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-rw-r--r--books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state.md103
1 files changed, 98 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state.md b/books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state.md
index 20e09c2..a74958a 100644
--- a/books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state.md
+++ b/books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state.md
@@ -128,9 +128,7 @@
such, all po­liti­cal forms are effects of the demo­cratic. In
other words, Negri’s obfuscation of the question of vio­
lence can never lead to agonistic monism.
-
- [...]
-
+
Production of the real:
Second, the state of emergency leading to justification
@@ -152,8 +150,6 @@ Production of the real:
with ­whether its justifications are believed by ­those it af­
fects.
- [...]
-
Torture:
Greek po­liti­cal philosophy. 4 Hannah Arendt also pays
@@ -191,3 +187,100 @@ Torture:
completely fabulatory.
-- 32-33
+
+Razão instrumental:
+
+ Let us return to consider more carefully how sover­
+ eign vio­lence always strives for justification. This means
+ that we can characterize the acts of sovereignty as con­
+ forming to a rationalized instrumentalism. Sovereign
+ vio­lence is instrumental in the sense that it always aims
+ toward something—it is not vio­
+ ­
+ lence for vio­
+ lence’s
+ sake. This means that the desired outcome of sover­
+ eign vio­lence is calculated with the help of reason. The
+ extrapolation of vio­lence in instrumental terms is noth­
+ ing new. For instance, Hannah Arendt pres­ents instru­
+ mentalism as the defining feature of vio­lence. 7 Yet the
+ instrumentalism of sovereign vio­lence is not as self-­
+ evident as it may at first appear. For instance, as Fran­
+ çois Jullien shows, the conception of an instrumental
+ thinking as appropriate to the po­liti­cal arises in ancient
+ Greece, and it does not characterize the Chinese cul­
+ ture, including even the ways in which warfare is con­
+ ceived. 8 The impor­tant point, then, is to remember that
+ the instrumentality of reason in the ser­v ice of a justifi­
+ cation of vio­lence is a characteristic of sovereignty as it
+ is developed in the Western po­liti­cal and philosophical
+ tradition.
+ The “invention” of the instrumentality of reason is
+ an impor­tant moment in the history of thought, and
+ its “inventors,” the ancient Greeks, amply recognized its
+ importance. In fact, their tragedies are concerned pre­
+ cisely with the clash between the older forms of thinking
+ and new forms exemplified by instrumental reason. The
+ best example of this is perhaps the Oresteia. In the first
+ play of the trilogy, Agamemnon is murdered by his wife,
+ Clytemnestra. In the second play, Orestes, Agamem­
+ non’s son, responds by killing his ­mother. In the third
+ play, the Eumenides, the court of Athens is called to de­
+ cide w
+ ­ hether Orestes’s murder was justified. The alter­
+ natives are that he is e ­ ither guilty of matricide pure and
+ simple or that his act was a po­liti­cal one aiming to ­free
+ Argos of a tyrant. Th
+ ­ ere is, then, a standstill or stasis—­
+ and I draw again attention to this word, to which I w
+ ­ ill
+ return ­later—­between the two dif­fer­ent l ­ egal frame­
+ works: one legality privileging kinship, the other privi­
+ leging instrumental rationality whereby the murder of
+ Clytemnestra is justified by the end of saving the city
+ from a tyrant. The judges’ vote is a tie, at which point
+ the goddess Athena, who presides over the proceedings,
+ casts the vote to f ­ ree Orestes of the charge of matricide.
+ Calculative reason prevails as the mode of the po­liti­cal.
+ But at the same time, it should not be forgotten that the
+ vote was equally split. For the ancient Athenians, it is
+ impossible to reconcile the two dif­fer­ent legalities—­the
+ politics of kinship and the politics of instrumental
+ reason. Justice persists in this irreconcilability, despite
+ its tragic consequences.
+
+ -- 33-35
+
+Soberania como persuasão e interpretação:
+
+ In other words, the absoluteness of
+ sovereignty has nothing to do with the power of sover­
+ eignty as it is exercised through its institutions—­the
+ police, the army, the judiciary, and so on. Rather, the
+ absoluteness of sovereignty is an expression of the rhe­
+ torical and logical mechanisms whereby sovereignty
+ uses the justification of vio­lence to dominate public de­
+ bate and to persuade the citizens. The exercise of sover­
+ eignty is the effect of an interpretative pro­cess. Differently
+ put, this entails that the justification of vio­lence is more
+ primary than the legitimate forms assumed by constituded power.
+ Without an effective justification, any government loses its
+ mandate to govern, even though its
+ decisions and po­liti­cal actions, its policies, and its legis­
+ lative agenda may perfectly conform to the law of the
+ state.
+
+ -- 52-53
+
+Democracia:
+
+ How can democracy as the other of sovereignty be
+ mobilized to respond to sovereignty’s justification of
+ vio­lence? This final question is, I believe, the most fun­
+ damental po­liti­cal question. It essentially asks about
+ the relation of sovereignty and democracy. What is re­
+ quired at this juncture in order to broach the relation
+ between democracy and sovereignty further is a better
+ determination of democracy.
+
+ -- 53