“Roland Barthes fue un hombre de izquierdas para quien el marxismo era lamentablemente deficitario en lo que se refería a la semiótica, la ciencia de los signos. Julia Kristeva trabajó sobre el lenguaje, el deseo y el cuerpo, asuntos que no encabezaban precisamente la agenda marxista. Sin embargo, ambos pensadores guardaban estrechas afinidades en este aspecto con la política marxista. Al filósofo posmoderno Jean Francois Lyotard le parecía que el marxismo era irrelevante para la teoría de la información y la vanguardia artística. La revista cultural más vanguardista de la época, Tel Quel, descubrió en el maoísmo una efímera alternativa al estalinismo. Esto era casi como encontrar una alternativa a la heroína en el crack”.
Terry Eagleton
"Después de la teoría". Completo, aquí.
25 marzo 2011
17 marzo 2011
Introductory Note on the Concept of Democracy.
"The term democracy sounds a false note whenever it crops up in debate these days because of a preliminary ambiguity that condemns anyone who uses it to miscommunication. Of what do we speak when we speak of democracy? What is the underlying rationale? An alert observer will soon realize that, whenever she hears the word, it might mean one of two different things: a way of constituting the body politic (in which case we are talking about public law) or a technique of governing (in which case our horizon is that of administrative practice). To put it another way, democracy designates both the form through which power is legitimated and the manner in which it is exercised. Since it is perfectly plain to everyone that the latter meaning prevails in contemporary political discourse, that the word democracy is used in most cases to refer to a technique of governing (something not, in itself, particularly reassuring), it is easy to see why those who continue, in good faith, to use it in the former sense may be experiencing a certain malaise. These two areas of conceptuality (the juridico-political and the economic-managerial) have overlapped with one another since the birth of politics, political thought, and democracy in the Greek polis or city-state, which makes it hard to tease them apart. An example will show what I mean. The basic term politeia may not be familiar to readers without Greek, but they have seen it translated as The Republic, the title of Plato's most famous dialogue. "Republic" does not, however, exhaust its range of meanings. When the word politeia occurs in the classical writers, it is usually
followed by a discussion of three different forms of politeia: monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, or six if you count the three corresponding parekbaseis, or deviant forms. But translators sometimes render politeia with "constitution," sometimes with "government." In The Constitution of Athens (chapter 27), Aristotle characterizes the "demagogy" of Pericles this way: "demotikoteran synebe genesthai ten politeian," and a standard English translation runs "the constitution became still more democratic." Aristotle continues with the statement that "apasan ten politeian mallon agein eis hautous," which the same translator renders as "brought all the government more into their hands." To make his translation coherent, he ought to have written "brought all the constitution more into their hands," but that would obviously have created a difficulty.
When the same fundamental political concept can be translated to mean either "constitution" or "government," then we have ventured out beyond ambiguity onto the featureless terrain of amphibology (a term from grammar and rhetoric signifying indeterminacy of meaning). Let us train our gaze on two further passages from two classics of Western political thought, Aristotle's Politics and Rousseau's The Social Contract, in which this unclarity manifests itself with particular force. In the Politics, Aristole states his intention to itemize and analyze the different "constitutions" or "forms of constitution" (politeiai): "Since politeia and politeuma signify the same thing, and since the politeuma is the supreme (kyrion) power in a city, it necessarily follows that the supreme power resides either with an individual, with a few, or with the many' (Politics 1279a 25 ff). Current translations run more or less like this: "Since constitution and government signify the same thing, and since government is the supreme power in the state . . . " A more faithful translation would retain the closeness of the terms politeia (political activity) and politeuma (the resulting political outcome), but, apart from that, it is clear that the essential problem with this passage lies in Aristotle's attempt to get rid of the amphibology by using the term kyrion. With a bit of wrenching, the passage can be paraphrased in modern terms as follows: the constituent power (politeia) and the constituted power (politeuma) bind themselves together into a sovereign (kyrion) power, which appears to be that which holds together the two sides of politics. But why is politics riven by this fissure, which the word kyrion both dramatizes and heals over?
