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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 samethingthere exists in us livingand dead and thewakingand

thesleeping andyoungand old:for thesethings having changedroundare

those,and thosehavingchangedroundare these.

-Heraclitus, Fragment88

What s politics today?What is its relationshipo thetradition rom whichit emerges?

Thequestionsare difficult ones to answer n partbecausecontemporary olitics seemsso schizophrenic. naffluentWestern ountriespoliticsis increasinglya matterof spec-tacleon the one handandmanagedeconomieson theother.HannahArendtseemsquiteconfirmed n herclaim thattheonce-gloriouspublicrealm of appearances fundamen-

tally degradedwhen it is overrunby concerns more appropriateo the privaterealm,such as householdmanagementandgossip. If this "unnatural rowthof the natural"

[47] inclines us to nostalgiafor a timewhenthe two realms were moredecisively sepa-

rated,such nostalgia is likely intensifiedby the "ethniccleansing," rape camps,and

genocidethat we now associate with names such as "Yugoslavia" nd"Rwanda."But

asimprobable

asany flight

to thepastmaybe,

it is even lesslikely

thatthepolitics

of

thatpast could help us navigatethe treacherouswatersof our currenttechnological

society.I have in mindnot only the familiarclaim thatthe attemptedgenocidesof our

time areonly made possible by quite modem formsof technology, organization,and

experience,'but also recent scientificand"medical"advances.Consider ust two:first,the corporatedriven and controlleddevelopmentof biotechnologies,in which hugemultinationals reacquiringpatents o genetic"information"uch as "allhumanblood

cells that have come from the umbilicalcord of [any]newbornchild."If thereis anydoubt that suchdevelopmentswill lead us to redefinethe humanbeing, these may be

laid to rest by the case of JohnMoore, an Alaskanbusinessmanwho foundhis own

body partshadbeenpatented,withouthis knowledge, by theUniversityof CaliforniaatLosAngeles and icensed to theSandozPharmaceuticalCorporationRifkin60-61]. So

much for Locke's attempt o groundthe institutionof privateproperty n the fact that

"everyMan has a Property n his own Person" 2 In its place we seem to be moving

I amgratefulto GiorgioAgamben,Joe Campisi,Bill Connolly,TomRockmore,HansSluga,and

Eric Wilsonor theirhelpfulcommentson earlierdraftsof thisessay.I would also like to thank

YaseminOk or her help.1. For an excellentdiscussionof this,see Baumanl2-30.2. Locke,Two Treatisesof Government : 27. There s, however,nonecessarycontradiction

38 diacritics30.4: 38-58



towardsomethingmorelike the "logical synthesisof biology andeconomy"called for

by the National Socialist Institutallemandin Paris in 1942 [Agamben,Homo Sacer

145].A similarprocessof redefinition s alreadyunderway n the field of death,a phe-nomenonthat scientists andlawyersarehavinga harderand harder imepinningdown.

Whereonce deathwas definedby the cessation of themovementof the heartandlungs,

recent life support echnologieshave forced scientiststo define deathin termsof suchtechnologies.Witness Doctor NormanShumway'sdefense of thedefinitionof deathas

braindeath:"I'msayingthatanyonewhose brain s dead is dead.It is theone determi-

nantthatwouldbe universallyapplicable,becausethebrain s the one organthat can't

be transplanted"163].By implication, f and whentechnologyis developedthatallows

for braintransplants,ven those whose brainsare"dead"will be broughtbackto some

kind of life, perhapsas organfarms for otherswho are less ambiguouslyalive.

GiorgioAgamben, rom whose bookHomoSacer:SovereignPowerandBareLifeI takeboththis lastgrislyexampleand ts analysis, argues hat,contraryo appearances,such

developmentsdo not

representa radicalbreakwiththe tradition.His

analysisboth

buildsuponandcorrectsMichelFoucault'sclaim thatpoliticsin our time is constituted

by disciplines of normalizationand subjectification hatFoucault abels "bio-power."For Foucault,biopoweris fundamentallymodem. "Whatmight be called a society's'thresholdof modernity,"'he writes,"hasbeen reachedwhen the life of the species is

wageredon its own political strategies.Formillennia,man remainedwhathe was for

Aristotle:a living animalwith the additionalcapacityfor politicalexistence;modemman is an animal whose politics places his existence as a living being in question"

[143]. This passage seems to imply not only thatmodernity s political in a different

way thanthepreviousmillennia hadbeen,but that t is morepolitical,even essentially

so. If politicswas an "additional apacity"withAristotle,nowpoliticsis of ouressence,and life has become its object.

Agamben echoes such claims at times, and argues, for instance, that "the

politicizationof bare life as such . . . constitutesthe decisive event of modernityand

signals a radical transformationof the political-philosophical categories of ancient

thought"[4]. But he also maintainsthatthis transformations made possible by the

metaphysicsof those veryancientcategories.As in Nietzsche'sdiscussion of nihilism,on Agamben'sanalysis, biopoliticsfulfills the potentialof its originin turningagainstthatorigin.3Hence,AgambenarguesagainstFoucault hat ife in somesense alwayshas

been the definitiveobjectof politics.His argumentbegins with a review of Aristotle'sdistinction, n the firstbook of Politics, between bare life (to zen) andthe good life (toeu zen):"wemay say that while [thepolis] growsfor the sake of merelife, it exists for

the sake of a good life" [1.2.8].Agambenrightlyarguesthatthisdistinctionhas served

here,as Lockealso maintainsthat our bodies belong to God, and that our tacit consent to the

institutionof moneytakesus beyondthe limitationsof the initial orm ofprivateproperty 2: 6,

36, 50]. Not completelyso, of course;and a defenderof UCLA, he Sandozcorporation,or the

proponentsof organ armingmight ook or support o Locke'sspoilage limitation: "Asmuch as

anyone can makeuseof toany advantageof life before tspoils;so muchmayhebyhis labourfix

a Property n. ... Nothingwasmadeby Godfor Man tospoilor destroy"[2: 31]. One can objecton a numberof groundsto ghoulishproposals to develop "neomorts,"bodies that,still "warm,

pulsating,andurinating"areneitherdeadnoralive, andhencebeyondthepurviewof rightsthat

mightprotectus (?)from being turned nto organ arms; butone can hardlycite a lackof either

industriousnessor a desire to makeuse of all thatGodhas given us.

3. It may take centuries or a people to experiencethe disgustwithlife that initiallymade

thema people: the exhaustionof Europe(thedeathof God) is a contemporary vent,albeit one

thathas been in genesisfor two thousandyears. "The time has come when we have to pay for

havingbeen Christiansor two thousandyears: we are losing the centerof gravity by virtueofwhich we lived;we are lostfor a while"[Nietzsche,Will o Power 20].

diacritics / winter 2000 39



ply a given butanachievement s definitive of thenotion of humanculture.Most of us

tend, however,to consideronly the good andjust life to which we aspire.Agamben n

contrast ocuses on the life thatfailsto achievehumanity; heremains,as it were,of our

becomingmoral, ust, andpolitical.I say "as it were,"because "mere ife" cannottrulybe exuviated.It too is human ife, thoughperhapsnot fully so.

In his discussionof Aristotle'sPolitics Agamben arguesthat

Politics ... appearsas the truly undamentalstructure struttura]of Western

metaphysics nsofaras it occupiesthe threshold soglia] on which the relation

between the living being and the logos is realized [si compie]. In the

"politicization"of bare life-the metaphysicaltaskpar excellence-the hu-

manityof livingman is decided[si decide]. ... There s politics because man

is theliving beingwho,in language,separatesandopposeshimselftohis own

barelife[nuda vita]and,at thesametime,maintainshimself n relation o that

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

"Threshold"s a word that occursagainandagaininAgamben'stext, andit invariably

signifies a passage thatcannotbe completed,a distinction that can be neithermain-

tained noreliminated.8The fundamentalpoliticaldistinctionbetween bare life and the

good,just life lived in accordancewith the logos proposeshumanityas aproject,one of

self-overcoming.But thisproject,as such,reliesupon"theexclusion (whichis simulta-

neously an inclusion)of bare life [unaesclusione (che e, nella stessa misura,un'im-

plicazione)della nudavita]"[7].Barelife is a necessarypartof thegood life, in thatthe

goodlife is both whatbare ife is notand whatbare ife

becomes,"as f

politicswere the

place in which life had to transformtself into good life and in which what hadto be

politicizedwerealways alreadybare ife" [7]. This is not a dialecticbetween two com-

parablemomentsof thehuman, or it is only politicallife that s truly ived in language,thatcantrulyspeak.Bare life is mute, undifferentiated, ndstrippedof both thegener-

alityandthespecificitythat anguagemakespossible. If it is relatedandcomparedand

evaluated,thatis always in the terms andin the service of what it is not:politicallife.

