Brief Reading Notes: Agamben, "Introduction" and "The Camp as Biopolitical Paradigm of the Modern"
A lot of text, not a lot of time, but want to get back into the habit of writing postable notes.
Starts with Aristotle, greek words for life (zoe versus bios) and into Foucault! (Time to Foucault: three pages.)
Foucault on "bestialization of man," maybe worth looking at later, Dits et Ecrits
Arendt? Anybody? No.
Ooh, Foucault on double bind of individualization and "the simultaneous totalization of structures of modern power." God is a lobster, a double bind! I am going to see that in things for the rest of my life amn't I. :(
Assertion: "the production of a biopolitical body is the original action of sovereign power."
The bare life stuff in here goes back to Queering the Anti-Christ! p9 of PDF Politics is the "truly fundamental structure of Western metaphysics" ?
Modern democracy according to Agamben is all about the bare life, the zoe, and putting zoe and bios together. Huh. _Huh._ "an inner solidarity between democracy and totalitarianism" what? Whoah, this is a very political project --- end of introduction, suggestion that this work can lead revolution to succeed where others have failed? Wow. Bold.
CHAPTER
Oh whoah I assumed camp was, like, drag, and was confused by that intro. Camp is concentration camp. Oh. "Laboratories for the experiment of human domination." (Arendt.) Parliamentary states turning into totalitarian regimes and vice versa very easily because of fundamental right to bare life. This is biopolitics <-> thanatopolitics? Whoah.
Habeas corpus as bare life --- "Corpus is a two-faced being, the bearer both of subjection to sovereign power and of individual liberties."
Section 2 is all about rights --- refugee as bare life
Who is a citizen of france at the end of the Revolution --- leads directly to who is a German under Nazi regimes? Really?
de Sade uses bare life? Huh. "Sadomasochism is precisely the technique of sexuality by which the bare life of a sexual partner is brought to light." Political meaning of sexuality? Not sure about all this (p134-5) but it's interesting. If this is true, does it imply a relationship between bare life and the body without organs?
There comes into being an idea of the "life not worthy of being lived," and it works its way into Nazi euthanasia programs. Biolpolitics -> thanatopolitics.
Nazism sees people as living wealth (perhaps a financial standing-reserve?)
So weird to see JBS Haldane show up as a source for eugenicists (he worked on genetics in fruit flies)
"unconditional assumption of a biopolitical task in which life and politics become one" is what Agamben blames the Holocaust on.
Whoah, page 150 takes on Heidegger and Nazism. I'm not entirely sure I get it, but it looks like they both see bare life as immediate and present, but they want to do different things with it.
Overcoma --- no life without artificial help. Is this or is it not death? Ideal state for harvesting organs, but when isn't it murder?
p164 they took someone off of artificial respiration and she started breathing, so creepy. Bare life? Maybe. Augh.
Life and death are political, now, not [just] biological.
"The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule." Agamben traces the history of concentration camps and the juridical justifications for them. Camp included through its own exclusion --- like bare life. "The camp is the very paradigm of political space at the point at which politics becomes biopolitics and homo sacer is virtually confused with the citizen." (171) It's not [just] how can you do these things to human beings, it's how can a framework make people into no longer human beings such that it is possible to do these thigns to them.
"a juridical rule that decides the fact that decides on its application."
...Agamben gives later examples of this legal phenomenon on page 174. I believe we could add Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo to the list?
"The camp, which is now securely lodged within the city's interior, is the new biopolitical nomos of the planet." (176)
Wow. That was the most depressing reading ever. That may have been more depressing than the stuff we read in apocalypse class.
This entry was originally posted at http://rax.dreamwidth.org/58454.html.
Starts with Aristotle, greek words for life (zoe versus bios) and into Foucault! (Time to Foucault: three pages.)
Foucault on "bestialization of man," maybe worth looking at later, Dits et Ecrits
Arendt? Anybody? No.
Ooh, Foucault on double bind of individualization and "the simultaneous totalization of structures of modern power." God is a lobster, a double bind! I am going to see that in things for the rest of my life amn't I. :(
Assertion: "the production of a biopolitical body is the original action of sovereign power."
The bare life stuff in here goes back to Queering the Anti-Christ! p9 of PDF Politics is the "truly fundamental structure of Western metaphysics" ?
Modern democracy according to Agamben is all about the bare life, the zoe, and putting zoe and bios together. Huh. _Huh._ "an inner solidarity between democracy and totalitarianism" what? Whoah, this is a very political project --- end of introduction, suggestion that this work can lead revolution to succeed where others have failed? Wow. Bold.
CHAPTER
Oh whoah I assumed camp was, like, drag, and was confused by that intro. Camp is concentration camp. Oh. "Laboratories for the experiment of human domination." (Arendt.) Parliamentary states turning into totalitarian regimes and vice versa very easily because of fundamental right to bare life. This is biopolitics <-> thanatopolitics? Whoah.
Habeas corpus as bare life --- "Corpus is a two-faced being, the bearer both of subjection to sovereign power and of individual liberties."
Section 2 is all about rights --- refugee as bare life
Who is a citizen of france at the end of the Revolution --- leads directly to who is a German under Nazi regimes? Really?
de Sade uses bare life? Huh. "Sadomasochism is precisely the technique of sexuality by which the bare life of a sexual partner is brought to light." Political meaning of sexuality? Not sure about all this (p134-5) but it's interesting. If this is true, does it imply a relationship between bare life and the body without organs?
There comes into being an idea of the "life not worthy of being lived," and it works its way into Nazi euthanasia programs. Biolpolitics -> thanatopolitics.
Nazism sees people as living wealth (perhaps a financial standing-reserve?)
So weird to see JBS Haldane show up as a source for eugenicists (he worked on genetics in fruit flies)
"unconditional assumption of a biopolitical task in which life and politics become one" is what Agamben blames the Holocaust on.
Whoah, page 150 takes on Heidegger and Nazism. I'm not entirely sure I get it, but it looks like they both see bare life as immediate and present, but they want to do different things with it.
Overcoma --- no life without artificial help. Is this or is it not death? Ideal state for harvesting organs, but when isn't it murder?
p164 they took someone off of artificial respiration and she started breathing, so creepy. Bare life? Maybe. Augh.
Life and death are political, now, not [just] biological.
"The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule." Agamben traces the history of concentration camps and the juridical justifications for them. Camp included through its own exclusion --- like bare life. "The camp is the very paradigm of political space at the point at which politics becomes biopolitics and homo sacer is virtually confused with the citizen." (171) It's not [just] how can you do these things to human beings, it's how can a framework make people into no longer human beings such that it is possible to do these thigns to them.
"a juridical rule that decides the fact that decides on its application."
...Agamben gives later examples of this legal phenomenon on page 174. I believe we could add Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo to the list?
"The camp, which is now securely lodged within the city's interior, is the new biopolitical nomos of the planet." (176)
Wow. That was the most depressing reading ever. That may have been more depressing than the stuff we read in apocalypse class.
This entry was originally posted at http://rax.dreamwidth.org/58454.html.