Against Thinning and Teleology: Politics and Objects in the Face of Catastrophe in Lear and Von Trier

Abstract

In this essay, I write a companion piece to Bonnie Honig’s commentary on “Public Things.” In looking at Honig’s comments on Jonathan Lear’s Radical Hope and Lars von Trier’s film Melancholia, I focus on the question of stealth teleologies, particularly in Lear’s case. I argue that what Lear calls “radical hope” is not particularly radical. Instead, it disguises a teleology whereby, passing through some catastrophe, redemption follows. Against this kind of automatism, I argue that in Honig’s own reading, we find the grounds for a turn away from teleology and toward radical contingency, a way of connecting with and via objects that allows us access to an agonal and anti-teleological form of politics (something that I also see as being offered in von Trier’s film).