Butsincepoliticallife defines itself in termsof its genesis from and its nonidentitywith

barelife, politicallife is definedby its relationwith the nonrelational.9Exteriority..

7. Onpolitics as metaphysics, compare44ff.,

182, and the discussion of Heidegger and

Levinas at 150-53.

8. Homo Sacer is divided into threeparts, withan additionalintroduction.The irst is de-

votedto the natureof sovereignty, hesecondto thatof the Homo Sacerof thetitle,and the third

to "theCampas Biopolitical Paradigmof the Modern."Eachof these ends witha section entitled

"Threshold"Soglia). Agambendoes not announcethis, but I believe the word is derived romand meantto referback to these lines, which are ound in the irst "Threshold":"Inthe wordsofBenveniste,to render he victimsacred,it is necessary 'toseparate itfromthe worldof theliving,it is necessary to cross the threshold that separates the two universes: this is the aim of the

killing'"[66]. If this is so, eachpartof the bookends in the "no-man's-land"159] betweenlifeand death. Each thereforeserves as a differentpath to the same goal, thatof the confusionof

politics and life. Compare his conceptionof the thresholdwith Jean-LucNancy'sdiscussionof

Caravaggio s Deathof theVirgin n his essay "Onthe Threshold":"Death: we are neverthere,we are always there. Inside and outside,at once" [115].

9. Compare24 ("The sovereign exceptionis thus thefigure in whichsingularityis repre-sented as such, which is to say, insofaras it is unrepresentable"), 9 ("the simple positing ofrelation withthe nonrelational"),60 ("therelationshipof abandonments not a relation"),and

110 ("Theban is essentially... thepower of maintaining tself in relationto somethingpresup-

posed as nonrelational").




is trulythe innermost enterof thepolitical system,andthepolitical systemlives off it"

[36].This accountof theparadoxical nclusive exclusion of bare life in the metaphysics

of politicscan be seen as a more radicalversion of Arendt'sparadoxicalclaim in The

Originsof Totalitarianismhat"amanwho is nothingbut a man has lost theveryquali-ties which make it possible for otherpeople to treathim as a man"[300]. Similarly,

Agamben'smore radical accountof the logic at work here has obvious affinities with

and debts to Hegel's analysisof the law of identityas a self-contradictory rinciple hat,as such,provestobe a law of contradiction:hose who assert heprinciple"A= A... do

not see that nthisveryassertion heyarethemselvessayingthat dentity s different;or

theyaresayingthat dentity s differentromdifference; incethismust at the sametime

be admitted o be the natureof identity, heir assertion mpliesthatidentity,not exter-

nally,but in its own self, in its very nature, s this, to be different" Hegel 413]. The

resulting conceptof negationis for Hegel the engine of history,and as such it allows

him to reconcile his claim thathistory progresseswith the evident fact that the mostglorious and praiseworthyempiresare inevitablygroundunderin the course of that

progress.Negationas the dialectical and historical movementof Reasontherebyulti-

matelyproducesor reveals itself to be a harmonious,rationaltotality.In contrast,on

Agamben'saccount,theAufhebungof politicsis never achieved:bare life andpoliticallife are neverreconciled,and political life's every attempt-the attemptthat defines

political life-to mediate ts own relationshipwiththe life that it is not fails in the end.

More significantthan the differences betweenAgambenandHegel is the fact that for

both it is the movement hrough negationthat is essential, not the fiction of a static

result.Hence,

onAgamben'saccount,politics mustagain andagain

enactits internaldistinctionfrom bare life. It mustrepeatedlydefineitself through he negationof bare

life-a negationthat can alwaystakethe form of death.'1The analysis of the metaphysicalmovement of the living being "into" anguage

thatundergirds hese claims has been an ongoing concern of Agamben's."His earlier

LanguageandDeath:ThePlace of Negativity nvestigates hemetaphysical onnection

betweenhumanmortalityand the humancapacityforlanguage particularly s it is de-

lineated nHeideggerandHegel.Agambenbeginsthe bookbycitingthe former'sclaim

(from On the Wayto Language) that "Mortalsarethey who can experiencedeath as

death. Animals cannot do so. But animalscannotspeakeither.The essential relation

between deathandlanguageflashes beforeus, but remainsunthought"xi]. He goes onto tryto "think" his relation hrougha considerationof theoriginarynatureof negativ-

ity in Heidegger's thoughtof Da-sein andHegel's thoughtof theDiese, andargues hat

"both he 'faculty'for languageand the 'faculty'for death,inasmuchas they openfor

humanity he most properdwelling place [la sua dimorapia propria],reveal and dis-

close this samedwelling placeas always alreadypermeatedby and founded n negativ-

ity"[xii].Thereis, Agamben argues,a structuralparallelbetween the ambiguousplace of

deathwithin the human ife and theplace of indicationwithinlanguage.Each serves as

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

10. Indeed,onHegel'saccount it must: "nichtdas Leben,das sich vordemTode cheuntund

vorder Verwiistungeinbewahrt, onderndas ihnertaigtund n ihmsicherhdilt,st das Lebendes

Geistes"[qtd. in Schnaidelbach6].11. In an earlier workAgambenwritesof "anunwrittenbook"on this theme,The Human

Voice,of which his writtenworksafter1977 serve as theprologueandafterwords. nthis unwrit-

tenworkthereare "numerous rafts" transcribing hepassage in Politics whereAristotlebases

man'spoliticalnatureuponhisabilitytospeakofjusticeandinjustice see Agamben, nfancyand

History3 and 7-8].

42



thatit defines. Death is something ike anostensivedefinitionwith whichone seeks to

pickout thenonlinguistic ealitythat anguagediscusses and hatmakes anguagemean-

ingful. Just as "the limit of language always falls withinlanguage"such that it "is al-

ways containedwithin as a negative,"so deathboth is andis not "an event of life."'2Because of this structural arallel,deathassumes a privileged place in the logic of the

"meaning"of humanlife. As in the passage cited from Heidegger above, and as in

Heidegger'searly insistence that the authenticor properresponseto humanmortalityentailsheedingthe silent call of conscience,death shows what languagecan neversay,and in so doingserves as the revelationof thenegative groundof thehuman.'3Wemight

saythatdeathbecomesbeautiful.Thetwomomentsof the"speaking nimal"aretherebycast into an endless struggle:"from he dawn of Greekthought, he humanexperienceof language(that s, theexperienceof thehumanas bothliving andspeaking,anatural

and a logical being) has appeared n the tragicspectacledivided by an unresolvable

conflict."Theform this conflicttakesis thatof the sacrificialviolence thatservesas the

ungroundedgroundof all praxis[LanguageandDeath 58-62, 88, 105-06].Homo Sacer advancesthis analysisin at least two ways:in its reflectionsuponthe

kind of "life" hat s involvedin thisprocess,and nits consideration f thedistinctively

political aspectof this movement.InLanguageandDeaththemetaphysicalmovement

into a relationshipwith the logos does notessentiallyinvolve theliving body,nor does

Agamben spend much time drawingout the implicationsof this metaphysicsfor the

body.14 he namesFoucault,Arendt,andSchmitt--eachof whichfigureprominently n

HomoSacer-do not appear,and whenAgambendoes speakof the practical mplica-tions of metaphysics that"whichenacts[compie] heexperience[1'esperienza]merelyshown

[mostrare]by logic" [Languageand Death 88] he

speaksof "ethics"

epeatedly,andonly two or threetimesof "politics."'5Nonetheless,thedevelopmentand extension

of the analysisdoes not alter ts fundamental tructure.

