Them = Not-Us, etc

by David Beech
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While the I/Thou formulation of interpersonal relations has yielded sustained critical reflection, and subject/other has spawned countless productive controversies, us/them has remained entirely ad hoc - cropping up in conversation, commentary, journalism, and so forth without amounting to anything of theoretical moment. I want to argue that this is not an oversight. The lack of pedigree of us/them is not an effect of literary neglect; it is a rare piece of natural justice in intellectual matters. The reason why the us/them relation has not yielded sustained critical reflection - or, to anthropomorphize, does not deserve such attention - boils down to the fact that the us/them relation is constituted out of contingencies.

Superficially, us/them seems to share a family resemblance with I/Thou and subject/other. I resembles subject; Thou resembles other. Likewise, is not us a plural form of I/subject and them a plural form of Thou/other? Not quite. Us/them is a plural formulation of interpersonal relations that is inevitably a contingent and relativist version of the opposition between first and third person. Whereas I, Thou, subject and other refer to the ontological categories of socialised humanity; us and them refer to contingent aggregates. This is not the case for I, Thou, subject and other: these terms for interpersonal relations refer to the fundamental units of interpersonal relations: the individual speaker, the individual encountered, the identified individual and the unidentified individual. This small act of reference is ontologically loaded.

Let's take the I/Thou relation first. In its original formulation, by Martin Buber, the I/Thou relation is proposed as part of an argument that "No man is pure person and no man pure individuality". It is only on condition that the Thou is another I (to the Thou) and the I is another Thou (to the Thou) that either is possible or, shall we say, legible. The reversibility of the I-Thou relation is its precondition. There is no I without a Thou, and vice versa; neither I nor Thou without the I/Thou relation. Talking of an I independently of the I/Thou relation cannot be done without an illicit fission (separating the I from that which grounds and constitutes it). What this means, strikingly, is that the I cannot precede or be logically prior to the Thou. What precedes the I is the I/Thou relation. It is in the I/Thou relation that the I is constituted. Or, to put it another way, the priority of the I/Thou relation is the ground of the I. I will develop this idea further in my discussion of us/them below.

Thus: The I/Thou relation is irreducible; I and Thou are the units of socialised humanity (ie I/Thou is not a contingent opposition); the terms I and Thou refer to ontological categories of social being.

What distinguishes the subject/other relation from the I/Thou relation is the former's implied content viz subjectivity (and, contentiously, the possible lack of subjectivity in the subject's other). Because of this, the subject/other relation is, perhaps, not quite so reversible as the I/Thou relation: there remains within the relation a bias towards the subject to the extent that, in the extreme instance, it might be possible that the other is so other to the subject that it has no subjectivity to speak of. Regardless of the pros and cons of the subjectivity implied by subject/other, there is a clear interdependence inscribed into the subject/other relation. Even if the reversal of subject/other is necessarily tied up with hegemony (viz. the subject's privileged relation to the other), the interdependence of the terms is unavoidable. What's more, talking of the subject independently of the subject/other relation performs an illicit fission. It is important to note that the interdependence at the heart of the subject/other relation is not simply an effect of their actual, chance opposition. The opposition between subject and other is constituted by the terms of social being. Indeed, its terms refer to the ontological categories by which encounters of social being take place.

Thus: the subject/other relation is irreducible; etc, etc.

This is not true of the us/them opposition. However, before going on to contrast I/Thou/subject/other with us/them, it is important to point out one feature that they share.

I = Thou; Thou = I; etc

Like the utterances 'here' and 'now', I, Thou, subject, other, us and them are "indicator words." Such words, called 'shifters' by Saussure, also includes, 'he', 'this' 'today' and 'tomorrow'. They are characterized by switching the reference of a term in a particular way: the conditions of reference (who is speaking/writing and to whom or the spatial/temporal circumstances of the utterance) determine their reference. So, if indicator words lack something that is brought in only at the last minute by the speaker or the circumstance, what they lack - reference - seem to return with formidable force. Reference seems to be glued to the utterance by sheer presence: the myth of a transparent legibility. This is, of course, a false impression. Derrida unlocks the misperception by reminding us that "the proper name [and, for my purposes, the personal pronoun in its place] was never possible except through its functioning within a classification and therefore within a system of differences". Once again, the subject/other relation is the odd one out in our list. Its terms are not, strictly speaking, indicator words. They are, in this context, approximations or simulations of indicator words because subject and other are, in Laclau's phrase, 'empty signifiers' . This is the reason why the subject/other relation is only imperfectly - or violently - reversible.

