Per una teoria delle minoranze: Il sapere primo del pensiero classico - Parte III - Tratto dall'e.book "Archeologia delle minoranze. Intervista con Franco Motta"

Per una teoria delle minoranze

di Obsolete Capitalism

Il sapere primo del pensiero classico ( Parte III )

Soffermiamoci ancora su quel 'magico' momento in cui Cartesio universalizza l'atto del confronto, rendendolo, come afferma Michel Foucault (Le parole e le cose, 1966), nella "sua forma più pura". Ogni conoscenza è "ottenuta attraverso il confronto di due o più cose fra di loro" (Cartesio, Regulae, 1628). Con quali atti collettivi comparativi si apprende la volontà del popolo sovrano se non attraverso l'esercizio democratico e il rito partecipativo della competizione elettorale tra eguali e liberi che assegna una maggioranza, più o meno qualificata, in grado di tradurre in azione politica le scelte della totalità approssimata? Si esperisce e si conosce la volontà della maggioranza attraverso il confronto democratico. E' nel confronto tra le proposte politiche che si dispiegano identità e differenze, misura e ordine. Il metodo razionale matematico-scientifico cartesiano permette di abbandonare, anche per ricerche circostanziate come quelle di Motta e Panarari che qui analizziamo, le quattro similitudini che hanno svolto una parte "costruttiva nel sapere della cultura occidentale" fino alla fine del XVI secolo: vicinanza, emulazione, analogia e simpatia. Con Cartesio hanno termine le relazioni esoteriche, i concatenamenti instabili, le similitudini intricate, le parentele oscure mentre il confronto tra gli oggetti, anche politici, ne guadagna in nitore, trasparenza ed esattezza numerica. Resta in campo solo il confronto tra confronti: quello tra ordine e misura. Se nell'età classica della civiltà greca, e dunque all'apogeo della città-stato - laboratorio storico della grammatica politica contemporanea - il confronto tra misura e ordine veniva risolto, come ultima ratio, dalla stasiologia - la teoria della guerra civile (Agamben, Stasis, 2015) che segna l'integrazione definitiva della famiglia nella mobilitazione partitica e nell'ordine politico della città ed esautora di fatto la misura rendendo indecidibile non solo il fratello e il nemico, ma pure il maggiore e il minore - allora, nell'età classica della civiltà europea, all'apogeo delle nazioni-stato, il confronto tra misura e ordine viene, nel caso della prima, ricondotta "alle relazioni aritmetiche dell'uguaglianza e della disuguaglianza", mentre nel secondo caso viene considerato come oggetto di studio, prima il tutto e poi successivamente le parti. La misura analizza in unità, l'ordine fissa degli elementi. L'obiettivo del confronto consiste appunto nel ricondurre ogni misura a un ordine seriale, dal più semplice al più complesso. La civiltà occidentale, sublimando psicologicamente la teoria della guerra civile, assegna al dispositivo misura/ordine lo scopo principale di ordinamento del mondo e da ciò ne discende, nel nostro assetto politico-istituzionale, il marcare le misure attraverso le competizioni elettorali tra partiti e l'ordinare i poteri attraverso le separazioni equilibrate di organi legislativi, esecutivi e giudiziari. Così uno dei cardini fondamentali del pensiero politico della modernità - la democrazia rappresentativa e la conseguente 'dittatura quantitativa' realizzata attraverso la sovranità parlamentare - è stato plasmato dall'egemonizzante filosofia razionale del XVII secolo. La mathesis assurge, sempre nell'analisi strutturalista di Foucault, a scienza universale della misura e dell'ordine. Chi potrà mai scalfire politicamente e filosoficamente, ai giorni nostri - il secolo di Google - la potenza astratta e la forza materiale della mathesis, dopo oltre 200 anni di dominio ininterrotto?
( segue QUI )

(tratto dall'e.book Archeologia delle minoranze. Intervista con Franco Motta su "Elogio delle minoranze" - in uscita a Settembre 2015)

picblog: Ryoichi Kurokawa - Syn_2014 (fragment)

MATTEO PASQUINELLI: WHAT AN APPARATUS IS NOT: ON THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE NORM IN FOUCAULT, CANGUILHEM, AND GOLDSTEIN @ PARREHESIA N.22, 2015

WHAT AN APPARATUS IS NOT: ON THE ARCHEOLOGY OF
THE NORM IN FOUCAULT, CANGUILHEM, AND GOLDSTEIN 

by Matteo Paquinelli

@ Parrhesia philomag (Read more)

@ Academia.edu (Read more)

AGAMBEN’S ‘DISPOSITIVE’ RELIGION

In his essay “What is an Apparatus?” Agamben relates the genealogy of the Foucauldian dispositif of biopower directly to the notion of positivity in Christian theology as highlighted by Hyppolite in a passage from his In- troduction to Hegel’s Philosophy of History. Agamben believes that this ”passage [...] could not have failed to provoke Foucault’s curiosity, because it in a way presages the notion of apparatus”. Agamben then sets up a lengthy genealogy: he first relates the notion of biopolitical dispositif to Hegel’s notion of positive religion and then moves from there to the theological term dispositio. According to Agamben, the Latin dispositio trans- lates the Greek word oikonomia, which in the early centuries of theology designated “the administration and government of human history” by Christ. Agamben thus proposes to take the form in which Christianity was propagated and governed as the archetype of Foucault’s modern dispositif of biopower. (Read more ...)


Picblog: 'Dispositif 1' by Art Collective, 2003

Giorgio Agamben: L'uso dei corpi - Neri Pozza (settembre 2014)

Giorgio Agamben: L'uso dei corpi 

(Neri Pozza Editore, settembre 2014) 

Con questo libro Giorgio Agamben conclude il progetto Homo sacer che, iniziato nel 1995, ha segnato una nuova direzione nel pensiero contemporaneo. Dopo le indagini archeologiche degli otto volumi precedenti, qui si elaborano e si definiscono le idee e i concetti che hanno guidato la ricerca in un territorio inesplorato, le cui frontiere coincidono con un nuovo uso dei corpi, della tecnica, del paesaggio. Al concetto di azione, che siamo abituati da secoli a collocare al centro della politica, si sostituisce così quello di uso, che rimanda non a un soggetto, ma una forma-di-vita; ai concetti di lavoro e di produzione, si sostituisce quello di inoperosità che non significa inerzia, ma un'attività che disattiva e apre a un nuovo uso le opere dell'economia, del diritto, dell'arte e della religione; al concetto di un potere costituente, attraverso il quale, a partire dalla rivoluzione francese, siamo abituati a pensare i grandi cambiamenti politici, si sostituisce quello di una potenza destituente, che non si lascia mai riassorbire in un potere costituito. E, ogni volta, la definizione dei concetti si intreccia puntualmente all'analisi della forma di vita di alcuni personaggi chiave del pensiero contemporaneo.

read more @ Neri Pozza

Liliana Jansen Bella: La Moltitudine. Tema con variazioni @ Rivista Incontri, Anno 27, 2012, Fascicolo 2 (Recensione del libro di Sonja Lavaert: HET PERSPECTIEF VAN DE MULTITUDE Agamben, Machiavelli, Negri, Spinoza, Virno)

Read more @ Incontri

Read more @ VUBPRESS

Saul Newman and John Lechte - Agamben and the Politics of Human Rights Statelessness, Images, Violence @ Edinburgh University Press, June 2013

Agamben and the Politics of Human Rights Statelessness, Images, Violence 

@ Edinburgh University Press, June 2013

Can human rights protect the stateless? Or are they permanently excluded from politics and condemned 

to 'bare life'?