12. Languageand Death17 and Wittgenstein,TractatusLogico-Philosophicus6.4311. Both

here and in his appendix to The Coming Community,Agamben is influenced by the early

Wittgenstein's nderstandingof the mysticalstatusof ethics and his related insistence that the

abilitytosay (sagen)thingsinlanguagerestsupon anguage'sabilitytoshow(zeichen)things.As

David Pears puts it, "languagecannot containan analysis of theconditionsof its ownapplica-

tion"[11].13. "And o what is one summoned?To one's own self. .... The call is lackingany kindofutterance. tdoes not even cometo words,andyet is notat all obscureandindefinite.Conscience

speaks olelyandconstantlynthe modeof silence" HeideggerBeingandTime252;cf Lan-

guageandDeath54-62].14. See Languageand Death: "Metaphysicss notsimplythatthought hat thinks heexperi-

ence of languageon the basis of an (animal)voice,butrather, talways alreadythinks hisexpe-rience on the basis of thenegativedimensionofa Voice" 61]. 1should note that this statement s

phrased as a conditional.However the context makes it clear that it is Agamben'sconsidered

view,as it is on this basis that he concludes thatHeidegger ails in theend to escape metaphys-ics-a conclusion that is hardly insignificant,providingas it does thejustification or muchof

Agamben'sownattempt o movebeyondHeidegger Thatsaid, it remains rue that his attempt odo this is in many ways a workingout of theproblem of theplace of the animal infundamental

ontologyandthecritiqueofmetaphysics,aproblem hat s laid outinadmirabledetailbyDerrida

in the sixthchapterof his Of Spirit:Heideggerandthe Question.15. See Languageand Death 86-88, 91. Thisdistinction,while significant,should not be

exaggerated,givenAgamben's ommitmento theHeideggerian nterpretation f "ethos"as nam-

ing "theabode of man" rather than the individual'scharacter or habit.CompareLanguageand

Death 93 andHeidegger "Letteron Humanism"258. For evidencethatAgamben'sconception

of the ethical nonetheless retains amiliar connotationsof privacyas opposedto thepublicityofthepolitical, see LanguageandDeath107.




The termsof thisdiscussionmakeplainAgamben'sdebtto Heidegger. n so doing,

they open his analysisto the threatof quiet dismissal by politicaltheorists,many of

whom areweariedby the abstractness nd the densityof thislanguage.Inthisregard t

is crucialto note how well Agamben'sanalysisaccounts orotherwiseobscurefeatures

of canonical texts thathe himself ignores.Wemight begin by comparing he passagesfromAristotleuponwhichAgambenfocuses with Socrates'sstrikinglysimilarclaiminthe Critothat "thereally important hingis not to live, but to live well." Thisclaimis in

fact the centralmove in Socrates's ustificationof his active participationn his own

execution.He in otherwordsenactsthe sacrificeof bare ife that heprioritization f the

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

meantto endure on both the level of biology and virtue is obviously moreproblem-atic-a factthatmay go someway towardexplainingAristotle'sown celebrationof the

kalos death.

Nor is this theonly suchmoment n the Platoniccorpus.Wemightconsideras well

the second book of Plato'sRepublic:this gives us as cleara pictureof politics as themetaphysicalmovementdescribedby Agambenasanyother,generatingas itdoes ajust

city from the inadequaciesof Adeimantus's"city in speech,"a city whose exclusive

focus uponthe satisfactionof bodily needprohibitsSocratesand his companions rom

discerningthe natureandorigin of justice. In the first book of the Republic ustice is

tentativelyassociatedwith tradeandwithinterstate onflict[332e, 333a].Trades presentin Adeimantus'scity, as is at least the abstractpossibility of war [372b], and so one

might assume thatjustice will be as well. Yet Socrates hesitates to say this. When he

asks "where .. wouldjustice andinjusticebe" [371e] in such a city,Adeimantusre-

plies,"'I can'tthink,Socrates,... unless it's somewhere n some need these men have

of one another" 372a]. Thoughthis soundsvery much like the picturewe ultimately

get, in whichjustice is a matterof the internalstructure f the city,where each persondoes his own, proper ask,and each particularinds its meaningand its satisfaction n

the balancedwhole, SocrateshardlyembracesAdeimantus's entative, nitial formula-

tion with enthusiasm."'Perhapswhatyou say is fine,"'he replies."'Itmustreallybe

considered and we mustn't back away"' [372a].The considerations hatfollow, how-

ever, areentirelycircumscribedby the guiding assumptionsof the city's foundercon-

cerningneed andsatisfaction,andthey producenothingmore thanan almostcomicallybanal list of the materialarrangementsf thecity, itsprocreation nd tsproductionand

consumptionof "bread,wine, clothing,and shoes"[372a].It is atthispointthat Glaucon oses patienceandobjectsthatthis is no humancity

at all. When Socrates akesupGlaucon'ssuggestionthattheymust considera city that

is drivenby the desire to satisfy more than the needs of mere life, he notes that"in

consideringsuch a city ... we could probablysee in what way justice and injustice

naturallygrowin cities"[372e].Whyhavetheynot been able to do so upto now?Whydoes Socrates mplythatAdeimantus'sanswerwas inaccurate,becausetheywere notin

a positionto answerthequestionof justice?The answer s that he has silently acceptedGlaucon's criticismsof the city of merelife. This acceptance s impliedwhen Socrates

says of pigs: "'This animalwasn't in ourearliercity-there was no need-but in thisone there will be need of it in addition"'[373c]. For Socrates to say this of the cityGlauconhas moments before termed "a city of sows" would appearto be an ironic

confirmationof Glaucon'sobjection:it is unlikely that Socrates believes porkto be

necessaryto the feverishlife of luxury. t is morelikelythathe says pigs wereunneces-

sary in the "healthy"city because, as Glauconclaims, the citizens themselves were

pigs. This silent agreement eads Socratesto help in the constitutionof Glaucon's"fe-

verish"city,where the aspirationo satisfymorethan the needs of life will require he

sacrifice of life in war.It is thiscity whichultimately ssues forththejust city which,as

44



a just city, literallybreeds its inhabitants--that s to say, a city that self-consciouslyreenactsthe genesis of thejust 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," hepracticeof which involves that he doctor"let die the ones whose bodies

are [corrupt],andthe ones whose souls have bad naturesandareincurable, heythem-

selves will kill" [409e-410]. Socrateshereopenly acceptsthathis biopoliticsmust atthe same time be a thanatopolitics.Here, perhapsmore clearly than in the few lines

fromAristotleupon which Agambenfocuses, we can see that Arendt s bothexactly

rightandexactly wrongwhen she arguesthat"politics s neverforthe sake of life."16It is the movementfrom barelife to political life that definesboth bare life and

political life." Politics thus entails the constantnegotiationof the thresholdbetween

itself andthe bare ife that s both includedwithin andexcludedfromitsbody.But such

a threshold s hopelessly unstable,as is signaledby the fact thatpolitics is both the

passage from bare life to itself and what lies beyond this passage."1The titles of the

16. The Human Condition 37. For a more contemporaryexample of the relevance of

Agamben'sanalysis, consider WilliamConnolly'sclaim that "Identity equiresdifference n or-

der to be, and it convertsdifference nto otherness in orderto secure its ownself-certainty."On

theface of it it would appear that Connolly'sanalysis of theparadoxes of political identityis

limitedto a discussion of our need to distinguishourselvesfrom other individualsand groupswithoutreifyingthat distinctionby claiming that the other is so differentas to be inferioror

threatening.Connollyhoweverhas remindedmethathisanalysishereof self and other is opento

a thirdelement,thatof life: "Theres more in mylife thanany official definitionof identitycan

express.I am not exhaustedby my identity."Significantly hisgreaterme is notme: "thisabun-

dance is in me but is neithermenormine";hence it "canhelpme to recognizeand attendto theclaims of the other in myself" On theface of it the structureof thisparadoxwouldappear to

exactlyreplicatethatofAgamben'sbarelife, which both is and is not a momentof the life of the

polis. Wemust then ask whether heacknowledgment f a life that "I"live but that is not "mine"can avoid themetaphysicalquandariesofAgamben sanalysis[see Connolly64, 120].