As for the Social Contract, Michel Foucault gave a course in 1977- 1978 at the College de France showing that Rousseau's aim was precisely to reconcile juridical and constitutional terms like contract the general will, and sovereignty with an art of government. For our purposes, the important thing is the distinction—basic to Rousseau's political thought—between sovereignty and government and their modes of interaction. In the article on "Political Economy" which the editors of the Encyclopedic commissioned from him, Rousseau wrote: "I beg my readers to distinguish clearly between the topic of this article, which is public economy, or what I call government, and supreme authority, or what I call sovereignty. The distinction lies in this: sovereignty has the right to legislate (le droit legislatif) . . . whereas government has purely executive power."
In The Social Contract the distinction between the general will and legislative capacity, on one hand, and government and executive power, on the other, is restated, but Rousseau now faces the challenge of portraying these two elements as distinct—and yet articulated, knit together, interwoven. This is what compels him, at the very moment he posits the distinction, to deny forcefully that there could exist any division within the sovereign. As with Aristotle, sovereignty that which is kyrion or supreme, is at the same time one of the two terms being distinguished, and the indissoluble link between constitution and government.
Today we behold the overwhelming preponderance of the government and the economy over anything you could call popular sovereignty— an expression by now drained of all meaning. Western democracies are perhaps paying the price for a philosophical heritage they haven't bothered to take a close look at in a long time. To think of government as simple executive power is a mistake and one of the most consequential errors ever made in the history of Western politics. It explains why modern political thought wanders off into empty abstractions like law, the general will, and popular sovereignty while entirely failing to address the central question of government and its articulation, as Rousseau would say, to the sovereign or locus of sovereignty In a recent book I tried to show that the central mystery of politics is not sovereignty but government; not God but his angels; not the king but his minister; not the law but the police—or rather, the double governmental machine they form and propel. Our Western political system results from the coupling of two heterogeneous elements, a politico-juridical rationality and an economic- governmental rationality, a "form of constitution" and a "form of government." Incommensurable they may be, but they legitimate and confer mutual consistency on each other Why does the politeia get trapped in this ambiguity? What is it that gives the sovereign, the kyrion, the power to ensure and guarantee the legitimacy of their union? What if it were just a fiction, a screen set up to hide the fact that there is a void at the center, that no articulation is possible between these two elements, these two rationalities? What if the task at hand were to disarticulate them and force into the open this "ungovernable" that is simultaneously the source and the vanishing point of any and all politics?
As long as thought balks at tackling this knotty problem and its amphibology, any debate about democracy, either as a form of constitution or as a technique of government, is likely to collapse back into mere chatter".
Giorgio Agamben
“Democracy in what State?
Libro completo, con ensayos de Badiou, Nancy, Rancière, Zizek; aquí.
followed by a discussion of three different forms of politeia: monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, or six if you count the three corresponding parekbaseis, or deviant forms. But translators sometimes render politeia with "constitution," sometimes with "government." In The Constitution of Athens (chapter 27), Aristotle characterizes the "demagogy" of Pericles this way: "demotikoteran synebe genesthai ten politeian," and a standard English translation runs "the constitution became still more democratic." Aristotle continues with the statement that "apasan ten politeian mallon agein eis hautous," which the same translator renders as "brought all the government more into their hands." To make his translation coherent, he ought to have written "brought all the constitution more into their hands," but that would obviously have created a difficulty.
When the same fundamental political concept can be translated to mean either "constitution" or "government," then we have ventured out beyond ambiguity onto the featureless terrain of amphibology (a term from grammar and rhetoric signifying indeterminacy of meaning). Let us train our gaze on two further passages from two classics of Western political thought, Aristotle's Politics and Rousseau's The Social Contract, in which this unclarity manifests itself with particular force. In the Politics, Aristole states his intention to itemize and analyze the different "constitutions" or "forms of constitution" (politeiai): "Since politeia and politeuma signify the same thing, and since the politeuma is the supreme (kyrion) power in a city, it necessarily follows that the supreme power resides either with an individual, with a few, or with the many' (Politics 1279a 25 ff). Current translations run more or less like this: "Since constitution and government signify the same thing, and since government is the supreme power in the state . . . " A more faithful translation would retain the closeness of the terms politeia (political activity) and politeuma (the resulting political outcome), but, apart from that, it is clear that the essential problem with this passage lies in Aristotle's attempt to get rid of the amphibology by using the term kyrion. With a bit of wrenching, the passage can be paraphrased in modern terms as follows: the constituent power (politeia) and the constituted power (politeuma) bind themselves together into a sovereign (kyrion) power, which appears to be that which holds together the two sides of politics. But why is politics riven by this fissure, which the word kyrion both dramatizes and heals over?