Human rights are in crisis today. Everywhere one looks, there is violence, deprivation, and oppression, which human rights norms seem powerless to prevent. This book investigates the roots of the current crisis through the thought of Italian philosopher, Giorgio Agamben. Human rights theory and practice must come to grips with key problems identified by Agamben – the violence of the sovereign state of exception and the reduction of humanity to ‘bare’ life. Any renewal of human rights today must involve breaking decisively with the traditional coordinates of Western political thought and instead affirm a new understanding of life and political action.

John Lechte is Professor at the Macquarie University 

Saul Newman is Professor at the Goldsmiths, University of London.

Read more @ EUP

Adam Kotsko: Zizek and Theology @ An und für sich, 11.Oct.2013

Adam Kotsko - Žižek and Theology.

@ An und für  sich Read more

 1. In general, what are the fundamental formulations of Žižek on theology?

Žižek interprets Christianity along Hegelian lines, as an enactment of the death of God. His approach is similar to that of Thomas Altizer, whose declaration of the death of God caused significant controversy in the US in the 1960s. The basic claim is that when God became incarnate in Christ, that was a total and irreversible decision to empty himself into Christ—and so when Christ died on the cross, God truly and irreversibly died, emptying himself into the world.

2. What is the peculiarity of his approach?

Žižek’s approach goes against the mainstream of Christian theology, where the doctrine of the Trinity has allowed theologians to affirm that only one of the divine persons underwent the ordeal of the incarnation—hence isolating the impact of the incarnation on the divine life. From the orthodox perspective, it is correct to say that “God is dead” in view of Christ’s death, but in a more important sense, God “survived” even when Christ was buried in the tomb.

The Hegelian approach Žižek adopts also differs from traditional Christology, which holds that God raised Christ personally and individually from the dead. In the Hegelian interpretation, by contrast, Christ’s divine power is “resurrected” as the new form of community known as the “Holy Spirit.” Here, however, Žižek differs from Hegel insofar as he views the “Holy Spirit” not as an institutional form of life (like the Catholic Church) but as a fundamentally new form of human life together.

3. In what sense are the works of Žižek, especially the latest ones, relevant to the current theological debate?

I see many mainstream theologians as torn between two desires. On the one hand, they recognize that the Greek philosophical categories through which the early Church Fathers interpreted the gospel were not the best fit and in some ways wound up distorting the Christian message. On the other hand, though, they want to remain faithful to the orthodox doctrines that grew out of that conceptuality. Karl Barth is emblematic of this conflict—he claims to be providing a radical new basis for Christian doctrine, and yet he always comes up with essentially the same answers that orthodoxy had always provided.

In that context, I think Žižek’s approach represents a way out of this deadlock, insofar as the Hegelian interpretation of Christianity attends to the inherent logic of the incarnation without troubling itself about philosophical presuppositions such as the unchangeability of God. In a sense, Hegel, Altizer, and Žižek may represent a real attempt to follow up on Paul’s claim to know nothing but Christ crucified.

From the other direction, I believe that Žižek’s project provides support for other radical attempts to rethink the Christian tradition—particularly in the various liberation theologies. This is not to say that such theologians “need” Žižek, but rather that Žižek’s work could point more mainstream theologians toward the creative, radical work that is already going on.

4. In what sense is the argumentation of Žižek on this subject complex and unusual?

One challenge for theologians who want to read Žižek is the importance of Lacan for his project. While Žižek’s reading of Hegel is somewhat idiosyncratic, Hegel is at least familiar to most theologians—Lacan, on the other hand, is a less frequent point of reference and is in many ways more difficult to approach given that he uses a lot of his own jargon and symbols in developing his concepts. I try to provide some orientation in Lacanian thought in my book, so that people can at least know where to begin.

5. How can we understand the claim of Žižek that, to become a true dialectical materialist, one must go through the Christian experience? Is not this about a paradoxical stance from him?

Žižek understands the Christian experience in terms of the death of God. For him, Christianity is the most radical form of atheism insofar as even God himself becomes an unbeliever in Christ’s cry of dereliction on the cross. This differs from other forms of atheism or skepticism, because Žižek believes that most people who deny a particular God still believe in something else that fills the same role. A scientist, for instance, will generally believe in something like the laws of nature, or a Communist might believe in the laws of historical necessity. Only the Christian experience of a God who doesn’t believe in himself provides the guarantee that we won’t be able to sneak in a new idol to take the old God’s place.

The Christian experience is thus the experience of the undeniable and irrevocable emptying out of any transcendent meaning or purpose—of any “master signifier,” in Lacanian terms. From the traditional Christian perspective, this may seem contradictory or strange, but from Žižek’s own perspective, it doesn’t seem right to call it paradoxical.

6. How can we understand the fact that Žižek is interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology?

Žižek believes that the total emptying out of transcendent meaning is necessary to open up the possibility of real freedom. For him, death and resurrection represent the movement of completely withdrawing from the present order and setting to work building something new.

7. How does Žižek analyze the continental philosophy and the future of Christian theology from the legacy of Paul of Tarsus? What is the significance of Paul, in this perspective?

For Žižek, Paul’s Christian communities are a model of withdrawing from the present order—or as Žižek puts it in The Puppet and the Dwarf, “unplugging” from the force of law. Where many interpreters believe that Paul is an opponent of the Jewish law, Žižek claims that Paul is trying to give Gentiles access to the uniquely Jewish stance toward the law. In this perspective, Paul’s famous discussion of the law inciting its own transgression in Romans 7 is not talking about the Jewish law, but about distinctively pagan attitudes toward the law. Paul is trying to give his Gentile followers a way out of the vicious cycle he describes there.

This is relevant for today, insofar as Žižek views contemporary culture as embodying a kind of law that incites its own transgression—everything has to be “subversive” and “irreverent.” People don’t feel guilty about having sex, but about not having enough sex. In this context, rebellion against social norms becomes meaningless. A completely different stance that breaks the dichotomy of obedience and rebellion is needed, and that’s what Paul provides in Žižek’s view.

8. To what extent are Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Chesterton leading thinkers in the theological stance of the Slovenian philosopher?

This is an area where I believe Žižek has been misunderstood. Many readers view his use of these thinkers, particularly Chesterton, as an endorsement. In reality, though, his ultimate goal is to show that they don’t go far enough. He enjoys Chesterton’s Hegelian style, for example, but he views Chesterton’s Catholicism as a betrayal of the gospel that returns to the pagan approach to law and transgression. Similarly, though Pascal and Kierkegaard provide very real insights, he wants to go beyond them because they don’t take the next step and embrace the death of God.

9. What are the main points of the debate between Žižek and Milbank in “The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic”?

The encounter between Žižek and Milbank is the encounter between the Hegelian death of God approach and traditional orthodoxy. The debate was productive insofar as it allowed Žižek to develop his critique of traditional theology, particularly of the doctrine of the Trinity, and to reflect on the ethics implied in his position, but both authors’ essays were so long and full of so many digressions that it was almost impossible to discern any actual debate.

For me, the biggest benefit of this debate was that it allowed Žižek to draw a clear line in the sand. Milbank’s followers had sometimes viewed Žižek as a natural ally of their Radical Orthodoxy project, but Žižek declares that Milbank’s vision—which is centered on escaping from the problems of modernity by reasserting hierarchical authority and traditional family values—as “light fascism.” He also makes it clear that he views Milbank’s Anglo-Catholicism, like Chesterton’s Catholicism, as a reversion into the pagan stance toward law and transgression.

