agmben dead

8/11/2019 Agmben Dead

1/22

Giorgio Agamben and the Politics of the Living Dead

Author(s): Andrew NorrisSource: Diacritics, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Winter, 2000), pp. 38-58Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1566307.

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2/22

IOR IO

G MBEN

N D

T H E

POLITICS

O

T H E

LIVIN

D E D

ANDREWNORRIS

Death is most

rightening,

since it is a

boundary.

-Aristotle,

NicomacheanEthics

And as the same

thing

there exists in us

living

and dead and

the

waking

and

the

sleeping

and

young

and old:

for

these

things having changed

round

are

those,

and

those

having

changed

round

are these.

-Heraclitus,

Fragment

88

What

s

politics today?

What is its

relationship

o

the

tradition rom which

it

emerges?

Thequestionsare difficult ones to answer n partbecausecontemporary olitics seems

so

schizophrenic.

n

affluentWestern ountries

politics

is

increasingly

a matterof

spec-

tacle

on the one handand

managed

economies

on the

other.Hannah

Arendtseems

quite

confirmed

n her

claim that

the

once-glorious

public

realm of

appearance

s fundamen-

tally

degraded

when

it is

overrun

by

concerns more

appropriate

o the

private

realm,

such as household

management

and

gossip.

If

this "unnatural

rowth

of the

natural"

[47]

inclines us to

nostalgia

for a time

when

the two realms were more

decisively

sepa-

rated,

such

nostalgia

is

likely

intensified

by

the "ethnic

cleansing," rape camps,

and

genocide

that we now associate with names such

as

"Yugoslavia"

nd

"Rwanda."

But

as

improbable

as

any flight

to the

pastmaybe,

it is even less

likely

that

the

politics

of

that

past

could

help

us

navigate

the

treacherouswaters

of our

current

technological

society.

I

have

in

mind

not

only

the familiar

claim

that

the

attempted

genocides

of our

time

are

only

made

possible

by quite

modem

forms

of

technology, organization,

and

experience,'

but also

recent scientific

and

"medical"advances.Consider

ust

two:

first,

the

corporate

driven and controlled

development

of

biotechnologies,

in

which

huge

multinationals

re

acquiringpatents

o

genetic

"information"uch as "all

humanblood

cells that have come

from the

umbilical

cord of

[any]

newborn

child."

If

there

is

any

doubt that such

developments

will lead us

to

redefine

the human

being,

these

may

be

laid

to rest

by

the case

of

John

Moore,

an

Alaskan

businessmanwho found

his own

body partshadbeenpatented,withouthis knowledge, by theUniversityof Californiaat

Los

Angeles

and icensed to

the

Sandoz

Pharmaceutical

Corporation

Rifkin

60-61].

So

much for Locke's

attempt

o

ground

the institutionof

privateproperty

n the fact

that

"every

Man has

a

Property

n his own Person" 2 In its

place

we

seem

to be

moving

I

am

grateful

to

GiorgioAgamben,

Joe

Campisi,

Bill

Connolly,

Tom

Rockmore,

Hans

Sluga,

and

Eric Wilson

or

their

helpful

comments

on

earlier

drafts

of

this

essay.

I

would also

like to thank

Yasemin

Ok

or

her

help.

1. For

an excellent

discussion

of

this,

see

Baumanl2-30.

2.

Locke,

Two Treatises

of

Government

: 27. There

s, however,

no

necessary

contradiction

38

diacritics

30.4: 38-58

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3/22

toward

something

more

like the

"logical synthesis

of

biology

and

economy"

called for

by

the National Socialist

Institut

allemand

in

Paris

in

1942

[Agamben,

Homo

Sacer

145].

A similar

process

of redefinition

s

alreadyunderway

n

the field

of

death,

a

phe-

nomenon

that scientists and

lawyers

are

having

a harder

and harder ime

pinning

down.

Where

once

death

was

defined

by

the cessation of the

movement

of

the heartand

lungs,

recent life support echnologieshave forced scientiststo define deathin termsof such

technologies.

Witness Doctor Norman

Shumway's

defense of

the

definition

of

death

as

braindeath:

"I'm

saying

that

anyone

whose brain

s

dead is

dead.

It is the

one determi-

nant

that

would

be

universallyapplicable,

because

the

brain

s the

one

organ

that can't

be

transplanted"

163].

By implication,

f and when

technology

is

developed

thatallows

for brain

transplants,

ven those

whose

brains

are

"dead"will

be

brought

back

to

some

kind of

life,

perhaps

as

organ

farms for others

who

are less

ambiguously

alive.

Giorgio

Agamben,

rom whose book

Homo

Sacer:

Sovereign

Power

and

Bare

Life

I take

both

this last

grisly

example

and

ts

analysis, argues

hat,

contrary

o

appearances,

such

developments

do

not

represent

a radicalbreak

with

the tradition.His

analysis

both

builds

upon

and

corrects

Michel

Foucault's

claim that

politics

in our time is

constituted

by

disciplines

of

normalization

and

subjectification

hat

Foucault abels

"bio-power."

For

Foucault,

biopower

is

fundamentally

modem. "What

might

be

called a

society's

'threshold

of

modernity,"'

he

writes,

"has

been

reachedwhen

the

life of the

species

is

wagered

on

its own

political

strategies.

For

millennia,

man remainedwhat

he

was for

Aristotle:

a

living

animal

with the

additional

capacity

for

political

existence;

modem

man is an animal whose

politics places

his existence

as a

living being

in

question"

[143].

This

passage

seems

to

imply

not

only

that

modernity

s

political

in

a different

way

than

the

previous

millennia had

been,

but that

t

is

more

political,

even

essentially

so. If

politics

was an "additional

apacity"

withAristotle,now

politics

is of ouressence,

and life has become

its

object.

Agamben

echoes

such

claims at

times,

and

argues,

for

instance,

that

"the

politicization

of

bare life as such .

.

. constitutes

the

decisive

event of

modernity

and

signals

a radical

transformationof

the

political-philosophical categories

of

ancient

thought"

[4].

But

he

also maintainsthat

this

transformation

s

made

possible

by

the

metaphysics

of those

very

ancient

categories.

As in

Nietzsche's

discussion of

nihilism,

on

Agamben's

analysis, biopolitics

fulfills the

potential

of

its

origin

in

turningagainst

that

origin.3

Hence,

Agambenarguesagainst

Foucault hat ife

in some

sense

always

has

been the definitiveobjectof politics.His argumentbegins with a review of Aristotle's

distinction,

n

the first

book of

Politics,

between bare life

(to zen)

and

the

good

life

(to

eu

zen):

"we

may

say

that while

[the

polis]

grows

for the sake of mere

life,

it

exists for

the sake of

a

good

life"

[1.2.8].

Agamben

rightly

argues

that

this

distinctionhas served

here,

as Locke

also

maintains

that our bodies

belong

to

God,

and that our

tacit consent

to the

institution

of

money

takes

us

beyond

the limitations

of

the

initial

orm of

private

property

2:

6,

36,

50].

