An essay on language.

I wrote this essay for my theory module at the university of plymouth.

To what extent does language play a role in contemporary international relations?

The essay has a linear argument tracing language as a body of knowledge onto the power/knowledge relationship; this is brought into play and made important via language’s relationship to reality. The argument of language’s relationship to reality merits a discussion of ideology, hegemony and struggle, which are closely interlinked. This is all for the effect of showing the role language plays in international relations. Language is the very framework for our understanding and in this essay it is understood in its most basic components as a semiotic system, or a system of signification with an ever present emphasis on social practise. Contemporary international relations is assumed to be the outcome of an amalgamation of individual actors, their beliefs and values, institutions, regimes and differing social structures. Additionally, international relations can only be understood, interpreted and represented through language, in this way, language plays a chief role in international relations and the elucidation of its mechanisms is key.

When considering language as knowledge we understand this to be the shared ideas or norms of an actor, therefore knowledge relates to the broader linguistic structure within which it is embedded. Constructivism assumes actors are social, that ‘identities and interests… are constructed by these shared ideas’ (Wendt 1999:1). Thus, Wendt assumes language as the bedrock of identity. Importantly it can ‘frame international situations’ (Wendt 1999:141), acting as a perspective and is ‘any belief an actor takes to be true’ (Wendt 1999:140). In international relations, every actor’s identity is constituted within a linguistic structure shaped on the knowledge that they take to be true. What cannot be emphasised enough is that the knowledge of actors, their values and beliefs are assumed to be real, and so they act on them with conviction. This can explain the willingness of International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists to make policy prescriptions through their ‘“one size fits all” approach’, because they believed in their methods (Stiglitz 2002:34-35).

For Foucault there is an issue with this neutral status of knowledge, ‘power and knowledge directly imply one another’ (Foucault 1979:27), concerning actors, ‘it is transmitted by them and through them; it exerts pressure upon them’ (Foucault 1979:27).

Mcnay (1994:99) clarifies this articulation of biopower, the power/knowledge relationship as it is channelled through bodies ‘is fundamentally normalizing and regulatory’. For instance, the United Kingdom is both a subject and advocate of human rights regimes, for one of many examples of this see the European Human Rights convention (European Court of Human Rights 2010). Another example resides in the insight of Stiglitz (2002:34) and the discourses mobilizing the IMF’s ‘lack of detailed knowledge’ in making policy, mentioned in the previous paragraph. The relevance of believing these discursive regimes was recognised by Foucault, saying, ‘even the word of the law could no longer be authorised…except by a discourse of truth’ (trans. of Foucault 1979, by R. Young 1981:55 cited in Mcnay 1994:86). The belief in a discourse and its normality is an important dimension to knowledge, both legitimating and maintaining the power in knowledge mobilization and the social regulation of subjects in the wider context of international relations. This would suggest no ‘distribution of knowledge’ or ‘identity’ is neutral but is the product and the producer of ideational power relations. The importance of this power/knowledge relationship in conjunction with its normalizing and regulatory function becomes apparent when we consider the restriction of ontology on epistemology.

When actors talk, they wish their language reflects actual material reality (The Real). This seems an almost commonsensical notion, we want to describe what we see and what we feel, etcetera. We can only do this, however, through systems of signification and are ultimately torn from the Real by our inability to experience it before signification. There is a drive, Lacanian Desire, in that systems of signification are repeated ‘attempts to colonize and domesticate the real with reality, to represent the real in discourse’ (Glynos & Stavrakakis 2004:205). If the real is an objective state that we attempt to conceive of subjectively, through language, then all reality construction involves reifying categories for the purpose of truth, to somehow make it fit. However, truth and language are entangled by ontology and it is the structure of the discursive system that limits what we communicate, think and know. As Glynos puts it, there is an ‘epistemological barrier’ but ‘this barrier is ontologically constitutive’ (Glynos & Stavrakakis 2004:204). As an example of this we could understand the conflict between the West and Islamic fundamentalists as a conflict of ontology/reality. After all, freedom is closely associated, if not synonymous, with democracy and markets (for a view that propounds this explicitly, see, Fukuyama 1992), but for Sayyid Qutb democratic freedom is a ‘servitude of servants’ (Bergesen 2008:23). Ontology has the ‘potential for an infinite production of meaning’ (Mcnay 1994:86), allowing it to constitute new knowledge and practice. The validity of knowledge would be exclusive to reality rather than to the Real, it can only be verified with reference to many other signifiers. So, with the Real and reality as ‘axiomatically unbridgeable’ states (Glynos & Stavrakakis 2004:205) reality construction becomes an a priori power relation. Thus, it makes sense to omit a line from Barthes that reads ‘in the present state of history…’, and instead only acknowledge that: ‘all political writing can only confirm a police-universe, just as all intellectual writing can only produce para-literature which does not dare…tell its name’ (Barthes quoted in Marcuse 1964:84). This lays the foundations for considering language as the site of hegemony, ideology and struggle.

