A More Dicult, Less Inspiring Bakhtin

Michael Eskin
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Columbia University
Ken Hirschkop, Mikhail Bakhtin: An Aesthetic for Democracy. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, . xx + pp.
Ken Hirschkops stuo, intervenes in Bakhtin scholarship at a moment of
intense reassessment ano revaluationof the signicance, originalit,, ano
sociopolitical relevance of Bakhtins oeuvre, as vell as of its critical recep-
tion over the last tvo oecaoes.
1
Hirschkop attempts to oisplace vhat he per-
ceives to be overtl, tenoentious trenos in Bakhtin stuoies, vhich have left
us not vith a knovleoge of his vork, but vith a series of Bakhtin-gures
or totems, each equall, ambitious, equall, insightful, equall, oogmatic,
ano absolutel, oierent fromever, other gure vii,. Divioing these trenos
summaril, anopolemicall, into the Russian-religious anothe American-
liberal ,, the author, vho lives ano teaches in the Uniteo Kingoom, takes
exception to critics presumabl, facile unoerstanoing of Bakhtins inquiries
into oialogue. Ior the religiousl, guioeo interpretations of Bakhtin nov
current but b, no means exclusive, in Russia oialogue is enooveo vith re-
oemptive force . . . insofar as the mooel for all such interchange is conver-
sation in the form of pra,er ano confession, vith the oivine Himself 6,,
2
:. See for instance Hitchcock :qq8; Foole :qq8; Eskin .ooo: 66:.q; Tihanov .ooo. Begin-
ning vith ulia Kristevas grounobreaking if misguioeo, essa,, Bakhtine, le mot, le oialogue
et le roman originall, publisheo in :q6 ano reprinteo in Kristeva :q6q: 8.::.,, Bakhtin
ano his vorks have steaoil, been gaining visibilit, vithin the international critical commu-
nit,.
.. Hirschkop here thinks of such scholars as N. K. Bonnetskaia, L. A. Gogotishvili, |ano|
I. L. Fopova . . . to name the most interesting ano rigorous of Bakhtins religious inter-
Poetics Today .:. Summer .oo.,. Cop,right .oo. b, the Forter Institute for Foetics ano
Semiotics.
352 Poetics Today 23:2
vhile for the sociopoliticall, orienteo American take on Bakhtin the linea-
ments of the ioeal conversation impl, norms for the conouct of social life
|ano| serve as mooels for a oesirable political ano ethical communit, 8,.
3
Alleging to steer clear of the Sc,lla of religiosit, ano the Char,bois of
moralism ano normativism of an, color,, Hirschkop enoeavors to present
us vith a more technical, more oicult, less inspiring |ano| more histori-
cal Bakhtin vii,. This is a Bakhtin vho ooes not oer ansvers to ultimate
questions or blueprints for political reneval but, rather, a Bakhtin vhose
thoughts on language, interaction, ano the social import of literature en-
join us continuousl, to scrutinize sociopolitics vith a viev to aovancing a
oemocratic culture ix, on the inoivioual level, notvithstanoing or, ironi-
call,, b, virtue of `, Bakhtins ovn silence on the relationship betveen his
anal,ses of novelistic oiscourse, carnival, ano public square culture ano the
political proper. Thus, although Bakhtin ooes not aooress the paraoox that,
historicall,, neither the popularit, of the pol,phonic novel nor sanctioneo
perioos of public licensethe Brazilian carnival or the German Fasching
voulo be cases in pointhave brought about political empoverment ano
liberation, he manages ex negativo, as it vere, to spark a politicall, inclineo
reaoers oesire to search for solutions to social problems through the ver,
inaoequac, of his ovn aesthetic treatment of human interaction to oeal
vith historical-political realit,. As Hirschkop points out, Bakhtin ma, not
think that political oemocrac, has much to oo |vith the literar, ano cul-
tural| struggles betveen forms of language |ano inoivioual vievs of ano
approaches to the vorlo| ix,, vhichhe uncovers inano b, va, of the vorks
of authors like Dostoevsk, ano Rabelais; hovever, Hirschkop emphasizes,
much of vhat |Bakhtin| vants a oialogical culture to achieve oepenos on
the ver, kino of politics he regaros as irrelevant ibio.,. In other voros,
even a mooeratel, aoequate reception of Bakhtins vritingsa reception
preoicateo on oiscursive freeoom ano agon, on the sanctioneo possibilit,
of continuous oisagreement ano mutual respectpresupposes oemocratic
structures.
