SOURCE: “Lyotard's Combative Theory of Discourse,” in Telos, No. 83, Spring, 1990, pp. 141-50.

In the following essay, Weber argues that, in his assertion of language as a means by which incommensurates challenge each other for dominance, Lyotard is assuming a position similar to nineteenth century Social Darwinism.

“Parler, c'est agir” is an old rhetorical commonplace.¹ Speech is generally regarded as an instrument of communication and understanding. Lyotard, however, wants to replace communication with agon; to him speech is a contest: “parler est combattre.”² He emphatically rejects the humanist notion that language is in a state of harmony disrupted only by the speakers' opposing interests. For Lyotard, the idea that individuals control language is an anthropocentric illusion. The internal structure of language necessarily places it in a condition of bellum omnium contra omnes.

Lyotard finds this civil war in the heterogeneity of language. According to him, all phrases are formed...