Not

completely

so,

of

course;

and a

defenderof

UCLA,

he

Sandoz

corporation,

or the

proponents

of

organ

arming

might

ook

or support

o

Locke's

spoilage

limitation: "Asmuch as

any

one

can make

use

of

to

any advantage

of life before

t

spoils;

so

much

may

he

by

his

labourfix

a Property n. ... Nothingwasmadeby Godfor Man tospoilor destroy"[2: 31]. One can object

on a number

of

grounds

to

ghoulish

proposals

to

develop

"neomorts,"

bodies

that,

still

"warm,

pulsating,

and

urinating"

are

neither

dead

nor

alive,

and

hence

beyond

the

purview

of

rights

that

mightprotect

us

(?)from

being

turned nto

organ arms;

but

one can

hardly

cite a

lack

of

either

industriousness

or a desire to make

use

of

all that

God

has

given

us.

3.

It

may

take centuries

or

a

people

to

experience

the

disgust

with

life

that

initially

made

them

a

people:

the exhaustion

of

Europe

(the

death

of

God)

is

a

contemporary

vent,

albeit one

that

has

been in

genesis

for

two

thousand

years.

"The time has come when we

have to

pay for

having

been

Christians

or

two thousand

years:

we are

losing

the center

of

gravity by

virtue

of

which we

lived;

we

are lost

for

a while"

[Nietzsche,

Will o Power

20].

diacritics / winter 2000

39



4/22

as the

foundation

of

the

Western radition

of

political philosophy,

n that

politics

has

been

distinguished

from

essentially

private enterprises

on the

grounds

that

it is

con-

cerned

with

something

more than

he

perpetuation

f

biological

life. Because the end

of

politics

is

different

rom thatof

the variousrealmsof bare

ife,

such as

family

life,

slave

holding,

and

village

association,

ts

principle

of order

s differentas well. For

Aristotle

the

"something

more"that

distinguishes

the

political

is the realizationof the human

capacity

to structurea

just

common

life

in

the

community's

noncoercive,

deliberative

reflection

upon

the

question

of

what

justice

is and what concrete

measures it

entails:

"Justice

belongs

to the

polis;

for

justice,

which

is the determination

f what s

just,

is

an

ordering

of the

political

association"

[Politics

1.2.66].

For

all

of

their

disagreements,

the vast

majority

of

contemporary oliticalphilosophers

are united

n

theircommitment

to this self-reflexive

project,

and

to its

identification

of the

political

and

the

just.4

Agamben,

however,

suggests

that

this

politico-philosophicalproject

oday

standswith-

out

the

foundations

that Aristotle

proposed

for

it,

namely

the

categorical

distinction

between bare life and the good or political life. And this is not because an element

foreign

to Aristotle's schema has

polluted

or subverted

t,

but

because

the

schema

has

deconstructed

itself.5

What

s

the

instability

here that would

allow

for this?

When we read

the first book

of

Politics

it

appears

hat

Aristotle

is

laying

out

a

chronological

account of the

rise of

the

polis.

Human

beings began

living

in

families,

then

they acquired

laves and

formed

villages,

until

finally they

achieved a self-sufficient

(autarkes)

mode

of

life.

But to treat

this

as

nothing

more than a

history

is

to misunderstand

he natureof the

boundary

hat

human

beings

cross when

their

community

becomes

self-sufficient,

and to

assume,

as

Foucault

does in the

passage

cited

above,

that

political

life

can

be

simply

added on

to

human ife.

Aristotle, however,

expressly

denies this:

"The man who is isolated-who

is unable to share in

the benefits of

political

association,

or has

no need because he is

already

self-sufficient-is no

part

of the

polis,

and

must thereforebe either a beast

or

a

god."6

To

be

truly

humanone must

be

a member

of

apolis,

for it

is

only

as such thatone

can

truly speak:

"Themere

making

of

sounds

serves to indicate

pleasure

and

pain,

and

is thus a

faculty

that

belongs

to animals n

general.

.. But

language

serves

to ... declare

what

is

just

and

unjust"

Politics 1.2.16].

This

conception

of

the

human

ife

as

not sim-

4.

This

may

seem to contradictthe

Arendtianclaim-which

Agambenaccepts-that

"Soci-

ety

is the

form

in

which the

fact of

mutual

dependence or

the sake

of life

and

nothing

else as-

sumes

public significance

and

wherethe activities connected

with sheer survivalare

permitted

o

appear

in

public"

[Human

Condition

46].

However,

accepting

as

fundamental

the distinction

betweenthe

good life

and mere

ife

has

hardlyprecluded

iberal

political philosophy

rom turning

back and

subordinating

he

public

realm to the interests

of

the

private-a

subordination hat

redefines

but does not

entirely

eliminate

the

categorical

distinctionbetween

the two. It is

simply

that in liberalism

the

"good life"

is

increasingly

a

procedural

matter,

one that most

efficiently

regulates

the

conflicts

between our

discrete

private

lives. The

debate between Michael Sandel

and John

Rawls,

or

instance,

s not over the relevance

of

the

Aristotelian

distinction,

but

over

the

definition

and

preconditions

ofjustice.

Hence each

party

to the

debate understands

himself

to

be

contributing

o the Aristotelian

project. Compare

Sandel

317ff

and Rawls

424ff

5.Agambendistinguisheshisanalysis roma deconstructive ne,apparentlythediscussion

is

uncharacteristically

unclear)

on the

grounds

that deconstruction

allows

itself

to become

en-

tangled

with

paradoxes

in an

unhelpful

way

[54].

Be

that

as it

may,

I

am

using

the

term

quite

loosely

here to

refer

to

a

mode

of

analysis

that

inds

the assertions

it treats to

require

a

logical

structure

(of

say,

binary

oppositions

such as

logic

and

rhetoric,

performative

and constative

language,

inner and

outer

political life

and bare

life)

that

they

themselves

unravel.

6.

Politics 1.2.14.

If

this

statement-which,

surprisingly,

Agamben

does

not

cite-strikes

us

as

hyperbolic,

we need

only

recall the more

general point

that Book

10

of

NicomacheanEthics

ends

with

a call

for

the

Politics because the

particularly

human

aretecan

only

be

realized

within

a

political life.

40



5/22

ply

a

given

but

an

achievement s definitive of

the

notion of humanculture.Most of us

tend,

however,

to consider

only

the

good

and

just

life

to

which we

aspire.

Agamben

n

contrast

ocuses on

the life thatfails

to

achieve

humanity;

he

remains,

as it

were,

of

our

becoming

moral,

ust,

and

political.

I

say

"as it

were,"

because "mere

ife" cannot

truly

be

exuviated.

It

too

is

human

ife,

though

perhaps

not

fully

so.

