1 files changed, 150 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state.md b/books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state.md
index 20e09c2..57a0e92 100644
--- a/books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state.md
+++ b/books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state.md
@@ -7,6 +7,9 @@
   * https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1xhr6vd
   * https://www.academia.edu/35908382/Vardoulakis_Stasis_Before_the_State_--_Introduction
   * https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823277414/stasis-before-the-state/
+* Topics:
+  * Ruse of sovereignty.
+  * Diference between justification and judgement.
 
 ## Excerpts
 
@@ -128,9 +131,7 @@
     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 +153,6 @@ 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 +190,149 @@ 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
+
+> The first ever democracy was instituted through the Solonian reforms that were
+> introduced to counteract a chronical political no less than social crisis in
+> Athens. The crisis was the result of a protracted animosity between the rich
+> and the poor parties. The confrontation was largely because of material
+> inequalities, such as the requirement to hold property in order to be a
+> citizen, and the economic inequalities that were threatening to turn into
+> slaves a large portion of the poor population who had defaulted on their
+> payments. Unsurprisingly, given the sensitivity of these issues, tensions
+> ran high, and the city often found itself in conflict or stasis, with the two
+> sides taking arms against each other. The situation had reached an acute
+> crisis, at which point the Athenians re­ solved that they had to take decisive
+> action. They turned to Solon, who was largely viewed as impartial and wise, to
+> write a new constitution for the city. He responded by compiling the first ever
+> democratic constitution.
+>
+> [...]
+>
+> The crisis is the condition of citizenship and residency within
+> Athens and even of the possibility of the operation of the state. Solon's law
+> does not describe mea­sures whereby the crisis can be avoided. Instead, it
+> describes how everyone is required to participate in it -- as if the aim is to
+> accentuate the crisis. Those who avoid conflict will be punished. The
+> democratic overcoming of crisis consists in the institutionalization of
+> crisis within the constitution. According to Solon, his fellow Athenians need
+> to recognize the illusion that the implementation of measures can always
+> prevent crisis. According to Solon, democracy consists in the dispelling of
+> that illusion. This does not mean that certain measures or policies cannot and
+> should not be devised to ameliorate or evade predictable crises. Rather, it
+> highlights that such mea­sures are never adequate. Or, to put it the other
+> way around, Solon sees crisis as a way of being, as a condition of existence,
+> and he is determined that his democratic constitution aknowledges this.
+>
+> -- 57-58
+
+> Democracy does not seek to be charitable to the other but instead affords the
+> other the respect to give them a voice to express their opinions as well as to
+> debate and rebuke these opinions.
+>
+> -- 73
+
+> These insights amount to saying that a democratic being is conflictual
+> -- which is to say that it cannot find certainty in any political regime
+> promising unity or in a state characterized by order, peace, and stability.
+> Rather, democracy in this sense is a regime that is inherently open to the
+> possibility of conflict without any underlying structure to regulate this
+> conflict or to resolve it to some­ thing posited as higher.
+>
+> -- 76