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4. Residual Politics in The Secret Agent

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Against Anarchy
This chapter is in the book Against Anarchy
4 Residual Politics inThe Secret AgentIn Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novelThe Secret Agent, anarchists are assigned a cru-cial political role. This role is not, however, associated with political positionsof their own: anarchist opposition to capitalism, state-protected property, andthe wage relation–let alone libertarian collectivist or communist alternatives–are conspicuous by their absence.1Instead, the novel traces attempts to deter-mine places in which such a critique of material conditions and the ideologiessustaining them is unnecessary. It is for the maintenance of these spheres ofresidual order that, in another appeal to the necessity of political demarcation,a constitutive outside is shown to be required. This chapter will analyse thefunction of anarchism and anarchists for the delineation of such a sphere. Afterall, in order to derive a notion of a collective identity, the novel shows, it is notenough to merely draw conceptual and material boundaries to allow for thereproduction of a set of essentialist truths. In order to allow for suchinternalelaboration, ranging in scale from the national to the self-affirming coterie ofthe salon, anexternalspace is required, against which such procedures of self-affirmation are defined.This foil is–just barely–associated with anarchism and anarchists; orrather, with fictional representations of anarchism, which misrepresent, ma-lign, and functionalise its philosophical and historical counterparts. Only aslong as heterostereotypical figures of Otherness are sustained, can the sense ofimpending disorder, emerging within virtually every social sphere in the novel,be projected outwards. Dissolution of order is projected onto discontents de-prived of a determinable political position, let alone an antagonistic status inwhich they would emerge as opponents in a hegemonic struggle.2Anarchistsare policed instead of entering into political discourse. The analysis will, thus,trace the ways in which, as Schwarz puts it,“for Conrad, contentment wasfound in alternatives to ideology, politics, and material interests, in a small via-ble self-created space of the mind in which one insulates oneself as best onecan from the hurt of politics.”3Ensuring such a space–which is literal, mate-rial, and ideological in addition to a‘space of the mind’–is the decisive act1Cf. Deric Shannon.“Anti-Capitalism and Libertarian Political Economy.”The PalgraveHandbook of Anarchism. Ed. Carl Levy and Matthew S. Adams. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan,2019. 91–106. 93.2Laclau,“Universalism,”35. That is, anarchism is refused integration into the process bymeans of which different groups“compete between themselves to temporarily give to theirparticularisms a function of universal representation.”3Daniel R. Schwarz.Rereading Conrad. Columbia and London: U of Missouri P, 2001. 97.https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110645873-004
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston

4 Residual Politics inThe Secret AgentIn Joseph Conrad’s 1907 novelThe Secret Agent, anarchists are assigned a cru-cial political role. This role is not, however, associated with political positionsof their own: anarchist opposition to capitalism, state-protected property, andthe wage relation–let alone libertarian collectivist or communist alternatives–are conspicuous by their absence.1Instead, the novel traces attempts to deter-mine places in which such a critique of material conditions and the ideologiessustaining them is unnecessary. It is for the maintenance of these spheres ofresidual order that, in another appeal to the necessity of political demarcation,a constitutive outside is shown to be required. This chapter will analyse thefunction of anarchism and anarchists for the delineation of such a sphere. Afterall, in order to derive a notion of a collective identity, the novel shows, it is notenough to merely draw conceptual and material boundaries to allow for thereproduction of a set of essentialist truths. In order to allow for suchinternalelaboration, ranging in scale from the national to the self-affirming coterie ofthe salon, anexternalspace is required, against which such procedures of self-affirmation are defined.This foil is–just barely–associated with anarchism and anarchists; orrather, with fictional representations of anarchism, which misrepresent, ma-lign, and functionalise its philosophical and historical counterparts. Only aslong as heterostereotypical figures of Otherness are sustained, can the sense ofimpending disorder, emerging within virtually every social sphere in the novel,be projected outwards. Dissolution of order is projected onto discontents de-prived of a determinable political position, let alone an antagonistic status inwhich they would emerge as opponents in a hegemonic struggle.2Anarchistsare policed instead of entering into political discourse. The analysis will, thus,trace the ways in which, as Schwarz puts it,“for Conrad, contentment wasfound in alternatives to ideology, politics, and material interests, in a small via-ble self-created space of the mind in which one insulates oneself as best onecan from the hurt of politics.”3Ensuring such a space–which is literal, mate-rial, and ideological in addition to a‘space of the mind’–is the decisive act1Cf. Deric Shannon.“Anti-Capitalism and Libertarian Political Economy.”The PalgraveHandbook of Anarchism. Ed. Carl Levy and Matthew S. Adams. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan,2019. 91–106. 93.2Laclau,“Universalism,”35. That is, anarchism is refused integration into the process bymeans of which different groups“compete between themselves to temporarily give to theirparticularisms a function of universal representation.”3Daniel R. Schwarz.Rereading Conrad. Columbia and London: U of Missouri P, 2001. 97.https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110645873-004
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. 1. Introduction 1
  4. 2. Political Literature and the Demarcation of Alterity 39
  5. 3. Demarcations of Culture and Anarchy in The Princess Casamassima 97
  6. 4. Residual Politics in The Secret Agent 251
  7. 5. Politics beyond Demarcation? Loss of Alterity in Conrad and Chesterton 449
  8. 6. Conclusion 602
  9. Sources 619
  10. Acknowledgments 655
  11. Index 657
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110645873-004

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. 1. Introduction 1
  4. 2. Political Literature and the Demarcation of Alterity 39
  5. 3. Demarcations of Culture and Anarchy in The Princess Casamassima 97
  6. 4. Residual Politics in The Secret Agent 251
  7. 5. Politics beyond Demarcation? Loss of Alterity in Conrad and Chesterton 449
  8. 6. Conclusion 602
  9. Sources 619
  10. Acknowledgments 655
  11. Index 657
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