17. Agambenbeginsby identifyingbare life withzoe, "thesimple act of livingcommonto

all living beings," as opposedto bios, "which in ancientGreek]indicatedtheform or way of

living properto an individualor a group"[1, 4]. But in thepassagefromAristotle'sPoliticsuponwhich he places such importance, he distinctionbetweenbare life andpolitical life is between

two variantsof zoe. Moreover,on 88 "simplenatural ife" ("la semplicevitanaturale")is con-

trastedwith "lifeexposedto death(bareorsacredlife)"

("la vitaespostaalla morte[la nuda vitao vita sacra]"). Presumablythis is because simplenatural life is not in itself in relation with

political life, and sacred life is definedby precisely that relationship.This is corroboratedby

Agamben sassertionon 90 that sacredlife is "neitherpolitical bios nor natural zoe" but rather

"thezoneof indistinctionn whichzoe and bios constituteeach other in includingandexcludingeach other"[andsee 106, 109]. Ifwe take thisprocessas themetaphysicalmovementof politics,this seems to comeclosest toAgamben sconsideredview;but it is clearly incompatiblewith the

claimsmade earlier in the book.It is also unclearhowconsistent t is withAgamben ssuggestionsthathis bare life is or can be aform of "pure ife" ("puravita")[171]. Nonetheless,many of the

confusionsthat seem to plague Agamben'suse of the term "barelife" are only superficial:on

114-15, for instance,he writes that "Sacredness s a line of flight stillpresent in contemporary

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

coincidingwith the biological life [vita biologica]of the citizens."Thismightappearto repeatthe same contradiction o whichI havejust pointed;butthis appearanceis deceiving:it is be-

cause biopolitics in theform of sacred life defines both bare life and political life that these

definitionscan change,and even,as inmodernity, ollapse into one another

18. The instability of the distinction betweenpolitical and apolitical life may already be

signaled in Aristotle's ext: This entire discussion is an explicationanddefense of his claimthat,

pacePlato 'sStatesman,"It s a mistake o believe that the 'statesman's thesame as themonarch

of a kingdom,or themanager of a household,or the masterof a numberof slaves" [1.1.2]. The

orderof thefamily is not "thedeterminationof what isjust" but the ruleof thefather and hus-




threepartsofAgamben'sbookmark hedifferentmomentsof itsunraveling:"TheLogicof Sovereignty,""HomoSacer,"and"TheCampas BiopoliticalParadigmof the Mod-

em."Withthe riseof sovereigntywe witness the constitutionof apolitical authorityhat

corresponds o theambiguitiesof this thresholdmoreclosely thendid thepolis. Sover-

eignty,on thisaccount, s notsimplyamomentof therise of thenation-state, utinstead

anexpressionof the innerdynamicsof thelogic of politics. Agambenhere follows Carl

Schmitt's analysis of the sovereign as "he who decides on the exception" [5].19As

Agambennotes,the word"exception"l'eccezioneordieAus-nahme),"accordingo its

etymologicalroot"refers owhat s "taken utside(ex-capere),andnotsimplyexcluded"

[18]. The sovereign,in other words, has the legal authority o decide who shall be re-movedfrom the purviewof law, as in a state of martial aw or the Schmittianstate of

emergency.Sovereignty s thelaw's thresholdwith thenonlegal;as Schmittwrites, t is

"a borderline oncept. .. one pertaining o the outermost phere" 5].20It is thepointat

which the law enters nto relationwith that which has no legal standing.

Inidentifying he thresholdbetween thelegal andthenonlegal, sovereigntydefinesthem both. This is perhapsclearerin Schmitt's text than in Agamben's. "There s,"Schmittwrites,"nonormapplicable o chaos. For a legalorder o makesense, a normal

situationmustexist, and he is sovereignwho definitivelydecides whether his normal

situationexists"[13].A state of emergency s theproductof the collapseof the normal

order;but the normal order s only the absence of a state of emergency.21Agamben's

gloss on this is that

The exception[1'eccezione] does not subtractitselffrom the rule [regola];

rather,he

rule,suspending tself, givesrise to the

exceptionand,maintainingitself in relation to the exception, irst constitutesitself as a rule. . . . The

sovereigndecision [La decisione sovrana]of the exception is the orginary

juridico-politicalstructure struttura]on the basis of which what is included

in the uridicalorderand what is excludedrom itacquiretheirmeaning.[18-

19].

He concludes from this that "Whatemerges in the limit figure [figura-limite] s the

radical crisis of every possibility of clearlydistinguishingbetween membershipand

inclusion,between what s outside andwhat is inside,betweenexceptionandrule" 25].

Oncethe ruleacknowledges hat t gives rise to exceptionsfor 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-ownerand a monarch.In all three cases, domination,not

deliberation, s theorderingprinciple, ust as the end is not thegood life, but theperpetuationof

life.However in the ace of all of thisAristotle asserts that ourperceptionsof good andevil and

just and unjustmakeupboth "a amily and a polis" [1.2.12].19. It mightbe betterto say thatAgambenhereappropriates chmitt,or it is certainlytrue

thathisborrowingsromHeidegger Hegel, Schmitt, t al.pursuea common heme hat is definedmorebyAgambenthanbyhis sources.

20. For a verysimilar discussion(albeitone conductedon a less metaphysicalplane) of the

rise of sovereignty, ee Bartelson.Here,as inAgamben'sdiscussion,the rise of sovereigntyen-

tails the destabilizationof "theverydivide thatpreviouslyseparatedthe inside of republican

politicsfromits moreanarchicoutside,"a destabilizationnwhich "whatformerlywas relegatedto the outside now moves into the verycenterofpolitical action and understanding"330-31;

compareHomo Sacer35-36].21. It should be clear thatthisdoes notnecessarilyrepeatBodin sclaim thatsovereignty s

the source of law, where law is definedas command.The source of the law need not be the

sovereign;but if thesovereigndoes decide on the exception,then,in so doing, it decideson the

norm as well [see Bodin38, 51].

46



conclusion is to arguethat,even in those cases where the rule cannotlegislate, it still

does legislatein someimpoverished ense. One would haveto argue, hat s, thatexcep-tional cases areclearlydefinedas suchby therule.Butthis is in effect todenytherealityof the exceptionandthe need of the legal order or a sovereigndecisionuponit.

Withthe rise of sovereigntywe witnesstheriseof a form of life thatcorrespondso

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

committinghomicide and withoutcelebratinga sacrifice [sacrificio],and sacred life

[sacra]-that is, life that may be killed but not sacrificed-is the life that has been

capturedn this sphere" 83].Agambendoes not define the sacred n termsof "what s

set apart orworshipof thedeity."He is interested n the morefundamentalquestionof

the logic of sacrifice (from Latinsacrificium,from sacr-, sacer, holy, cursed)as re-

vealed in the life that is sacred(from Latin sacrare, also from sacr-, sacer). What

Agamben terms sacredlife is, like the sovereign,both within and without the legalorder(or,as its etymology suggests,bothholy andcursed).It is inside the legal order

insofaras its death can be allowedby thatorder;but it is outsideit insofaras its deathcan constituteneither a homicidenor a sacrifice. But where sovereigntyis a form of

powerthatoccupiesthis threshold,sacred ife is nothingmore than a life thatoccupiesthisthreshold,a life that s excluded and included n thepoliticalorder.Here this takes

the formnot,as inAristotle,of a metaphysicalpuzzle,butratherof a mutehelplessnessin the face of death. "Sacredness s ... the originary orm of the inclusionof bare life

[nudavita]in thejudicialorder,and the syntagmhomosacer namessomething ike the

originary political'relation,which is to say,barelife insofar as it operates n an inclu-

sive exclusionas the referentof thesovereigndecision"[85].Thisis theexplicitrevela-

tion of the metaphysical requirement that politics establish a relation with the

nonrelational cf. note 8]. Indeed,the sovereigndecision is the realizationof the ambi-

guityof the distinctionbetweenbare andpoliticallife. Itis law (political ife) that s not

law (insofaras it steps outsideof the stricturesand limitationsof formallaw) dealingwith bare ife (that s, nonpolitical ife), andinsofaras it does so thatnonpolitical bare)life it treats s political.The result is the paradoxof a sacrifice thatis dedicatedto no

legal orreligiousend [114]but thatparticipatesn andaffirmstheeconomy or logic of

the legal/religious systemas a metaphysical,political system.Wherein Ren6Girard's

superficiallysimilar account of sacrifice the victim is a scapegoatfor the murderous

desires of thecommunity hatunitesaroundher,here the stakesareconsiderablyhigher.