As for the Social Contract, Michel Foucault gave a course in 1977- 1978 at the College de France showing that Rousseau's aim was precisely to reconcile juridical and constitutional terms like contract the general will, and sovereignty with an art of government. For our purposes, the important thing is the distinction—basic to Rousseau's political thought—between sovereignty and government and their modes of interaction. In the article on "Political Economy" which the editors of the Encyclopedic commissioned from him, Rousseau wrote: "I beg my readers to distinguish clearly between the topic of this article, which is public economy, or what I call government, and supreme authority, or what I call sovereignty. The distinction lies in this: sovereignty has the right to legislate (le droit legislatif) . . . whereas government has purely executive power."
In The Social Contract the distinction between the general will and legislative capacity, on one hand, and government and executive power, on the other, is restated, but Rousseau now faces the challenge of portraying these two elements as distinct—and yet articulated, knit together, interwoven. This is what compels him, at the very moment he posits the distinction, to deny forcefully that there could exist any division within the sovereign. As with Aristotle, sovereignty that which is kyrion or supreme, is at the same time one of the two terms being distinguished, and the indissoluble link between constitution and government.
Today we behold the overwhelming preponderance of the government and the economy over anything you could call popular sovereignty— an expression by now drained of all meaning. Western democracies are perhaps paying the price for a philosophical heritage they haven't bothered to take a close look at in a long time. To think of government as simple executive power is a mistake and one of the most consequential errors ever made in the history of Western politics. It explains why modern political thought wanders off into empty abstractions like law, the general will, and popular sovereignty while entirely failing to address the central question of government and its articulation, as Rousseau would say, to the sovereign or locus of sovereignty In a recent book I tried to show that the central mystery of politics is not sovereignty but government; not God but his angels; not the king but his minister; not the law but the police—or rather, the double governmental machine they form and propel. Our Western political system results from the coupling of two heterogeneous elements, a politico-juridical rationality and an economic- governmental rationality, a "form of constitution" and a "form of government." Incommensurable they may be, but they legitimate and confer mutual consistency on each other Why does the politeia get trapped in this ambiguity? What is it that gives the sovereign, the kyrion, the power to ensure and guarantee the legitimacy of their union? What if it were just a fiction, a screen set up to hide the fact that there is a void at the center, that no articulation is possible between these two elements, these two rationalities? What if the task at hand were to disarticulate them and force into the open this "ungovernable" that is simultaneously the source and the vanishing point of any and all politics?
As long as thought balks at tackling this knotty problem and its amphibology, any debate about democracy, either as a form of constitution or as a technique of government, is likely to collapse back into mere chatter".
Giorgio Agamben
“Democracy in what State?
Libro completo, con ensayos de Badiou, Nancy, Rancière, Zizek; aquí.
07 febrero 2011
05 febrero 2011
"Moneda viviente"
Como Macedonio Fernández,
Pierre Klossowski dice:
gratuidad es gozar con lo que está fuera de precio
y es gratuito el acto de la procreación
y también la voluptuosidad o sensaciones
previas al acto de la procreación;
la vida gratuitamente recibida
en sí misma no tiene ningún precio,
sin la voluptuosidad no vale nada
tampoco la voluptuosidad tiene precio.
Recibo según soy capaz
y como persona soy
aquello que recibo y doy
por eso ya no soporto
recibir más de mi dar
-a riesgo de pertenecer
a los que reciben sin pausa.
