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There are, roughly [[speaking]], two [[philosophical ]] approaches to an antagonistic constellation of either/or: either one opts for one pole against the [[other ]] ([[Good ]] against [[Evil]], [[freedom ]] against oppression, [[morality ]] against hedonism, etc.), or one adopts a "deeper" attitude of emphasizing the complicity of the opposites, and of advocating a proper measure or the [[unity]]. Although [[Hegel]]'s [[dialectic ]] seems a version of the second approach (the "[[synthesis]]" of opposites), he opts for an unheard-of THIRD version: the way to resolve the deadlock is neither to engage oneself in fighting for the "good" side against the "bad" one, nor in trying to bring [[them ]] together in a balanced "synthesis," but in opting for the BAD side of the initial either/or. Of course, this "[[choice ]] of the worst" fails, but in this failure, it undermines the entire field of the alternative and thus enables us to overcome its [[terms]]. (Say, in [[politics]], in the choice between [[organic ]] unity and destructive [[terror]], the only way to arrive at the [[truth ]] is to begin with the "wrong" choice.) Therein resides the insurmountable [[difference ]] between Hegel and the New Age [[notion ]] of balancing the opposites.<br><br>

Gorgias's <i>On [[Nature]], or the Non-Existent</i> (the [[text ]] survived only in [[summary ]] [[form ]] in Sextus Empiricus, and [[Aristotle]]'s <i>On Melissus, Xeonphanes, and Gorgias</i>) can be summed up in [[three ]] propositions: (a.) [[Nothing ]] [[exists]]; (b.) If anything existed, it could not be known; (c.) If anything did exit, and could be known, it could not be communicated to [[others]]. If there ever was a clear [[case ]] of the [[Freudian ]] [[logic ]] of the borrowed kettle (providing mutually exclusive reasons), this is it: (1) Nothing exists. (2) What exists, cannot be known. (3) What we [[know]], cannot be communicated to others... But more interesting is the repeated "diagonal" mode of [[division ]] of genre into [[species]]: Things [[exist ]] or not. If they exist, they can be known or not. If they can be known, they can be communicated to others or not. - Surprisingly, we find the same progressive differentiation at the opposite end of the [[history ]] of Western [[philosophy]], in the XXth century sophistics called "[[dialectical ]] [[materialism]]." In [[Stalin]]'s <i>On Dialectical and Historical Materialism</i>, when the four features of dialectics are enumerated:

The principal features of the [[Marxist ]] dialectical method are as follows:<br><br>

Contrary to [[metaphysics]], dialectics does not [[regard ]] nature as an accidental agglomeration of things, of phenomena, unconnected with, isolated from, and independent of, each other, but as a connected and integral [[whole]], in which things, phenomena are organically connected with, dependent on, and determined by, each other.<br><br>

Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that nature is not a [[state ]] of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and [[change]], of continuous renewal and [[development]], where something is always arising and developing, and something always disintegrating and dying away.<br><br>

Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the [[process ]] of development as a simple process of growth, where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as a development which passes from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes to open' fundamental changes' to qualitative changes; a development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to [[another]]; they occur not accidentally but as the [[natural ]] result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes.<br><br>

Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that [[internal ]] contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature, for they all have their [[negative ]] and positive sides, a [[past ]] and a [[future]], something dying away and something developing; and that the [[struggle ]] between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying away and that which is [[being ]] [[born]], between that which is disappearing and that which is developing, constitutes the internal [[content ]] of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes.

First, nature is not a conglomerate of dispersed phenomena, but a connected whole. Then, this Whole is not immobile, but in constant movement and change. Then, this change is not only a gradual quantitative drifting, but involves qualitative jumps and ruptures. Finally, this qualitative development is not a matter of [[harmonious ]] deployment, but is propelled by the struggle of the opposites... The trick here is that we are effectively NOT dealing merely with the Platonic dieresis, gradual subdivision of a genus into species and then species into subspecies: the underlying premise is that this "diagonal" process of division is really vertical, i.e., that we are dealing with the different aspects of the SAME division. To put it in Stalinist [[jargon]]: an immobile Whole is not really a Whole, but just a conglomerate of elements; development which does not involve qualitative jumps is not really a development, but just an immobile stepping at the same [[place]]; a qualitative change which does not involve struggle of the opposites is not really a change, but just a quantitative monotonous movement... Or, to put it in more ominous terms: those who advocate qualitative change without struggle of the opposites REALLY oppose change and advocate the continuation of the same; those who advocate change without qualitative jumps REALLY oppose change and advocate immobility... the [[political ]] aspect of this logic is clearly discernible: "those who advocate the transformation of [[capitalism ]] into [[socialism ]] without [[class ]] struggle REALLY reject socialism and [[want ]] capitalism to continue," etc.<br><br>

