The Politics of Misrecognition

Majid Yar, Simon Thompson, Simon Thompson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317020349
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The past several decades have seen the emergence of a vigorous ongoing debate about the 'politics of recognition'. The initial impetus was provided by the reflections of Charles Taylor and others about the rights to cultural recognition of historically marginalized groups in Western societies. Since then, the parameters of the debate have considerably broadened. However, while debates about the politics of recognition have yielded significant theoretical insights into recognition, its logical and necessary counterpart, misrecognition, has been relatively neglected. 'The Politics of Misrecognition' is the most meticulous reflection to date on the importance of misrecognition for the understandings of our political and personal experience. A team of leading experts from a range of disciplines, including philosophy, political theory, sociology, psychoanalysis, history, moral economy and criminology present different theoretical frameworks in which the politics of misrecognition may be understood. They apply these frameworks to a wide variety of contexts, including those of class identity, disability, slavery, criminal victimization and domestic abuse. In this way, the book provides an essential resource for anyone interested in the dynamics of misrecognition and their implications for the development of political and social theory.

Chapter 1
Misrecognition and Ambivalence

Simon Thompson and Paul Hoggett

Introduction

There are circumstances in which good reasons to recognize do not lead to practical acts of recognition. At an individual level, although I may know that I should recognize you, I nevertheless fail to do so. For instance, in spite of my awareness that you have a strong claim on me to care for you, I do not provide you with that care. When you are ill in hospital, I may find excuses not to visit you. Or, at a collective level, one group accepts that another should enjoy a particular right which they do not currently possess, and yet it does not take the action necessary to secure the other that right. In an interesting and important range of cases, good reasons for recognition may be outweighed by other factors, so that one party does not give the other party the acknowledgment it deserves. These failures of recognition, we would suggest, can be understand as instances of misrecognition. Our aim in this chapter is to examine certain reasons for such misrecognition. We are guided by the hope that, if the reasons for such failures of recognition are better understood, then it will be possible more effectively to identify the conditions necessary for success. In other words, such an understanding will make it easier to specify the circumstances in which having good reasons for recognition leads to recognition in practice.1

There are, of course, various types of reasons for such failures of recognition. One type of reason is simple ignorance. I may not offer to care for you since I do not know that you are in need of such care. Perhaps because you are ashamed to admit your dependency, you may not be able clearly to articulate your needs to me. But, if you did so, then I would offer you the appropriate care. Another type of reason for misrecognition is self-interest. One group may know that another deserves its recognition, but, since granting such recognition would disadvantage that group, it fails to do so. If the first group did not stand to lose something by recognizing the deserving other, then it would readily provide it with the appropriate acknowledgement. In this chapter, we put aside these first two sorts of reasons for misrecognition in order to focus on a third. This sort of reason is to be explained by reference to what may loosely be called ‘psychological’ factors. Here it is the psychic capacities of individuals and groups which inhibit their ability to give others the recognition that is their due. In order to understand this sort of reason for misrecognition, we shall refer to the work of a number of psychoanalytical thinkers, including Freud, Klein, Winnicott and Bion. Drawing on their work, we place the notion of ambivalence at the heart of our account of the psychological reasons for misrecognition. Ambivalence, according to our interpretation, is to be understood as the constant conjunction of conflicting affects which a subject has toward its object. To take the prototypical case, against a sentimentalized idea of love, an appreciation of ambivalence would enable us to accept that the mother simultaneously loves and hates her child. Put in these terms, then, our central thesis is that the idea of affective ambivalence can provide the basis for an explanation of an important type of reason for misrecognition. If this is right, then it follows that an appreciation of the significance of such ambivalence will make it possible to spell out the circumstances in which psychological factors do not present obstacles to recognition.