10. To what extent does the debate between these two thinkers deepen the dialogue between faith and reason?

In my view, the debate was a disappointment. Žižek and Milbank are simply too far apart for a truly productive struggle to emerge. Far more interesting, in my view, is the confrontation staged between Žižek and Terry Eagleton in Ola Sigurdson’s Theology and Marxism in Eagleton and Žižek: A Conspiracy of Hope. A confrontation with a less traditional theologian like Jurgen Moltmann or Catherine Keller would also have been more interesting. Between Žižek and Milbank, though, there was little more than a missed encounter. Žižek has not yet found a theological interlocutor who can challenge him in a productive way—and I hope that someone does step up to fill that role, because it is so rare for a contemporary philosopher to have any interest at all in contemporary theology. I don’t think I am the right person for the job, but I hope that in my book, I helped to clear the space for such an encounter to occur.

Pic Post: evangelista Giovanni by Antonio Calandriello

Another interview with Colby Dickinson on Agamben @ An und für sich blog, 10.Oct.2013

Another interview with Colby Dickinson on Giorgio Agamben

@ An und für sich blog Read more

1. What are the peculiarities of faith in contemporary continental thought?

In many ways, I think we are continuously reiterating a particular historical tension, that between a normative measure (or rule) and those who seek to oppose or undo it, what I would call the supposed ‘antinomian’ (anti-nomos or ‘law’) movements that we still don’t know what to do with in either religious or political terms. For its part, antinomianism arose as a label used during the Reformation to describe those who were seemingly wanting to do away with law altogether—those who in effect read Martin Luther’s critique of the Catholic system (i.e. its ‘rules’, canon law, system of indulgences, etc.) as being a departure in some sense from all law. In many ways, this response was something already embedded in Jesus’ positioning of himself in relation to Judaic Law, and this possibility only further inflamed the passions of some of Luther’s most devout followers. Luther, however, as we know, had to try to stop such antinomian measures from going too far away from the ‘rule of God’, which Luther himself still wanted to maintain in some form. As we recall, there were still too many connections for Luther to draw between the established Church on earth and existing structures of political power; he sought therefore in his writings to maintain some allegiance to the form of law and its ‘necessity’, and its ability to utilize the ‘sword’ in order to restrain its unruly citizens was something he took great interest in linking to God’s ordering of society.

What I am particularly fascinated by today is the manner in which contemporary continental thought has returned us to the contemplation of this fundamental ‘antinomian’ impulse that undergirds many revolutionary political and religious movements. In many ways—and Jacob Taubes takes this up directly in his lectures on The Political Theology of Paul—Christianity itself is perhaps the original antinomian impulse in relation to Judaism (Judaic Law, or Torah). This is something he extracts from Gershom Scholem’s studies on messianic movements within Judaic history, in particular the story of Sabbatai Zevi. As Giorgio Agamben would later rehearse such impulses (and with citations of Sabbatai Zevi being present in his work as well), there is an internal messianic ‘antinomian’ impulse perhaps within Judaism that challenges its normative representations of itself (as when the prophets cry out against the structures of religious ritual, when a notion of a Messiah first develops, etc.). This last point is seemingly only further underscored by Jacques Derrida’s many formulations of the messianic as an internal deconstructive force working within a given structure, a sentiment which has been read as being either Jewish (G. Ofrat), atheistic (M. Hägglund) or even Christian (L. Lawlor). My response to such diverse readings has been to say that all of them are correct in a sense, because all are trying to access that central, messianic core of our political and religious thought that continues to motivate the restructuring of our given (social, cultural, political, religious and even economic) norms. We continue to try to find new ways to describe why we are constantly giving birth to new paradigms, and we continuously come up against a wall: where does revolutionary reform come from? How do we alter the structures that appear to be unchangeable and upon which so many people depend (‘have faith in’) for their everyday lives? Derrida’s answer, much like Agamben’s in this regard, is that it comes from within what was already operational as a canonical structural form, but one that has been pushed to its limits and is in the process of becoming aware of its limitations within a new context and its need for more justice to be done.

What I sense at present is that the foundations of (organized) faith is being given a second glance within contemporary continental-philosophical thinkers because it seems to adhere to (or perhaps even generate) the fundamental dynamics that lie beneath our political and ethical paradigms in the West. As much as we might culturally seek to turn away from organized religious traditions, there is something persistent within them that deserves attention, even the attention of self-proclaimed atheists (and I think the current Pope is aware of this, and playing to some of this desire with his public remarks). I read Slavoj Žižek’s continuing reference to Christianity as just such an example of how we are greatly in need today of reformulating what it means to read the relationship between religion and politics as central to our present grid of culturally intelligible forms—even, perhaps especially, when people think that faith is becoming obsolete for many. (... A suivre/ Read the full interview)

Pic post: evangelista san Luca by antonio calandriello

Hager Weslati replies to Giorgio Agamben about Kojeve's memo @ Verso Blog 13 September 2013

Read more @ Verso blog
Agamben claims that the memo was addressed “to the head of the Provisional Government, General Charles de Gaulle.” There is enough evidence to support this claim if a meticulous comparative reading determines how much of Kojeve’s “Esquisse d’une doctrine de la politique francaise” filtered through via numerous bureaucratic routs to the circle of Jean Monnet, or ended up in the Schuman Declaration of May 1950. To this day there is not one single comprehensive study on Kojeve’s key role in French administration and foreign trade diplomacy between 1945 and 1968. There are at least five questions that need to be raised before one comments on the content of Agamben’s “Se un Impero Latino Prendesse Forma Nel Cuore D’Europa” in La Repubblica (15 March 2013), or engages with the provocative “title” of the French version: “Que l’Empire latin contre-attaque!” in Liberation (24 March 2013)   Question 1: Who was the addressee of the memo?   In the Kojeve archives at the French national library, the folder which contains several versions of the “Esquisse” indicate that the memorandum was addressed to Jean Filippi, at the time, director of economy and finance in the military French government in Baden Baden. Jean Filippi (1905- 1993), occupied several high-ranking positions, namely as secretary-general of economic questions (1941-1942) in the governments of Darlan and Laval. Between 1948 and 1950, he was chief executive of the trade committee (with the European Organisation of Economic Cooperation), then Chief of Staff at the ministry of finance and economic affairs (1949-1950). This particular thread leads all the way back to Kojeve’s early 1940s political writings, part of which directly engage with the flaws in the political project of the Vichy government and its aftermath, including the context of the Resistance, with which he was actively involved as some biographical details seem to indicate. The above mentioned folder also contains a card-note from an unnamed correspondent (possibly Filippi himself, or one of his associates). The note reads as follows: “: you sent me your note two months before the liberation via Mr Jean Cassou. A Latin Union is not realistic. The idea is not original and could be found in many articles of propaganda as in the agreement Mussolini- Laval in 1935. The idea is attractive on paper but it leaves out many minor countries.”In addition, the BNF “Esquisse” folder also includes three intriguing newspaper clips from Le Monde (June- July 1945). The articles outline the position of Great Britain in a nascent new world order, and how it is rebranding itself after the imminent collapse of its empire. Intriguingly, and in each one of those paper clips, Kojeve crosses out “Britain” and replaces it with “France”. There are some entire sentences and a few ideas from the clips reproduced in his “Esquisse” memorandum. There is enough evidence to suggest that Kojeve was fascinated by British diplomacy […] Anecdotal as they may sound, such details are perhaps worth flagging up in order to demystify the “topicality” of the “Latin Empire” as a prophetic document produced in a historical vacuum. Grounding this document in its historical context is crucial to avoid Fukuyamesque misinterpretations of Kojeve (the ones where a concept is lifted out of context and then blindly grafted on a current political situation). To my mind, this is partly the immediate effect of the catchy phrase “Latin Empire” on all those who read Agamben’s short piece in La Republica, reproduced in other European newspapers with even fancier and more aggressive titles.   This should lead us to: Question 2: In which context, political and historical, was the memo written? […] If initially the memo was meant to be read by a restricted number of government administrators, the context of its excavation from Kojeve’s papers, and the context of its public dissemination are equally important. On to the next question: Question 3: On which other occasions was Kojeve’s “Latin Empire” used in political debates? The memo first came in the hands of the editors of Grasset (via Dominique Auffret, then Jean-Paul Enthoven and Dominique-Antoine Grisoni). A truncated version of the memo was published in the first issue of La Regle du jeu (May 1990) and was explicitly used to illustrate the aim of the journal: reflecting on a new world order after Soviet communism. Rebranded by Bernard-Henry Levy himself “The Latin Empire”, the “Esquisse” remained within the circle of right and conservative readers for decades. It then appeared in English translation in the Policy Review (n. 126, August 2004) as “Outline of French Policy”, and in Italian translation in Il silenzio della tirannide (edited by Antonio Gnoli. Milan: Aldelphi Edizioni, 2004). Finally, the memo was published in French in the BNF special issue, marking the foundation of the Kojeve Archives (inHommage a Kojeve, BNF, 2007). It is however worth noting that the more than 80 page long memo has never been published in its entirety. What remains to be determined in light of these details is: Question 4: How does the memo read in the context of Kojeve’s political writings (1941- 1945), and in the context of his philosophical system? […] And then: Question 5: How did Agamben paraphrase the content of the memo, and should his paraphrase be considered a “thesis” in its own right? […] After addressing the above listed questions, we can perhaps hope to read useful and engaging comments on Kojeve’s 1945 memo. 

