Changes

==The Inhuman Dimension==

In philosophical terms, this ''inhuman'' dimension can be defined as that of a subject subtracted from all form of human "individuality" or "personality" (which is why, in today's popular culture, one of the exempolary figures of pure subject is a non-human – alien, cyborg – who displays more fidelity to the task, dignity and freedom than its human counterparts, from the Schwarzenegger-figure in ''Terminator'' to the Rutger-Hauer-android in ''Blade Runner''). Recall Husserl's dark dream, from his ''Cartesian Meditations'', of how the transcendental cogito would remain unaffected by a plague that would annihilate entire humanity: it is easy, apropos this example, to score cheap points about the self-destructive background of the transcendental subjectivity, and about how Husserl misses the paradox of what Foucault, in his ''Let mots et les choses'', called the "transcendental-empirical doublet", of the link that forever attaches the transcendental ego to the empirical ego, so that the annihilation of the latter by definition leads to the disparition of the first.

==Conclusion - The Politics of Terror==

What, then, would be the possible contours of a new politics of terror? Recall Badiou’s “eternal Idea” of the politics of revolutionary justice, at work from the ancient Chinese “legists” through Jacobins to Lenin and Mao, which consists of four moments: ''voluntarism'' (the belief that one can “move mountains,” ignoring “objective” laws and obstacles), terror (a ruthless will to crush the enemy of the people), ''egalitarian justice'' (its immediate brutal imposition, with no understanding for the “complex circumstances” which allegedly compel us to proceed gradually), and, last but not least, ''trust in the people'' – suffice it to recall two examples here, Robespierre himself, his “great truth” (“the characteristic of popular government is to be trustful towards the people and severe towards itself”), and Mao’s critique of Stalin’s ''Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR'', where he qualifies Stalin’s point of view as “almost altogether wrong. The basic error is mistrust of the peasants.”). (Badiou 2006: 29-37) Does the ecological challenge not offer a unique chance to re-invent this “eternal Idea”? That is to say, is the only appropriate way to counter the threat of ecological catastrophe not precisely the combination of these four moments?

==References==

Badiou, Alain.(2006) ''Logiques des mondes'', Paris: Editions du Seuil.

Safouan, Moustapha. (unpublished) "Why the Arabs are Not Free: the Politics of Writing"