Instead of an act of self-protectionon the partof the community[Girard4, 101-02],sacrificeis the performanceof the metaphysicalassertionof the human: he Jew, the

Gypsy,andthegay man die thattheGermanmayaffirmhis transcendence f hisbodily,animal ife.22

22. Agamben,I think,complicateshis account unnecessarilywhen he concludes that the

killingof bare life does not constitutea sacrifice [114]: thepoint is that the term "sacrifice"is

here understood n a differentway,as a move in a differentand more undamentaleconomy,one

thatproducesa transcendence nsteadofobservingone. Thatsaid,Agamben'sanalysishere owes

a great deal to Bataille'sseminalessay, "Hegel,Death and Sacrifice," one of the two Batailletextscitedin hisbibliography,houghonly brieflyreferredoin his text.InthisreadingofAlexander

Kojeve'sreading of Hegel, Bataille argues that the logic of the humanpractice of sacrifice is

revealedin the Hegelian account of the role of death in the constitutionof the human. "Death

alone assures the existenceof a 'spiritual'or 'dialectical'being.... If the animal which consti-

tutes man snaturalbeing did not die, and-what is more-if death did not dwell in himas the

source of his anguish-all the more so in that he seeks it out, desires it and sometimes reelychooses it-there would be no manor liberty,no historyor individual. notherwords,ifhe revels

in what neverthelessrightenshim,if he is thebeing, identicalwithhimself who risks(identical)

being itself thenmanis trulya Man: he separates himselffromthe animal." Thesimpleextinc-




.::x

:aA:

.. ...

.. ...........

.'mf.?



Contemporarynstances of this threshold ife abound, romrefugeesandpeople in

concentration ampsto "neomorts" ndfiguresin "overcomas"whom we aretemptedto turn nto organfarms.Perhaps he clearestexample is that of people in campsforc-

ibly subjectedto extreme medical tests and prisonerswho have been condemned to

death who areasked to "volunteer"or the same:

Theparticularstatusof the VPs[Versuchspersonen]was decisive: theywere

persons sentenced to deathor detainedin a camp,theentryinto which meant

the definitiveexclusion rom thepolitical community.Preciselybecause theywerelackingalmostall the rightsand expectations hat we characteristicallyattribute to human existence, and yet were still biologically alive

[biologicamenteancoravita], they came to be situatedat a limit zone [una

zona-limite]between ife anddeath,inside andoutside,in whichtheywereno

longer anythingbut bare life [nuda vita]. Thosewho are sentenced to death

and those who dweltincampsare thus in someway unconsciouslyassimilatedto hominessacres,to a life thatmaybe killed without hecommissionofhomi-

cide. Likethefence of the camp,the interval between death sentence and ex-

tion of the life of the animal bodyalone is not sufficient.As in Agamben'sreading of Aristotle,

languagetoo is necessary.On Bataille's accountthis is because "language .. alonefounds the

separation of elements and by founding itfounds itself on it, within a world of separatedand

denominatedentities." The death of the animal life that is required or the emergence of the

humanbeing is a death that no purelyanimallife could ever die. Theanimal,on Bataille's ac-

count,is lost in the sea of life. If it ceases to live, it is replacedbyanotherof itskind,anotherthat

does not differ essentially rom it. In effect, it remainspresent. "Theonly true death supposesseparationand, through hediscourse whichseparates,the consciousnessof being separated."Hence, if deathis required n order or the humanbeing to separateitselffromits animalbeing,to some extentthat separationmustalreadyhave takenplace in language.Death is not trulydeath-that is, it is not or does not allowfor themetaphysicalovercomingof theanimal-unless

it is the deathof a humanbeing. (It is in this context that Bataille cites Kojeve s "bizarre"and

perfectly apt saying, thatman is "'theanthropomorphic nimal.'") Thecircularityhere is pre-

ciselythatofAgamben sbarelife:barelife is what is notpolitical,whatthepoliticallifeexuviates:

and yet for it toperformthisfunction it must in some sense be political already.Bataille is well

aware of theparadoxesthis entails: "Intheory, t is his natural,animalbeing whose death re-

veals Man to himself but the revelationnever takesplace. For when the animalbeing supportinghimdies, thehumanbeing himselfceases to be. In order or Manto revealhimself ultimately o

himself he would have to die, but he would have to do it whileliving-watching himself ceasingto be" [Bataille 12, 15-16, 19-20]. For Bataille if not or Hegel, thesolutionto this is sacrificeand "thenecessityof spectacle":theexplanationor the almostuniversalpracticeof sacrificeis

that humanbeings do infact need to undergothis sublation;and their solution to the above

paradox is to killan animalwhosephysicallife stands infor their own.IfwedisregardBataille's

emphasis uponreligiousritual t is clear that he is describingthe sameAufhebung hatAgambenattributes o Aristotle-the differencebeing thatHegel and Bataille'sreferences o deathexplic-

itly commit themto a process thatendangersand rejectsbare life. Why hendoesn'tAgambendiscussthe Bataillearticle-why turn o Aristotle nstead?In his ew commentson Bataille in this

book,he suggeststhatBataille'sanalysisof sovereignty s compromised yits insistenceupontheerotic natureof sacrifice [113] and by its too-ready acceptance of the early twentieth-century

anthropologicalreadingof the sacred[75]. One resultof this is that Bataille is not able to think

out the specifically politicalnatureof the logic of sacrificehe uncovers. To ocate thegenesis ofthat logic in Aristotle's Politics would makegood this lack. This is somethingthat Bataille is

unableto do inpart because he assumes that the logic of sacrifice and death is alien to Greek

philosophyas a whole: "forHegel, the humanrealitywhich heplaces at theheart,andcenter ofthetotality s verydifferent rom thatof Greekphilosophy.His anthropologys thatof the Judeo-

Christiantradition"[12], for whichthefigure of Christon the cross serves as the modelof all

transcendenceof the bestial.




ecution delimits an extratemporaland extraterritorial hreshold[soglia] in

which the humanbodyis separated rom its normal[normale]political status

and abandoned,in a state of exception[in stato di eccezione], to the most

extrememisfortunes. 159]

When,in the UnitedStates,mencondemned o deathhave beenoffered the possibilityof parolein exchangefor "volunteering"o undergotests thatcould not be imposed

uponthose withfullrightsof citizenship[156-57], thereasoningwasquiteunderstand-

able,andeven attractive n its economy and"fairness": iven thatthe personhas been

condemned o die, he hasessentiallyalready ost his life. As far as the law is concerned

his life is no longerhis own, andin thatsense he is a "livingdead man"[131]. Hence

therewill be no crimeagainsthim if his life is "lost"again.But neitherwill thatdeathbe

theimpositionof thedeathpenalty. ndeed, t is preciselyinsofaras he awaits execution

thathe remains alive: his life remainsonly to be takenfrom him in the momentof

punishment.Death ntheexperimenthusrevealstheparadoxesof deathrowasaspherethatdelayedpenaltymakespossible, thatof the thresholdbetween life anddeath.23When thethresholdof death row holds more than one or two victims,the result s

the camp.Historicallydevelopingout of martial aw, it is itself an included exclusion

from the penal system [20, 166-67]. If the Aristoteliandistinctionbetweenpolis life

and bare life with which we beganwas meantto secure anddefine thehuman, hetotal

politicizationof life that is the camp signals the collapse of this project.Agamben'scharacterizationan beunderstood sanattempto moresystematicallyworkoutArendt's

paradoxicalclaim that"life in the concentration amps . . . stands outsideof life and

death"[Originsof Totalitarianism44]. Herethe exceptionbecomesthe norm-or, to

be moreprecise, the distinctionbetweenthe two is wholly effaced. "Thecampis the

space [lo spazio]of this absolute mpossibilityof deciding [decidere]between factand

law, rule and application,exceptionand rule, which nevertheless ncessantlydecides

[decide]betweenthem"[173]. In the name of the healthof thebodyof thenation, nthe

attempt o producea singleandundividedpeople [179], and in responseto the decision

of the Fiihrer,whose own body has itself become one with the law [184], the nation

takeson the endless taskof its self-delineation;hatis, it moves into the threshold hat

definesit, a threshold hat has awaited t sinceAristotle'sPolitics.

