‘When I Was Young and Politically Engaged...’: Lefort on the Problem of Political Commitment

Abstract

This article attempts to reconstruct a Lefortian account of the phenomenon of political commitment. In a democracy, the gap between the subject of commitment and its object, the domain of politics, is unavoidable. The result is an attitude towards political causes characterized by a two-way movement between an engaged perspective and a more distant, realist perspective. Although the contrast between these two perspectives is disenchanting, we, as democratic citizens, nevertheless have an obligation to hold on to both perspectives simultaneously. Justification of this claim will rely upon a rereading of several key texts by Lefort, such as ‘La politique et la pensée de la politique’ (1963) and Un Homme en trop (1976), in which Lefort analyses the attitudes of his contemporaries toward the Algerian cause and the Soviet regime. This study also sheds new light on the rational impetus behind Lefort's break with Socialisme ou Barbarie and his gradual progression towards a philosophy of democracy.