Giorgio Agamben: The Endless Crisis as an Instrument of Power. In conversation with Giorgio Agamben @ Verso website, 04 June 2013 (Original Interview by Dirk Schümer for FAZ)

A Latin empire against the German dominance? The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben explains his much-discussed thesis. Apparently, he had been misunderstood.

Professor Agamben, when you floated the idea in March of a ‘Latin imperium’ against Germanic domination in Europe, could you have imagined the powerful resonance this contention would have? In the meantime your essay has been translated into countless languages and passionately discussed across half the continent…
No, I didn’t expect this. But I believe in the power of words, when they are spoken at the right time.

Is the fracture in the European Union really between the economies and ways of life of the ‘Germanic’ north and the ‘Latin’ south?
I would like to make clear right away that my thesis has been exaggerated by journalists and therefore misrepresented. Its title, ‘The Latin empire should start a counter-attack’, was supplied by the editors of Libération and was taken up by the German media. It’s not something I ever said. How could I counterpose Latin culture to German, when any intelligent European knows that Italian culture of the Renaissance or the culture of classical Greece is today completely part of German culture, which reconceived it and appropriated it!

So, no dominant ‘Latin empire’? No uncultivated Germans?
In Europe, the identity of every culture always lies at the frontiers. A German such as Winckelmann or Hölderlin could be more Greek than the Greeks. And a Florentine like Dante could feel just as German as the Swabian emperor Frederick II. That is precisely what makes up Europe: a particularity that time and again oversteps national and cultural frontiers. The object of my criticism was not Germany, but rather the way in which the European Union has been constructed, that is, on an exclusively economic basis. So not only have our spiritual and cultural roots been ignored, but also our political and legal ones. If this was heard as a criticism of Germany, it is only because Germany, because of its dominant position and despite its exceptional philosophical tradition, appears unable at the present time to conceive of a Europe based on anything more than just the euro and economics.

In what way has the EU denied its political and legal roots?
When we speak of Europe today, we are faced with the gigantic repression of a painful and yet obvious truth: Europe’s so-called constitution is illegitimate. The text that was put through under this name was never voted by the peoples. Or when it was put to a vote, as in France and the Netherlands in 2005, it was frontally rejected. Legally speaking, therefore, what we have here is not a constitution, but on the contrary a treaty between governments: international law, not constitutional law. Just recently, the very respected German legal scholar Dieter Grimm recalled the fact that a European constitution lacks the fundamental, democratic element, since the European citizens were not allowed to decide on it. And now the whole project of ratification by the peoples has been silently put on ice.

That is indeed the famous ‘democratic deficit’ in the European system…
We shouldn’t lose sight of this. Journalists, particularly in Germany, have reproached me with understanding nothing of democracy, but they should consider first of all that the EU is a community based on treaties between states, and simply disguised with a democratic constitution. The idea of Europe as a constitution-giving power is a spectre that no one ventures to conjure up any more. But only with a valid constitution could European institutions regain their legitimacy.

Does this mean that you see the European Union as an illegal body?
Not illegal, but illegitimate. Legality is a question of the rules of exertion of power; legitimacy is the principle that underlies these rules. Legal treaties are certainly not just formalities, but they reflect a social reality. It is understandable therefore that an institution without a constitution cannot follow a genuine policy, but that each European state continues acting according to its egoistic interest – and today this evidently means above all economic interest. The lowest common denominator of unity is achieved when Europe appears as a vassal of the United States and takes part in wars that in no way lie in the common interest, to say nothing of the will of the people. A number of the founding states of the EU – such as Italy with its many American military bases – are more in the way of protectorates than sovereign states. In politics and militarily there is an Atlantic alliance, but certainly no Europe.

You’d therefore prefer a Latin imperium, whose way of life the ‘Germans’ would have to adapt to, to the EU…
No, it was perhaps rather provocatively that I took up Alexandre Kojève’s project of a ‘Latin imperium’. In the Middle Ages people at least knew that a unity of different political societies had to mean more than a purely political society. At that time, the uniting bond was sought in Christianity. Today I believe that this legitimation must be sought in Europe’s history and its cultural traditions. In contrast to Asians and Americans, for whom history means something completely different, Europeans always encounter their truth in a dialogue with their past. The past for us means not only a cultural inheritance and tradition, but a basic anthropological condition. If we were to ignore our own history, we could only penetrate into the past archeologically. The past for us would become a distinct life form. Europe has a special relationship to its cities, its artistic treasures, its landscapes. This is what Europe really consists of. And this is where the survival of Europe lies.

So Europe is first of all a life form, a historical life feeling?
Yes, that is why in my article I insisted that we have unconditionally to preserve our distinctive forms of life. When they bombed the German cities, the Allies also knew that they could destroy German identity. In the same way, speculators are destroying the Italian landscape today with concrete, motorways and expressways. This does not just mean robbing us of our property, but of our historical identity.

So should the EU emphasize differences rather than harmonization?
Perhaps there is nowhere else in the world, apart from Europe, where such a variety of cultures and life forms is perceptible – at least at valuable moments. Earlier on, as I see it, politics was expressed in the idea of the Roman empire, later the Roman-German empire. The whole however always left the particularities of the peoples intact. It is not easy to say what could emerge today in place of this. But quite certainly a political entity by the name of Europe can only proceed from this awareness of the past. It is precisely for this reason that the present crisis strikes me as so dangerous. We have to imagine unity first of all under an awareness of differences. But quite contrary to this, in the European states, schools and universities are being demolished and financially undermined, the very institutions that should perpetuate our culture and arouse living contact between past and present. This undermining goes together with a growing museumification of the past. We have the beginning of this in many cities that are transformed into historical zones, and in which the inhabitants are forced to feel themselves tourists in their own life world.

