notions like freedom became simply the fact of not being a slave, of own tilling one’s land without a master, there is no longer much space for ideology or phantasm. And this simplicity, this denuding of rights to the point where it is no longer totalizing and determinant (so that it is not a as with Toussaint but a full “hesitation” throttled subversion in their case) can spread, as we already saw, from the colony to the metropole. Here, the radical, largely phantasm proof kernel of Haitian radicalism was exported to other contexts, other revolutions. As we have seen, James tells us that it is the experience of the slave uprising in Haiti that helped to radicalize the masses in France. After they witnessed the experience of the slaves in Haiti, when the idea of freedom became as tangible, as legible as casting off of actual chains, the Parisian masses were able to subvert their own phantasms, similarly using a notion of freedom that was not really intended for them as a means to upend their own subservience to liberal ideology. And, of course, the French revolution went on to become revolution, the model for the leftist uprisings (and even not so left ones) ever since, hence smuggling the Haitian radicalism in a new and (because French) guise. revolution’s “universal” By showing how false right like freedom can be the basis for its own resistance, for producing, if not and freedom then at least a freedom that serves, a “authentic” “true” freedom that is not part of the intentions of phantasmic capitalism, the slaves of Haiti show us all not only that it is possible to subvert idolatry through misinterpellation but further that it not just in small individual moments (something that has been done, Benjamin informs us happens all the time, at every moment) but in a widespread and collective movement that changed the whole world.
notions like freedom became simply the fact of not being a slave, of tilling one’s own land without a master, there is no longer much space for ideology or phantasm. And this simplicity, this denuding of rights to the point where it is no longer totalizing and determinant (so that it is not a “hesitation” as with Toussaint but a full throttled subversion in their case) can spread, as we already saw, from the colony to the metropole. Here, the radical, largely phantasm proof kernel of Haitian radicalism was exported to other contexts, other revolutions. As we have seen, James tells us that it is the experience of the slave uprising in Haiti that helped to radicalize the masses in France. After they witnessed the experience of the slaves in Haiti, when the idea of freedom became as tangible, as legible as casting off of actual chains, the Parisian masses were able to subvert their own phantasms, similarly using a notion of freedom that was not really intended for them as a means to upend their own subservience to liberal ideology. And, of course, the French revolution went on to become the revolution, the model for leftist uprisings (and even not so left ones) ever since, hence smuggling the Haitian revolution’s radicalism in a new and “universal” (because French) guise. By showing how false right like freedom can be the basis for its own resistance, for producing, if not “authentic” and “true” freedom then at least a freedom that serves, a freedom that is not part of the intentions of phantasmic capitalism, the slaves of Haiti show us all not only that it is possible to subvert idolatry through misinterpellation but further that it has been done, not just in small individual moments (something that Benjamin informs us happens all the time, at every moment) but in a widespread and collective movement that changed the whole world.