Whether refusing the conditioning of custom, or that of markets, the fanatic always seems to be marked out by a refusal of mediation, a ‘religious’ wish to bypass concrete differences. The abiding character of this problem for a contemporary politics that desires to affirm universality while not exposing itself to anti­ fanatical opprobrium, is perhaps most evident in the recent recourse to messianic and eschatological figures by a number of prominent radical thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben and Alain Badiou.

(Toscano, 2010)