Can We find Hope in Political Grief

Sometimes a death occurs in this world, which we cannot move beyond. Someone is taken from this world, whose death cannot be fully mourned. Someone whose death we cannot fully move beyond. Someone who, after death, still haunts us. This is what Meillasoux called a ‘spectre’, and the problem that our relation to them poses, Meillasoux called ‘The Spectral Dilemma’. In Spectral Dilemma (2008), Meillasoux opens:

What is a spectre? A dead person who has not been properly mourned, who haunts us, (...) refusing to pass over to the ‘other side’, where the dearly-departed can accompany us at a distance sufficient for us to live our own lives without forgetting them, but also without dying their death – without being the prisoner of the repetition of their final moments (Meillasoux 2008b: 261).

A spectre, then, is someone who haunts us, because we cannot sufficiently mourn them. Therefore, our relation to them, and to the event of their death, remains disturbing, if not traumatic. Meillasoux says, that a spectre is someone “(...) for whom the work of mourning, the passage of time, proves inadequate for a tranquil bond between them and the living to the envisaged” (ibid: 262). This mourning is almost exclusively framed by Meillasoux, in instances wherein the death of a person is so gruesome – or so abrupt in life – that we cannot mourn them sufficiently, and therethrough make peace with the fact of their death (ibid: 262).

However, the implication for Meillasoux, is a series of metaphysical and epistemological dilemmas. What concerns me, however, is different. My primary concern relating to the ‘Spectral Dilemma’, is not a metaphysics that springs from a private relation between someone dead and the living, but rather, the political implications of the death of a public figure. Someone whose passing haunts us, not due to the gruesome nature of their death, but rather, due to the loss of what their life-project entailed; the loss of their vision, of their cultural impact, and the hope for which they stood. I therefore intend, to approach the ‘Spectral Dilemma’ as a potential theme of political mourning, in the case of Robert F. Kennedy, as a figure who transcended his natural role as politician, and whose death to many, signified the end of a hope that the political turmoil of the 60’ies and early 70’ies could end in reconciliation, rather than in the polarization which continues to this day. I intend to posit, that RFK as a unique figure comparable to Martin Luther King Jr., had a uniquely reconciliatory potential in the, then, contemporary struggle for civil rights, which continues to this day. I intend to reflect upon the notion, that the loss of a figure such as MLK or RFK, entails a kind of impossible political mourning, and if, from the end of their political and cultural influence, there remains the potential for new (political) beginnings. This potential would lie in what Meillasoux calls ‘essential mourning’ (ibid: 262). Essential mourning, he clarifies, is a kind of mourning which “(…) assumes the possibility of forming a vigilant bond with these departed which does not plunge us into the hopeless fear (…) that we feel when faced with their end, but which, on the contrary, actively inserts their memory into the fabric of our existence” (ibid: 262). The promise of essential mourning is that we may ‘live with’ these spectres, rather than to die with them. Politically, the promise of essential mourning is that the influence of these figures may remain, not as disturbing indicators of the obstinance of political change, but as everlasting emblems of political possibility, which invite future generations to take up their role, and continue their projects of social justice.

I stipulate, that RFK as a figure, transcended his role of politician to become – like his contemporaries of James Baldwin and MLK – an orator, or a cultural figure. This is not difficult to establish from the increasingly short period in which RFK adopted this role, namely, in the period after his tenure as attorney general until his assassination, during his run for president. An orator, or a cultural figure, I stipulate, distinguish themselves from political activists and ordinary politicians, by the power of the visions that they articulate, the depth of their compassion for individual suffering and strife, and primarily, because the visions that they articulate are not primarily political projects, but hope. Not the kind of hope which is found in a particular political program or the kind of hope which arises from dialectical certainty, that the bend of history through crisis will inevitably lead to economic- and social reconciliation. But rather, that kind of paradoxical and often theological – rather than teleological – hope, that the future by virtue of its uncertainty, remains open.

