ter 8, but democracy is so closely identified with the concept of represen- tation that the relationship of the two demands immediate consideration. Post-modern anti-representationalism takes two forms: the first, advanced by the skeptical post-modernists is pessimistic and anti-democratic.3 Many characterize it as nihilist, negative, and despairing. The other current, stressed by the affirmatives, is more optimistic and pro-democratic. The affirmatives argue for the positive reconstruction or replacement of repre- sentation; or they abandon modern political representation for more direct versions of democracy.
Almost all modern political systems make some attempt to be represen- tational. Those assumed to be represented vary from the "people" to the "proletariat."4 Specially designated individuals, assemblies, parties, work- place units, or whatever are authorized to represent, to speak for others, to re-present their views in the public sphere. If, as most post-modernists con- tend, this device for representing a large number of individuals in mass society is unacceptable, an aberration, then a crisis of representation re- sults. The crisis of democracy may follow closely.
The skeptical post-modernists understand political representation to be a symbol of modern Western democracy, and they reject both.5 Modern representation is said to distort political action and discourse because it is so easily manipulated. First, the mass media, the "consciousness industry," is said to "upset choice" and to encourage candidates for public office to give only a superficial consideration to political issues, thereby rendering
3
Post-modernists are not the only ones who propose that political representation is a fic- tion. E. Morgan ( 1988) presents what reviewers call an "elitist" view from the right; he argues that representation, resting on the invention of popular sovereignty, is pure fiction. Few post- modernists would disagree. But this alone does not make post-modernists conservative (see Chapter 8).
4 If democracy means simply that "the people rule," then the link to representation is ten- uous. Many totalitarian governments claim to be both democratic and representative in the sense that they rule in the "interest" of all the people.
5
Post-modernists do not naively attribute representational infractions to any single politi- cal system, but rather they target all systems of modern rule because they all involve the dom- ination of the weak by the strong. Representation may be the "central core of bourgeois ideology," but socialists and communists also appeal to representation as a vehicle of legiti- mation (Redner 1987: 675). In a representative democracy people authorize representatives to re-present their needs, demands, and interests in the decision-making process (à la Hobbes and Locke). The state is assumed to "represent" the people as John Stuart Mill tells us. But Lenin argued along the same lines that the vanguard political party "represents" the funda- mental interests of the proletariat because it embodies the true proletarian consciousness (Lenin 1905: 18-19; 1917: 403-4). Ke (1990) compares liberal and socialist representation and finds they differ as to a "formalist" or "substantive" focus.
R E P U D I A T I N G R E P R E S E N T A T I O N 99
representation inauthentic (Baudrillard 1983a). Politics has become pop- ular theater and media image, rather than the public discussion of political policies. Second, bureaucracy, administration, and management are faulted as substitutes for genuine representation in their takeover of polit- ical legislation. Policy making substitutes for political decision, and com- mittee deliberation replaces open, public debate (Redner 1987: 674, 677). As a result, people no longer feel they "belong to the order of representa- tion." They have ceased to "speak," to "express themselves." The masses are surveyed, polled, tested, but not to encourage the interactive representa- tion that was assumed in the past when social meaning flowed "between one poll and another." All that is left, today, is the silent majority living in the absence of viable representation (Baudrillard 1983a).
The skeptical post-modernists argue that democracy assumes represen- tation, and because representation fails, so too does democracy.6 They con- clude that democracy is mere mass assemblage and dissent is no longer possible. Representation enforces consensus, and democracy-as-majority- rule dictates to the minority and to those who disagree.
Skeptical post-modernists have been thoroughly criticized for their anti- representational and anti-democratic views even by those who share their critique of modernity (Cahoone 1988: 228). If post-modernists seek to substitute "creation" for representation in the arts (Graff 1979: 23), then in politics they substitute narcissistic, hedonistic, individual, anarchistic forms of political expression for the more pragmatic, parliamentary forms of mobilization required by representative democracy. Skeptical post-mod- ernists are criticized for their failure to support participatory forms of gov- ernment and decision making. Certainly democracy has its weaknesses, but to do away with representative democracy, as some skeptics propose, is more likely to lead to authoritarianism than anything else. The skeptical post-modern anti-representational views are attributed to the post-modern individual's overdeveloped, "overprotected" sense of self. S/he cannot ac- cept that s/he might be "represented" by anyone else. Lipovetsky, along these lines, contends that the post-modern personality is fundamentally anti-democratic (1983: 141-43).
Affirmative post-modernists criticize representative democracy as inad- equate and unauthentic, as "inferior and derivative," and as legitimating repressive regimes. But they favor "political self-determination and free- dom" (Redner 1987: 676); thus, when they speak about the absence or the demise of democracy they do so with regret. Many of them favor more 6 Anti-democratic sentiments today are not limited to post-modernists. Celebrations of the bicentennial of the French Revolution a few years ago saw the simultaneous publication of many major works on that topic and revealed profound pessimism concerning democracy. The authoritarian, even totalitarian, potential of democratic social movements was a central concern (see, for example, Furet and Ozouf 1988).
direct forms of democracy (Walker 1988a). They call for a "deepening of democracy" (Walker 1988b: 116), for greater and more meaningful, au- thentic self-government in which broad democratic participation is possi- ble and meaningful. Democracy needs to come to mean "empowerment"
(Walker 1988b: 140).
The affirmative post-modernists are anti-representational, and their de- mand for direct, authentic democracy is consistent with their other posi- tions. Calling for the end of author(ity) and positing multiple interpreta- tions, in a sense, can be viewed as authentically democratic. Affirmative post-modernists deny that anyone can have a monopoly of truth, whereas modern versions of representative democracy assure a monopoly of truth to the electoral victor. Affirmative post-modernists are anti-elitist, in the sense of doing away with the expert role in judging art, music, and litera- ture. They demand popular control, unmediated by the state, over national and social resources (Aronowitz 1988a: 48). They advocate direct democ- racy as local autonomy where every citizen can participate in political dis- cussions because this fosters the development of subgroup identity,7 and with it post-modern social movements flourish (see Chapter 8).
Affirmative post-modernists emphasize free choice, openness, tolerance (Nelson 1987: 10), liberty, personalism, and some forms of individualism (Lipovetsky 1983). They interpret these to be compatible with post-mod- ern versions of democracy that might include cooperatives and collective social forms (Lipovetsky 1983). Skeptical post-modernists would agree if these collectives do not infringe on the liberty of the individual (Corlett 1989; Harvey 1989: 351) and, thus, do not deprive the post-modern in- dividual of his or her autonomy.
4. Representation, the Decline of the Public Sphere,