The us/them relation is wholly reversible and this is due to the fact that its terms are indicator words. Hence: us is another them (to them); them is another us (to them). On the face of it, us/them reversibility is symmetrical - an encounter of equivalents. The shift of perspective to them (the shift of reference of the indicator word) seems to do nothing but exchange the terms: us = them; them = us. Perhaps such apparent symmetry indicates that the opposition is a stable one. It is not. Its outward symmetry conceals a surprising bias in its construction.

Both us and them are structured (made possible) by the opposition us/them. Consequently, there is no us without a them and vice versa. It follows that the assertion of an us involves a double operation, asserting the us as a positive identity while, at the same time, invoking a them at that the us requires the them as the horizon of the us. While negating the them - treating the them as a negative term (them = not-us) - the us also makes no sense without the them. In other words, us is not-them while, at the same time, us depends on the them for its own legibility. In classic deconstructive terms: its condition of possibility is also its condition of impossibility. The assertion of us, therefore, is unavoidably unstable; us calls itself into question.

There is no suggestion here that us/them is logically inconsistent or absurd. Us/them is not nonsensical, it is aporetic: its expression inevitably begs the question. At first glance it seems symmetrical, as formulated above, whereby us to them is another them; them to them is another us; or, us = them; them = us. The impasse cannot be shook off as a direct consequence of the opposition's reversibility. In order to derive anything from this impasse, then, we need to consider, more closely than before, the nature of this reversibility.

There is too much clarity to the formula 'every them is an us in its own right'. It can be expressed as the conversion of the negative term (them = not-us) into a positive term (not-us = another us). While this is empirically verifiable (ask 'them' and they will call themselves 'us') it is, nonetheless, ontologically false. The us/them opposition, this formula wants to insist, is constituted out of two positive terms. Let us, then, dub this formulation the positive variant . There is a certain kind of generosity to the positive variant. By granting that every them (to them) is another us, instead of the split between positive and negative, the opposition is reformulated as neither a split nor an opposition. However, even if it is politically or ethically appealing to regard 'them' as a positive term, it is a false and falsifying analysis of the us/them formulation to reformulate us/them as an encounter of two positives. As such, the positive variant restates the aporia without tension. According to the positive variant, the equation us = them does not redescribe the us in its negative form, because them is no longer regarded as negative. So, us = them becomes us = them = us. The positive variant always returns to the us. Reversibility is converted into the inevitability of the positive term.

Thus: in the positive variant us = them; them = us is reformulated, in a second movement, as us = them = us; them = us.

Thus: us = us; them = us.

The inevitability of the positive term in the positive variant of the us/them opposition effectively subtracts the negative term from the opposition - and, as I will argue below, effectively eliminates the opposition from the opposition. Subtracting the negative term from the us/them opposition brings about a false and premature reconciliation between the opposing terms. The cancellation of the negative term deprives the positive term its own conditions of possibility. By cancelling the negative term the positive variant also cancels the grounds of the positive term. In granting them the status of us, therefore, the positive variant gives with one hand and takes with the other. Permitting them to be an us deprives them of the precondition to be an us in the first place. If the them is another us, then the us has no them to define itself against.

This is a counter-intuitive observation. In fact, it may seem that the us can indeed be defined within the positive variant by differentiating it from 'another-us'. One us comes up against another us, then, in much the same way as one apple comes up against another apple, perhaps. As if each us was a positive identity coming up against other positive identities, like objects and other objects. The flaw of such an argument is that the us cannot coherently be used in the third person. Certainly, the us cannot be used in the first and third person at the same time. The positive variant seems to require us to stand amongst every us simultaneously. This is to forget that us and them are 'indicator words'. Them cannot be expressed as (another) us without contravening the performative conditions of us as an utterance. In light of this, perhaps, 'another-us' must be translated as 'their-us'. This means sacrificing the positivity of the positive variant's reformulation of them as another-us. Their-us revives the negativity that the positive variant occludes. If their-us is a good translation of another-us, then the positive variant has little to recommend it.