In his discussionof Aristotle'sPolitics

Agamben argues

that

Politics

...

appears

as the

truly undamental

structure

struttura]

of

Western

metaphysics nsofar

as it

occupies

the threshold

soglia]

on which the relation

between

the

living

being

and

the

logos

is

realized

[si

compie].

In

the

"politicization"of

bare

life-the metaphysical

task

par

excellence-the hu-

manity

of living

man is

decided

[si decide].

... There s

politics

because man

is

the

living being

who,

in

language,

separates

and

opposes

himself

to

his

own

bare

life

[nuda vita]

and,

at the

same

time,

maintains

himself

n relation o that

bare life in an inclusive exclusion[un' esclusioneinclusiva]. [8]7

"Threshold"s a word that occurs

again

and

again

in

Agamben's

text,

and

it

invariably

signifies

a

passage

that

cannot

be

completed,

a distinction that can be neither

main-

tained nor

eliminated.8

The

fundamental

political

distinctionbetween bare life and the

good,

just

life lived

in

accordance

with the

logos

proposes

humanity

as a

project,

one

of

self-overcoming.

But this

project,

as

such,

relies

upon

"theexclusion

(which

is

simulta-

neously

an

inclusion)

of bare life

[una

esclusione

(che

e,

nella stessa

misura,

un'im-

plicazione)

della nuda

vita]"

[7].

Bare

life

is

a

necessarypart

of

the

good

life,

in

thatthe

good

life

is

both what

bare

ife

is not

and whatbare ife

becomes,

"as f

politics

were the

place

in

which life had to

transform

tself

into

good

life and in which what had

to

be

politicized

were

always already

bare ife"

[7].

This is not a dialectic

between two com-

parable

moments

of the

human,

or it is

only political

life

that

s

truly

ived in

language,

that

can

truly

speak.

Bare life

is

mute, undifferentiated,

nd

stripped

of both the

gener-

ality

and

the

specificity

that

anguage

makes

possible.

If

it is

relatedand

compared

and

evaluated,

that

is

always

in the

terms and

in the service

of

what it is not:

political

life.

But

since

political

life

defines itself in termsof its

genesis

from and its

nonidentity

with

bare

life,

political

life

is defined

by

its

relationwith the nonrelational.9

Exteriority

..

7.

On

politics

as

metaphysics, compare

44

ff.,

182,

and the discussion

of Heidegger

and

Levinas at

150-53.

8. Homo Sacer is divided into three

parts,

with

an

additional

introduction.The

irst

is de-

voted

to

the nature

of

sovereignty,

he

second

to

that

of

the Homo

Sacer

of

the

title,

and the third

to

"the

Camp

as

Biopolitical Paradigm

of

the Modern.

"

Each

of

these ends with

a section entitled

"Threshold"

Soglia). Agamben

does

not announce

this,

but I

believe the word is

derived

rom

and meant

to

refer

back to these

lines,

which are

ound

in

the

irst

"Threshold":"Inthe words

of

Benveniste,

to render he victim

sacred,

it

is

necessary

'to

separate itfrom

the world

of

the

living,

it is

necessary

to

cross the

threshold that

separates

the two universes: this is the aim

of

the

killing'"

[66].

If

this is

so,

each

part

of

the bookends in the

"no-man's-land"

159]

between

life

and death. Each

therefore

serves as

a

different

path

to the same

goal,

that

of

the

confusion

of

politics

and

life. Compare

his

conception

of

the

threshold

with Jean-Luc

Nancy's

discussion

of

Caravaggio

s Death

of

the

Virgin

n his

essay

"On

the

Threshold":"Death: we

are

never

there,

we are

always

there. Inside and

outside,

at once"

[115].

9.

Compare

24

("The

sovereign exception

is thus the

figure

in

which

singularity

is

repre-

sented as

such,

which is

to

say, insofar

as

it

is

unrepresentable"),

9

("the

simple positing

of

relation with

the

nonrelational"),

60

("the

relationshipof

abandonment

s

not a

relation"),

and

110

("The

ban

is

essentially

... the

power of

maintaining

tself

in

relation

to

something

presup-

posed

as

nonrelational").

diacritics /

winter 2000

41



6/22

is

truly

the innermost enterof the

political system,

andthe

political system

lives off it"

[36].

This accountof the

paradoxical

nclusive exclusion of bare life in the

metaphysics

of

politics

can be

seen as

a

more radicalversion of

Arendt's

paradoxical

claim

in

The

Originsof

Totalitarianism

hat

"a

man

who

is

nothing

but a man has lost the

very

quali-

ties which make it

possible

for other

people

to treat

him as

a

man"

[300].

Similarly,

Agamben's

more radical account

of

the

logic

at work here has obvious affinities with

and debts to

Hegel's analysis

of the law of

identity

as a

self-contradictory rinciple

hat,

as

such,

proves

to

be

a

law

of

contradiction:hose who assert

he

principle

"A=

A...

do

not see that

n

this

very

assertion

hey

arethemselves

saying

that

dentity

s

different;

or

they

are

saying

that

dentity

s

different

rom

difference;

ince

this

must at the same

time

be admitted o

be

the natureof

identity,

heir assertion

mplies

that

identity,

not exter-

nally,

but

in

its own

self,

in

its

very

nature,

s

this,

to be different"

Hegel

413].

The

resulting concept

of

negation

is for

Hegel

the

engine

of

history,

and as such

it

allows

him to reconcile his claim thathistory progresseswith the evident fact that the most

glorious

and

praiseworthy

empires

are

inevitably

ground

under

in

the course

of

that

progress.Negation

as the

dialectical and historical movement

of

Reason

thereby

ulti-

mately

produces

or reveals itself to be a

harmonious,

rational

totality.

In

contrast,

on

Agamben's

account,

the

Aufhebung

of

politics

is never achieved:bare life

and

political

life are never

reconciled,

and

political

life's

every

attempt-the attempt

that defines

political

life-to mediate ts own

relationship

with

the

life that it

is

not fails in

the end.

More

significant

than the differences between

Agamben

and

Hegel

is

the fact that for

both

it is

the movement

hrough negation

that

is

essential,

not the fiction of

a

static

result.

Hence,

on

Agamben'saccount,politics mustagain andagain

enact

its internal

distinctionfrom bare life.

It must

repeatedly

define

itself

through

he

negation

of

bare

life-a

negation

that can

always

take

the

form of

death.'1

The

analysis

of the

metaphysical

movement of the

living being

"into"

anguage

that

undergirds

hese claims has been an

ongoing

concern of

Agamben's."

His earlier

Language

and

Death:

ThePlace

of Negativity

nvestigates

he

metaphysical

onnection

between

human

mortality

and the human

capacity

for

language particularly

s it is de-

lineated

n

Heidegger

and

Hegel.

Agambenbegins

the book

by

citing

the former's

claim

(from

On the

Way

to

Language)

that "Mortalsare

they

who can

experience

death as

death. Animals cannot do so. But animals

cannot

speak

either.