23. Agambendoes not mentionAntigone,but his discussionof thesymbiosisof sovereigntyand sacred life is surelyreminiscentof this mostpolitical of tragedies. The action of theplayrevolvesarounda conflictover thecity'sdutiestowarda bodythat splacedneither nside thecitynoroutside it: thebodyis of one of the sons of the city,but one who hasfought against it, and as

a resultit lays in thefields outside the city wall, and not in the burialplot that would mark ts

passage out of this world. Thereare many ways to characterizeAntigone s criminalrefusalto

obey Creon,butperhaps the most direct is to say that she tries to sort this confusionout, by

buryingthe body,and henceputtingit decisivelybeyondthe city-or, moreprecisely,acknowl-

edging that it alwayshas been beyondor outsideof thecity,in thesense thatit is not within the

city'sauthority o hold it back rom burial,and hencefrom death.If this seems an impositionof

themes thatare, strictlyspeaking, oreign to theplay, considerits culmination n Creon'ssover-eigndecision o condemnAntigone o anundergroundomb-whichperfectly ymbolizesAgamben'sthresholdbetweenlife and death. Theresultis a monstrousconfusionof death and life. In the

wordsof theprophetTeiresias:"youhave thrustone thatbelongsabove / below theearth,and

bitterlydishonored/a livingsoul by lodgingher in thegrave; while one thatbelongedindeed to

the underworld/gods you havekepton this earthwithout hedueshare/of ritesof burial,of due

funeral offerings,/ a corpse unhallowed"[Sophocles, Antigone 1136-42]. Creon's edict is a

reaffirmation f thecity's ncorporation f thethresholdbetween ifeanddeath:IfAntigonedares

to insist that thedead aresimplythat,and as suchbeyondpolitics, Creonwillproveherwrongby

condemningher to the threshold n whichpolitics anddeath ind one another

50



Now,themere existenceof campsand of Versuchspersonenoes not in itself signaltheneed for as sweeping and fundamental critiqueof the traditionasAgamben's.For

one mightwell concludethat what is called for is simply a reassertionof humanrightsas understoodby the tradition;or, to put the point on the explanatory evel, that the

genocidesand

rapecampsof contemporary oliticsareconceptuallyof apiece withthe

transgressions f JamesIIand other"Beastsof Prey"and "noxiouscreatures."Afterall,

Agamben himself characterizes he Versuchspersonenn just these terms: it is "pre-

cisely becausetheywere lackingalmostall therightsandexpectations hatwe charac-

teristicallyattribute o human existence" and yet were still alive thatthey could "be

situatedat a limit zone between life and death."Onthis account the horrorsof moder-

nity are nothing more than violations of the normsof the tradition-a tradition hat

simplyneedsto be reasserted, atherhancriticizedordeconstructed.Andthisresponse

mightseem sufficient even if one accepts,asAgambendoes, Arendt'sargumentn The

Origins of Totalitarianism hat the emergenceof thecamps signalsthe extreme imita-

tions of the politics of humanrights.Arendt'sargument s that the direct defense ofhumanrightswill alone be insufficient.Onher accountwhatis needed is ratherarecog-nitionof the ultimatebasis of civil rights-what she terms the "right o haverights."24This basis Arendtfinds in politicalaction.Properlyunderstood,humanrightsare civil

rights:theyare based on forms of humanaction,not a set of moraltruthsabout he laws

of God or nature. t is as political,not legal, actorsthatwe aregrantedrights;and it is

throughpoliticalaction that we defend those rights.But in the presentcase we might

interpret his as nothingbut a call to indirectlydefend humanrights,andnot at all to

questionthe distinctionbetweenpolitical life andbarelife uponwhich the conception

of rightsrests.Note, though,thatas apracticalmatter hissolutionhasnot beenparticularlyffec-

tive up to thispoint.Moreimportantly,t is a conservativeone thatsimply attempts o

retreat o akinder,gentlerage.Itdoes notattempt o understand helogic of thecampor

the Versuchsperson.These arehorrors hat invade ourpoliticallives and ourpolitical

thinkingfrom without. This insistenceupon the foreign and external natureof these

evils is both confirmedand underminedby the suggestions of TadeuszBorowski or

Primo Levi that the camps operated n a sphere beyond good and evil. Consider the

effect of readingBorowski's stories,or Levi's invitation"tocontemplate he possible

meaningin the Lagerof the words 'good' and 'evil,' 'just'and 'unjust'; et everybody

judge,on thebasisof thepicturewe havejustoutlinedandof theexamplesgiven above,how muchof ourordinarymoral world could survive on this side of the barbedwire"

[92].25Onthe one hand,we should like to answerthatmoralityandjustice meanthere

justwhattheymeanhere,if only with thetemperingof a forgivingequity.Anything ess

feels likecollusion with theNazis, the finaldenialof thedignityof thecampvictim.But

if we assertthis, we presumeto judge the victims of the camps.If morality s not sus-

pendedin a camp,then theobligationto bejustremains ust that:anobligation.Moral-

ity is not grace.

Agamben bringsthis out nicely in a discussion of BrunoBettelheim'sargument

that the Muselmannhas passedbeyond the limit of the human and the moralby re-nouncinghis freedomandby losing sightof the limitbeyondwhichhis life would have

24. Originsof Totalitarianism96. Arendtmakes the argument sketch out here in the last

sectionof theImperialismvolume,"TheDecline of the Nation-Stateand the Endof theRights ofMan."

25. As readersof Leviknow, he titleof the irst of these volumes,rom whichI amquoting,is by no means a confidentrhetoricalquestion.In a typicallyAmericangestureof false confi-dence, If This Is a Man has been changedin theAmerican edition to Survival n Auschwitz,a

bland assertionwhichquitepreciselyobscures Levi'squestion.




to be sacrificed ndefense of thatfreedom.ForBettelheim,regardlessof theconditions,a humanbeing can avoidbecominga Muselmannby "acceptingdeath as a humanbe-

ing."ButAgambenargues hat"Simply odenythe Muselmann'shumanitywouldbeto

accept the verdictof the SS and to repeattheirgesture."The Muselmann"does not

merely embodya moraldeath," atherhe "is the site of anexperimentn whichmoralityandhumanityare called intoquestion,"he is "alimitfigureof a specialkind,in whichnotonly categoriessuch as dignityandrespectbut even theveryideaof anethical limit

lose their meaning." To acknowledge the Muselmann's compromised humanity,Bettelheim's imitof the human s denied;to avoid themoralbarbarism f animaginedconfrontationwith a Muselmann n which onejudges his "character ndhabits,"one

renouncesethicalterminology.With the Muselmannwe find the limit of limits: clear

boundaries an no longerbe drawnhere [Agamben,RemnantsofAuschwitz56, 63].26

Thepointis not thatthe liberalrefusalto consider hecampas threshold ules out a

solutionto this dilemma romthe start.Theveryidea of a solutionhereseems offensive.

Thepointis rather hatthe liberalresponsecan make no sense of its ownconfusion.Thecampis simplyevil andincomprehensible.Thepersoncondemned o a campis neither

capableof moralitynorincapableof it. As forthedifficultquestions hisemerging imit

of the moralmight raise, they too are set aside in favor of a respectfulsilence.27 In

contrast,Agamben's conceptionof the thresholdat least promisesto more preciselydelineate these confusions: the camp both is and is not a legal, political, and moral

space. Hence, we shouldhardlybe surprised o find ourselves torn,wantingboth to

affirmand to deny that these categoriesapplyhere.