Inclusion/exclusion; inclusion/inclusion; etc

An example of the subtraction of the negative term of an opposition can be found in the postmodernist formulation of cultural inclusivity. Postmodernists advocating inclusivity take issue with the opposition between the included and the excluded, often formulated in terms of the 'other'. In postmodernist terms, exclusion is negative and negating. What postmodernists object to, I think, is the negative definition of the excluded as not-included. Taking issue with the opposition between the included and the excluded, postmodernists subtract the excluded from the opposition. Postmodernist inclusivity, therefore, if it can be fully realised, amounts to the elimination of exclusion and the infinite extension of inclusion. So, if High Modernism is or was predicated on its exclusions (art defines itself in terms of its exclusion, for instance, of kitsch), postmodernism wilfully emancipates culture from all such exclusions in a horizontal space of inclusions (as well as emancipating culture from erstwhile hierarchies in a field of differences). By predicating itself on inclusion, therefore, postmodernism's reconsideration of that which has been culturally excluded and negated (primarily, the cultures of the excluded: the masses, non-Western peoples, women etc), is made possible by its gesture of subtracting the negative terms of culture's oppositions.

Postmodernism's subtraction of the negative terms of culture's oppositions, of which its principle of inclusivity is a vivid example, is a premature reconciliation of culture's divisions and it is self-defeating. Culture in all its diversity and division is constituted, in postmodernism, entirely out of positive terms. The negative terms of cultural dispute (such as, for instance, the cultural demon of the philistine), are either redescribed in positive terms by postmodernists or else looked upon as false (by and large, for instance, the philistine simply disappears in postmodernist discourse). The postmodernist silence on the philistine is a symptom of its intolerance or blindness to negative cultural forms in the guise of an emancipation from exclusion and hierarchy. Similarly, the split between 'high' and 'low' culture is redescribed in postmodernist discourse by positivising the negative term - treating popular culture on a par with art; regarding commercial cinema as capable of rewarding elaborate and urbane attention; developing complex philosophical ideas in response to theme parks; and so on. That such formerly derogated culture is in fact capable of sustaining serious attention of this sort is not proof that postmodernism's brand of cultural reconciliation is well formulated, any more than the quality of modernist works justifies modernist exclusions.

The postmodernist promise of inclusion is empty. Exclusion is reconciled to inclusion in advance of the transformations of cultural division, social conflict and so forth, which means that the inclusion it 'produces' is inevitably empty. This is because its inclusion is predicated on a positive variant of the opposition between inclusion and exclusion. If we consider the postmodernist treatment of modernist oppositions such as high/low, exclusion/inclusion, and so on, we find that the very precondition of the oppositions is neutralised (postmodernists would no doubt prefer to say 'called into question' or some such). The problem is that the proposed abolition of each opposition is exclusively positive. Postmodernist inclusion is self-defeating because it is opposed to opposition. I want to go further than the weak counter-argument that postmodernists aren't as opposed to opposition as they claim if they are opposed to opposition. Postmodernist inclusivity is incoherent. As an example of what we might dub the positive variant of the formulation of the inclusion/exclusion opposition, postmodernist inclusivity is self-defeating because it positivises the negative term of an opposition that yields both terms.

So, in postmodernism, the inclusion/exclusion opposition is opposed through the policy of escalating inclusion as if inclusion could be made independent of the inclusion/exclusion opposition. Postmodernism proposes a fictional cultural universe constituted of nothing but positive terms. The positive variant of the inclusion/exclusion opposition is therefore based on the false assumption that exclusion can be eradicated through the process of inclusion. This is impossible for the simple reason that inclusion is not independent of the inclusion/exclusion opposition. Hence, exclusion cannot be converted into positive currency by including what is excluded; inclusion cannot signify without the inclusion/exclusion opposition that grounds it.

The Negative Variant

In what way can the negative variant of the formulation of an opposition overcome the self-defeating premature reconciliation of the positive variant? Should we not beware of the conservative potential of the negative variant simply to reinstate the terms of an opposition? On the face of it, the negative variant does not look promising: it is merely the same terms as the self-defeating positive variant inverted. To return to the case of the us/them opposition, instead of the formulation 'each them is also an us', the negative variant states 'each us is also a them'. We are not faced with the original terms of the opposition; a shift in the terms similar to the positive variant that 'emancipates' us from the opposition takes place, except that the transformation is negative. What could possibly be gained by depriving the us of its positive identity that cannot be achieved by subtracting the negative identity from the them?

The negative term of an opposition often takes the full weight of the opposition, while the positive term gets off scot free. It is as if the split between the two terms is carried only by the negative term. Such asymmetry is only to be expected within the limited ontology of positivism and identity thinking. To insist, on the contrary, that the us is also a them (to give stress to the negative) is to raise the opposition as a determinate ontological ground (characterised by real negation and split) for both us and them. There is,therefore, a profound and tangible advantage to stating that every us is also a them rather than stressing that every them is also an us: the opposition which grounds the two terms is not lost once we turn our attention to the terms individually. The key, therefore, to the difference between the positive and negative formulations of an opposition is that the former is in opposition to the opposition whereas the latter articulates the opposition of opposition. Indeed, the negative variant of the opposition underscores the opposition and prevents the positive term from assuming independence from the opposition.