Hegemony, for this essay, is the state of fixed meaning in its totality, an ontological consensus, or ‘an exhaustive representation’ (Glynos & Stavrakakis 2004:204) but as has been discussed, we cannot know the Real, only attempt to make sense of it through signification. It is because ‘discourse is in a constant state of tension’ (Glnos & Stavrakakis 2004:204) by virtue of its impossibility ‘to reach an exhaustive representation of the world’ (Glynos & Stavrakakis 2004:204) that the concept of hegemony is more a theoretical potential, or ontological mistake, there is not and never will be total consensus. If this is true, ideology should be the analytical level where the centrifugal state of hegemony is played out. Ideology is a system of ideas with some semblance of semiotic closure, thus we can attribute the concept of knowledge an ideological flavour. It has the effect of ‘fixing the… process of signification’ (Eagleton 1991:196), but still, with recourse to the ‘unbridgeable’ Real (Glynos & Stavrakakis 2004:205), ‘ideology is always a field of struggle’ (Zizek 2009:37). Examples of this have already been given: IMF policy, European human rights and democratic freedom; these are all ideological constructions, none have total consensus. Our drive to ‘colonize and domesticate the real with reality’ (Glynos & Stavrakakis 2004:205), becomes the practice of ‘hegemonization’: an attempt to ‘fix the meaning of social relations’ (Critchely 2004:113) through language. The drive towards semiotic ‘closure’ (Eagleton 1991:196), is therefore inscribed into the logics of language. An interesting parallel exists with Marcuse’s operationalization: ‘to make the concept synonymous with the…operations’ (1964:86) for the effect that ‘thought is stopped at barriers which appear as the limits of Reason itself’ (1964:14). Thus ideology as a state of fixed meaning has the effect of abridging other meanings and ways of thinking. (One should self-consciously refer back to the divergence of ontology between Qutb and Fukuyama.) Humorously, UK national security strategy highlights ‘ideology as a driver of instability’ best tackled by a commitment to promote ‘justice, tolerance and the rule of law’ (Cabinet Office 2009:13) while they, the UK government are an open champion of the ‘liberal, market-oriented vision of a free society’ (Cabinet Office 2009:8). Indeed, the ‘denial of ideology only provides the ultimate proof that we are more than ever embedded in ideology’ and that as ‘ideology is blind’ (Zizek 2009:37) -ontologically, of any other reality- so too is knowledge blind. This has strong implications for language, and international relations, if is to be meaningful, language must have some semiotic closure, thus reality (the linguistic construction of the real) is an ideological construction. The closure in this essay therefore implicates the role of language as necessarily ideological, exclusionary, regulative and thought-abridging. In international relations, the question becomes magnified. It is not, where is ideology, or, what is ideology, but, which ideology? What is excluded; what regimes are upon our bodies; what thoughts are omitted?