Finally,the liberalstrategyrevealsits limitationswhen we recognizethat the no-

tionof the threshold s in factexpanding

ntoareaswhere we will nothavetheluxury

of

refusingto consider the innerlogic of phenomenawe should like to rejectas evil and

incomprehensible.What,forinstance,are we to do whenwe aredealingwithagentsor

thingsthathavenotalreadybeenrecognizedasthe bearers f rights?Here he reassertion

of rightsis simply not an option.We must decide whethera neomort-a body whose

only signs of life are that it is "warm,pulsating,and urinating"-is in fact a human

being at all, an agentor a thing. In such cases, "life anddeath [cease to be] properlyscientific concepts [and become] political concepts,which as such acquirea political

meaning preciselyonly througha decision"[HomoSacer 164]. Ironically,such deci-

sions are increasinglymadeby scientists,and not by politicians:"Inthe biopolitical

horizon[orizzontebiopolitico]thatcharacterizesmodernity,he physicianandthe sci-entistmove into the no-man's-landterradi nessuno]intowhich atone pointthesover-

eign alone couldpenetrate"159]. These are still marginal iguresin ourcurrentpoliti-cal life. But if Agamben s right,theconceptof themargin s itself being swept away.It

is this that leadshimto conclude that thecampis theas-yet-unrecognized aradigmof

the modern.As the logic of the sovereignexceptioncomes unraveled or is realized-thisparadoxbeinga necessaryfunctionof that ogic), and theimpossibilityof categori-

cally distinguishingbetweenexceptionandrule is mademanifest,the distinctionbe-

tweenbare ife andpoliticallife is hopelesslyconfused."When ife andpolitics-origi-

nally divided,and linkedtogetherby means of the no-man's and of thestateof excep-tion thatis inhabited abita]by barelife [la nudavita]-begin to become one, all life

becomes sacredand all politicsbecomesthe exception"[148].28

26. This line of analysis is alsofollowed in the second chapterof SlavojZizek'sDid Some-

bodySayTotalitarianism?27. I do not wish to suggestthat silence is inappropriate.ClaudeLanzmann's hoah incor-

porates suchsilence toprofoundeffectin its oblique approach o the camps.28. ThoughAgambendoes notdiscussit, oneof the bestexamplesof thiscollapseof the rule

into theexceptionandofpolitics intolifemaybe thecorporate nvestigationandpurchaseof the

52



In the end,the attempt o resist this through he assertionof humanrightsignoresthe connectionbetween the humanism that undergirds he concept of rights and the

events thatseem to conflictwith it.Agamben'sarguments not thatAristotle'sorLocke's

reflectionson politicscarrywiththemanimplicitcommitment o the substantive acist

policies of NationalSocialism;nor does he claim thatthey "caused" he Holocaust(a

term to which he objects [114]). What he does argueis that there is a deep affinitybetweensuch contemporaryhorrorsand the traditionof political philosophyto which

we might turnin an effort to understandand combat such phenomena.The practical

implicationwouldnot be thatthere s no differencebetween AristotleorHitler,but that

Aristotlewill not providea stablepointfromwhich to critiquethose who follow after

him,or from whichto constructanalternative.29here s no Archimedeanpointoutside

biopolitics.Politicsis alwaysa matterof thebody,and "The'body'is always alreadya

biopoliticalbody"[187].

If Agamben'sanalysisanddescriptionof this dilemmaof the formationof thepoliticaland of politicalidentityis strikinglyoriginal,the nonmetaphysicalalternative oward

whichhe gestures n response s more familiar. nanearlierdiscussion of thepoliticsof

thesacred,he argues hat the sacredbearswithinitself subversivepotential, n that as a

marginal upplementof political identity, t itself lacks identity.This opensupthepos-

sibilityof a modeof beingthatescapesthemetaphysicsof politics,and hence of thana-

tology."In he finalinstancethe Statecan

recognize anyclaim for

identity... Whatthe

Statecannot toleratein any way, however,is thatthe singularities orm a communitywithoutaffirmingan identity,that humansco-belong withoutan representable ondi-

tionof belonging."The Alliedresponseto the Nazi extermination f the Jews is instruc-

tive in thisregard.Rather hanacknowledgethe sacred characterof the Jewishpeople

(as a people whose extermination"was not conceived as a homicide by [either]the

executioners[or]thejudges"), they "tried o compensatefor this lack of identitywith

the concession of a Stateidentity,which itself became the source of new massacres"

[Coming Community 7-88; cf. Homo Sacer 114].To break out of this vicious cycle,

Agambenfollows Jean-LucNancy in attemptingo "think" ommunitywithoutunity.30

Inso doing,both will follow Heidegger(thoughhardlywithoutcriticism) nhis attemptto developa poeticmodeof speechbeyondmetaphysics.WhatAgambenaddsto thisis

his emphasis uponbare life:

humangenome.Theday is at hand when thedecisionon the humanbeingwill become the rule.

Thedefinitionof the humanbeing,like thatof death,will become toofluid to serveas a guide orthe udgmentson its modifications,and lawyers,scientists,andpolitical theoristswill simplynot

be able to chart theexpansion of ourpresentboundaries nto the dark seas thatconfrontus.

29. Derrida strikes asimilarly

ambivalentattitude towardthe humanism hat would de-

nounce "biologism,racism,[and] naturalism" n On Spirit[56].30. SeeHomo Sacer44, 47, 60, 182-88, and, or an indicationof theultimatelyHeideggerian

natureof this strategy,150-53; and compareJean-LucNancy (whose influenceAgambenac-

knowledgesthroughoutHomo Sacer): "thethinkingof community s essence ... is in effectthe

closureof thepolitical because it assigns to community commonbeing,whereascommunitys

a matterof somethingquitedifferent,namelyexistenceinsofaras it is in commonwithout etting

itselfbe absorbed intoa commonsubstance.Being in commonmeansno longer having, in anyform,nanyempiricalr idealplace,sucha substantialdentity,ndsharinghis"lackof iden-

tity."Thisis whatphilosophycalls 'finitude'" xxxviii].I have tried to indicate someof thelimi-

tationsof thisstrategyin "Jean-LucNancyand theMythof the Common."




Onlya reflection unarifflessione]that... thematically nterrogates he link

betweenbarelife[nudavita]andpolitics,a linkthatsecretlygoverns governa]themodern deologiesseeminglymost distantromoneanother will be able to

... returnhought o itspracticalcalling[restituirel pensieroalla suavocazione

practical.[HomoSacer4-5]

This emphasis,however,changes everything,and it is worthdetailingthe distance it

places AgambenfromHeideggerand the work he has inspired.WhenAgambenwrites thatpoliticalpractice s "governed"by "thelink between

barelife andpolitics"we must be carefulto note that this link is not one that has been

forgedby willful orculpablephilosophers.Politicalpracticereproducesheolderstruc-

tureswe findin westernpolitical philosophynotbecauseit is producedby thatphiloso-

phy butbecause bothexpressa metaphysicalquandary hat is distinct from each. This

way of puttingthe mattersuggests that the relationbetween the two is one between

"politics"and"thepolitical";on this model,the formerrefers to the empiricaldataofactionsand events andthelatterrefersto thesystemof meaningor intelligibilitywithin

which theempiricalmanifests tself.31Oneadvantageof thisquasi-theatricalchema is

that it allows us to conceive of politics andpolitical philosophyas distinctthingsthat

nonethelessmap onto one another: he system of intelligibilityis an intelligibilityof

eventsandactions and intentions.Inthe absenceof thelatter, herewould be nothing o

be eitherpoliticallymeaningfulormeaningless.Conversely, n theabsence of aconcep-tion of whatmeaning s and how it canachieved,no behaviorcould rise to the statusof

politicalaction at all.

This distinction sgenerally

derivedfromHeidegger,ultimately

rom histhinkingof the ontologicaldistinctionand most immediatelyfromhis writingson technology.

Heideggerarguesthat technology is not the applicationof scientific theory.Rather,scientific theoryitself arises in responseto the technologicaldemand that naturebe

reducedto "a calculablecoherence of forces"thatcan be represented nd used for the

representation ndapplicationof force. "Modernphysics is the heraldof enframing,a

herald whose provenance s still unknown."32 lthoughthe technologicalmode of re-

vealing is a nihilistic one in which instrumentaleasonreigns supreme, hat reason is

itself not an instrument.As a mode of revelationit is "thedestiningof revealing"or

Being in our time. Hence Heidegger'sfamous dictum,"theessence of technology is

nothing technological."Hence as well his cautionthat we neitherrespondwith "a stul-tified compulsionto push on blindly with technology [nor],what comes to the same,... rebelhelplessly against t and curse t as the workof thedevil"["QuestionConcern-

ing Technology"330, 340, 330].Lacoue-Labarthe as echoed Heidegger'sclaimshere,andsuggestedthat"the es-

senceof thepolitical ... is by itselfnothingpolitical"["In heNameof .. ."71], a claim

thatis at the heartof his own attempt o develop a distinctionbetweenpoliticsandthe

political.He offers thehelpfulsuggestionthattherelationshipbetweenpoliticsandthe

31. The best and most relevantversionof thisdistinctioncan befound in PhilippeLacoue-

Labartheand Jean-LucNancy,Retreating he Political. For a survey of otherplaces it can be

found, see Dallmayr,particularly9, 41, 50-52, 87-88. It should be notedthatDallmayr'senthu-

siasm or the distinction eads him togloss overdifferencesbetween the various ormulations ofit. He suggests, or instance, hatSchmitt'sonceptof thepoliticalisanalogousto Lacoue-Labarthe

andNancy'sessence of thepolitical [Dallmayr50]; but the latter two takepains to note thatthis

is not so. CompareRetreating he Political 109. Thepoint is significantonly because it demon-

strates how vaguethis distinctionremains n most cases.

32. Heidegger,"QuestionConcerningTechnology" 26-27. Compare"TheAge of the World

Picture" 116.

54



political be conceived along the lines of the relationshipbetween "a-more or less

fully-developed photograph ndanegative" "Spirit f NationalSocialism"150].This

nicely captures he relativepriorityof thephilosophical,while also retaining he neces-

saryreminder hatbothpolitics andthe politicalare whatthey are becausethey repre-sent somethingelse. It is fairlyclearthatAgambenwould claim the same.But there is

animportant hift hereinhis work. Even if we grant hat he relationbetween thepoliti-cal (forexample,thethematicsubjectof [momentsof] Aristotle'sPolitics) andpolitics

(forexample,the deathcamps)is a noncasualone in whichboth areexpressionsof the

essence of metaphysics,there remains a fundamentaldiscrepancybetween the roles

these two play in Agamben's argument.In Agamben's work canonical texts are de-

pictedas giving expression o anunstable ogic, onethat nevitablycomesunraveledon

thelevel of (empirical)politics.Indeed,as in theopeningparagraphs f my ownarticle,it is recentempiricaleventsthatprovidethepathosandtheurgencyto Agamben'sdis-

cussion.Agambendoes not set outonly to provideus with aninsightfulway to readthe

canon, thoughhe does succeed in that. He sets out to address the catastropheof ourtime. And it will ultimatelybe addressedby that"whichenacts the experiencemerelyshownby logic."

Inso emphasizing hepathosof politicsover that of thepoliticalAgambensharply

distinguisheshimself fromHeidegger,who if anything akes theopposite approach.As

Heideggerexplicitlyandrepeatedlystates,the dangerof technologyis not the threat t

posesto human ife, butthedanger tposesto thedignityof the humanbeingas thinker-

thatis, thedanger t poses to thought.33His infamousequationof the deathcampswith

themechanized ood industry s wholly consistentwith this:"Agricultures now a mo-

torized ood industry, ssentiallythe samethingas the fabricationof cadavers n thegaschambersof the extermination amps, the same thing as the blockadesandthe reduc-

tionof countries o famine,the samethingas the fabricationof hydrogenbombs."34To

saythat he"motorizedood industry"s "essentially he samething"as "the abrication

of cadavers n thegas chambersof theextermination amps"would seem to imply that

the converse s trueaswell: themetaphysical ignificanceofAuschwitz s preciselythat

of a factoryfarm.Because of his emphasisuponbare,embodied ife, Agambencannot

take such a tack. For those appalledby the rough equatingof the food industryand the

deathcamps,this is all for the better.But it does result n a privilegingof one of the two

purported xpressionsof the metaphysicalquandary f politicsthat we would notfind

in a purely Heideggeriananalysis. It is as if Agamben's text were enactingwhat heclaimsis the characteristically aradoxicalnclusion of life withinmetaphysics.

The strengthof Agamben's analysis is thatit does not merely add somethingto

Heidegger'sownwork,but t allowsustosee how the latter vadestheproblemsAgambenconfronts.I havealludedabove toAgamben'sown discussionsof the laterHeidegger's

thinkingof death. I shouldlike to concludeby notingthe manner n which theproblemof life dogs Heideggerfrom the start, romBeing and Time, he sourceof muchof our

33. "Whats dangerousis not technology.... The essence of technology,as a destiningof

revealing, s thedanger ... The threat o man does not comein the irst instance rom thepoten-

tiallylethal machinesandapparatusof technology.Theactual threathasalreadyafflictedmanin

his essence. The rule of enframing hreatensmanwiththepossibility that it could be denied to

him to enter intomoreoriginal revealingand hencetoexperience he call ofa moreprimaltruth"

["Question ConcerningTechnology"333]. Compare he discussionof thedignityof the human

essence on 337.

34. Citedin Zimmerman 3. Zimmerman orrectlynotes thatHeidegger here "glidedover

thefact that the Holocaust was a Germanphenomenoninvolvingthe slaughterof millions ofJews. Insteadhe chose to viewthe Holocaust as a typicalepisodeof thetechnologicaleraafflict-

ing theentire West" 43].




thinkingof theontologicaldistinction hatAgamben'semphasisuponlife both follows

andchallenges.In theopeningpagesof PartOneof BeingandTime,Heideggerbetraysan anxiety concerning he distinctionbetween fundamentalontology andbiology-an

anxiety that corresponds o the introduction'ssuggestionthat the former will either

indicate or enact a truepolitics: "Theexistentialanalyticof Da-sein is prior to any

psychology, anthropology,and especially biology [erst rechtBiologie]" [42].35Onewonders,Why"especially"biology? WhydoesHeidegger n his 1929-30 lecturecourse

return o the questionof the biological, and addressbiology alone as a metaphysically

significant positive science [see Heidegger,FundamentalConceptsof Metaphysics]?The immediateanswer s that,thoughHeideggersuggeststhat he pursuesa conceptof

thenatural,hisconceptproves o be insufficiento delineate heontologyof theworldingof the world[see, forexample,Being and Time59-60]. Heideggerseeks to distinguishhis own projectfromthe workof DiltheyandBergsonand Nietzsche even as it builds

uponthat work. But the termsin which he does so arestriking ndeed:in a paragraph

that begins with the considerationof the anthropological endencies of psychology,Heideggerquicklyturnsto the rejectionof "ageneralbiology"as a science thatmight

provide the "ontologicalfoundations"(ontologische Fundament)that anthropology

neglects.

In theorderof possible understanding ndinterpretation, iologyas the "sci-

ence of life" is rooted[fundiert]in the ontologyof Da-sein,althoughnot ex-

clusively[ausslieBlich]in it. Lifehas its own kindof being, but is essentially

[wesenhaft] accessible only in Da-sein. Theontologyof life takesplace by

way of a privative interpretation. t determines bestimmt]what must be the

case if therecan be anything ike ust-being-alive.36 ifeis neitherpureobjec-tivepresence,nor is it Da-sein. On the otherhand, Da-sein shouldneverbe

defined[bestimmen]ontologicallyby regarding t as life-(ontologically un-

determined unbestimmt])and thenas somethingelse on top of that. [Beingand Time46]

The concludingclaims are familiarenough:Da-sein is not an aggregationof life (the

animal)and"something lse"(rationality);ather, achof these is seenaswhat t is only

by way of "aprivative nterpretation"hatbegins with Da-sein as being-in-the-world.

But neither s it thecase thatsuchaninterpretationanfully account or life-for life isnot merelyan abstractionrom the unityof Da-sein-it is not exclusively foundedin

theontologyof Da-sein.Nur-noch-leben s neitherdecisivelyincluded n nor excluded

from theontologyof Da-sein. Itis, in otherwords,includedas a problem-or, perhaps

better,ncludedasanexclusion.If thehumanbeingcouldbereduced o the level of bare

life it would be neitheran objectnorDa-sein. Whatit would be remains a mystery-albeitperhapsone producedby ouruncanny nabilityto see what is nearest o us.

35. Concerning he relationofBeing andTime topolitics, considerthe useof scarequotesin

the ollowing: "Philosophicalanthropology, nthropology, thics, 'politics,'biography,and his-

toriographypursue in all differentways and to varyingextents the behavior,aculties, powers,

possibilities, and destinies of Da-sein" [14]. In each case Heidegger is anxious topropose his

fundamentalontology as the science that can do what these ontic sciences fail to do. Simon

Sparksdiscusses the allusion topolitics in his introductiono Retreating he Political[165n16].36. Heidegger'sGerman s morecategorical: "siebestimmtdas,was seinmufJ, aftso etwas

wie Nur-noch-leben ein kann."

56



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