To Join in Hate

Abstract

This chapter unpacks the intimate connection between mourning and activist politics of (violent and nonviolent) direct action, in part by examining recent appropriations of Antigone within agonist political theory. Insofar as mourning is approached under the image of resistant, Antigone-like voices, it fits snugly within an agonistic framework for political life. Although agonism is a diverse gathering of different voices, on the whole agonists advance a view of politics as a matter of endless contestation without the prospect of final settlement or consensus. Agonists do not necessarily romanticize conflict nor neglect the possibility of extreme violence, but their goal is not to resolve political antagonisms so much to shift them toward a less violent, if still contentious, agonism. However, it is also argued that the agonist appropriation of Antigone risks losing touch with the complexity of her mourning claims and the complexity of mourning itself. The chapter tries to restore some of this complexity by reading Antigone from the perspective of Melanie Klein's theory of mourning and what has been defined as the democratic work of mourning in Chapter 1.