Arturo Carrera
"Potlatch"
Pierre Klossowski dice:
gratuidad es gozar con lo que está fuera de precio
y es gratuito el acto de la procreación
y también la voluptuosidad o sensaciones
previas al acto de la procreación;
la vida gratuitamente recibida
en sí misma no tiene ningún precio,
sin la voluptuosidad no vale nada
tampoco la voluptuosidad tiene precio.
Recibo según soy capaz
y como persona soy
aquello que recibo y doy
por eso ya no soporto
recibir más de mi dar
-a riesgo de pertenecer
a los que reciben sin pausa.
Arturo Carrera
"Potlatch"
19 enero 2011
De "La vita agra"
“Y me echaron, sólo por el hecho de que arrastro los pies cuando camino, porque me muevo despacio, miro alrededor aún cuando no es indispensable. En nuestra actividad, en cambio, hay que separar bien los pies de la tierra y golpearlos estruendosamente contra el piso, hay que moverse, caminar, repiquetear, saltar, hacer polvo, mejor, una nube de polvo, y después esconderse adentro. No es como ser campesino u obrero. El campesino se mueve lentamente, porque su trabajo sigue las estaciones: él no puede sembrar en julio y cosechar en febrero. El obrero se mueve ágilmente, pero si está en la cadena de montaje, porque ahí le han contraído los tiempos de producción, y si no camina a ese ritmo tiene problemas [...]. Pero el hecho es que el campesino forma parte de las actividades primarias y el obrero de las secundarias. Uno produce de la nada, el otro transforma una cosa en otra. El medio de valoración del obrero y el campesino es fácil, cuantitativo: si la fábrica hornea tantas piezas por hora, si la finca rinde. En nuestra actividad sucede de otra manera, no hay una evaluación cuantitativa. ¿Cómo se mide la pericia de un cura, de un publicitario, de un especialista en relaciones públicas (RR.PP.)? Ellos ni producen de la nada ni transforman. No son primarios ni secundarios. Son terciarios y, osaría decir [...], aun cuaternarios. No son instrumentos de producción y tampoco correas de transmisión. Son lubricantes, son vaselina pura. ¿Cómo se puede evaluar a un cura, a un publicitario, a un RR.PP.? ¿Cómo se hace para calcular la cantidad de fe, de deseo de posesión, de simpatía que ellos serían capaces de generar? No, no tenemos otro patrón de medida que la capacidad de cada uno de permanecer a flote, de subir un poco más, es decir, de convertirse en obispo. En otras palabras, quien elige una profesión terciaria o cuaternaria necesita dotes y actitudes de tipo político. La política, como todos saben, desde hace tiempo ha dejado de ser la ciencia del buen gobierno y se ha convertido en el arte de la conquista y la conservación del poder. Así es que la bondad de un hombre político no se mide en relación con el bien que hace a los demás, sino sobre la base de la rapidez con que llega a la cima y el tiempo que se mantiene. [...] Del mismo modo, en las profesiones terciarias o cuaternarias, si no existe producción visible de bienes que sirva de patrón de medida, el criterio será ese”.
Luciano Bianciardi
“La vita agra”
28 noviembre 2010
20 noviembre 2010
en "Pour Marx"
"Si, en primer lugar estamos unidos por esa institución que se llama espectáculo, pero todavía unidos más profundamente por los mismos mitos, por los mismos temas, que nos gobiernan sin nuestro consentimiento, por la misma ideología vivida espontáneamente. Si, a pesar de que sea por excelencia la de los pobres, como en El Nost Milan, comemos el mismo pan, nos enfurecemos por lo mismo, nos indignamos por lo mismo, tenemos los mismos delirios (al menos en la memoria, que es por donde merodea esa posibilidad), incluso el mismo abatimiento ante una época que ninguna Historia impulsa. Si, como Madre Coraje, tenemos la misma guerra a la puerta, a dos pasos de nosotros, e incluso en nosotros mismos, la misma horrible ceguera, la misma ceniza en los ojos, la misma tierra en la boca. Tenemos el mismo amanecer y la misma noche: nuestra inconsciencia. Compartimos la misma historia —y ahí es donde empieza todo".
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