Updates books/philosophy/stasis-before-the-state

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