There are two famous quips of Stalin which are both grounded in this logic. When Stalin answered the question "Which deviation is worse, the Rightist or the [[Leftist ]] one?" by "They are both worse!", the underlying premise is that the Leftist deviation is REALLY ("objectively," as Stalinists liked to put it) not leftist at all, but a concealed Rightist one! When Stalin wrote, in a report on a party congress, that the delegates, with the majority of votes, unanimously approved the CC [[resolution]], the underlying premise is, again, that there was really no minority within the party: those who voted against thereby excluded themselves from the party... In all these cases, the genus repeatedly overlaps (fully coincides) with one of its species. This is also what allows Stalin to read history [[retroactively]], so that things "become clear" retroactively: it was not that Trotsky was first fighting for the [[revolution ]] with [[Lenin ]] and Stalin and then, at a certain [[stage]], opted for a different strategy than the one advocated by Stalin; this last opposition (Trotsky/Stalin) "makes it clear" how, "objectively," Trotsky was against revolution all the [[time ]] back.<br><br>

We find the same procedure in the classificatory [[impasse ]] the Stalinist ideologists and political activists faced in their struggle for collectivization in the years 1928-1933. <ref>Incidentally, Stalin's collectivization [[drive ]] in the late 1920's (as well as two other "[[irrational]]" decisions with catastrophic consequences, [[Hitler]]'s entry into war in 1939 and Slobodan [[Milosevic]]'s expansionism in [[Yugoslavia ]] of the early 1990's) [[demands ]] a good old-fashioned [[economic ]] approach. What drove Stalin to collectivization was not a demonic drive to perturb the [[return ]] to normality in the (relatively) peaceful and prosperous mid-1920s, but the economic deadlock (the gap between the peasants and the meager industrial output). The same goes for Hitler: the [[German ]] entry into war in the late 1930s was the only way to avoid impending economic catastrophy, so it was not that, after limited economic and politic successes in the mid 1930s, Hitler, instead of being [[satisfied ]] with what he achieved, was driven into the catastrophic war by some irresistible demonic impetus. (And, mutatis mutandis, the same goes for Milosevic.)</ref> In their attempt to account for their effort to crush the peasants' [[resistance ]] in "[[scientific]]" Marxist terms, they [[divided ]] peasants into three [[categories ]] (classes): the poor peasants (no land or minimal land, [[working ]] for others), natural allies of the [[workers]]; the [[autonomous ]] middle peasants, oscillating between the exploited and exploiters; the rich peasants, "kulaks" (employing other workers, lending them [[money ]] or seeds, etc.), the exploiting "class [[enemy]]" which, as such, has to be "liquidated." However, in [[practice]], this classification became more and more blurred and inoperative: in the generalized poverty, clear criteria no longer applied, and other two categories often joined kulaks in their resistance to [[forced ]] collectivization. An additional [[category ]] was thus introduced, that of a "subkulak," a peasant who, although, with regard to his economic [[situation]], was to poor to be considered a kulak proper, nonetheless shared the <i>kulak</i> "counter-revolutionary" attitude. "Subkulak" was thus

a term without any [[real ]] [[social ]] content even by Stalinist standards, but merely rather unconvincingly masquerading as such. As was officially stated, 'by <i>kulak</i> we mean the carrier of certain political tendencies which are most frequently discernible in the subkulak, [[male ]] and [[female]].' By this means, any peasant whatever was liable to dekulakisation; and the <i>subkulak</i> notion was widely employed, enlarging the category of victims greatly beyond the [[official ]] estimate of <i>kulaks</i> proper even at its most strained. <ref>Robert Conquest, ''The Harvest of Sorrow'', New York: Oxford [[University ]] Press 1986, p. 119.</ref>

