Jorg Meurkes

Research Project The City and The City

Orciny, or the ideological misconception par excellence

One of the central enigma’s in China Mieville's “weird fiction” The City and The City is the
precise status of two cities, Beszél and Ul-Qoma. At first, the novel seems to construct a strange,
science fiction like universe, in which we seem to encounter two concrete cities (really existing
“out there”), that, at the same time, magically inhabit one and the same space. Where the Beszél
see only the Beszél manifestation of the city, the Ul-Qomans have only have access to the
counterpart - as if the two cities are superimposed upon one another, located in the same physical
space, but at the same time, existing in completely different worlds. As the narrative progresses,
we learn more about the nature of the split: the cities are not absolutely severed, they do not exist
in completely different dimensions. Both populations are in principle able to see each other, but
taught from an early age to actively “unsee” (i.e. disavow or repress) the “neighbouring” city,
and to focus only on their own. This divide is upheld and enforced by a uncanny juridical power,
the notorious institution of “Breach.” The city thus seems to be divided primarily socially and
politically, primarily through the act of “unseeing” of the citizens themselves, but ultimately
upheld and enforced by Breach. This leads Niall Freedman to dismiss Moorcocks eccentric
reading of the two cities as reverberating “the current theoretical physicists’ notion that more
than one object can occupy the same physical space”, concluding that the division is “in fact . . .
wholly psychological and learned; that is to say, wholly constructed in the minds of the Besz´and
Ul Qoman citizens” (17). Freedman is here on par with a number of commentators: Bould and
Vint, for example, state that the “bizarre, alternative geography is the product of ideological
rather than material difference” (202); while Daniel Hourigan claims that “the cities persist in
their cleaved state because of social belief” (158).
So what precisely is meant with the claim that the difference between the cities is
“ideological rather than material,” a “social belief,” “wholly constructed in the minds of the Besz
and Ul Qoman citizens”? The answer seems rather straightforward: Beszél and Ul-Qoma are not
entirely real. Both cities exist only in the minds of their enchanted populations - citizens act as if
there were two materially distinct cities, while in fact (“materially,” “non-ideologically,”) there is
only a single physical space, onto which both versions are projected. In this sense, the idea of a
split between Beszél and Ul-Qoma is a kind of “false consciousness,” an illusory representation
of reality. Through their acts of unseeing, the citizens carve up an originally univocal physical
space into two. This socially constructed difference is then - in an act of reification - wrongly
believed to be fixed and natural. This means that their beliefs are susceptible to critique: we can
mobilize our understanding of the physical space in order to show the falsity of the idea that
Beszél and Ul-Qoma are separate cities.
Here, however, we stumble upon a problem. To claim that Beszél and Ul-Qoma are exist
wholly in the mind of their citizens (i.e. ideology), is to say that these beliefs are secondary to,
and thus can be distinguished from physical/material reality. This seems necessary in order to
claim that the belief in the existence of a split is ideological - one needs to oppose it to a more
authentic description of reality - somehow closer to the actual state of things - outside, beyond or
beneath the prevailing representations. Simply put: in order to debunk an ideological
mystification, one needs to describe reality as it actually is. But it is questionable whether this
critical, supposedly more truthful representation of reality, is not precisely what it is: yet another
representation (i.e. another socially constructed, ideological belief). How can the critic of an
ideological belief be sure that her own description is any less distorted? What guarantees that her
own perspective is direct, socially unmediated take on reality? “Is is it not the ultimate result of
discourse analysis that the order of discourse as such is inherently ‘ideological’?” (Laclau 298).
It seems that this insight dissolves the possibility of a meaningful critique of ideology: if all
thought is equally distorted, doesn’t the notion of “distortion” become meaningless? According
to Laclau and Zizek it does not: if we know that all discourse, one way or the other, is a distorted,
it is precisely the belief that one could have an direct, undistorted access to reality (i.e. to truth)
that is ideological. “It is precisely the assumption of this "zero level" of the ideological of a pure
extra-discursive reality, which constitutes the ideological misconception par excellence” (Laclau
298). “The paradox . . . is that the stepping out of (what we experience as) ideology is the very
form of our enslavement to it” (Zizek 6). According to Laclau and Zizek, the belief that one’s
perspective is somehow outside ideology (i.e. to say that Beszél-Ul-Qoma are “actually” not
split), is the quintessential ideological position. This is, I think one of the central themes in The
City and The City..
 Recall that the characters in the novel that are critical of the borders, are at the same time
drawn to the possibility of the existence of a primordial “pre-cleavage” civilization pre-dating
Beszél and Ul-Qoma: on the one hand the archaeologists (mostly foreigners, implying that they
have a more disinterested and thus more “objective” view on the “two” cities), and on the other
hand the “Unifs,” a radical leftist party striving for unification. Especially for the unifs, the
existence of a historical pre-split unity is appealing: it functions as a possible alternative to the
split cities - an outside point from which to challenge fixed nature of the existing borders.
Secondly, some of the unificationists and archaeologist (most importantly David Bowden and
Mahalia Geary) have come to belief in a mythical third city, Orciny, existing in the interstices of
the other two. In the following passage, Pall Drodin, a unificationist, and Tyador Borlu, the
detective, discuss Orciny:“‘When the old commune [the ur-unity, JM] split, it didn’t split into
two, it split into three. Orciny’s the secret city. It runs things.’ If split there was. That beginning
was a shadow in history, an unknown—records effaced and vanished for a century either side.
Anything could have happened.” Thus, according to Borlu, the belief in Orciny is a kind of
conspiracy theory. The origin of the split is unknown - there are pieces missing in the order of
knowledge - and the function of the belief in Orciny is to fill in those gaps. To belief in Orciny,
then, is to belief in the possibility that the whole truth can be known - it represents a desire to
restore full meaning (i.e. the possibility of a metalanguage or metaphysical closure). Both
beliefs, the pre-cleavage civilization and Orciny, stand for desire to step outside “everyday
ideology” (i.e. the idea that there truth to be found beyond the socially constructed borders of
Beszél and Ul-Qoma). On the traditional account of ideology this extra-ideological vantage point
is necessary in order to show that the dual separation is a mere constructions. In the novel,
however, these beliefs are themselves social constructions, ideological misconceptions par
excellence.
It is thus not detective Borlu (a dutiful citizen, upholding the law, respecting the borders),
who is the victim of ideology. It is archeologist Mahalia Geary: precisely by believing in the
existence of Orciny, she unwittingly serves the interest of some capitalist corporation. In the
novel, what turns out to be ideological is not the belief in the existence of a split between the two
cities. It is exactly the opposite: ideological is the belief that the split is “mere” ideology, i.e. that
the truth is to be found beyond, outside or beneath it (Orciny, for example). It is this “original
meaning [that is] is illusory . . . the distortive operation consists in precisely creating that illusion
- that is, to project into something which is essentially divided the illusion of a fullness and self-
transparency that it lacks” (Laclau 301). On this reading, what is ideological is thus the exact
reverse of what Bould and Vint, Hourigan, and Freedman take it to be: if we accept that all
discursive representation of reality is constitutively distorted - never able to directly represent
“reality as such” - it is not the division (i.e. split) that is the illusion, but rather the opposite,
namely the projection of an fullness or self-transparence (pre-cleavage unity and Orciny) into a
situation that is essentially divided (Beszél and Ul-Qoma)
What then, do we make of Breach? On the traditional account of ideology (if we take the
belief in Beszél and Ul-Qoma and their split as constituting an ideology) Breach becomes
somewhat of a malignant institution, enforcing the false belief that the cities are separate. They
prohibit the citizens from seeing reality as it actually is, and in so doing, prevent any possibility
of a return to unity. The sympathy then lies with the unifs: if they could somehow get rid of
Breach, they could dissolve the borders, and unmask Beszél and Ul-Qoma as ideological
constructions, preparing a return to pre-cleavage harmony. The problem is, of course, what this
would mean. Would the city have stepped out of ideology? What about the people that continue
to belief in the existence Beszél and Ul-Qoma? Will they be forced to give them up? Would the
city get a new name? Who would decide it? The unifs? Probably not: “In typical political cliché,
unificationists were split on many axes . . . between different visions of what the united city
would be like, what would be its language, what would be its name.” It turns out that even the
unificationist, are split amongst themselves.
If, on the other hand, we take the belief that one can step outside (what we experience as)
ideology - the belief that the split can between Beszél and Ul-Qoma can be overcome - as the
ideological illusion, Breach’s role becomes entirely different. In this case Breach is the name for
the impossibility of closure: of the necessity of the split. Its task is to prevent any ideological
operation that tries to assert itself as the privileged way to represent the truth; any attempt that
tries to close the gap between representation and the “actual reality;” any attempt to force a
particular perspective on reality as the only true perspective. Breach’s task to uphold the split
between Beszél and Ul-Qoma is then not a manifestation of evil, but on the contrary, asserts the
necessity of a multiplicity of possible perspectives that is constitutive of reality. As all
representations of reality, Beszél and Ul-Qoma are socially constructed, and therefore in some
sense distorted, but if this distortion is acknowledged and their difference is respected, not
ideological. What is ideological is, on the contrary, the belief in the possibility of unity and
closure.
To conclude, by way of experiment, I want to quickly draw some comparisons between
Breach and Zizek’s paradoxical notion of the Real:

The real is . . . the disavowed X on account of which our vision of reality is anamorphically
distorted; it is simultaneously the Thing to which direct access is not possible and the obstacle
which prevents this direct access . . . More precisely, the Real is ultimately the very shift of
perspective from the first standpoint to the second (26).

Similarly, it is Breach on account of which reality is anamorphically split between Beszél and
Ul-Qoma. (“Anamorphosis is a distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to . . .
occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image”) It is the institution that creates the
illusion of an underlying, pre-ideological physical space (recall Freedman’s position), but is
simultaneously the obstacle that prevents its access. Paradoxically, although the idea of an reality
beyond breach is illusory, it still prohibits any attempt to access it (Here we recognize Breach’s
ideological critical function: one might belief one is in the possession of a truth behind
representations, but this access is necessarily an illusion, and therefore it must be prohibited).
Breach thus prohibits an impossibility. This prohibition - and the enforcement of the split - in
turn generates the desire to transcend it. Breach is thus subsequently the origin of the belief in
Orciny - the ideological misconception par excellence.

Works Cited

Bould, Mark, and Sherryl Vint. The Routledge Concise History of Science Fiction. Routledge,
2011. Print.

Freedman, Carl. "From Genre to Political Economy: Miéville’s the City & the City and Uneven

Hourigan, Daniel. "Breach! the Law's Jouissance in Miéville's the City & the City." Law, Culture
and the Humanities 9.1 (2013): 15668. Print.

Laclau, Ernesto and Chantall Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical
Miéville, China. The City & The City. London: Pan Books, 2011. Print

Žižek, Slavoj. The Parallax View. Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT, 2009. Print.