This essay by Alain Badiou is one of the places where he speak directly on political issues. We post this to encourage exploration and debate. Kasama includes earlier discussion of Badiou’s work.
Embedded within this essay are Badiou’s comments on Negri’s book empire — on questions of whether revolutionary change emerges from the evolution of longstanding structural conflicts or the eruption of conjunctural events.
In the process, Badiou suggests that revolutionaries must reconceive the question of how social forces serve as vehicles for change — touching on both the Marxist view of the proletariat and the Leninist view of the party.
Alain Badiou gave this interview when he attended the “Is a History of the Cultural Revolution Possible?” conference at University of Washington, in February, 2006.
Q: I’d like to ask you about your political and intellectual trajectory from the mid 60s until today. How have your views about revolutionary politics, Marxism, and Maoism changed since then?
Badiou: During the first years of my political activity, there were two fundamental events. The first was the fight against the colonial war in Algeria at the end of the 50s and the beginning of the 60s. I learned during this fight that political conviction is not a question of numbers, of majority. Because at the beginning of the Algerian war, we were really very few against the war. It was a lesson for me; you have to do something when you think it’s a necessity, when it’s right, without caring about the numbers.
Kasama 