Is this creeping museumification the counterpart of a creeping impoverishment?
It is quite clear that we are not just faced with economic problems, but with the existence of Europe as a whole – starting with our relationship to the past. The only place in which the past can live is the present. And if the present no longer perceives its own past as something living, then universities and museums become problematic. It is quite evident that there are forces at work in Europe today that seek to manipulate our identity, by breaking the umbilical cord that still links us with our past. Differences are rather being levelled out. But Europe can only be our future if we make clear to ourselves that this means first of all our past. And this past is being increasingly liquidated.

Is the crisis that is present on all sides then the form of expression of a whole system of rule, directed at our everyday life?
The concept ‘crisis’ has indeed become a motto of modern politics, and for a long time it has been part of normality in any segment of social life. The very word expresses two semantic roots: the medical one, referring to the course of an illness, and the theological one of the Last Judgement. Both meanings, however, have undergone a transformation today, taking away their relation to time. ‘Crisis’ in ancient medicine meant a judgement, when the doctor noted at the decisive moment whether the sick person would survive or die. The present understanding of crisis, on the other hand, refers to an enduring state. So this uncertainty is extended into the future, indefinitely. It is exactly the same with the theological sense; the Last Judgement was inseparable from the end of time. Today, however, judgement is divorced from the idea of resolution and repeatedly postponed. So the prospect of a decision is ever less, and an endless process of decision never concludes.

Does this mean that the debt crisis, the crisis of state finance, of currency, of the EU, is never ending?
Today crisis has become an instrument of rule. It serves to legitimize political and economic decisions that in fact dispossess citizens and deprive them of any possibility of decision. In Italy this is very clear. Here a government was formed in the name of the crisis and Berlusconi brought back to power despite this being basically against the will of the electorate. This government is just as illegitimate as the so-called European constitution. The citizens of Europe must make clear to themselves that this unending crisis – just like a state of emergency – is incompatible with democracy.

What perspectives then remain for Europe?
We must start by restoring the original meaning of the word ‘crisis’, as a moment of judgement and choice. For Europe we cannot postpone this to the indefinite future. Many years ago a high official of the then embryonic Europe, the philosopher Alexandre Kojève, assumed that homo sapiens had come to the end of history and that there were now only two possibilities left. Either the ‘American way of life’, which Kojève saw as posthistoric vegetation. Or Japanese snobbery, simply going on celebrating the empty rituals of tradition now robbed of any historical meaning. I believe that Europe could however realize the alternative of a culture that remains at the same time human and vital, because it stands in dialogue with its own history and thereby acquires new life.

Europe, understood as culture and not only as economic space, could therefore provide an answer to the crisis?
For more than two hundred years, human energies have been focused on economics. Many things indicate that the moment has perhaps arrived for homo sapiens to organize human action afresh, beyond this single dimension. Old Europe can precisely make a decisive contribution to the future here.

Translated from German. Visit FAZ website, 24 May 2013, to read the original article.

Giorgio Agamben: La crisi perpetua come strumento di potere. Conversazione con Giorgio Agamben @ Il lavoro culturale website (Intervista originale a cura di Dirk Schümer per la FAZ)

La crisi perpetua come strumento di potere. Conversazione con Giorgio Agamben

Intervista uscita in tedesco a cura di Dirk Schümer il 24 maggio 2013 sul  Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung e poi pubblicata in inglese dalla casa editrice Verso il 4 giugno 2013. La traduzione è di Nicola Perugini.  

Read more @ LC

Professor Agamben, quando lo scorso marzo ha proposto l’idea di un “impero latino” contro il dominio tedesco in Europa, s’immaginava che questa idea avrebbe avuto una tale risonanza? Nel frattempo il suo saggio è stato tradotto in molte lingue e discusso appassionatamente in mezzo continente…

Giorgio Agamben: No, non me lo aspettavo. Ma credo nella forza delle parole, quando sono pronunciate al momento giusto.

La frattura dentro l’Unione Europea è davvero una frattura tra economie e modi di vita “germanico” del nord e “latino” del sud?

G.A.: Vorrei chiarire il fatto che la mia tesi è stata esagerata dai giornalisti e quindi fraintesa. Il titolo del mio articolo, “L’impero latino al contrattacco!”[1], è stato scelto dalla redazione di Libération ed è stato ripreso dai media tedeschi. Non ho mai utilizzato quella frase. Come potrei contrapporre la cultura latina a quella tedesca, quando qualsiasi europeo dotato d’intelligenza sa che la cultura italiana del Rinascimento o della Grecia classica sono oggi parte integrante della cultura tedesca, la quale le ha riformulate e se n’è appropriata!

Dunque non è una questione di “impero latino” dominante o di tedeschi ignoranti?

G.A.: L’identità di ogni cultura europea è un’identità di frontiera. Un tedesco come Winckelmann o Hölderlin potrebbe essere più greco dei greci. E un fiorentino come Dante potrebbe sentirsi tedesco quanto l’imperatore Federico II di Svevia. Questo è ciò che caratterizza l’Europa: una particolarità che non smette di oltrepassare le frontiere nazionali e culturali. L’oggetto della mia critica non era la Germania, ma il modo in cui l’Unione Europea è stata costruita, vale a dire su base esclusivamente economica. Dunque, in questo processo di costruzione sono state ignorate sia le nostre radici culturali e spirituali, sia quelle politiche e giuridiche. Se ciò è stato interpretato come una critica alla Germania, è perché la Germania, a causa della sua posizione dominante e nonostante la sua eccezionale tradizione filosofica, oggi sembra incapace di concepire un’Europa fondata su qualcosa di diverso dall’euro e dall’economia.

In che senso l’Unione Europea ha negato le sue radici politiche e giuridiche?

G.A.: Quando parliamo di Europa oggi, ci troviamo di fronte all’enorme repressione di una verità tanto dolorosa quanto ovvia: la cosiddetta costituzione europea è illegittima. Il testo varato con questo nome non è mai stato votato dai popoli europei. Quando è stato messo ai voti, ad esempio in Francia e Olanda nel 2005, è stato rifiutato con forza. Quindi, dal punto di vista legale, ciò che abbiamo non è una costituzione, bensì un trattato concordato tra governi: diritto internazionale, non diritto costituzionale. Recentemente un esperto tedesco di diritto molto rispettato come Dieter Grimm ci ha ricordato che la costituzione europea manca di un elemento democratico fondamentale, poiché ai cittadini europei non è stata concessa possibilità di esprimersi in merito. E ora l’intero progetto di ratifica popolare è stato congelato.

È proprio questo il famoso “deficit democratico” del sistema europeo…

G.A.: Non dovremmo perdere di vista questo elemento. I giornalisti, soprattutto in Germania, mi hanno accusato di non capire nulla di democrazia, ma farebbero bene a prendere in considerazione il fatto che l’Unione Europea è innanzitutto una comunità fondata su trattati tra stati camuffati con una costituzione democratica. L’idea di Europa come potere costituente è uno spettro che nessuno si azzarda più a evocare. Tuttavia è solo con una costituzione valida che le istituzioni europee potrebbero riacquisire legittimità.

Questo significa che lei vede nell’Unione Europea un’entità illegale?

G.A.: Non illegale ma illegittima. La legalità è una questione di regole con cui si esercita il potere; la legittimità è il principio che sta alla base di queste regole. I trattati legali non sono mere formalità poiché riflettono una realtà sociale. Per cui è chiaro che un’istituzione senza una costituzione non può seguire politiche sincere, e che ogni stato europeo continua ad agire secondo interessi egoistici – e oggi ciò significa chiaramente interessi economici. Il minimo comun denominatore di questa comunità si manifesta in maniera chiara quando l’Europa agisce come un vassallo degli Stati Uniti e prende parte a guerre che non sono fondate su alcun interesse comune, né sulla volontà dei popoli. Alcuni stati fondatori dell’Unione Europea –come l’Italia, con le sue molte basi americane– assomigliano più a dei protettorati che a degli stati sovrani. Nelle questioni politiche e militari c’è un Alleanza Atlantica, ma certamente non un’Europa.

