the particular struggles: the feminist
struggle, for example, is made possible only through reference to democratic-
egalitarian discourse.Ó26 In this sense, the nodal point Òradical democracyÓ
contains only those Òpolitical movements and organisations which legitimise
[and] designate themselves as ÔdemocraticÕ . . .Ó27 In using radical democracy
as a nodal point, Laclau and Mouffe are not trying to suture the entire polit-
ical field, only those movements that make some appeal to democratic dis-
course.28 The common identity created by the nodal point Òradical democracyÓ
is thus to be understood as a performative enactment of a common identity
rather than an essentialist reduction. Radical democracy is not the essence of
these struggles but a contingent quilting point that performatively enacts a
common identity through which the demands of disparate struggles can be
coalitionally articulated.

Despite the promise of using radical democracy as a nodal point to unify

various struggles, this link by itself will not accomplish the goal of unifying
a diverse political field. Laclau and Mouffe are well aware that the various
struggles that may deem themselves Òradically democraticÓ can be pursuing
completely different goals or even be directly at odds with one another on
certain issues. Hence, Laclau and MouffeÕs radical democratic project does
not end with establishing a single nodal point, but rather they posit that it
is necessary to ÒhegemoniseÓ the political sphere. Although they borrow the
term ÒhegemonyÓ from Gramsci, Laclau and Mouffe redefine the term to per-
form a different but related function than the one that Gramsci intended.29
As they define the term, hegemony is the creation of links among diverse
political struggles. Where they differ from Gramsci is that Laclau and Mouffe
consider these links not to be a priori or essential links, but contingent links
that expose a Òregularity in dispersionÓ in a given discursive formation.30

Reading hegemony through Foucault can be helpful in understanding Laclau

and MouffeÕs position. Foucault argues that discursive formations are created
not by singular power struggles, but by multiple matrices of power that cre-
ate varied differential subject positions. Foucault exposes the impossibility of
a discursive formation having an underlying core or essence that ties the var-
ious subject positions together by showing that power is not centralised but
differential and Òeverywhere.Ó Laclau and Mouffe accept this basic descrip-
tion of discursive formations, but go a step beyond Foucault (at least the

64 • Matthew R. Calarco

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 65

work of his early period) to argue that despite the differential subject posi-
tions and varied forms of power, there are contingent regularities in the dis-
persion of power and subject positions. Hegemonic formations function to
expose those regularities, all the while realising that such regularities in dis-
persion are not essential but contingent upon the discursive formation.

In this way, Laclau and MouffeÕs theory of radical democratic hegemony

answers the demand of linking identity and difference without sacrificing
either. By conceiving of radical democracy as a nodal point that performa-
tively enacts a common identity rather than unearthing an essential one,
Laclau and Mouffe understand that the differences they are attempting to
unite will always exceed the limits of the radical democratic nodal point. The
radical democratic project recognises and accepts this excess of identity and
works with a double dialectic, maintaining various identities but exposing
those identities to their outside through the creation of hegemonic links that
unify identities that would otherwise remain singular and particular. This
double dialectic is perhaps the most creative and promising means of work-
ing with identity and difference in the political sphere.

Derrida aligns himself with such radical democratic strategies insofar as he

is unwilling to side with either pure identity or pure difference in politics.
Derrida is content neither with simply repeating the European tradition uncrit-
ically, nor with renouncing the tradition altogether. It is in reference to the
radical democratic logic of Laclau and Mouffe that we can begin to appreci-
ate the significance of this double movement in DerridaÕs text. Divorced from
an understanding of Laclau and MouffeÕs work, the logic behind DerridaÕs
recent writings on politics may appear incomprehensible, and at worst, apo-
litical. My suspicion is that by situating DerridaÕs work within the radical
democratic tradition we can begin to re-read his works on politics with a
closer eye toward the double bind and double obligations of the politics of
identity and difference, and begin to realise the potential for a radical rethink-
ing and restructuring of politics inherent in his work.31

I would also suggest that the radical democratic approach to identity and
difference in the political sphere harbours some extremely helpful ideas and
directions for contemporary debates in political theory. Instead of aiming to
create a politics that attempts to give final solutions to the debates over iden-
tity and difference, we might turn our attention to creating and enacting

Derrida on Identity and Difference • 65

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 66

strategies that respond to the contingencies of the political field. Within a

radical democratic framework, the liberal democratic dream of creating a
society that would forever end conflict and antagonism would be replaced
with a democracy that allows for, and attempts to respond to, the identities
and alterities that no political movement can ever fully contain. This is why
politics as conceived by Derrida and Laclau and Mouffe is always Òˆ venir,Ó
always something Òto come.Ó Yet an Òˆ venirÓ politics is not futural, utopian,
or uninterested in present political injustices. We should read this Òˆ venirÓ
aspect instead as a commitment to infinite responsibility, as a perpetual avoid-
ance of political good conscience. A politics to come, a politics that is radi-
cally responsible to the other, can never be final and complete; it must allow
a certain space so that the other can be heard. I would suggest that it is toward
such a politics that DerridaÕs The Other Heading aims.

* Matthew R. Calarco, Department of Philosophy, Binghamton University, Binghamton,

New York, USA

Notes

1
Examples of similar writings on radical democratic politics can be found in the
works of Judith Butler, Henry Louis Gates, and Cornel West to name a few of the
most prominent figures.