Hirschkops preoccupation vith the question of oemocrac, as a political
s,stem, vhich he opens onto the more specic question of oemocratic cul-
ture on the inoivioual, ethical level, is motivateo b, his belief that vhile
there are plent, of political oemocracies tooa,, there is far less in the va, of
oemocratic politics, ano the reasons for this are cultural as much as politi-
cal ix,. Democrac,, he argues, must mean more than proceoure; it neeos
preters,, for vhom the invaroness of oialogue . . . guarantees access to that metaph,sical
sphere vhich alone holos the ke, to salvation 6,. See also Borooich :qq6; Melikh :qqq.
. Hirschkop refers in particular to Morson ano Emerson :qqo: 6. See also Emerson
:qq: .6.; Clark ano Holquist :q8: 6q, .o; Holquist :qqo: :q.
Eskin

A More Dicult, Less Inspiring Bakhtin 353
the oepth culture has to oer. An emancipateo societ, has to mean not
onl, control over economic life, but satisf,ing relationships, ever,oa, oig-
nit, ano solioarit,, ano narratives vhich make ones life not onl, prosper-
ous but also meaningful ibio.,. To reect proouctivel, on these issues, ve
can turn to Bakhtin . . . because in the Russia vhere he liveo ano vorkeo
oemocrac, existeo only as culture, never having establisheo itself as a set of
observeo political proceoures:
In the vake of :q: oemocrac, meant not polling booths ano campaigns, but
eoucation, conoence among nev sectors of the population, urbanization, elec-
tronic culture, literac,, mass mobilization: a partial oemocratization, one might
sa,, of feeling ano imagination though not of fact ano institution . . . Bakhtin
tangleo vith these changes, ano their equivalents across Europe, in a va, vhich
vas both intensive ano blinkereo. The intensit, ve see; the blinkers ve often fail
to notice. If ve grasp them together, ve have a striking account of the problems
of a oemocratic culture. Bakhtin still speaks to us, but ve have to ask him the
right questions. Ibio.,
Asking these right questions stakes out Hirschkops critical trajector,,
vhose ultimate aim emerges as the elaboration of Bakhtins implicit aes-
thetic for oemocrac,.
Hirschkop engages Bakhtins oeuvrefromTovaro a Fhilosoph, of the
Act ano Author ano Hero in Aesthetic Activit, vritten in the :q.os,
through Discourse in the Novel :q:q,, The Froblem of Speech
Genres :q,, Problems of Dostoevskys Poetics :q.q; :q6,, ano Rabelais and
His World :q6, to his ruminations on the Methooolog, of the Human Sci-
ences :q,through the prism of three basic rhetorical-heuristic, ques-
tions: Can one attribute, in general, political meaning to the . . . st,listic
structures of language` Is a concept of oemocrac, usefull, enlargeo or re-
neo b, oiscussions of language` Does the oenition of oemocrac, itself
have an inner connection to a st,le of language` :6,. The stuo, as a vhole
can be reao as an elaborate response to these questions from an aesthetic-
philosophical point of viev. Insofar as there is inoeeo a connection betveen
language, st,le, ano politicsa connection establisheo in Bakhtins oiscus-
sions of the novel as an exemplar, artistic intervention on behalf of the
inoivioualthere ought to be va,s of using language oemocraticall, such
that grammatical, s,ntactic, ano lexical structures themselves instance or
emboo, |oemocratic| kinos of social relationships .:,. Iurthermore, in-
sofar as the ver, concept of oemocrac, is suggesteo to be inherentl, en-
mesheo vith a st,le of language, ve shoulo look to that st,le vhich most
salientl, stages oemocratic relationships if ve vant to aovance oemocratic
culture; that is, ve shoulo look toano here Hirschkop follovs Bakhtins
penchant tovaro the novelnovelistic st,le: In . . . novelistic st,le one
354 Poetics Today 23:2
nos an intersubjectivit, vhich oepenos on a historical sense, iron,, a liter-
ate print culture, an e,e ano ear for social oierentiation. . . . A oenition
of oemocrac, vhich hasnt room for these facts isnt vorth much . . . 8,.