The

essential relation

between deathand

language

flashes beforeus, but remains

unthought"

xi]. He

goes

on

to

try

to "think" his relation

hrough

a considerationof the

originary

natureof

negativ-

ity

in

Heidegger's thought

of

Da-sein

and

Hegel's thought

of the

Diese,

and

argues

hat

"both

he

'faculty'

for

language

and the

'faculty'

for

death,

inasmuchas

they open

for

humanity

he most

properdwelling place

[la

sua

dimora

pia propria],

reveal and dis-

close

this same

dwelling place

as

always alreadypermeatedby

and founded n

negativ-

ity"

[xii].

There

is,

Agamben argues,

a

structural

parallel

between

the

ambiguous

place

of

death

within the human ife and the

place

of indicationwithin

language.

Each serves as

a limit or thresholdwhich one can place neither within nor withoutthe life or system

10.

Indeed,

on

Hegel's

account it must: "nichtdas

Leben,

das sich

vor

dem

Tode

cheuntund

vor

der

Verwiistung

ein

bewahrt,

onderndas ihn

ertaigt

und n ihmsich

erhdilt,

st das Lebendes

Geistes"

[qtd.

in

Schnaidelbach

6].

11.

In an earlier

work

Agamben

writes

of

"an

unwrittenbook"

on

this

theme,

The Human

Voice,

of

which his writtenworks

after

1977 serve as the

prologue

and

afterwords.

n

this unwrit-

ten

work

there

are

"numerous

rafts" transcribing

he

passage

in Politics where

Aristotle

bases

man's

political

nature

upon

his

ability

to

speak

ofjustice

and

injustice

see

Agamben, nfancy

and

History

3 and

7-8].

42



7/22

that

it defines. Death is

something

ike

an

ostensive

definitionwith which

one seeks to

pick

out the

nonlinguistic

eality

that

anguage

discusses and hat

makes

anguage

mean-

ingful.

Just as

"the limit of

language always

falls

within

language"

such

that it "is al-

ways

contained

within as a

negative,"

so death

both

is

and

is

not "an event of

life."'2

Because

of this structural

arallel,

death

assumes

a

privileged place

in

the

logic

of

the

"meaning"

of humanlife. As in the

passage

cited from

Heidegger

above, and as in

Heidegger's

early

insistence that the authenticor

properresponse

to

human

mortality

entails

heeding

the silent call of

conscience,

death shows what

language

can never

say,

and in so

doing

serves as the revelation

of

the

negative ground

of the

human.'3

We

might

say

thatdeathbecomes

beautiful.

The

two

momentsof

the

"speaking

nimal"

are

thereby

cast into an

endless

struggle:

"from he dawn of Greek

thought,

he

human

experience

of

language

(that

s,

the

experience

of the

human

as both

living

and

speaking,

a

natural

and a

logical being)

has

appeared

n

the

tragic

spectacle

divided

by

an

unresolvable

conflict."The

form this conflict

takes

is thatof the sacrificialviolence that

serves

as the

ungroundedgroundof all praxis[LanguageandDeath 58-62, 88, 105-06].

Homo Sacer

advancesthis

analysis

in at least two

ways:

in its reflections

upon

the

kind of

"life" hat s involved

in

this

process,

and

n

its consideration

f the

distinctively

political aspect

of this movement.In

Language

and

Death

the

metaphysical

movement

into a

relationship

with the

logos

does

not

essentially

involve

the

living

body,

nor does

Agamben

spend

much

time

drawing

out

the

implications

of this

metaphysics

for the

body.14

he names

Foucault,

Arendt,

and

Schmitt--each

of

which

figureprominently

n

Homo

Sacer-do

not

appear,

and when

Agamben

does

speak

of the

practical

mplica-

tions of

metaphysics

that

"which

enacts

[compie]

he

experience

[1'esperienza]

merely

shown

[mostrare]by logic" [Language

and Death

88]

he

speaks

of "ethics"

epeatedly,

and

only

two or three

times

of

"politics."'5

Nonetheless,

the

development

and extension

of

the

analysis

does

not alter ts

fundamental

tructure.

12.

Language

and Death

17 and

Wittgenstein,

Tractatus

Logico-Philosophicus

6.4311. Both

here

and

in his

appendix

to

The

Coming

Community,

Agamben

is

influenced by

the

early

Wittgenstein's

nderstanding

of

the

mystical

status

of

ethics and his related insistence that the

ability

to

say (sagen)

things

in

language

rests

upon

anguage'sability

to

show

(zeichen)

things.

As

David Pears

puts

it,

"language

cannot contain

an

analysis of

the

conditions

of

its own

applica-

tion"[11].

13.

"And

o what is

one

summoned?

To one's own self.

....

The call is

lacking

any

kind

of

utterance.

t

does not even come

to

words,

and

yet

is not

at

all obscureand

indefinite.

Conscience

speaks olely

and

constantly

n

the modeof silence"

Heidegger

Being

andTime

252;

cf

Lan-

guage

andDeath

54-62].

14. See

Language

and Death:

"Metaphysics

s not

simply

that

thought

hat thinks he

experi-

ence

of language

on the basis

of

an

(animal)

voice,

but

rather,

t

always already

thinks his

expe-

rience on the basis

of

the

negative

dimension

of

a

Voice"

61].

1

should note that this statement s

phrased

as

a

conditional.

However

the context makes it clear that it is

Agamben's

considered

view,

as

it

is

on this basis that he concludes that

Heidegger ails

in the

end

to

escape metaphys-

ics-a conclusion

that

is

hardly insignificant,

providing

as it does the

justification or

much

of

Agamben's

own

attempt

o move

beyond

Heidegger

Thatsaid, it remains rue that his

attempt

o

do

this

is

in

many ways

a

working

out

of

the

problem of

the

place of

the animal in

fundamental

ontology

and

the

critique

of

metaphysics,

a

problem

hat s laid out

in

admirabledetail

by

Derrida

in the sixth

chapter

of

his Of

Spirit:

Heidegger

and

the

Question.

15.

See

Language

and Death

86-88,

91. This

distinction,

while

significant,

should not be

exaggerated,given

Agamben's

ommitmento the

Heideggerian

nterpretation f

"ethos"

as nam-

ing

"theabode

of

man" rather than the

individual's

character or habit.

Compare

Language

and

Death 93 and

Heidegger

"Letteron Humanism"

258.

For

evidence

that

Agamben's

conception

of

the ethical nonetheless retains

amiliar

connotations

of privacy

as

opposed

to the

publicity

of

the

political,

see

Language

and

Death

107.

diacritics

/

winter 2000

43



8/22

The termsof

this

discussion

make

plainAgamben's

debt

to

Heidegger.

n so

doing,

they

open

his

analysis

to the threatof

quiet

dismissal

by

political

theorists,

many

of

whom are

wearied

by

the abstractness

nd the

density

of

this

language.

In

this

regard

t

is

crucial

to

note how

well

Agamben's

analysis

accounts

or

otherwiseobscurefeatures

of canonical texts that

he himself

ignores.