It was noted in the introduction to this book that different accounts of recognition give different reasons for recognition. For Nancy Fraser, there is good reason to recognize people who are unable to participate on a par with their peers since they lack the necessary social standing. The practical task in this case is to overcome the inequalities of status, such as those which result from sexism and racism, in order to secure parity of participation (Fraser 2003). On Charles Taylor’s account, people have good reason to be recognized if their capacity for rational autonomy or their capacity to create a distinctive identity cannot be exercised. Here what is needed is to guarantee all individuals’ basic rights and to give each group a fair opportunity to defend its cultural identity (Taylor 1995). According to Axel Honneth, people ought to be recognized if they need to be cared for by their significant others, or if their fundamental rights are denied, or if the value of their way of life is overlooked. Recognition, in this case, requires the sustenance of a web of relations of care, the maintenance of a system of individual rights, and the preservation of a horizon of value in which contributions to societal goals can be appropriately valued (Honneth 1995).

In this chapter, without denying that Fraser and Taylor – and many others – have valuable insights to offer, we shall take Honneth’s account of recognition as the springboard from which our argument will be launched. As we have just mentioned, Honneth identifies three forms of recognition: we love our significant others by responding appropriately to their concrete needs; we respect all others by obeying the laws which treat them as rationally autonomous agents; and we esteem particular others by endorsing a set of values which enable the contributions that they make to shared goals to be duly acknowledged. The first mode of recognition, which has a special place in Honneth’s account, is of greatest importance for our argument here. He contends that love is the first mode of recognition in the sense that it is ‘conceptually and genetically prior’ to respect and esteem (ibid.: 107). It is conceptually prior since it provides the basis for our understanding of the other two modes of recognition, and it is genetically prior since individuals must first be able to love if they are then to be able to respect and esteem others. As Honneth says, love is the ‘basic requisite’ for the other modes of recognition (ibid.: 176).2 Since Honneth’s account of love as recognition draws on object-relations psychoanalysis, it provides a very suitable basis for our own argument. Also drawing on psychoanalytical sources, we aim to show that his account needs to be supplemented by our idea of affective ambivalence. Although Honneth is aware that there is a struggle for recognition even in the intimate relations between significant others, we believe that he underestimates the role which affective ambivalence plays in all types of relations of recognition.

Given that our declared aim is to bring a psychoanalytical perspective to bear on the issue of misrecognition, it may seem odd for us to begin our argument with a discussion of Aristotle. We do so in the following section since his account of akrasia, which can be translated as incontinence, weakness of the will or lack of self-mastery, provides an interesting and important way of explaining why someone who knows what it is right to do may nevertheless fail to do it. Then, by pointing out the limitations of Aristotle’s explanation of akrasia, we begin to make the case for a psychoanalytically inspired explanation, one which centres on the idea that the self is permanently divided against itself. With this account in mind, we go on to discuss each of Honneth’s three modes of recognition in turn. In each case, we suggest how certain affective forces may derail recognition, and we also suggest how it may be possible for them not to do so. To put it in the briefest possible terms, we contend that for love to succeed hatred must be thwarted, for respect to be shown narcissism must be conquered, and for esteem to be expressed envy must be overcome. Our conclusion is that for recognition to succeed, the ambivalence of affect must be taken into account. Our argument will be that by doing so, it will be possible to transform and utilize the energy of negative affects so that misrecognition can be overcome.

The Problem of Akrasia

Aristotle, in Book 7 of the Nicomachean Ethics, is the first philosopher to conduct a systematic investigation into the problem of akrasia. On his account, although the akratic individual knows what it is right to do, he nevertheless fails to do it. In his analysis of this phenomenon, Aristotle is in part responding to Socrates who famously denied the possibility of akrasia. In Plato’s Protagoras, he states that no-one ‘who either knows or believes that there is another possible course of action, better than the one he is following, will ever continue on his present course’ (358 b.c.). Aristotle suggests that this view ‘plainly contradicts the observed facts’ (Ethics, VII, 2), and, since he wishes to stick as closely as he can to as many of these facts as possible, he is determined to investigate the phenomenon of akrasia more closely.3

