<nettime> forget about Agamben

[Allan Siegel <allan@allansiegel.info>]

Hello all,

In response to the alarmingly strident tone of Agamben's rant I went
to the source (which Brian thankfully provided - see below) to the
much broader discourse which is far more illuminating than Agamben's
alarmism (not at all surprising these days) so here is a response to
Agamben from another participant:

(the entire discussion is 
herehttp://www.journal-psychoanalysis.eu/coronavirus-and-philosophersand 
includes M. Foucault, G. Agamben, J.L. Nancy, R. Esposito, S. Benvenuto, 
D. Dwivedi, S. Mohan, R. Ronchi, M. de Carolis)

*Sergio Benvenuto*

*/Forget about Agamben/*

The immediate reaction of the sovereignists – an ennobling euphemism
to define neo-fascists – to the coronavirus pandemic was the reflex
we would all have expected from xenophobes: closing borders and
identifying Covid-19 with the Foreigner. It’s what Trump did by
blocking communications with Europe without doing anything at the
domestic level. The danger is always from the outside, never from
within.

It was said that this pandemic would have pulled the rug from
under the feet of the neo-fascists (among whom I include Trump,
Johnson, Salvini, Erdogan…). Indeed, in cases in which anyone
can be infected, the danger  is not from the outside – Africa,
China, Muslims, and so on – and not even from another nameable and
circumscribable group from within, one that can be isolated like the
Jews were for centuries in Europe. The danger lies everywhere, even
in a child, a grandparent, a lover…. As the journalist Massimo
Giannini said, “We are not in danger, we are the danger.” The
basic signifying oppositions of our Schmittian being political animals
– us versus them, me versus the other – collapse and we’re
all equally dangerous, the gipsy is no more dangerous than my own
daughter, racist categorizations lose all their mobilising charm at a
stroke.

Within this picture, it doesn’t worry me that the various countries
have suspended Schengen. It would have been more disturbing had there
been a closure of each country against another, but in fact it’s
just another of many closures at all levels: each citizen closes him
or herself to the other.

The eminent philosopher Giorgio Agamben writes (in this same Tribune):

Even sadder than the limitations on freedom implicit in the provisions
is, in my opinion, the degeneration of human relations they can
generate. The other man, whoever he may be, even a loved one, must
not be approached or touched, and indeed it is necessary to keep a
specific distance form him, which according to some should be of one
metre, but according to the latest recommendations by experts should
be of 4.5 metres (interesting to note those extra fifty centimetres!)
Our fellow man has been abolished.

It is difficult to imagine an equally superficial reaction. In fact
the epidemic overturns the cliché that if I love my fellow men or
women I should hug them, kiss them or stick to them like sardines
… Today I display my love for the other by keeping her or him
at a distance.  This is the paradox that collapses all the lazy
ideological frameworks (ideological not in the Marxist sense) of the
left and right,  not to mention of the populists.

The edifying propaganda of some politicians and the media appeals to
our selfishness as well as to our altruism: “If you avoid others,
you are protecting them, but yourself too.” Now, very often this is
by no means true. It is now common knowledge that young people can
be infected like everyone else but that it’s quite rare for them
to fall ill; it’s also common knowledge that this pandemic is a
geronticide,that those really at risk are the over 65s.

A young friend of mine keeps me at a distance of at least three meters
and smiles. I very much appreciate this non-gesture of his, because I
know that it is mainly he who is trying to protect me; because I’m
old. It’s true that he’s also protecting the elderly in his own
family: his father, his mother… But in any case I’m grateful to
him. The more the others keep at a distance from me, the closer I feel
to them. This is why Agamben has failed to understand anything about
what’s happening in the /molecularity/ of human relations.

On the contrary, in recent days I came across several people who did
not respect this secure distance and didn’t even wear gloves or
face masks; and they expressed their scepticism on the gravity of
the disease… I could gather from their arguments that they were
basically cynical and ultimately antisocial individuals. Today the
sociable avoid society.

Last winter 8000 people died in Italy as a consequence of lung
complications due to influenza, mostly the elderly.  This year, with
coronavirus, the death rate will probably rise to something between
20 and 25 thousand, three times the “normal” number of victims,
mostly among the elderly.  Is the fact that “only” three times
as many people die because of a seasonal illness enough to say that
Agamben is right in saying that this is a fake epidemic?   No.
Because this is an unknown virus that could have even more disastrous
consequences.  Everything that’s being done is merely preventive. 
And, above all: in our societies it is unacceptable that three times
as many people as normal die in one winter.  It’s a biopolitical
– that is, ethical – choice.

A grotesque clown like Boris Johnson told the British people to
“prepare to lose loved ones before their time”.  But why not
address the dying too?  Why not say “prepare to lose your lives”?
  As if death were always the death of the other.  Perhaps he
meant “prepare to lose your elderly….”   For BoJo those who
will die, those who have all the ingredients for death, also lose
the quality of addressees, they’re no longer even a “you”. 
Italy made a different choice: quarantine and economic paralysis to
protect its senior citizens.  Among them we also find Agamben, born
in 1942.  I sense something of the heroic in this vigorous defence of
those who do not have long to live.



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