We

might begin by

comparing

he

passages

fromAristotle

upon

which

Agamben

focuses with Socrates's

strikingly

similarclaimin

the

Crito

that "the

really important hing

is not to

live,

but to live well." This

claim

is

in

fact the

central

move

in

Socrates's

ustification

of his

active

participation

n

his own

execution.

He in otherwords

enacts

the

sacrifice

of

bare ife that

he

prioritization

f

the

good

life entails. Aristotle's use of this formulation o describe a

political

life

that

is

meant

to

endure on both the

level

of

biology

and virtue is

obviously

more

problem-

atic-a fact

that

may go

some

way

toward

explaining

Aristotle's

own

celebration

of the

kalos death.

Nor is this the

only

such

moment

n

the Platonic

corpus.

We

might

consideras well

the second book of Plato'sRepublic:this gives us as cleara pictureof politics as the

metaphysical

movementdescribed

by Agamben

as

any

other,

generating

as

it

does a

just

city

from

the

inadequacies

of

Adeimantus's

"city

in

speech,"

a

city

whose

exclusive

focus

upon

the satisfactionof

bodily

need

prohibits

Socrates

and his

companions

rom

discerning

the natureand

origin

of

justice.

In

the first book of the

Republic

ustice

is

tentatively

associatedwith tradeandwith

interstate onflict

[332e, 333a].

Trade

s

present

in

Adeimantus's

city,

as is at least the

abstract

possibility

of

war

[372b],

and

so

one

might

assume that

justice

will

be

as well.

Yet Socrates hesitates to

say

this.

When he

asks "where .. would

justice

and

injustice

be"

[371e]

in

such

a

city,

Adeimantusre-

plies,

"'I can't

think,

Socrates,...

unless it's somewhere n

some need these men have

of

one

another"

372a].

Though

this

sounds

very

much like the

picture

we

ultimately

get,

in

which

justice

is a matter

of

the

internalstructure f

the

city,

where each

person

does his

own,

proper

ask,

and each

particular

inds its

meaning

and its

satisfaction

n

the balanced

whole,

Socrates

hardly

embraces

Adeimantus's

entative,

nitial formula-

tion with enthusiasm.

"'Perhaps

what

you say

is

fine,"'

he

replies.

"'It

must

really

be

considered and we mustn't back

away"'

[372a].

The

considerations hat

follow,

how-

ever,

are

entirely

circumscribed

by

the

guiding assumptions

of the

city's

founder

con-

cerning

need and

satisfaction,

and

they produce

nothing

more thanan almost

comically

banal list

of

the material

arrangements

f

the

city,

its

procreation

nd ts

production

and

consumptionof "bread,wine, clothing,and shoes"[372a].

It

is

at

this

point

that Glaucon oses

patience

and

objects

thatthis

is no

human

city

at all. When Socrates akes

up

Glaucon's

suggestion

that

they

must consider

a

city

that

is driven

by

the

desire to

satisfy

more than the needs of

mere

life,

he notes

that

"in

considering

such a

city

... we could

probably

see in what

way

justice

and

injustice

naturallygrow

in

cities"

[372e].

Why

have

they

not been able to

do

so

up

to now?

Why

does Socrates

mply

that

Adeimantus'sanswerwas

inaccurate,

because

they

were not

in

a

position

to answerthe

question

of

justice?

The answer s that he has

silently accepted

Glaucon's criticisms

of the

city

of mere

life.

This

acceptance

s

implied

when Socrates

says of pigs: "'This animalwasn't in ourearliercity-there was no need-but in this

one

there will be

need

of it in

addition"'

[373c].

For

Socrates to

say

this of the

city

Glauconhas moments before termed "a

city

of sows" would

appear

to be an ironic

confirmationof Glaucon's

objection:

it is

unlikely

that Socrates believes

pork

to be

necessary

to the feverish

life

of

luxury.

t is more

likely

thathe

says pigs

wereunneces-

sary

in

the

"healthy"city

because,

as Glaucon

claims,

the citizens themselves were

pigs.

This silent

agreement

eads

Socratesto

help

in

the constitution

of

Glaucon's

"fe-

verish"

city,

where the

aspiration

o

satisfy

morethan the needs of life will

require

he

sacrifice of life in war.It is this

city

which

ultimately

ssues forththe

just city

which,

as

44



9/22

a

just

city, literally

breeds

its

inhabitants--that

s to

say,

a

city

that

self-consciously

reenacts

the

genesis

of

the

just

life from bare life.

Indeed,

Socrates calls for more than

simple

breeding:

the

political

"artof

judging"

is in fact made

possible

by

an "artof

medicine,"

he

practice

of which involves

that he doctor"let die the ones whose bodies

are

[corrupt],

and

the ones whose souls

have bad naturesand

are

incurable,

hey

them-

selves will kill"

[409e-410].

Socrateshere

openly

accepts

thathis

biopolitics

must at

the same time

be a

thanatopolitics.

Here,

perhaps

more

clearly

than in the

few lines

from

Aristotle

upon

which

Agamben

focuses,

we

can

see that Arendt s both

exactly

right

and

exactly wrong

when she

argues

that

"politics

s never

for

the sake of

life."16

It

is the movement

from

bare

life to

political

life that defines

both

bare

life and

political

life."

Politics thus

entails the constant

negotiation

of the thresholdbetween

itself and

the bare ife that s both included

within and

excluded

from

its

body.

But such

a threshold

s

hopelessly

unstable,

as is

signaled

by

the

fact

that

politics

is both the

passage

from bare life to itself and what

lies

beyond

this

passage."1

The titles of the

16.

The Human

Condition

37. For a more

contemporary

example

of

the relevance

of

Agamben'sanalysis,

consider William

Connolly's

claim that

"Identity

equires

difference

n or-

der

to

be,

and it converts

difference

nto otherness in order

to

secure its

own

self-certainty."

On

the

face

of

it

it would

appear

that

Connolly'sanalysis

of

the

paradoxes of

political identity

is

limited

to a discussion

of

our

need

to

distinguish

ourselves

from

other

individuals

and

groups

without

reifying

that distinction

by claiming

that the other is so

different

as to be

inferior

or

threatening.

Connolly

however

has

remindedme

that

his

analysis

here

of self

and other is

open

to

a

third

element,

that

of life:

"There

s more in

my

life

than

any official

definition

of identity

can

express.

I

am not exhausted

by my identity."

Significantly

his

greater

me

is

not

me: "thisabun-

dance is in me but is neithermenormine";hence it "canhelpme to recognizeand attendto the

claims

of

the

other

in

myself

"

On

the

face

of

it the structure

of

this

paradox

would

appear

to

exactly

replicate

that

ofAgamben's

bare

life,

which both is

and

is not a

moment

of

the

life

of

the

polis.