Dunque lei all’Unione Europea preferirebbe un imperium latino, al cui stile di vita i “germanici” dovrebbero adattarsi…

G.A.: No, forse ho ripreso il progetto di “imperium latino” di Alexandre Kojève in maniera provocatoria. Nel Medio Evo quanto meno le persone sapevano che l’unione di società politiche diverse doveva significare qualcosa di più che una società esclusivamente politica. A quel tempo, il legame andava cercato nella cristianità. Oggi credo che questa legittimazione vada cercata nella storia dell’Europa e nelle sue tradizioni culturali. A differenza degli asiatici e degli americani, per cui la storia significa qualcosa di completamente diverso da come noi la intendiamo, gli europei incontrano sempre la verità nel dialogo con il proprio passato. Per noi il passato non significa solo un’eredità o una tradizione culturale, ma una condizione antropologica di fondo. Se ignorassimo la nostra storia potremmo solo penetrare nel nostro passato in maniera archeologica. Il passato diventerebbe per noi una forma di vita distinta. L’Europa ha una relazione speciale con le sue città, i suoi tesori artistici, i suoi paesaggi. In questo consiste l’Europa. E in questo risiede la sua sopravvivenza.

Quindi l’Europa è innanzitutto una forma di vita, una sensazione storica di vita?

G.A.: Sì, ed è per questo che nel mio articolo ho insistito sul fatto che dobbiamo preservare le nostre peculiari forme di vita. Quando gli Alleati hanno bombardato le città tedesche, sapevano che avrebbero potuto distruggere l’identità tedesca. Allo stesso modo, gli speculatori stanno distruggendo il paesaggio italiano con il cemento, le autostrade e le superstrade. Questo non significa solo derubarci di ciò che possediamo, ma anche della nostra identità storica.

Allora l’Unione Europea dovrebbe valorizzare le differenze al posto dell’armonizzazione?

G.A.: Forse non esiste un altro posto al mondo in cui è percepibile una tale varietà di culture e di forme di vita come in Europa. A mio avviso, in passato la politica si esprimeva nell’idea di impero romano, poi di impero romano-germanico. L’insieme ha sempre lasciato intatte le particolarità dei popoli. Non è facile prevedere cosa possa emergere oggi al posto di questo modello. Ma sicuramente un’entità politica che prenda il nome di Europa non può che muovere i suoi passi dalla consapevolezza del passato. È per questa ragione che la crisi attuale mi sembra così pericolosa. Dobbiamo immaginare l’unità nella piena consapevolezza delle differenze. Invece negli stati europei le scuole e le università – quelle stesse istituzioni che dovrebbero tramandare la nostra cultura e stimolare il contatto tra passato e presente – vengono demolite ed economicamente indebolite. Questo indebolimento va di pari passo con una crescente museificazione del passato. Un processo che sta prendendo piede in molte città, trasformate in zone storiche in cui gli abitanti sono costretti a sentirsi turisti negli spazi in cui vivono.

Questa museificazione strisciante va di pari passo con un impoverimento strisciante?

G.A.: È ormai chiaro che dobbiamo far fronte a problemi la cui natura non è solamente economica. La questione è l’esistenza dell’Europa nel suo insieme –a partire dalla nostra relazione con il passato. L’unico posto in cui il passato può vivere è il presente. E se il presente non percepisce più il proprio passato come un qualcosa di vivo, le università e i musei diventano problematici. È evidente che in Europa vi sono forze che cercano di manipolare la nostra identità tagliando il cordone ombelicale che ci lega al nostro passato. In questo modo le differenze vengono cancellate. Ma l’Europa può essere il nostro futuro se chiariamo a noi stessi che questo futuro significa prima di tutto il nostro passato. Un passato che si cerca sempre più di liquidare.

Dunque questa crisi è la forma di espressione di un sistema di governo che si applica alle nostre vite quotidiane?

G.A.: Il concetto di “crisi” è ormai divenuto il motto della politica moderna, e da tempo fa parte di tutte le sfere della vita sociale. La parola stessa esprime due radici semantiche: una medica, che si riferisce al percorso di una malattia, e una teologica, che si riferisce al Giudizio Universale. Tuttavia oggi entrambi i significati si sono trasformati, annullando la loro relazione con il tempo. “Crisi” nell’antica medicina significava giudizio, il momento decisivo in cui il dottore si rendeva conto se il paziente sarebbe sopravvissuto o no. Invece l’attuale interpretazione della nozione di crisi si riferisce a uno stato permanente. Dunque questa incertezza si estende al futuro, indefinitamente. La stessa cosa vale per il senso teologico di crisi: il Giudizio Universale non era separabile dalla fine del tempo. Invece oggi il giudizio viene separato dall’idea di fine e posticipato ripetutamente. Così la prospettiva di una decisione è senza fine, un interminabile processo decisionale che non si conclude mai.

Questo significa che la crisi del debito, la crisi della finanza statale, della moneta, dell’Unione Europea, sono crisi senza fine?

G.A.: Oggi la crisi è divenuta uno strumento di governo. Essa serve a legittimare decisioni politiche ed economiche che di fatto privano i cittadini di qualsiasi possibilità di decisione. Questo è estremamente chiaro in Italia, dove si è formato un governo nel nome della crisi e Berlusconi è tornato al potere contro la volontà degli elettori. Questo governo è illegittimo tanto quanto la cosiddetta costituzione europea. I cittadini europei devono rendersi conto che questa crisi senza fine –come qualsiasi stato di emergenza– è incompatibile con la democrazia.

Quali prospettive restano all’Europa?

G.A.: Dobbiamo iniziare con la riscoperta del significato originario della parola “crisi”, intesa come momento di giudizio e scelta. L’Europa non può continuare a posticipare a un futuro indefinito. Molti anni fa il filosofo Alexandre Kojève, un alto rappresentante di ciò che poi sarebbe stata l’Europa nel suo stadio embrionale, ipotizzava che l’homo sapiens era giunto alla fine della sua storia e che erano rimaste solo due possibilità. O l’“American way of life”, che Kojève vedeva come una sorta di vegetazione post-storica. O lo snobismo giapponese, una forma di celebrazione di rituali vuoti di una tradizione privata di qualsiasi significato storico. Penso che l’Europa possa rendersi conto dell’esistenza di un’alternativa, di una cultura che rimanga sia umana sia vitale, poiché in dialogo con la sua propria storia e quindi in grado di acquisire una nuova vita.

L’Europa, intesa come cultura e non solo come spazio economico, potrebbe dunque offrire una risposta alla crisi?

G.A.: Per oltre duecento anni le energie umane europee si sono focalizzate sull’economia. Molti elementi indicano che per l’homo sapiens è giunto il momento di riorganizzare l’azione umana al di là di questa dimensione esclusivamente economica. È qui che l’Europa può offrire il suo contributo al futuro.

Giorgio Agamben - Pilato e Gesù - Nottetempo (Settembre 2013)

Filosofi e storici hanno riflettuto sull'obbedienza, su perché gli uomini obbediscono, ma si sono chiesti di rado che cosa sia il comando e perché gli uomini comandano. Anticipando una ricerca più ampia tuttora in corso, questa agile conferenza interroga il problema del comando innanzitutto a partire dalla sua forma linguistica, l'imperativo. Che cosa facciamo quando diciamo: "cammina!", "parla!" ,"obbedisci!"? E come mai l'imperativo sembra essere, secondo i linguisti, la forma originaria del verbo? E perché Dio, in ogni religione. parla sempre all'imperativo e gli uomini si rivolgono a lui nello stesso modo verbale ("dacci oggi il nostro pane quotidiano!")? Cercando di rispondere a queste domande, Agamben mostra che, nella cultura occidentale, che si crede fondata sulla conoscenza e sulla funzione di verità, il comando. che non può essere né vero né falso, svolge una funzione tanto più decisiva e invadente, quanto più nascosta e elusiva.

