ABSTRACT
Chapter 7, “Paradox, Riddles, and the Saturnalia of Language,” considers the role of disorder in founding speech. Popular voice articulates constituent power, but the cases in this book divide over whether audacious speech or lawful clarity should rule the day. No matter how it is approached, constituent power leads back to a paradox that pits law and constitutionalism against democracy and popular voice. Law is not an escape from the paradoxical forces of beginning because disorder always intervenes. Performativity is not a solution because it cannot be relied upon to be serious enough in uncertain conditions. Arendt used a different term for the experience of founding, she called it a riddle. While paradox drives theory toward paralysis, Arendt’s riddle suggests disorder and strangeness in speech provides a way of representing beginning, similar to the way traditions of disorder like Roman Saturnalia, medieval carnival, or Trickster stories create a gap in time. Whatever loosens the grip of authority makes its contingency apparent, suggesting it might be possible to think of founding speech as a form of poetics that plays off linguistic structures and human subjectivity for effect.
