Revealing the Hidden Pseudonym: Why is Politics Chaotic?

There seem to be two main types of political activity possible today. First, there is activity concerned with the disclosure of the meaning of signs. This is the usual political project, wherein an endeavor is exhausted when a sign is thought to be fully understood. For example, a political project that seeks to know the meaning of an abstraction, like the concept ‘capitalism,’ operates in this manner.

But the second type of activity is more interesting and perhaps more relevant. In this activity, it is not so much the meaning of a sign that is disclosed, as much as a sign’s existence that is disclosed. All the political power sees is that the sign is hidden, but that sign has no significance from a meaningfulness point of view [refer to examples below]. Instead, that hiddenness is the full motivating factor behind the venture towards the sign’s disclosure. The political project operates here like a game, and only goes so far as to uncover the sign, to bring it into a field of visibility in the world. Then the game stops, and from a meaning-making point of view this stoppage might seem arbitrary.

For example, were an author to have a pseudonym for an unimportant book he wrote that he had never wanted published, that pseudonym’s revelation, just for the sake of knowing what it is, would be a political activity of the second type. I call it a political activity because  organized power and resources would have to be utilized to make the disclosure of the pseudonym. Another example is when an author gives an insignificant neologism to a theory that he came up with in his rough notes, which might form the basis of a political project which would disclose that neologism’s existence and then move on. Indeed, that the author wrote this neologism down on paper, and did not hide it within the confines of his mind, facilities, and potentially ends, the political activity right there: for had he not written it down, then we would have seen a political activity vividly materialize to disclose that sign from his mind.

This game, concerned with the meaningless sign’s disclosure, might sound like the lesser of two games, for in the other game there is the sense that something meaningful is the outcome. There is an “Aha!” moment when there is something meaningful disclosed. But the second game is the one that might better explain the meaninglessness inherent to so much of politics and the tendency towards chaos rather than clarity. We often unearth something meaningless, and not inadvertently, but quite purposively. We do this not for a great “Aha!” moment, rather we silently move on as the sign bakes under the sun. 

One might think that the significance of this meaningless game is found in the fact that, in reality, multiple parties try to disclose the existence of a sign, and that means there is competition and a sense of pride for the party that eventually accomplishes the disclosure. This might be true, but the main motivating factor for the disclosing of a hidden sign is not that another party is also doing it, but rather its hiddenness itself is key. In sum, that it is hidden, that it is not in the world, means that it has to be brought there, though it be completely meaningless on all counts. The newly disclosed sign would just be laid open to the world to have a life of its own, to bear the world like the rest of us do, and not be further interrogated. It would therefore be unfree, for having been unearthed from its original position, and subsequently also seem free from the need to add to anything meaningful in our world.