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February 28, 2005
In the comments to an earlier post Alain mentions John Caputo's "Without Sovereignty, Without Being" in the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory (August 2003. I tracked it down and it looks interesting as it moves beyond reversing the old dualities.
Caputo writes:
"We modern democrats congratulate ourselves on having revolutionized this schema [one God, on King, one Father] having turned it upside down, and so finally each man (sic) is the lord of his actions. We have shown the king the door (or even handed him his head) and replaced him with a constitutional democracy, according to which all power rises from the bottom up."
This is just a reversal of the old duality:
"But the truth is, while we have inverted the old schema, turning it on its head, by giving power to the people, we have not slipped free from of its most presupposition, that of sovereignty, which goes unchallenged. Modern democracies have considered the revolution complete...if they repopulate the sovereign centre with the people, running the lines of power from the bottom up."
Democracy without sovereignty? Yes:
"While they have shifted the rule...from a sovereign one or few to the people, no mean achievement, our modern democracies have left the space of sovereignty and autonomy undisturbed. So now mighty nation-states stride the earth where once mighuyt kings inspired fear and trembling---and having the power to inspire fear and trembling, to terrorize, is built right into the very idea of sovereignty."
We need to think democracy without sovereignty. Hell, I've never even considered it--deconstructing sovereignty--apart from Foucault's biopolitics and knowledge power. That shift works with autonomy.
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