In his analysis, Aristotle is strongly influenced by Plato’s division of the psyche into three parts – namely, reason, emotion (or spirit) and appetite. Using this tripartite division, he suggests that akrasia occurs when reason is derailed either by emotion or appetite, and he makes particular reference to the emotion of anger and the desire for pleasure as factors which may cause a man to fail to do what he knows is right. On the emotions, he declares that ‘there is a sort of man … whom passion masters so that he does not act according to the right rule’ (Ethics, VII, 8). So far as appetite is concerned, he states that ‘the incontinent man fails to abide by the rule because he delights too much in [bodily things]’ (Ethics, VII, 9). In addition, Aristotle makes a further distinction between the weak and the impetuous man. Although the weak man exercises his reason in order to determine what it is right to do, he nevertheless acts wrongly. The impetuous man, by contrast, fails to deliberate at all, and so acts wrongly since he is guided by his impulses rather than by considered reason. This man will probably experience regret if, after his hasty action, he deliberates about what he should have done. As Aristotle says, ‘the incontinent man is likely to repent’ (Ethics, VII, 8).

Given this analysis, Aristotle thinks that the nature of the problem is clear: akrasia is the result of a lack of virtue. Such a lack means that reason can be overwhelmed by appetite or emotion. In the virtuous man, by contrast, the three parts of the psyche are in the correct alignment. In particular, since reason is the master of both appetite and emotion, we can say that such a man is master of himself. Aristotle suggests that this man will possess phronesis – practical wisdom – and so cannot be akratic: ‘Nor can the same man have practical wisdom and be incontinent; for it has been shown that a man is at the same time practically wise, and good in respect of character. Further, a man has practical wisdom not by knowing only but by being able to act’ (Ethics, VII, 9). In other words, a practically wise man not only knows what it is right to do, but also has the qualities of character needed in order to be able to act on this knowledge.

Does Aristotle’s analysis help us in our current inquiry? Can it explain why one party may fail to recognize another, despite knowing that it has good reason to do so? To begin with those instances in which reason is derailed by appetite, we may think of a range of cases in which the failure to give appropriate acknowledgement to another is rooted in self-interest. As we suggested above, one party may fail to recognize another since it is not to their advantage to do so. For instance, to recognize you might require me to accept your right to political representation; but it could follow that if you are granted that right, my own influence over the political process is diminished. Or, in order to recognize you, it may be necessary for me to endorse a set of values which ensure that your contribution to societal goals is appropriately valued; but, as a result, I could feel that my own contribution is less highly valued.4 Or, finally, to recognize you it may be appropriate for me to be responsive to your expression of your needs; but, if I do so, I may be less able to attend to my own needs. It would appear that these cases fall into Aristotle’s category of akrasia as a result of appetite. That is to say, I fail to recognize you although reason dictates that I should, since to do so would require me to deny myself something that I want. As we have said, however, for the purposes of our current argument we are going to put aside failures of recognition which are rooted in reasons of self-interest.

If we turn now to those instances in which reason is blown off course by emotion, we can think of a range of cases in which one party’s failure to give the other appropriate acknowledgement is caused by the action of certain affects. Indeed, it is precisely this range of cases which is of interest to us in this chapter. To take one of Aristotle’s own examples, we think he is right to suggest that anger may prevent one party from acting justly to another. For instance, if I make the over-hasty judgement that you have insulted me, I may seek revenge. On reflection, however, I may come to realize that what appeared to be an unwarranted insult was in fact a painful but important truth about me which you sincerely thought I needed to hear. To take a more overtly political example, an angry mob might spray-paint ‘paedo’ on the front door of a house of a person it believes to be a paedophile, only to realize later on that she is in fact a paediatrician.5 It is important to note, however, that Aristotle does not endorse a simple account of the relationship between reason and emotion in which reason, which can be entirely without affect, can and should master affect, which is utterly without reason. In particular, he emphasizes that affective states can have cognitive content. For example, he defines anger as the ‘desire, accompanied by pain, for revenge for an obvious belittlement of oneself or one of one’s dependants, the belittlement being uncalled for’ (Rhetoric, II, 2: 1378a 31-3). It follows anger can be the appropriate response to our having being unfairly insulted by another.6 Our argument in this chapter, then, can be seen as an extension of this aspect of Aristotle’s thesis.7