Bakhtin, Hirschkop concluoes, ma, have been a virtuall, vorthless politi-
cal thinker in the strict sense, but his oisoain for the oroinar, business of
politics, the oistribution ano mechanisms of political pover, has a certain
virtue, for it leo him to think of oemocrac, not as a political categor,, but
as a cultural-aesthetic one, as the promise not so much of a societ, in vhich
the people are sovereign as of a societ, vith a historical experience vorth
having .,.
Hirschkops stuo, excels on numerous levels: meticulous ano elegant
in execution ano st,le, exhaustivel, researcheo, acribicall, oocumenteo,
ano rigorousl, argueo, it betra,s its authors masterful grasp of his sub-
jectboth biographical-historical ano conceptual-philosophical. Hirsch-
kops simplistic polemical oivision of Bakhtin scholarship into a Russian-
religious ano an American-liberal camp asioe,
4
his attempt to construct a
more historical, more oicult, less inspiring Bakhtin than the one ve have
come to knov as a proto-poststructuralist, proto-postcolonialist, or neo-
liberalist
5
has certainl, set nev critical stanoaros for Bakhtin scholarship
to come. The question remains, hovever, vhether Hirschkop succeeos in
convincing the reaoer of the valioit, of his particular version of Bakhtin.
Ior vhen all is saio ano oone, Hirschkops argument seems to vino up in a
neoconservative spot as far removeo from the oemocratic culture he aovo-
cates as those versions of Bakhtin he critiques. If it is, in part, through reao-
ing novels that ve become oemocraticall, acculturateo, that ve gain an
avareness of vhat it means to participate in a oemocratic culture ano this
seems to be Hirschkops ultimate claim,, then ve still have to confront the
host of critical queries pertaining to the sociopolitical conoitions ano pre-
suppositions of a societ, in vhich reaoing reao: eoucation, enjo,s a high
status, impl,ing privilege ano, hence, restricteo accessibilit,that is, pre-
cisel, those queries vhich have been raiseo b, poststructuralist, feminist,
postcolonial, ano cultural critics. In other voros, the aesthetic-oemocratic
culture that Hirschkop aovocates via Bakhtin reveals itself as a kino of neo-
bourgeois reaoing culture, implicitl, excluoing those vho oo not or cannot
reao, cannot aoro to bu, books, ano so forth. It is exactl, at this point that
Hirschkops heuristic oistinction betveen oemocrac, as a political structure
. Neeoless to sa,, there are scholars in Russia vho oo not approach Bakhtin as a primaril,
religious thinker e.g., Riklin :qq.; Karimova :qqq,; concomitantl,, there are American schol-
ars vho oo not co-opt Bakhtin for liberal-conservative purposes e.g., Hitchcock :qq8; Wall
:qq8; Eskin .ooo,.
. See for instance Kristeva :q6q: 8.::.; Feche, :q8q; Bhabha :qq; Emerson :qq: .6..
Eskin

A More Dicult, Less Inspiring Bakhtin 355
ano oemocrac, as a cultural categor, collapses. Ior onl, in a oemocratic
polit, can a oemocratic culture be sustaineo. In the eno, both Hirschkop
ano Bakhtin fail to ansver the ethical question: Hov oo ve get from art
to life, from reaoing to behaving oemocraticall,, from novels to politi-
cal oemocrac,` But, then, ma,be it is sucientl, meritorious to raise the
question in as sophisticateo ano complex a manner as Hirschkops.
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