In conclusion and tracing the argument, the system of language aptly accounts for our cultural proclivities, providing a foundation for our knowledge, which in turn provides an identity that is acted upon. Belief in this knowledge is an important dimension, and through the power/knowledge relationship we see how language has a regulative function on the body, but also, that identity and knowledge are not neutral. This point is reinforced when we consider how language cannot reflect the Real, but must constitute itself a reality through which it perceives the Real. This brings us to the relevance of ontology on our knowledge claims, and we see, due to the separation of the Real from reality, ontology defines the extent and validity of what we can know. With these points in mind, language and representation in international relations must construct itself with some closure to be communicative; the effect is that reality construction is ideological and so necessarily regulative, exclusionary and thought-abridging.

Word Count: 1555

The references will follow.

However let me take a moment to continue. This essay is essentially asking us to forgive our constant fear of 'ideology' and accept that ideology is the very basis for reality construction - to be, is to be: ideological. We cannot stray far from that, this is the very logic of langauge. However, contentions do exist for me.

The essay treats humans as merely textual objects, caught up in a web of signification, willing to signify. Yet this very approach, that ontology defines epistemology, is a false dichotomy - if Derrida taught us anything, it is suspision of binary opposites; who serve to obfuscate thinking. Epistemolgy, our knowledge is certainly largely down to ontology (our symbolic categories - if you will) yet it misses the very state of humans - we are not pure textual beings. We have a rich adaptive history in biology and neurology that suggests more than text. Additionally, look to animals who differetiate between objects in the Lacanian real. How is it that this is done? We are forced to contemplate them having a textual base, or that there is something more. I have no concluding thoughts yet.

When we mix these two ideas, the neccessity of ideology in reality and the potential for a non-textual (perhaps neuro-biological) infuence, then the questions remains whether an ideology can have positive effects on the human condition, something akin to the ideas of Liberal thought, or the Hegelian master/slave dialectic. And what of the laws of thermodynamics, for there is much evidence that even in signification, that things tend towards entropy (chaos/disorder) - does this make us all the hegemon!? Perhaps we shall fixate ourselves with these 'progressive' ideas of 'purpose' and nobility, or we admit that living life 'confirms a police-universe'. Which police-universe, then, should we allow? And how can we answer, considering any attempt to give one will be reliant on our current normative concepts and ideas, it will be constructed from our already active ideas of truth, justice and right and wrong. Thus, we judge our future through thier past, and it is difficult to do otherwise.

References:

Bergesen, A. J. The Sayyid Qutb Reader, selected writings on politics religion and society, 2008, UK, Routledge

Cabinet Office (2009) The National Security Strategy of the United Kingdom: update 2009, Security for the next generation, Available at,

http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm75/7590/7590.pdf (Accessed: 21/02/2011, 12:00)

Critchley, S. (2004) ‘Is there a normative deficit in the theory of hegemony’, in Critchley, S & Marchart, O. (eds) Laclau: a critical reader, New York, Routledge, pp. 113-123

Eagleton, T. (1991) Ideology: an introduction, Finland, Verso

European Court of Human Rights (2010) Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Available at, http://www.echr.coe.int/NR/rdonlyres/D5CC24A7-DC13-4318-B457-5C9014916D7A/0/ENG_CONV.pdf (Accessed: 29/01/2011 15:00)

Foucault, M. (1975), Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison, trans by, Alan Sheridan (1977), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, UK, Peregrine Books

Foucault, M. (1981) The order of discourse, trans. of ‘L’ordre du discourse’ (1979) by Young, R. in, Mcnay, L. (1994) ‘Foucault: A Critical Introduction’, Cornwall, Polity Press

Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last Man, England, Penguin books

Glynos & Stavrakakis (2004) ‘Encounters of the real kind: sussing out the limits of Laclau’s embrace of Lacan’, in Critchley, S & Marchart, O. (eds), Laclau: a critical reader, New York, Routledge, pp. 201-217

Marcuse, H. (1964) One Dimensional Man, Reading, ARK

Mcnay, L. (1994) Foucault: A Critical Introduction, Cornwall, Polity Press

Stiglitz, J. (2002) Globalization and its discontents, Great Britain, Penguin Books

Wendt, A. (1999) Social theory of international politics, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press

Zizek, S. (2009) First as tragedy then as farce, US, Verso