Having said this, however, we disagree with Aristotle’s proviso that our experience of an emotion such as anger should never be so strong as to overwhelm our reason. He makes this proviso since he believes that only if reason ultimately remains the ruler of the emotions, can the self remain its own master. For us, in sharp contrast, such self-mastery is an impossibility since the self is never completely at home; it is always to some extent divided against itself. It is as this point, then, that we turn from Aristotle’s account of a unified self, to Freud’s account in which the self is always in conflict with itself. While Aristotle believes that a man can be his own master, Freud denies that the ego can ever be master in its own house (Freud 1923). Against Aristotle’s suggestion that the three elements of the soul can be brought into harmony, Freud is adamant that the absence of inner harmony is central to the human condition. Thus, in Freud’s scheme, the ego is constantly having to mediate between the demands of the id (which bears some comparison to Aristotle’s ‘appetite for pleasure’ and raging anger) and the super-ego (which is absent from Aristotle’s system, since, for him, it makes no sense to think that what is right and what is conventionally correct could come apart). This is illustrated in many of Freud’s early cases. In Dora’s case, for example, she finds herself caught between an awakening sexuality, aroused in part by an older seducer, and a conscience for which such thoughts and feelings were impermissible (Freud 1905). As it has evolved, psychoanalysis has taken Freud’s view of the decentred nature of subjectivity still further. Nowadays psychoanalysts speak in terms of ‘different parts of the self’ engaged in complex relations with each other (Bollas 1987: 1-2). Indeed, these parts of the self can also be projected into others via projective identification, so that a part of the self becomes located in another person, group or ideal as, for example, when we attribute competitiveness to our colleagues rather than acknowledge it in ourselves.

Building on this account of the divided self, it is important for our current thesis to emphasize that, for Freud, the psyche is founded on contradictory affects. As we put it earlier on, the self experiences a constant conjunction of conflicting affects toward its object. For the early Freud, the battle was between love and hate. For the later Freud, the conflict was between Eros, a unifying life force, and Thanatos, its opposite. After Freud, Klein argued that the principal line of conflict was between envy and gratitude. Psychoanalysis has itself struggled to overcome a dualistic theory of the psyche in which ambivalence is construed in terms of a ‘nondialectical opposition’ (Laplanche and Pontalis 1973: 28). Contemporary theory prefers to see this psychic tension less in terms of a binary opposition and more in terms of a tension which can be held or contained. In Kleinian theory this is what differentiates two fundamentally different ‘states of mind’. In the pre-ambivalent state the tension is dealt with by splitting objects of love from objects of hate, whereas in the depressive position the connections between love and hate, the loved and the hated, negative and positive, can be more easily tolerated. In the rest of this chapter, then, our aim is to show how the inability to contain ambivalence can help to explain why certain failures of recognition may occur. To be specific, we shall demonstrate that the profound ambivalence that we have to others can prevent us giving them the love, respect and esteem that is their due. At the same time, however, we also want to show how, by facing up to such ambivalence, the power of negative affect can be harnessed in the service of recognition.

Love and Hate

As we said in the introduction to this chapter, love has a special place in Honneth’s account of recognition. Indeed it is in a sense the primary mode of recognition since, without it, respect and esteem are impossible. If individuals are loved and cared for by their significant others, then they are able to develop the basic self-confidence which forms the basis of their ability to respect and esteem other people. However, we believe that there is a over-simple develop...