The kind of reconciliation or hope that MLK and RFK managed to seed in their speeches, does not stem from a dialectical understanding of history, but from their deep compassion and understanding of the individual, from their ability to encounter the subject where it is, in its hopelessness. Of many such example, one that springs to mind, is RFK announcing his run for president. In a time at which civil rights struggles and anti-Vietnam war efforts were turning increasingly violent and polarized, RFK announced his intent to run for president, to seek reconciliation. RFK opened his speech, by declaring: “I run for the presidency because I want (…) to stand for hope instead of despair, for reconciliation of men instead of the growing risk of world war” (Kennedy, 1968a). This reconciliatory aim became increasingly evident during his unconventional candidature announcement, as it gave little attention to ambitious political projects or to maintaining the current social order, instead focusing heavily on the suffering 111 and abandon of individual humans. As he spoke:

As (...) a member of the senate, I have seen the inexcusable and ugly deprivation which causes children to starve in Mississippi; black citizens to riot in Watts; young Indians to commit suicide on their reservations because they’ve lacked all hope and they feel they have no future; and proud and able-bodied families to wait out their lives in empty idleness in eastern Kentucky. (Robert F. Kennedy, 1968a).

Of course, RFK never became president, and the possible reconciliation that RFK could have provided, never made it into legislation or concrete political action. The kind of reconciliatory potential, that I stipulate can be found in RFK, therefore only pertains to his speeches, specifically those held during his run for presidency, the point at which he became fully engaged in the civil rights struggle. In this regard, one of the strongest examples of the kind of reconciliatory capacity that I intend to excavate from RKF’s life, occurred on the eve of MLK’s assassination. At the behest of Harry Belafonte, RFK was set to deliver a speech in Indianapolis, when news arrived to RFK whilst on a plane, that MLK had been murdered. Despite advice from his security-detail that his safety could not be ensured if a riot broke out, RFK refused to cancel the speech. That night, with no prepared speech and only a few handwritten notes, RFK stood on a flatbed truck, and announced the death of MLK, to a crowd that surrendered itself to cries of despair. RFK spoke of MLK’s life and compassion, but a true moment of reconciliation occurred, when RFK spoke, after a brief pause:

“To those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can say only that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed [John F. Kennedy], but he was killed by a white man. (...) we have to make and effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.”

After a deep pause, evidently quoting from memory, RFK added

My favourite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: ‘In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop deep upon the heart, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God’ (Kennedy, 1968b)

After his speech, the crowd gave in to tearful applause, and Indianapolis was the single city spared of the riots that ensured after MLK’s death. That Indianapolis was spared, is not meant to argue for his capacity to suppress rightful anger, or his capacity as a politician in reifying an unstable social order, but it does hint, I argue, that some catharsis and some momentary reconciliation did occur. Indeed, MLK remains another spectre which the civil rights movement could not move beyond, and a spectre which RFK’s speech could not fully, essentially mourn. And indeed, it must also be noted, that the kind of reconciliation I speak of, is not full reconciliation. It is not justice for MLK’s murder, it is not a legal and social rectification of the structural injustices and indignities that necessitated MLK’s political activism in the first place. The kind of reconciliation, or perhaps cathartic resonance, that I claim occurred in RFK’s speech, is a momentary reconciliation, or perhaps more appropriately, a momentary glimmer of reconciliation. Hartmut Rosa writes, on the dialectical intertwinement of alienation and resonance, that:

At the root of resonant experience lies the shout of the unreconciled and the pain of the alienated. At its center is not the denial or repression of that which resists us, but the momentary, only vaguely perceptible certainty of a transcending ‘nevertheless’ (Rosa 2019: 188)

What I argue, was that RFK in his encounter with those faced with a loss of hope – given the death of MLK – a kind of momentary reconciliation (which, despite the previous quotation, cannot merely be called ‘resonance’) did arise. A deep recognition of mutual suffering, put into relation with RFK’s own grief over the death of JFK, offered a glimpse to the suffering crowd, that their struggle and 113 sense of abandon, was not met by a personal indifference, although it was certainly met by structural indifference.

However, 62 days after announcing the death of MLK, RFK was gunned down in a kitchen behind a ballroom, after having won the electoral college of California, and seemingly having the presidency within his grasp. To those present at the announcement of MLK’s death, who seemingly found some momentary glimmer of reconciliation – a hope – in RFK, we must ask of them, if RFK became their spectre? If a certain hope, for them, died with him? The democratic national committee (the ‘DNC’) erupted in chaos, under the certainty that president Johnson’s war in Vietnam was tearing the republic apart, certain that no other candidate could offer any similar political reconciliation, and seemingly haunted by the spectre of RFK, the DNC made a surprising move. Senator Edward Kennedy – the younger brother of JFK and RFK – was asked if he, despite not having run, would accept the party’s nomination for president. Simply by virtue of being a Kennedy – in both name and spirit – the DNC seemingly attempted to confront the spectre of RFK, not by essential mourning, but by imposing upon Edward Kennedy, the spectre of RFK. Projecting the haunting spectre of RFK, as it were, unto his brother. However, Edward Kennedy, himself haunted by grief and the spectre of RFK, refused. Nixon won the presidency, the war in Vietnam went on, the civil rights movement lost crucial momentum, and political violence and distrust in the spirit of the republic, only worsened. The hope, that a political era which by its immediate chaos also seemed open to change, ended.