In questo saggio, di poco più di 60 pagine, Giorgio Agamben mette in relazione le figure lontanissime di Pilato e Gesù. Riprendendo i quattro Vangeli canonici, alcuni Vangeli apocrifi e gli scritti di Agostino, Dante, Tommaso d’Aquino, Porfirio, Kierkegaard, Pascal e di esperti giuristi, il filosofo ricostruisce, passo passo, il processo indetto contro Gesù e illumina, soprattutto concentrandosi sul Vangelo di Giovanni, gli aspetti giuridici, filosofici e religiosi del dialogo tra il governatore della Giudea e il figlio di Dio. Il confronto non è tanto tra verità e scetticismo, fede e incredulità, ma forse, lascia intendere il filosofo, è tra due diverse concezioni della verità (in relazione alla frase pronunciata da Pilato: Che cos’è la verità?). E’ interessante la divisione che il filosofo fa del Vangelo di Giovanni delle sette scene dentro e fuori dal pretorio (in circa cinque ore) in cui Pilato parlò con Gesù. Infine viene dato spazio ai dubbi di alcuni giuristi se il processo di Gesù possa o meno essere considerato corretto secondo le procedure del diritto romano.

Adam Kotsko and Colby Dickinson: On Agamben - Interview @ Unisinos, September 2013

Adam Kotsko and Colby Dickinson: On Agamben -

 Interview @ Unisinos website

September 2013

1. What is the peculiarity of the link between philosophy and theology in the work of Agamben?

Colby: In many ways, I want to answer this question simply by saying that, according to Agamben’s reading of these disciplines, in the end, there is little difference between them, except to say that theology—historically speaking—got things wrong early on, and only now has an opportunity to embrace its ‘mission’ once again.  When he speaks of Saint Paul’s understanding of ‘the messianic’ and its ability to upend any of our representations through a ‘division of division itself’ (in The Time that Remains), he is signaling the ‘theological’ core of our most basic philosophical endeavors.  This is why I feel that Agamben’s most philosophical work will always have its theological counterpart, just as his writings on theology will always have major philosophical conclusions.

Adam: I agree that Agamben sees the two disciplines as necessarily connected or mutually communicating. He recognizes a distinction, but they seem to be two ways of going about a fundamentally similar task. And I think that part of what leads him to see such a necessary connection is his absolute rejection of modern attempts to establish “religion” as a separate, self-contained realm—opening up a path for a new and different way of conceiving the relationship between theology and philosophy outside the paradigm of religious/secular.

Colby: And this is why his notion of ‘profanation’ is so intriguing to me, though perhaps very baffling to others.  There is a sense, I think, in which ‘profaning’ that which appears to us as ‘sacred’ is a blasphemous act, but it is one that seems so central to the Christian tradition, as this is something Jesus himself would have been familiar with.  His many acts of ‘blasphemy’ might actually be reread as so many acts of profanation, in Agamben’s use of the term.  This is a point I think we are just beginning to glimpse some of the significance of as well.

Adam: Definitely. That was a really intriguing aspect of The Sacrament of Language for me—one of the few times he actually commented on Jesus’s own practice. Surely that is a relevant source for thinking about the “messianic”!

2. What are the fundamental dialogues that this thinker establishes between these two fields of knowledge?

Colby: What seems unique in his work is that Agamben offers theology a genuine chance to glimpse its own inner workings in terms of its political movements, specifically as they have been deployed over time.  In The Kingdom and the Glory, for example, he points out time and again how Christian talk of the trinity is mired in a very this-worldly economy, complete with communal and even financial implications.  He does the same thing as well in his comments on the ‘glorious body’, the post-Resurrected body that is really another way of talking about our very earthly bodies (in his Nudities).  For quite some time now many theologians have been trying to talk about how each theology really speaks a good deal about one’s personal context (e.g. feminist, black, latino/a theologies, etc.).  What Agamben seems to say to such efforts is that they are right to recognize the importance of looking at one’s own ground from which one speaks, but also that such talk does not go far enough either.  The entire project of theology must be rethought from the ground up, and philosophy—or the ‘philosophy of theology’ perhaps—plays a central role in redefining the theological tasks before us today.

Adam: It seems to me that the “point of contact” is actually the notion of the messianic, which in some works (like The Sacrament of Language) can seem to be synonymous with the philosophical, so that Agamben can detect messianic patterns of thought in Aristotle, for example, and implicitly claim St. Paul as part of the philosophical tradition. It will be interesting to see what happens to the distinction between philosophy and theology in his work subsequent to Opus Dei, where he postulates two ontologies, one of being and one of command, which may correspond to (or serve as the object of) philosophy and theology, respectively.

Colby: One of the things I appreciated the most about Opus Dei in fact was his movement back toward the ethical-philosophical by way of critique toward Kant’s sense of ‘duty’—something linked very much in many people’s minds to an internal sense of commanding oneself, if I can put it that way.  There is much yet to be rethought within the western, Christian tradition with regards to duty, obligation and responsibility, just to name a few central concepts, and I think Agamben is here pointing a way toward such a reformulation of these things, and in very profound ways.

Adam: The way he talks about the Kantian categorical imperative resonates a great deal with the psychoanalytic account of its relationship to the superego—with all the cruelty and sadism implied there. He acknowledges that connection by writing a long note on Lacan’s “Kant avec Sade,” and while it’s clear that he wants to take some distance from the psychoanalytic interpretation, it’s less clear what his own position is. This is an area where I think Eric Santner’s work is really valuable for understanding Agamben, because he is continually supplementing Agamben’s concepts with psychoanalytic ones—and in retrospect, Agamben’s own account can sometimes seem incomplete. It’s as though he needs that psychoanalytic supplement and yet doesn’t want to deal with it.

3. For Agamben, the signature of the sacred was transferred from religion to the space of politics. What are the consequences of this shift of perspective in terms of philosophy and theology?

Colby: In short, the consequence of such a transfer is that politics today functions as a thinly-veiled religious spectacle, complete with its calls for glory to permeate its every gesture.  One can notice, for starters, how sacred certain national political spaces and persons have become ‘sacred’ over time.  In a deeply ironic fashion, then, Agamben tries in a certain sense to preserve theology’s (‘original’, or perhaps simply Pauline) ability to critique the political sphere and its dependence upon the violent reductions made with regards to its given, normative representations.  Though he is highly critical of theology’s legacy, historically speaking, there is something as well in the Christian tradition specifically—from Paul’s writings to Saint Francis of Assisi’s attempt to embody a ‘form of life’ beyond the law, as we saw in his more recent The Highest Poverty—that is able to formulate a substantial critique of the political sphere’s use of the ‘sacred’.  At the same time, such a rendering of things allows him to also dismiss any sense of ‘sacrality’ as a political ploy for sovereign power.  Such insights motivate his quest toward an ‘absolute profanation’ of our world as the only way to be authentically ‘religious’, and, in the end, I suspect such a profanation shares something fundamental with Jesus’ own attempts to divest people of their false ‘sacred’ idols.

