The anachronicity of revolutionary politics: Marx, Derrida, Rancière

This article revisits a remarkable moment of convergency in the history of post-structuralist thought in the 1990s when two prominent French philosophers, Jacques Derrida and Jacques Rancière, separately argued for the key role of the anachronistic recourse to the past in processes of revolutionary historical change, a theme first famously addressed by Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Both thinkers are shown to do so by deconstructing predominantly dismissive earlier assessments of the role of anachronisms in history and revolution- making by both political philosophers (Marx and Hobbes) and historiographers (Fèbvre, Cobban). Apart from outlining and explicating Derrida’s and Rancière’s respective affirmative theorisations of the role of anachronisms in modern revolutionary politics, the article also offers some comparative reflections pointing to overlaps and differences. While both philosophers critique the privileging of “presence” in the conceptualisation of history and revolution, they are also found to take some of Marx’s key theorisations of anachronisms in history-making beyond their historical-materialist framing, while affirming the role of the fantasy and fiction in radical politics, anticipating later theoretical constructions of a “postmodern” Marx. Key differences highlighted concern the nature and political tenor of the explanations for anachronisms’ history-making role, with Rancière’s account being found to be more geared toward anachronisms’ emancipatory potential. Overall, Derrida’s and Rancière’s deconstructed notions of anachronism are found to rescue the category from its common associations with retrogressive politics while affirming it as an important, intricate and intriguing category for analysing and assessing history and revolution in the making.