It is here, that we must confront ourselves with the central questions: what does essential mourning look like in the realm of the political? In what way can RFK and MLK be essentially mourned, in such a way that they do not haunt us, and yet are rewoven into our personal and political consciousness? And finally, does 114 there still lie in the process of this political, essential mourning, a new beginning? Can these spectres re-enter our political age, not as collective traumas, but as a force of history, which can inspire a new generation of thinkers, activists, orators and politicians?

Although Meillasoux does provide some remarks on these questions, he nevertheless offers very little help. As a speculative thinker, Meillasoux’ sole concern is metaphysics, and as such, his article takes a turn, from an intimate account of haunting loss to a radical metaphysical conception of a kind of ‘openness’, rooted in his concept of Hyperchaos. Recognizable to some from his highly speculative metaphysics in After Finitude (2008), ‘hyperchaos’ is the speculative idea, that if reality is governed only by contingency, and as such, that no single absolute neither ensures the stability of the structures of reality nor governs these structures (Meillasoux 2008a: 94). Then, it is technically foreseeable, that the laws of physics – and the nature of reality as we know it – could be subject to radical change. Hyperchaos, then, signifies the radical notion, that the very laws of physics and the structures of reality, could change, fundamentally (ibid: 64). From this, Meillasoux moves to make an assertion of hope, which is strange to many. He argues, that since modern people (typically) are atheist, then they believe that there is no God behind the veil of our cosmos, which can receive these spectres, and provide them rest (Meillasoux 2008b: 265). But Meillasoux attempts to seed a radical hope. He claims, that if we concede that everything is contingent, and that as such, no entity or law of physics can evade the chaos of contingency. If everything is subject to the chaos of change (contingency), and if these laws of physics – themselves contingent – therefore cannot restrict what is possible (Meillasoux: 94). Then, Meillasoux’ claims that under the guise of hyperchaos, that given enough time everything is (technically) possible, then it is possible for God to return. Of if he never existed, to come into being, and as such, not be guilty of the death of these spectres.

This, however, does not help our political turn of the dilemma, at all. Meillasoux does note that justice for the deaths of these spectres, does help the living in their relation to the dead – that is, in their mourning – but he does concede, that the dead will never truly find justice (ibid: 264). In this regard, justice for the murder of RFK – although it ever came in the case of MLK – does aid in a political mourning, even if this mourning is obstructed by Sirhan Sirhan (RFK’s assassin) never providing any motive for the assassination and claiming to have been in a fugue state of mind.

And yet, some aspect of mourning – or a ‘beginning’ – may be found in the very of idea behind Meillasoux’ own radical, metaphysical solution to the spectral dilemma. Namely, that history and the future, may be metaphysically and politically open, to still seed hope for change and reconciliation. In fact, we may find this new ‘beginning’ after RFK’s and MLK’s spectral ends, from their own beginning. We may ground this hope for a sufficient metaphysical – and political – openness, in their own unlikely occurrence. We may say of RFK and MLK, that, if they could occur, then the boundaries of ideology and personal limitations, are not so absolute, as to restrict the possibility of someone else arising from the same spirit in the future. In other words, by necessity, it would only be as likely to see the occurrence of future figures of the same deeply humanistic nature, as it was unlikely for them to arise in the first place.

To qualify these sketches for a new beginning, it is necessary to note once more, that the deeply humanistic compassion and hope which characterized their works, are not to be found in any simple way in the world; it is not a dialectically certain Hegelian-Marxist reconciliation through history, that they aimed towards, nor came from. Instead, their compassion and hope, came from recognizing something in the human spirit, in themselves and others. Namely, a capa- 116 city for compassion.