Wemust then ask whether he

acknowledgment

f

a

life

that

"I"

live but that is not

"mine"

can avoid

the

metaphysicalquandaries

ofAgamben

s

analysis

[see

Connolly

64,

120].

17.

Agambenbegins

by identifying

bare

life

with

zoe,

"the

simple act

of

living

common

to

all

living beings,

"

as

opposed

to

bios,

"which

in

ancient

Greek]

indicated

the

form

or

way of

living proper

to an

individual

or a

group"

[1,

4].

But in

the

passage

from

Aristotle's

Politics

upon

which he

places

such

importance,

he

distinction

between

bare

life

and

political

life

is between

two variants

of

zoe.

Moreover,

on

88

"simple

natural

ife"

("la

semplice

vita

naturale")

is

con-

trastedwith "lifeexposedto death(bareorsacredlife)

"

("la vitaespostaalla morte[la nuda vita

o

vita

sacra]").

Presumably

this

is

because

simple

natural

life

is

not in

itself

in relation with

political

life,

and

sacred

life

is

defined

by precisely

that

relationship.

This is corroborated

by

Agamben

s

assertion

on 90 that sacred

life

is "neither

political

bios nor natural zoe" but rather

"the

zone

of

indistinction

n

which

zoe

and bios

constituteeach

other in

including

and

excluding

each

other"

[and

see

106,

109].

If

we take this

process

as the

metaphysical

movement

of politics,

this seems to

come

closest

to

Agamben

s

considered

view;

but

it

is

clearly

incompatible

with the

claims

made earlier in the book.

It

is

also

unclear

how

consistent

t

is with

Agamben

s

suggestions

that

his bare

life

is

or

can be

a

form of

"pure

ife"

("pura

vita")

[171].

Nonetheless,

many of

the

confusions

that seem

to

plague Agamben's

use

of

the term "bare

life"

are

only

superficial:

on

114-15,

for

instance,

he writes that

"Sacredness s

a line

of flight

still

present

in

contemporary

politics, a line that is movinginto zones increasinglyvast and dark, to the point of ultimately

coinciding

with the

biological

life

[vita

biologica]

of

the

citizens."

This

might

appear

to

repeat

the

same

contradiction

o

which

I

have

just

pointed;

but

this

appearance

is

deceiving:

it is be-

cause

biopolitics

in

the

form of

sacred

life

defines

both bare

life

and

political life

that

these

definitions

can

change,

and

even,

as in

modernity,

ollapse

into one another

18. The

instability of

the distinction between

political

and

apolitical life

may already

be

signaled

in Aristotle's ext: This entire discussion is an

explication

and

defense of

his claim

that,

pace

Plato 's

Statesman,

"It s a mistake o believe that the 'statesman'

s the

same as

the

monarch

of

a

kingdom,

or the

manager of

a

household,

or

the master

of

a

number

of

slaves"

[1.1.2].

The

order

of

the

family

is not "the

determination

of

what is

just"

but the

rule

of

the

father

and hus-

diacritics /

winter

2000

45



10/22

three

parts

of

Agamben's

book

mark he

different

momentsof its

unraveling:

"The

Logic

of

Sovereignty,"

"Homo

Sacer,"

and

"The

Camp

as

Biopolitical

Paradigm

of the

Mod-

em."

Withthe rise

of

sovereignty

we witness the constitutionof

a

political authority

hat

corresponds

o the

ambiguities

of this thresholdmore

closely

then

did the

polis.

Sover-

eignty,

on this

account,

s not

simply

a

momentof

the

rise of the

nation-state,

ut

instead

an

expression

of the inner

dynamics

of the

logic

of

politics. Agamben

here follows Carl

Schmitt's

analysis

of the

sovereign

as

"he who

decides

on the

exception"

[5].19

As

Agamben

notes,

the word

"exception"

l'eccezione

or

die

Aus-nahme),

"according

o

its

etymological

root"refers o

what

s

"taken utside

(ex-capere),

andnot

simply

excluded"

[18].

The

sovereign,

in other words, has the

legal authority

o decide who shall be re-

moved

from the

purview

of

law,

as

in a

state of martial aw

or

the Schmittianstate of

emergency.Sovereignty

s

the

law's thresholdwith the

nonlegal;

as Schmitt

writes,

t is

"a borderline

oncept

. ..

one

pertaining

o the outermost

phere"

5].20

It is the

point

at

which the law enters nto relationwith that which has no

legal standing.

Inidentifying he thresholdbetween thelegal andthenonlegal, sovereigntydefines

them both. This is

perhaps

clearer

in

Schmitt's

text than in

Agamben's.

"There

s,"

Schmitt

writes,

"no

norm

applicable

o chaos. For a

legal

order o make

sense,

a

normal

situationmust

exist,

and he is

sovereign

who

definitively

decides

whether his normal

situationexists"

[13].

A

state of

emergency

s

the

product

of

the

collapse

of the

normal

order;

but the normal order

s

only

the

absence of a state of

emergency.21

Agamben's

gloss

on this

is

that

The

exception

[1'eccezione]

does

not subtract

itself

from

the rule

[regola];

rather,

he

rule,suspending tself, gives

rise to

the

exceptionand,maintaining

itself

in relation to the

exception, irst

constitutes

itself

as a

rule. .

.

. The

sovereign

decision

[La

decisione

sovrana]

of

the

exception

is the

orginary

juridico-political

structure

struttura]

on the basis

of

which what

is

included

in the

uridical

orderand what is excluded

rom

it

acquire

their

meaning.

[

18-

19].

He

concludes

from this that "What

emerges

in

the limit

figure

[figura-limite]

s the

radical crisis of

every possibility

of

clearly

distinguishing

between

membership

and

inclusion,

between what s outside andwhat is

inside,

between

exception

andrule"

25].

Oncethe rule

acknowledges

hat t

gives

rise to

exceptions

for which it cannot

egislate,

every

case

can,

in

principle,

be understood n these terms.

The

only way

to

avoid this

band,

who is

analogous

to a slave-owner

and

a monarch.

In

all three

cases, domination,

not

deliberation,

s the

orderingprinciple, ust

as

the end is not

the

good life,

but the

perpetuationof

life.

However

in the

ace of

all

of

this

Aristotle asserts that our

perceptions

of good

and

evil

and

just

and

unjust

make

up

both

"a

amily

and

a

polis"

[1.2.12].

19. It

might

be better

to

say

that

Agamben

here

appropriates

chmitt,

or

it is

certainly

true

that

his

borrowings

rom

Heidegger Hegel,

Schmitt,

t al.

pursue

a common heme hat is

defined

more

by

Agamben

than

by

his sources.

20. For a

very

similar discussion

(albeit

one conductedon a less

metaphysical

plane) of

the

rise

of sovereignty,

ee Bartelson.

Here,

as in

Agamben's

discussion,

the

rise

of

sovereignty

en-

tails the

destabilization

of

"the

very

divide

that

previously

separated

the inside

of republican

politicsfrom

its moreanarchic

outside,

"

a

destabilization

n

which

"whatformerly

was

relegated

to the outside now moves

into the

very

center

of

political

action and

understanding"

330-31;

compare

Homo Sacer

35-36].

