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June 9, 2005
In 'Threshold', the last chapter of Homo Sacer, Giorgio Agamben makes an interesting comment about returning to the classics to get a critical purchase on modernity. He says that:
"Every attempt to rethink the political space of the West must begin with the clear awareness that we no longer know anything of the classical distinction between zoe and bio, between private life and political existence, between man living at home in the house and man's political existence in the city. That is why the restoration of classical political categories proposed by Leo Strauss and, in a different sense, by Hannah Arendt, can only have a critical sense." (p.187)
There is, in short, no return from the camps to classical politics.
What does the camp mean? It means security. This recalls Hobbes: security from fear is the reason human beings as a people unite in a state. Fear of being swamped by millions of refugees on the move that include terrorists is the reason behind the camps.
Today in Australia, or the US, security has become the basic principle of state activity. With the national security state security becomes a central criterion of political legitimation. The danger here is that a state that has security as its main task and source of legitimacy can always be provoked by terrorists to turn itself terroristic.
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