The Political as Transformative Subjectivity in Lu Xun’s Ah Q

Based on Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah Q I mobilize the concept of Ah-Qism to reinterpret subjectivity and the political. Ah-Qism is the transformation of merely zoological life (zoe) into historical or political life (bios). I will argue that subjectivity and the political momentarily emerge through this transformation, which Lu Xun’s text represents through Ah Q’s repeated encounter with stronger persons and his ability to ‘transform defeat into spiritual victory.’ An important implication of this argument is that conventional concerns of ‘politics’ such as force, domination, and hierarchy are not primarily within the purview of the study of politics but of the study of animal behavior. While force is the basis of all individuation, it is necessary but insufficient for individuation qua subjectivity. Power difference and subjection is the norm of all ethological experience, but a unique mode of experience is available to subjected persons like Ah Q: political experience. Political experience occurs when past subjection is transformed into subjectivity. However, political experience is relatively infrequent and ephemeral. Furthermore, the political cannot be celebrated nor condemned a priori since its effects can be, from a given perspective, affirming or nihilistic. A second implication is that empire and revolution are also not political but rather limits to the political. A third implication is that fantasy has an ambiguous relation to the political.