2
J. Derrida, LÕautre cap, Paris: Minuit, 1991, pp. 12-13. English translation: The Other
Heading, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992, p. 6.

3
Ibid., p. 16. English translation: p. 9.

4
Ibid., p. 30. English translation: p. 26.

5
Ibid., p. 32. English translation: p. 28.

6
Ibid., pp. 38-56. English translation: pp. 36-56.

7
Ibid., p. 41. English translation: p. 39.

8
Ibid., p. 46. English translation: p. 44.

9
DerridaÕs most lucid explanation of this type of radical responsibility can be found
in his The Gift of Death, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1995,
esp. pp. 53-81. This rethinking of responsibility has parallels in the writings of

66 • Matthew R. Calarco

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 67

Emmanuel LŽvinas and Maurice Blanchot as well. See, for example, LŽvinasÕs
Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981, and BlanchotÕs
The Writing of the Disaster, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.

10
Derrida, LÕautre cap, pp. 61-2. English translation: 62.

11
ValŽry cited in Derrida, LÕautre cap, p. 64. English translation, p. 64.

12
Ibid., p. 68. English translation: p. 68.

13
ValŽry cited in Derrida, LÕautre cap, p. 73. English translation: p. 74.

14
Ibid., p. 74. English translation: p. 75.

15
Ibid., pp. 75-8. English translation: pp. 76-9.

16
J. Derrida, Aporias, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993, p. 19.

17
Several attempts have recently been made to develop and critically analyse the
background for DerridaÕs ethical writings, especially with respect to LŽvinas. On
this topic see, for example, Simon CritchleyÕs, The Ethics of Deconstruction, Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1992, Drucilla CornellÕs, The Philosophy of the Limit, New York and
London: Routledge, 1991, esp. pp. 62-90, as well as much of the work done by
Robert Bernasconi. Here, I am attempting to give a parallel context for the under-
standing of DerridaÕs political writings, even though there is considerable overlap
in the two projects and they should not be seen as wholly separate. For more on
the background and potential of a Derridean politics that further develop the
themes explored here, the reader may want to begin with Bill MartinÕs, Humanism
and itÕs Aftermath, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1995, Ernesto LaclauÕs
ÒDeconstruction, Pragmatism, HegemonyÓ in Deconstruction and Pragmatism, ed.
C. Mouffe, London and New York: Routledge, 1997, as well as the essays collected
in C. Mouffe, The Return of the Political, London: Verso, 1993.

18
By glossing over the LŽvinasian influence in DerridaÕs work, I do not mean to
suggest that LŽvinasÕ understanding of politics and third party justice are not
themes that inform DerridaÕs own political writings. As is clear from his recent
book Adieu ˆ Emmanuel LŽvinas, Paris: GalilŽe, 1997, Derrida believes that the rela-
tion between singular responsibility (ethics as hospitality) and third party justice
(politics and justice as perjury) as described by LŽvinas offers the possibility for
a radical rethinking of the political. What is perhaps missing in LŽvinas, and what
Derrida is intent upon thinking through more fully, is a more exacting articula-
tion of what an ethical politics might consist in. I want to suggest that with the
help of radical democratic theory, presented in more detail in the second half of

Derrida on Identity and Difference • 67

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 68

this paper, we can begin to sketch in some of the contours of this more ethical (in
the sense that LŽvinas gives this term) politics.
19
C. Mouffe, The Return of the Political, London: Verso, 1993, p. 1.
20
E. Laclau and C. Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic
Politics, London: Verso, 1985, p. 122.
21
Ibid., p. 105.
22
Ibid., p. 113.
23
S. Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology, London: Verso, 1989, p. 87.
24
Ibid., p. 87.
25
Ibid., p. 88.
26
Ibid., pp. 88-9.
27
Ibid., p. 98.
28
In a series of perceptive comments on this section of the paper, Martin Dillon won-
ders whether the radical democratic project can or should serve to form alliances
between radically divergent positions such as extreme left and right wing posi-
tions. My answer to this query would have to be no. As I understand the radical
democratic project, it is intended only to form alliances between broadly defined
leftist positions and other movements that embrace radical democratic ideals (see,
Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony, p. 1; Mouffe, Return, p. 69). That such limits create
antagonisms and constitutive outsides of their own, I think, would be openly
admitted by Laclau and Mouffe. I am also indebted to Andrew Feenberg for rais-
ing similar questions about the limits of radical democratic theory in comments
on an earlier version of this paper.
29
For more on Laclau and MouffeÕs use of Gramscian theory, see the first two chap-
ters of their Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.
30
Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony, p. 136.
31
I want to stress that this is only one means of approaching the political in DerridaÕs
writings, and that my reading of The Other Heading does not pretend to tell the
whole story of the place of politics and the political in his work. In particular,
what my reading tends to underplay is DerridaÕs insistence that we begin to try
to think the other of the heading, that is, something beyond or other than iden-
tity and difference. The Other Heading brings us up to this question, but falls short
of treating it with any sort of sustained attention. Radical democratic thought, too,
I would suggest, has not given the question of the other of the heading enough

68 • Matthew R. Calarco

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.

CH/f5/51-69 8/28/56 6:21 AM Page 69

attention. However, it is at this level - where radical democratic theory meets

Derridean thought - that this question can be posed in all of its rigour and impor-
tance. This question undoubtedly signals one of the future directions for both rad-
ical democratic thought and DerridaÕs writings.

Derrida on Identity and Difference • 69

Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved.