Homo sacer and bare enjoyment

My seminar is reading Homo Sacer for Tuesday. On Thursday, we are having an Agambenpalooza, or, more properly, a round table with four faculty and a bunch of students who have read the book this term. Paul will be back for it, and, Lars Tonder, who replaced me last year and who is joining the political science department at Northwestern in the fall, will also be there. Rounding out the faculty component is Geoffrey Whitehall, who has been here for a couple of years at joins a very cool cultural studies program (I think that's what it is) at Acadia in the fall.

Anyway, since Stanford University Press sent me a desk copy, I'm reading the book anew, with no previous underlinings and marginalia to distract me. And I notice, in the introduction, that what for Agamben is the central question of modern politics, Zizek has already answered:

What is the point at which the voluntary servitude of individual comes into contact with objective power?

If one insists on a singular point (an insistence neither necessary nor productive), one could designate it objet petit a--the irreducible, unavoidable kernel of enjoyment. And, if one resists the urge to find a "unitary center in which the political 'double bind' of individualization and totalizing procedure most clearly manifests itself, then the concept of the enjoyment becomes all the more compelling as an answer. Rather than the production of a biopolitical body as the originary activity of sovereign power, then, we would have an analysis of the production of enjoyment as the activity of power per se. Specific forms of power, such as different forms of sovereignty, would involve specific economies of enjoyment. Why should we find a notion of unitary sovereign power convincing, especially given academic work on different formations of sovereignty? Why assume sovereignty is everywhere and always the same? This is not to suggest that there are forms of sovereign power that do not produce remainders or excesses and that the relation between power and power's excess is not significant. But it is to emphasize that sovereignty works in different and varied forms that we fail to understand when we presume one sovereign operation.

Comments

[Jason]

Jodi,
You ask why we should find a notion of “unitary sovereign power” convincing. It seems to me that if the question was formulated a little differently, as for instance: why should we find “unitary power” or “sovereign power” convincing? The answer is, to my mind, more obvious: we don’t. However the collocation of “unitary” and “sovereign” is necessary, I think. I can imagine critiques of notions of sovereign power that attempt, on the one hand, to move beyond it – as in Foucault’s analytics of power where he claims that we must break free of the theoretical privilege of sovereignty – or, on the other hand, attempts to deconstruct its conditions – as in Derrida’s later work. Deconstructing sovereignty is one way of undoing its unity, but this has more to do with undoing unity as such than a certain one of its modes. There seems to be something fundamental about the connection between sovereignty and unity – the baby has to go with the bathwater, as it were. This is not to say that the operations of sovereign power must always be the same (e.g. the Schmittian mode of deciding on the exception) but that there is something about sovereignty that necessarily emanates from a unitary point.

This is not to say that Agamben is right about everything. I think Paul points out well the lack of a place for political action in Agamben’s writings – even if I think the distinction he makes between the early and later work, especially with respect to law, is not fully convincing. But, I do think that Agamben is right about a unitary sovereign, at least insofar as I understand the concept of sovereignty. But, I am open to the possibility of one of the new formations of sovereignty that you mention.

[Kenneth Rufo]

Can you unpack "economies of enjoyment" a bit more? I'm trying to ascertain why we shouldn't ask the same question about enjoyment that you want to ask about sovereignty, since after all, sovereignty no doubt has its own myriad economies. At least I suspect it does - I'll wait for the unpacking.

[Jodi]

Kenneth--I talk about different economies of enjoyment with respect to fascism and Stalinism in Zizek's politics. The basic idea is that political systems can deliver enjoyment (and secure the attachment/identities of their subjects) in different ways, for example by forbidding, by channeling into duty, by enjoining, etc. I agree that sovereignty has myriad economies--this is why I am not persuaded by Agamben's unitary sovereignty.

Jason--Agamben thinks of sovereignty as always and everywhere the same; this is what I reject. I also reject the claim that sovereignty is always unified--we can think of discussions of 'checks and balances,' empires, distributed sovereignty. The Hegelian account of world system and the recognition of states also belies the fiction of a unitary sovereignty.

[Craig]

Jodi, I'm not sure your examples work against Agamben, per se. The question could be asked of you, "Given your examples of forms of sovereignty, what makes them sovereign?" That is, how do we recognize "checks and balances" and "empires" as forms of sovereign power? What is it about them that makes them sovereign?

Besides, "empire" (i.e., imperium) is the classical form of sovereignty by acquisition - that form of sovereignty that Hobbes won't stop talking about.

[Kenneth Rufo]

Re: Craig: Which was my point about economies and enjoyment. It seems like either enjoyment offers a taxonomical umbrella in a way then internally differentiated by economies of itself, in which case there is something universal in enjoyment itself that makes it recognizable within the different economies, or enjoyment is merely a shorthand, and a deceptive one, for different economies that function independently of anything we call enjoyment. It seems the same could be said of sovereignty, and if anything it seems like Paul's split (which I'm not sure I agree with yet either; I'll read the article later this week and see) hints that sovereignty may not be as monolithic in Agamben as Jodi's original post indicates.

[Jodi]

Craig--I would say that what makes them sovereign is both claims to sovereignty and recognition of sovereignty. Claims can be justified in different ways--and have been--and recognition can be granted to different kinds of state formations.

Kenneth--I don't understand your point. As I've explained it the idea of economies of enjoyment refers to arrangements of something universal. Enjoyment is not the same thing as sovereignty--not even close or even analogous.

[Kenneth Rufo]

Alright then, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Craig]

Certainly, but what is it that is being justified or recognized? What is the meaning of sovereignty here? A bad analogy, no doubt, but if I ask you what a fruit is, the answer isn't, "Well, there are oranges, apples and mangoes." Likewise, if I ask you what sovereignty is, the answer isn't, "Well, there are city-states, empires, principalities, fiefs, nation-states and so on." Agamben doesn't dispute that sovereignty manifests itself differently in different epochs or state formations: that's the whole point of the comparison of the relation between bios and zoe in, on the one hand, Aristotle and Greeks and, on the other hand, Hobbes and the moderns.

[Jodi]

Craig--but why should we assume an essence to sovereignty? that's the point of contention. He thinks that he can locate an essence at the origins.

[mattcalarco]

Hi Jodi--interesting discussion. I don't think Agamben is a classic essentialist. He would no doubt grant that sovereignty manifests itself in the real world in many different forms, and that if we tried to describe it empirically, sovereignty would end up being a family resemblance concept. His work is not trying to do that, though. Sovereignty functions as a concept, a paradigm, a creation in his thought. I'm not sure adequatio between concept and world is the point of his discourse on sovereignty. Now whether that should be his focus is something that could be asked . . .

[Kenneth Rufo]

In the end, both Craig and Matt are making my point far better than I was, which is not surprising, of course. Though I think that if anything, I was trying to also contest the essence of enjoyment that allows for its different empirical economies along parallel lines to the way Jodi is contesting the essence of sovereignty. I guess I do not see the two conceptual modes to be as remote and distinct as Jodi does, at least not at the level of their signifying functions.

[old]

I agree with Jodi (and Paul) that Agamben wrongly essentializes sovereignty, and that this is problematic even if he does it from a different point of view, one that allows sovereignty to manifest itself differently.

My problem is slightly different from Jodi's insofar as one of my main continual irritations with Agamben is that he steals a critical concept from Foucault, biopolitical sovereignty, and then ontologizes it when Foucault went to such pains to insist that the advent of biopolitical sovereignty represented a real historical shift, a change, a new creation that drew on some old forms of sovereignty, no doubt, but was really different, and importantly so. It's fine if someone wants to disagree with foucault, to say that a shift hasn't really occurred, but it is really problematic to call that non-shift by the same exact name which Foucault uses to describe that shift.

[Kenneth Rufo]

Old, perhaps I'm not sure what you mean to imply by "ontologize." Is your concern that Agamben's treatment of sovereignty has it transcending its particular historical determination? And that Foucault resists this by making the biopolitical (purely) historically contingent?

[old]

Kenneth, yes exactly. And in so doing, the important structure of foucault's account (and thus also critical resources for resistance) are lost.

[Kenneth Rufo]

I guess I'm not sure that the two are as obviously mutually exclusive as you seem to think they are. Care to explain either why this might be the case, or perhaps more precisely, what structural or critical resources are lost in the transformation?

I think, preemptively, that my difficulty here is that I think Foucault's means of resistances, which also varied internal to his own work, never seemed particularly, well, potent, robust, or even resistant. Who knows, maybe you're right about the distinction between historical and ontological, and my problem is that I didn't find Foucault ontological enough.

[Jason]

Old,
Is it appropriate to speak of “biopolitical sovereignty” in Foucault? I’m no expert, but I thought that Foucault’s analytic of power was precisely a departure from the concept of sovereignty (and law) in order to elaborate an altogether different notion of power in the form of biopower. Agamben’s claim in Homo Sacer is that he is trying to bring these two notions back together in some way, to identify the “hidden point of intersection between the juiridico-institutional and the biopolitical models of power.” In this way it is not really appropriate to say that he is “stealing” from Foucault. It seems to me that this is less a bastardization of a concept and more a genuinely new theoretical development. Taking issue with this development is another thing.

[NotOften]

Although Agamben's articulation of sovereignty is obviously a close engagement (and break) with Schmitt's unitary and indivisible sovereign power (contained in the decisive instance), Paul seems to be suggesting a reference to Bataille's much more complex notion of sovereignty tied to the commodity form and the irreducibility of excess. Moreover, to back this consideration, Paul opens the paper with Agamben's connection to Debord. This is an important consideration. Agamben is much more than straightforwardly "Schmittian" or "essentialist." There are all sorts of moves happening. Perhaps a good criticism is that he tries to do too much in a short space, as opposed to too little (which would counter the claim that his definition of sovereignty is simply 'essentialist'). Agamben is far too ambitious in his argument to arrive at this conclusion.

I have truly enjoyed the complexity and nuance of Paul's article. He produced an argument that needed to be produced. Yet, I question whether Agamben's work is all about the early 'Coming Community.' I think there are contradictions on the state because Agamben changed his mind through his career, given the transformation in the concrete state of affairs globally. To claim that Agamben doesn't care about 'the real' world I believe misses the point about the state of exception, as well as testimony and the remnant. Agamben's discovery of the state of exception changes everything for him. This includes subsequent theorization of 'acting politically' or whatever.

[Adam Kotsko]

This would make a great dissertation. Possible title: "Sovereign Enjoyment: From Agamben to Zizek... and Back."

[Jodi]

Matt-my point is about concept and world. It is whether there is one concept of sovereignty. Agamben's argument relies on a continual core from Roman law to Schmitt. This is where I see a problem. Particularly after Nietzsche, why should we think that the originary formation of a concept is the same as the concepts later manifestations and uses?

[mattcalarco]

Jodi--I think that is a fair point. Your are right that there is no one concept of sovereignty; and that is true both in the sense that the word is open to many meanings (for example, Schmittian sovereignty vs. Nietzschean or Bataillean sovereignty) and in the sense that political sovereignty is capable of multiple manifestations (democratic sovereignty is not the same as totalitarian sovereignty, and so on). Agamben raises the concept to an ontological level (or historico-philosophical level, as he calls it in Homo Sacer) and uses it to help think through a problem. In so doing, he erases all kinds of differences between various manifestations of sovereignty. He thus opens himself to the charge that his ontological essentialism is empiricaly inaccurate.

I suppose his response would be that he is trying to invent a concept that connects disparate phenomena in order to see them and relate to them otherwise. He doesn't want to avoid reality altogether (he's not a relativist or sophist!), but he does want to create a set of concepts that will help us to see reality otherwise.

Is there a notion of political sovereignty (not Nietzschean or Bataillean sovereignty) that you want to keep that he seems to be sweeping under the rug? There is no doubt that he is abandoning pretty much any logic of sovereignty that has been proposed in the political philosophical tradition. I imagine that from a Zizekian position this could be problematic.

[Kenneth Rufo]

I don't know how important this is, but I think one of Agamben's enduring contribution to the sovereignty debate is to take the law seriously as a (the) dimension through which sovereignty is made possible, and he does go through soe effort to identify trends in Roman law that are similar to aspects of law today. Just a random thought.

[old]

Ken, I think that is very much true re: Agamben and the law. Foucault also made the law quite important, especially insofar as common law was one of the originary weapons of the people against the sovereign. Bringing the sovereign fully within the realm of the law and supplanting his law with the law of the land was critical in the birth of biopower.

I am just convinced that by essentializing/ontologizing sovereignty, Agamben misses the boat on the forms of sovereignty most important with respect to the nation state. His mode of opposition is ultimately deconstructionist, in my view, and very much subject to critiques of "philosophy of the limit" (per Hardt and Negri). And it is in this vein that I would say, Kenneth, that you are right that Foucault's own suggestions for resistance are not very potent or robust. However, I think he opened the door for thinking resistance in a new way and that Deleuze and especially Hardt and Negri have picked up on it in a way that is extraordinarily potent.

What Agamben does in eliding the historical turn and the difference between pre-nationalistic and nationalistic forms of sovereignty means that a ton of important work doesn't get done, especially with respect to the law. I'd have to work a long time in order to coalese my thoughts into a comment sized space.

Jason, I think it's right to read Foucault as talking about not only a new form of power, but also a new form of sovereignty, namely national sovereignty. While he thinks in terms of pluriform modalities of power, certainly one of them is national sovereignty, and I see no way around that conclusion.

I've said before that much of Homo Sacer would work, in my opinion, if it weren't for the writing that comes after it. If Agamben had simply stopped in saying that the camps are structurally similar to the homo sacer, I buy it. Homo Sacer is to a Single Sovereign as The Camps are to a system of Nation States; that allows for the shift from protection of the king to societies that must be defended. But then in works like The Open, he makes such things as drawing the difference between man and animal critical to the biopolitical machine from Aristotle to Heidegger, and that just isn't biopower. There's a lot of nice observations along the way, but it is a complete and horrifying bastardization of the concept.

[Nate]

hi Jodi,
I don't think Agamben thinks all sovereignty is identical. I think he thinks that all sovereignty, in so far as it is sovereignty, will have certain traits in common. This is true for every term (all academic work, all enjoyment, all blogs, etc). It may be that what Agamben points to in sovereignty is merely trivially true as is often the case with these kinds of commonalities, but that's not the same as all sovereigns are identical. That said, I do agree with that I think is implied here, that case studies - analysis of specific economies, as you put it - are more interesting than generalities.
best,
Nate

[Jodi]

Nate--the point isn't about traits, a minimal set of commonlity, or elements in common; all these are empirical claims. Agamben is theorizing a conceptual core or foundation or essence (I'd say analogous to a claim like man is a reasoning being). And, my simple point is that this statement is wrong. There is not a conceptual core to sovereignty that is constant from the Romans through the Nazis. The concept changes, differentiates itself, varies with its contexts. So, my claim is not about empirical states. It's about conceptual changes.

[Nate]

hi Jodi,

Maybe I just don't get what you're arguing. There is something in common between Roman and Nazi sovereignty. Otherwise it would make no more sense to say "Roman sovereignty differs from Nazi sovereignty" than it would make to say "Roman machine gun differs from Nazi machine gun." The latter is nonsense whereas the former is not, and the former doesn't involve a claim to essence.

Insofar any instance of sovereignty is an instance of sovereignty then that instance has something in common with every other instance of sovereignty. I don't think Agamben's making a stronger claim than that about sovereignty. That's why I think the claim is probably trivially true a la, "all humans have DNA" though he might say that the point he's making has been neglected such that in the present it's not trivial. (Just as in a just society "women are not property" would be a trivial truth but in many societies that's far from trivial.)

But in any case I don't think he's making a claim that this something that all instances of sovereignty have in common (qua instances of sovereignty) is an essence, no more than any other claim about the similarity of things that share one or more category. I think he's making a very broad historical claim, along the lines of what Marx called "general determinations". Part of the point, though, is that general determinations don't do much work after they've been clarified. Specific determinations of specific instances are more interesting and important (again, trivial truths vs nontrivial truths).

take care,
Nate

[Spleeno]

Isn't one of the major points of "State of Exception" that this very concept (and the its practice) has changed since the Romans? Once there was a declared "tumultus", a clear case of unrest and state of exception when the law was suspended. Now the law is suspended, period.

That is what Agamben claims is central to sovereignty, the exception and suspension of law. One could of course claim that this is an essence, but since that essence would have to be essentially empty I wonder if it's really productive to call it an essence at all. An un-essence of sovereignty, perhaps?