21.

It

should be clear that

this

does not

necessarily

repeat

Bodin

s

claim that

sovereignty

s

the

source

of

law,

where

law is

defined

as command.

The

source

of

the law need not be the

sovereign;

but

if

the

sovereign

does decide

on the

exception,

then,

in so

doing,

it

decides

on

the

norm as well

[see

Bodin

38,

51].

46



11/22

conclusion

is

to

argue

that,

even

in

those cases where the rule cannot

legislate,

it

still

does

legislate

in

some

impoverished

ense. One would have

to

argue,

hat

s,

that

excep-

tional cases are

clearly

defined

as such

by

the

rule.

But

this is in

effect

to

deny

the

reality

of

the

exception

and

the need of the

legal

order or a

sovereign

decision

upon

it.

With

the rise of

sovereignty

we

witness

the

rise

of

a form of life that

corresponds

o

it. "Thesovereignsphere[sfera] is the spherein which it is permitted o kill without

committing

homicide

and without

celebrating

a

sacrifice

[sacrificio],

and sacred life

[sacra]-that

is,

life that

may

be killed

but

not sacrificed-is the life that

has been

captured

n this

sphere"

83].

Agamben

does

not

define the sacred n terms

of

"what s

set

apart

or

worship

of the

deity."

He

is

interested n the more

fundamental

question

of

the

logic

of

sacrifice

(from

Latin

sacrificium,

from

sacr-, sacer,

holy,

cursed)

as re-

vealed

in

the

life that is

sacred

(from

Latin

sacrare,

also

from

sacr-,

sacer).

What

Agamben

terms

sacred

life

is,

like the

sovereign,

both within and without the

legal

order

(or,

as its

etymology suggests,

both

holy

and

cursed).

It is

inside the

legal

order

insofaras its death can be allowedby thatorder;but it is outsideit insofaras its death

can constitute

neither a homicide

nor a

sacrifice. But where

sovereignty

is

a

form of

power

that

occupies

this

threshold,

sacred

ife is

nothing

more than a

life

that

occupies

this

threshold,

a life that s

excluded and included

n the

political

order.Here this takes

the form

not,

as

in

Aristotle,

of

a

metaphysical

puzzle,

but

ratherof

a mute

helplessness

in the face

of

death. "Sacredness

s

...

the

originary

orm of the

inclusion

of

bare life

[nuda

vita]

in

the

judicial

order,

and the

syntagm

homo

sacer names

something

ike

the

originary political'

relation,

which

is to

say,

bare

life

insofar as

it

operates

n

an inclu-

sive exclusion

as the referentof the

sovereign

decision"

[85].

This

is the

explicit

revela-

tion of the

metaphysical

requirement

that

politics

establish a relation with the

nonrelational

cf.

note

8].

Indeed,

the

sovereign

decision

is

the realization

of

the

ambi-

guity

of the distinction

between

bare and

political

life. It

is

law

(political

ife)

that

s

not

law

(insofar

as

it

steps

outside

of the

strictures

and limitations

of formal

law)

dealing

with bare

ife

(that

s,

nonpolitical

ife),

and

insofar

as

it does

so that

nonpolitical

bare)

life

it

treats s

political.

The

result is the

paradox

of

a sacrifice that

is

dedicated

to

no

legal

or

religious

end

[114]

but that

participates

n and

affirms

the

economy

or

logic

of

the

legal/religious system

as a

metaphysical,

political system.

Where

in

Ren6

Girard's

superficially

similar account of

sacrifice the victim is a

scapegoat

for

the

murderous

desires of

the

community

hat

unites

around

her,

here the stakesare

considerablyhigher.

Instead of an act of self-protectionon the partof the community[Girard4, 101-02],

sacrifice

is the

performance

of the

metaphysical

assertion

of

the

human:

he

Jew,

the

Gypsy,

and

the

gay

man die that

the

German

may

affirm

his

transcendence

f his

bodily,

animal

ife.22

22.

Agamben,

I

think,

complicates

his

account

unnecessarily

when he concludes that the

killing

of

bare

life

does

not

constitute

a

sacrifice

[114]:

the

point

is that the term

"sacrifice"

is

here understood

n a

different

way,

as

a

move in a

different

and more

undamental

economy,

one

that

produces

a transcendence nstead

of

observing

one.

That

said,

Agamben'sanalysis

here owes

a great deal to Bataille'sseminalessay, "Hegel,Death and Sacrifice," one of the two Bataille

textscited

in his

bibliography,

hough

only briefly

referred

o

in his text.

In

this

readingofAlexander

Kojeve's

reading of Hegel,

Bataille

argues

that the

logic of

the

human

practice

of sacrifice

is

revealed

in

the

Hegelian

account

of

the role

of

death in the constitution

of

the human.

"Death

alone assures

the existence

of

a

'spiritual'

or

'dialectical'

being....

If

the animal which consti-

tutes man

s

natural

being

did

not

die,

and-what

is

more-if

death did

not

dwell in him

as

the

source

of

his

anguish-all

the more so in that he

seeks

it

out,

desires it and sometimes

reely

chooses it-there

would be no man

or

liberty,

no

history

or

individual.

n

other

words,

if

he revels

in what nevertheless

rightens

him,

if

he is the

being,

identical

with

himself

who

risks

(identical)

being

itself

then

man

is

truly

a

Man: he

separates himselffrom

the animal." The

simple

extinc-

diacritics /

winter 2000

47



12/22

.::x

:aA:

.. ...

.. ..

........

.

.'m

f.?



13/22

Contemporary

nstances of this threshold ife

abound,

rom

refugees

and

people

in

concentration

amps

to

"neomorts"

nd

figures

in "overcomas"whom we are

tempted

to turn

nto

organ

farms.

Perhaps

he clearest

example

is that of

people

in

camps

forc-

ibly

subjected

to extreme

medical

tests and

prisoners

who have been condemned to

death who are

asked to

"volunteer"

or the same:

The

particular

status

of

the VPs

[Versuchspersonen]

was decisive:

they

were

persons

sentenced to

death

or

detained

in a

camp,

the

entry

into which meant

the

definitive

exclusion

rom

the

political

community.Precisely

because

they

were

lacking

almost

all the

rights

and

expectations

hat we

characteristically

attribute

to

human

existence,

and

yet

were still

biologically

alive

[biologicamente

ancora

vita],

they

came

to

be

situated

at a limit

zone

[una

zona-limite]

between

ife

and

death,

inside and

outside,

in

which

they

were

no

longer anything

but bare

life

[nuda vita].

Those

who are sentenced to death

and those who dweltincampsare thus in someway unconsciouslyassimilated

to

homines

sacres,

to a

life

that

may

be

killed without

he

commission

of

homi-

cide. Like

the

fence

of

the

camp,

the interval between death sentence and ex-

tion

of

the

life of

the animal

body

alone is

not

sufficient.