We may, then, trace our new ‘beginning’, by finding traces of essential mourning in excavating from their lives and works, a certain redirection in our way of thinking the political, and political discourse. Perhaps in turning our political discourse from the perspective of history, towards a more intimate focus on individual experiences of abandon and hopelessness, we may find a useful differentiation in our concept of reconciliation itself. From conceiving reconciliation in historical terms, as the outcome of long historical processes of struggle and crises aimed at rectifying oppressive structures, to a kind of momentary conception of reconciliation. Once again, RFK’s speech on the eve of MLK’s assassination comes to mind. A momentary reconciliation, in contrast to full reconciliation, would recognize the individually experienced glimpses of full reconciliation which occur, when certain figures manage to encounter individuals experiencing hopelessness and a sense of abandon, by articulating a deep recognition with this suffering, managing to momentarily ease the tension between a struggling people and their otherwise indifferent world. Encountering the subject where it is, turning one’s attention to the lived experience of oppressed or politically exposed people, of course, does not rectify the structural injustices themselves. It does, however, offer some reconciliatory value, if only momentary. Of course, such a conception of momentary reconciliation, would still have history in mind, and would certainly retain “(…) the shout of the unreconciled and the pain of the alienated” (Rosa 2019: 188). However, it would also clarify that politically abandoned subjects, when momentarily recognized and exposed to articulations of hope, could still experience a “(…) vaguely perceptible certainty of a transcending ‘nevertheless’” (Ibid: 188).

In this regard, we should also recognize, that what renders figures such as MLK or RFK capable of seemingly providing ‘momentary’ reconciliation is largely 117 due to the fact, that they arose during periods of tremendous political turmoil. One would be remiss not to concede, that the reconciliatory capacity that I have attempted to highlight from their speeches, largely stems from the immediate contrast between the distrust and anger of their contemporaries, and the depth of their compassion and hope. But to this we must ask, if we too, do not find ourselves in an age of great political turmoil? In an age with increasing polarization and distrust, deepening social fragmentation, the slow death of nature and the ever-looming threat of war, do we not find ourselves in an age of great turmoil? However, since we do not have any obvious candidates on our present age, who could match their humanistic capabilities, does it not seem further impossible to find a new beginning after their death? Perhaps, then, the difficulty of mourning such figures is due to their rarity. If this is the case, then the only way to essentially mourn these figures, would be to attempt to assume their perspective; to partake in their spirit. Indeed, such a task would be near impossible. To endure, like MLK, gruesome beatings and yet retain compassion and grace towards one’s own aggressors. To lose, like RFK, one’s own brother to the violence of the age, and yet to retain compassion and hope towards one’s people. One is tempted to believe that only truly transcendent or spiritual figures, could assume such an ethical and compassionate stand against the world, and in this regard, one may be tempted simply eulogize these figures, by leaving the biblical quotation on their tombstones:

You are in this world, but not of this world

But this, would still leave us with an insurmountable mourning, that no one else could ever achieve the same compassion as theirs in a brutal age. It would turn MLK and RFK into political idols – in the religious sense – that linger in us, but do not speak to us, and serve only to preserve us in trauma and hopelessness. Therefore, it would then seem, that the only hope which could reweave these 118 spectres back into our political lives, would not be the hope that someone like them, some strange political prophet, could similarly arise. This would keep us in a perpetual state of waiting. But, instead, the new beginning which could arise from their deaths, from their memory rather than from their trauma, would lie in the hope that we could all collectively and individually, make the same inwards movement as they did. To, burrowing from Kierkegaard, infinitely resign ourselves to the painful and uncertain nature of the world, and to resign ourselves fully of the political grief which remains when great humanitarians are assassinated, and yet, to retain hope.

At Robert Kennedy’s funeral, Edward Kennedy concluded his eulogy in the following way:

(...) those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe. (...) As he [RFK] said many times, (...) to those he touched and who sought to touch him: ‘some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.’(Edward Kennedy, 1968)

A concluding remark, taken from Bultmann’s reading of Fear and Trembling, on struggle of hope in the face of impossible circumstance, is this:

Whether we truly love the light and not the darkness shows itself by whether we come (...) to the true light. For this light does not illuminate the way of our desires and plans; it does not illuminate the world as we would like to see it, or the way we try to illuminate our own desires and ideals with dim lights, but rather it gives the world a new appearance (Bultmann 1984: 242).

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