No wonder that the official ideologists and economists finally renounced the very effort to provide an "[[objective]]" definition of <i>kulak</i>: "The grounds given in one Soviet comment are that 'the old attitudes of a <i>kulak</i> have almost disappeared, and the new ones do not lend themselves to [[recognition]].'" <ref>Conquest, ''op.cit.'', p. 120.</ref> The art of [[identifying ]] a <i>kulak</i> was thus no longer a matter of objective social [[analysis]]; it became the matter of a [[complex ]] "[[hermeneutics ]] of suspicion," of identifying one's "[[true ]] political attitudes" hidden beneath deceiving [[public ]] proclamations, so that <i>Pravda</i> had to concede that "even the best activists often cannot spot the <i>kulak</i>." <ref>''ibid''</ref><br><br>

What all this points towards is the dialectical mediation of the "[[subjective]]" and "objective" [[dimension]]: <i>subkulak</i> no longer designates an "objective" social category; it designates the point at which objective social analysis breaks down and subjective political attitude directly inscribes itself into the "objective" [[order ]] - in Lacanese, <i>subkulak</i> is the point of [[subjectivization ]] of the "objective" [[chain ]] poor peasant - middle peasant - <i>kulak</i>. It is not an "objective" sub-category (or sub-division) of the class of <i>kulaks</i>, but simply the [[name ]] for the <i>kulak</i> subjective political attitude - this accounts for the [[paradox ]] that, although it appears as a subdivision of the class of <i>kulaks</i>, "subkulaks" is a species that overflows its own genus (that of <i>kulaks</i>), since <i>subkulaks</i> are also to be found among middle and even poor farmers. In short, <i>subkulak</i> names political division as such, the Enemy whose [[presence ]] traverses the ENTIRE social [[body ]] of peasants, which is why he can be found everywhere, in all three peasant classes. This brings us back to the procedure of Stalinist dieresis: <i>subkulak</i> names the excessive element that traverses all classes, the outgrowth which has to be eliminated.<br><br>

In his [[polemics ]] against [[Alain ]] [[Badiou]]'s [[reading ]] of Saint [[Paul]], Giorgio [[Agamben ]] defines the singularity of the [[Christian ]] [[position ]] with regard to the opposition between [[Jews ]] and Greeek (pagans) not as a direct [[affirmation ]] of an all-encompassing [[universality ]] ("there are neither Jews nor [[Greeks]]"), but as an additional [[divide ]] that cuts diagonally across the entire [[social body ]] and AS SUCH suspends the lines of [[separation ]] between social groups: a ("Christian") subdivision of each group is directly linked with a ("Christian") subdivision of all other groups. (The difference between Badiou and Agamben is that, for Badiou, this new "Christian" collective is the site of [[singular ]] universality, the [[self]]-relating univetsality of naming, of subjective recognition in a name, while Agamben reject the title of universality.) The commonsense classificatory approach would tell us here: what's the big deal? Being Christian or non-Christian is simply another classification that cut across and overlaps with other classifications, like the fact that there are man and [[women ]] which also cuts across all ethnic, [[religious ]] and class [[divides]]... There is, however, a crucial difference here: for Paul, "Christian" does not designate yet another predicate (property or quality) of the [[individual]], but a "[[performative]]" self-recognition grounded only in its own naming, i.e., a purely subjective feature - and, Badiou adds, only as such can it be truly [[universal]]. The opposition between objective-neutral universal approach and the subjective-partisan approach is [[false]]: only a radical subjective engagement can ground true univertsality. The constellation here is therefore exactly the same as the one with <i>sub-kulaks</i> in the Stalinist [[discourse]]: <i>sub-kulaks</i> are also the "[[remainder]]" of <i>kulaks</i> which cuts across the entire field, a subjective-political category masked as a social-objective quality.<br><br>

So when Agamber defines "Christians" not as directly "non-Jews", but as "non-non-Jews", <ref>[[Giorgio Agamben]], ''Le [[temps ]] qui [[reste]]'', [[Paris]]: Rivages-Payot, 2000. p.168.</ref> this [[double ]] [[negation ]] does bring us back to the starting positive determination; it should rather be read as an example of what [[Kant ]] called &quot;infinite judgement&quot; which, instead of negating a predicate, asserts a non-predicate: instead of saying that Christians aren't Jews, one should say that they are non-Jews, in the same [[sense ]] that [[horror ]] [[fiction ]] talks [[about ]] the &quot;undead.&quot; The undead are alive WHILE DEAD, they are the [[living ]] [[dead]]; in the same way, Christians are non-Jews WHILE REMAINING JEWS (at the level of their pre-evental positive social determination) - they are Jews who, as Paul put it, &quot;died for (in the eyes of) the ([[Jewish]]) Law."<br><br>