As in

Agamben's

reading of

Aristotle,

language

too is

necessary.

On Bataille's account

this is

because

"language

.. alone

founds

the

separation of

elements and

by founding

it

founds itself

on

it,

within a world

of separated

and

denominatedentities."

The death

of

the animal

life

that

is

required or

the

emergence of

the

human

being

is a death that no

purely

animal

life

could ever die. The

animal,

on

Bataille's ac-

count,

is lost

in the sea

of life. If

it

ceases

to

live,

it

is

replacedby

another

of

its

kind,

another

that

does not differ essentially rom it. In effect, it remainspresent. "Theonly true death supposes

separation

and,

through

he

discourse which

separates,

the consciousness

of being separated."

Hence,

if

death

is

required

n order

or

the

human

being

to

separate

itselffrom

its animal

being,

to some

extent

that

separation

must

already

have taken

place

in

language.

Death

is

not

truly

death-that

is,

it is not or

does not allow

for

the

metaphysical

overcoming

of

the

animal-unless

it

is

the death

of

a human

being.

(It

is in

this context that Bataille cites

Kojeve

s

"bizarre"

and

perfectly apt

saying,

that

man is

"'the

anthropomorphic nimal.'")

The

circularity

here is

pre-

cisely

that

ofAgamben

s

bare

life:

bare

life

is what is not

political,

whatthe

political

life

exuviates:

and

yet for

it to

perform

this

function

it must in some sense be

political

already.

Bataille is

well

aware

of

the

paradoxes

this entails:

"In

theory,

t is his

natural,

animal

being

whose

death

re-

veals Man to himself but the revelationnever takesplace. For when the animalbeing supporting

him

dies,

the

human

being himself

ceases to

be.

In

order

or

Man

to

reveal

himself ultimately

o

himself

he would have

to

die,

but he would have to do it while

living-watching

himself ceasing

to be

"

[Bataille

12,

15-16,

19-20].

For Bataille

if

not

or Hegel,

the

solution

to this is

sacrifice

and "the

necessity

of

spectacle

":

the

explanation

or

the almost

universal

practice

of sacrifice

is

that human

beings

do in

fact

need

to

undergo

this

sublation;

and their

solution

to the above

paradox

is to

kill

an animal

whose

physical

life

stands in

for

their own.

If

we

disregard

Bataille's

emphasis upon

religious

ritual t is clear that he is

describing

the same

Aufhebung

hat

Agamben

attributes

o Aristotle-the

difference

being

that

Hegel

and Bataille

's

references

o death

explic-

itly

commit them

to

a

process

that

endangers

and

rejects

bare

life.

Why

hen

doesn't

Agamben

discuss

the Bataille

article-why

turn o Aristotle

nstead?

In his

ew

commentson Bataille in this

book,he

suggests

thatBataille's

analysis

of sovereignty

s

compromised y

its insistence

upon

the

erotic nature

of sacrifice

[113]

and

by

its

too-ready acceptance of

the

early

twentieth-century

anthropologicalreadingof

the sacred

[75].

One

result

of

this

is that Bataille is not able to think

out the

specifically political

nature

of

the

logic

of

sacrifice

he uncovers. To

ocate the

genesis of

that

logic

in Aristotle's Politics would make

good

this

lack. This

is

something

that Bataille is

unable

to do in

part

because he assumes that the

logic of sacrifice

and death is alien to Greek

philosophy

as a whole:

"for

Hegel,

the human

reality

which he

places

at the

heart,

and

center

of

the

totality

s

very

different rom

that

of

Greek

philosophy.

His

anthropology

s that

of

the Judeo-

Christiantradition"

[12],

for

which

the

figure

of

Christ

on the cross serves as the model

of

all

transcendence

of

the bestial.

diacritics

/

winter 2000

49



14/22

ecution delimits an

extratemporal

and

extraterritorial

hreshold

[soglia]

in

which the human

body

is

separated rom

its normal

[normale]

political

status

and

abandoned,

in a

state

of

exception

[in

stato

di

eccezione],

to

the most

extreme

misfortunes.

159]

When,in the UnitedStates,mencondemned o deathhave beenoffered the possibility

of

parole

in

exchange

for

"volunteering"

o

undergo

tests

that

could not be

imposed

upon

those with

full

rights

of

citizenship

[156-57],

the

reasoning

was

quite

understand-

able,

and

even attractive n

its

economy

and

"fairness":

iven

that

the

person

has been

condemned

o

die,

he has

essentially

already

ost his life. As

far as the law is concerned

his

life is no

longer

his

own,

and

in

that

sense he is a

"living

dead man"

[131].

Hence

therewill be no crime

against

him if his

life is "lost"

again.

But neitherwill

that

deathbe

the

imposition

of

the

death

penalty.

ndeed,

t

is

precisely

insofaras he

awaits execution

that

he

remains alive:

his

life remains

only

to be

taken

from him in the

moment

of

punishment.Death ntheexperimenthusrevealstheparadoxesof deathrowasasphere

that

delayed

penalty

makes

possible,

that

of

the thresholdbetween life and

death.23

When the

threshold

of

death row holds more than one or

two

victims,

the result

s

the

camp.

Historically

developing

out

of martial

aw,

it

is

itself an included exclusion

from the

penal

system

[20, 166-67].

If

the Aristotelian

distinction

between

polis

life

and bare life with which we

began

was

meantto

secure and

define the

human,

he

total

politicization

of life

that

is

the

camp signals

the

collapse

of

this

project.Agamben's

characterization

an be

understood s

an

attempt

o more

systematically

workout

Arendt's

paradoxical

claim

that

"life

in

the concentration

amps

. .

.

stands outside

of life and

death"

[Originsof

Totalitarianism

44].

Here

the

exception

becomes

the

norm-or,

to

be more

precise,

the distinctionbetweenthe two is

wholly

effaced. "The

camp

is the

space

[lo

spazio]

of

this absolute

mpossibility

of

deciding

[decidere]

between fact

and

law,

rule and

application,exception

and

rule,

which nevertheless

ncessantly

decides

[decide]

between

them"

[173].

In the name of

the health

of

the

body

of

the

nation,

n

the

attempt

o

produce

a

single

and

undivided

people

[179],

and in

response

to the decision

of

the

Fiihrer,

whose own

body

has

itself

become one with the law

[184],

the

nation

takes

on the endless

task

of

its

self-delineation;

hat

is,

it moves into the threshold hat

defines

it,

a threshold hat has

awaited

t since

Aristotle'sPolitics.

23.

Agamben

does not mention

Antigone,

but his discussion

of

the

symbiosis

of

sovereignty

and

sacred

life

is

surely

reminiscent

of

this most

political

of

tragedies.

The action

of

the

play

revolvesarounda

conflict

over the

city's

duties

towarda

body

that s

placed

neither

agmben dead

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