Adam: What’s most interesting to me from the perspective of the theory of religion is that Agamben believes that this shift of sacredness from religion to politics is only possible because the very notion of the sacred points to a time “before” religion and politics were separated in the first place.  One might think that a notion like “the sacredness of human life” is more of a metaphor drawn from the religious sphere, which is meant to emphasize the extreme importance of human life—but if the religious and the political are always connected because they share the same root in human experience, then a metaphor can never be only a metaphor.

Colby: I sense here the potential for a vast deconstruction of much political rhetoric today, something which, in the United States at least, seems to all-too-happily wed the political with the religious, and this under the false pretenses of a predetermined sense of what exactly the ‘sacred’ is.  I think a lot of people outside the US are generally surprised when they see how people here wed the political with the religious, but, if anything, Agamben seems to illustrate quite adeptly why certain political-religious groups in the US hold such influence.

Adam: This is certainly an area where he is very Benjaminian. I’m thinking of the part in “On the Concept of History” where he castigates progressive liberals for their shock that such things are “still” possible—and the same could be said about progressive liberals in the U.S. who are constantly waiting for religion to die off so that our history can finally take the “normal” course.

4. What is it about the “poetic atheology” of Agamben that interests you? How can we understand the split between poetry and philosophy in his thinking?

Colby: Poetry, for Agamben, and mainly in its modern fragmentary form, directs our attention toward the disintegration of the ‘subject’, away from its theological ‘signature’ and toward a new form of living ‘beyond’ the confines of the traditional (metaphysical, theological, sovereign) subject.  In this sense, poetry—especially in those poets who have most directly sought to open up such a space for us, as in Giorgio Caproni or Rilke, for example—becomes an ‘atheological’ exercise, and a movement toward a hope for humanity to find its liberation from such oppressive forces.  Traditionally, as he understands it, theology was what filled the empty space between philosophy and poetry, two interrelated fields with different focal points: respectively, knowledge and experience.  The movement between these points should, in Agamben’s estimation, be left unfilled, and open toward the riches that such a traversal might entail, though such things would often be beyond words, certainly beyond representation.  Theology, however, sought to plug this empty space with its own conjectures and representational grids, all with the intent of maintaining a specific structure of (sovereign) power, something often linked to the divine right of kings to rule and the like.  Agamben’s quest for a ‘poetic atheology’ is the hope he offers our contemporary world to be free of such structures and ‘divine’ claims so that humanity itself might take up the (more just) task of taking responsibility for itself, and not deadening its experiences as so many would today.  In fact, Agamben’s word for this deadening of experience—the ‘museification’ of our world—says a lot about how the ‘theological’ is really to be understood.  Just as with a museum which removes objects from everyday use, so too does the religious claim to remove objects from their everyday usage, conferring a certain sacrality upon them.  Agamben’s efforts are rather aimed at removing the sacral aura from such objects and returning them to their use.  I often think of the way in which churches today have become museums and museums function like churches and with both catering more and more to the tourist industry.

5. What approaches are possible between Agamben, Benjamin and Girard?

Colby: I think that this nexus of authors can be linked through each one’s focus upon the role of violence in relation to religion, especially as each will side, more or less, with the weak, messianic forces of history over the strong, sovereign powers that tend to rule things otherwise.  This was certainly an important convergence of ideas for Benjamin, and I believe for Agamben as well.  For the latter, especially in his Homo Sacer series and in his early Language and Death, there is a strong linkage made between sacrifice, violence and—what Girard would call—single victim mechanisms.  Though I would be cautious to say that their work overlaps entirely—and I am mainly speaking of Agamben and Girard here—I am certainly drawn to view their respective works as forming a certain shared effort to illuminate the injustices done to the victim, the false notions of sacrality at work within such mechanisms , and the like.  I think the fact that Gianni Vattimo has been able to read Girard as one whose work ultimately leads us toward a more ‘secular’ society seems only to confirm Agamben’s independent reading of things (though Agamben himself would prefer to use the term ‘profane’ rather than ‘secular’).  It is interesting, at least from a passing glance, to think about how Girard’s main point—that society is essentially founded upon the exclusion (‘scapegoating’) of a ‘weak’ victim and that our most basic political structures rely upon such a logic—is that which ultimately underlines Agamben’s critique of politics as well.  Much more could be done with this, and I think much is being developed along these lines by the many Girardians today.

6. What does the figure of the empty throne used by Agamben in “The Kingdom and the Glory” mean?

Adam: In The Kingdom and the Glory, Agamben’s goal is to reveal that sovereign power is fundamentally empty—and the empty throne is a powerful image for that reality (or lack of reality). He does something interesting with this image, though. It seems to be merely a way of unmasking the illegitimacy of sovereign power, but he claims that there’s something positive to be said as well. The void at the heart of sovereignty can be a source of transformation and creativity. This is because it corresponds to the fundamental inoperativity of humanity—the fact that we have no pre-given purpose or task in the world. Sovereign power masks this inoperativity by claiming to be the purpose of all human activity, and unmasking sovereign power gives us the possibility of creating new and different purposes or tasks for ourselves.

Colby: I would find it very interesting to put such a view of the ‘void’ at the heart of sovereignty in dialogue with Moltmann’s notion of ‘perichorisis’, in which the trinity itself is said to have a void at its own heart.  Agamben does take up Moltmann’s notion of the trinity very briefly in this book, but he doesn’t deal directly with this connection, and I think an opportunity is lost there somewhere to explore ‘alternate’ notions of the divine, ones beyond his usual understanding of divine sovereignty.

Adam: I was disappointed with his engagement with Moltmann—it was limited to a swipe where he claims that Benjamin already did a better job of what Moltmann wants to do and to the quotation identifying the economic and immanent trinity (which actually stems originally from Karl Rahner!). Agamben does a great job of engaging with the theological tradition, but like most other philosophers, he can be dismissive of contemporary theologians.

7. How are we to understand that Christian theology, to Agamben, has been, since its origin, an economic-managerial and not a State-political one?

Colby: This question really draws attention, to my mind, to the influence of Foucault’s work upon his own over the last decade or so.  Foucault’s lectures on governmentality really placed an emphasis upon the ways in which the economic-managerial paradigm has seemed to govern in place of what many have seen as the dominant political player, the sovereign state-political one.  In many ways, however, Agamben seems not able to seamlessly weave this idea onto the critique of sovereign power he has been developing throughout the Homo Sacer series.

Adam: This is an aspect of Agamben’s argument in The Kingdom and the Glory that I find difficult to understand. At first, he seems to be presenting the economic paradigm as a better alternative to the political-theological paradigm of sovereignty, especially insofar as he locates it in the Pauline epistles. Yet by the end of the book, he has dismissed the economic paradigm as ultimately “hellish” and beyond redemption and turned back to the sovereign paradigm in his analysis of glory. I wish he had said more about how he understands Paul’s place in the development of economic thought.

Colby: And this reawakens in me the desire to see him deal with something like Moltmann’s notion of ‘perichorisis’, or the void at the heart of God.  I think that such a notion might be the only way to bring things back, theologically at least, to a discussion of exactly what can be done with the sovereign paradigm in the end.

Biographies

Colby Dickinson is Assistant Professor of Theology at Loyola University, Chicago.  He is the author of Agamben and Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2011) and Between the Canon and the Messiah: The Structure of Faith in Contemporary Continental Thought (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), as well as a number of articles on contemporary continental philosophy and theology.  He is editor of The Postmodern ‘Saints’ of France (London: T&T Clark, 2013) and The Shaping of Tradition: Context and Normativity (Leuven: Peeters, 2013).

Adam Kotsko is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Shimer College in Chicago. He is the author of Žižek and Theology, Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation, Awkwardness, and Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television and the translator of several works by Giorgio Agamben. He blogs at An und für sich (itself.wordpress.com).