The politics of discourse and the politics of the state

Heroes depend for their existence on belief in origins myths. Whatever the form of myth, in some sense the hero comes down from the mountain armed with god’s word and is a hero precisely because he has been privileged to receive this special and direct communication from the source-the source of reality, truth, word and law. We are not too keen on heroes these days. This chapter is about the emergence of the politics of discourse, a politics which is predicated on the heroic attitude losing credibility among us. This is a social complexity which precludes the new social movements adopting an essentialist conception of their identity, even as the old class-linked parties cling to the essentialism of the traditional rhetoric of class conflict. If politics involves the reduction of complexity by means of decisions and policies, the field of political activity comprises all those who seek to affect and to contest how the agendas of policy-making get framed.