This is one reason why it remains preferable to talk about 'gender' rather than, say, 'the battle of the sexes': the former is not only more discursive and therefore as constructed (resisting the naturalised terms of the latter); it also treats masculinity and femininity as constructed in opposition to one another. As such, strictly speaking, the two terms of this opposition, masculinity and femininity, cannot be addressed separately, if by that we mean that they have their own positive individual identities independently of the opposition that constructs them. It should be noted here that what recommends 'gender' goes beyond the fact that it is discursive. The point is not to abandon the ontological for the cultural on the basis that this constitutes a resistance to the naturalised opposition, as if regarding gender opposition as real is to submit to it. No, what recommends 'gender' in this context is that it grounds each term in the opposition that yields them and does so without positivising either term.

If, historically, the term 'man' had been denoted as the positive term and the term 'woman' as the negative, the reference to gender as the oppositional ground of each has the happy consequence of preventing either from being understood without its partner. In other words, 'gender' negativises the terms that are yielded by its opposition. We could go so far as to say that within the discourse of 'gender' we can see that each term carries the opposition within itself insofar as it remains opposed to the other. Hence, no matter what you say about masculinity, or the discourse of the masculine, it is haunted by its opposition to femininity. And vice versa. Now, this is a happy consequence because the call to treat masculinity and femininity as historical, social, cultural, transformable categories is backed up at the ontological level, not merely the methodological one - viz the ground that yields the terms of the opposition is articulated by 'gender' discourse as the condition of either and therefore treats masculinity and femininity as categories of 'gender', which are not merely relativised but negativised by reference to the split in human being. As such, masculinity cannot be regarded as the positive term of the opposition because it cannot be understood outside of the split 'gender' names.

Preventing the positivisation of the terms of an opposition (more commonly, of privileging one of its terms by conferring positivity onto it), is vital to overcoming the self-defeating premature reconciliation of opposition such as that found in postmodernism and the positive variant of the us/them opposition. It is not enough, however, to prevent the terms of an opposition from positivisation by regarding them as neutral. This is what happens in much discourse theory, which often manages to relativise the terms of oppositions without fully granting them their negativity. To insist that the us is also a them, rather than the other way round, goes beyond the neutralisation of the terms of the opposition by honing in on the positive term and redescribing it in its negative form. This raises the opposition as the ground for both us and them within the positive term itself. The negative variant, therefore, is not best understood simply as 'more negative', as it were; it is, in fact, more oppositional. Indeed, the negative variant could be dubbed the oppositional variant of the opposition.

The us/them opposition produces a field in which appropriate cases are divided into one or other of the categories of the opposition. If, hypothetically, the world is more diverse, rich and varied than this binary admits, then the split between us and them is violating. Following this, both us and them violate us and them as well as everyone in between or everyone beyond its horizon. Nothing can be gained, therefore, by positivising or actualising one or both of its terms. Formulating the us/them opposition positively by redescribing its negative term, them, in its positive form, as another-us, falsely drains the opposition of opposition. In doing so, the terms of the opposition are in turn drained of the opposition that yields them so that they falsely appear to have an independent, positive identity. This remains the case with a discursive formulation of the opposition that redescribes the terms of the opposition in neutral form. The great advantage, therefore, of formulating an opposition according to its negative variant is that its individual terms register the opposition that yields them, integrating the negativity of non-self-identity into the identity of each term.

Us/them is a trivial opposition because both its terms are characterised by contingency. This is starkly evident in the them, which is constituted entirely negatively: them is nothing but not-us. In the absence of an ontologically substantive category to which the us might correspond, however, the us is also contingent. In other words, us can correspond to an ontological group if it is used as shorthand, but it is not itself an ontologically substantive category. Us, as the positive term of the opposition, produces the fiction of a positive identity or positive entity to which it ostensibly corresponds. Us, thereby, conceals its radical contingency more efficiently and effectively than the them. As a contingent category dependent on the constitution of the us, the them can never be identical with itself: them does not equal them. At the same time, it is a mistake to think that the negative formulation of the them is confirmation of the positive identity of the us: the formulation does not turn on the identity us = us any more than it turns on the identity them = them.

On the contrary: them = not-us; us = not-them.