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Agamben Affirmative and Negative - Northwestern 2015

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    AFF

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    notesToday, one sees the beginnings of a society in which one proposes to apply to everycitizen the devices that had only been destined for delinquents. According to aproject that is already on the road to realization, the normal relationship of the State

    to what Rousseau called the members of the soveriegn will be biometric, that is tosay, generalized suspicion.

    !nder the pressure of the growing depolitization of post"industrial societies, thecitizenry is progressively withdrawing from all political participation and seeing itselfmore and more treated li#e virtual criminals. Thus the political body becomes acriminal body.

    The dangers of such a situation are obvious to all, e$cept those who simply refuseto see. %ne doesn&t quite #now if the photos that permitted the 'azi police forces inthe occupied countries to locate and record the (ews, thus facilitating theirdeportation, were originally identity cards or professional cards. What will happen

    when a despotic power makes use of the biometric records of an entirepopulation?

    )t is all the more worrisome that the *uropean countries, after imposing biometricsupervision +controle over immigrants, are now preparing to impose it on all of theircitizens. The reasons of security invo#ed in favor of these odious practices are notconvincing, because, if they can contribute to the prevention of recidivism, they arecertainly useless in preventing a rst crime or act of terrorism. %n the otherhand, they are perfectly e-cacious for the massive control of individuals. Theday when biometric supervision has become generalized and surveillance by +videocamera will be established along all the streets, all critique and all dissent willhave become impossible.

    """iorgio Agamben, /'o to 0iometrics,1 *S, 2334,http566www.egs.edu6faculty6giorgio"agamben6articles6no"to"biometrics6

    0rought to you by 7harlie 8 0randon

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    1ac

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    1ac biometricsAmerican politics is dominated by an aiom of security whichcombines unprecedented economic liberalism with equallyabsolute police and state control

    Agamben 1!9iorgio : ;h.ge )nternational de ;hilosophie in ;aris, and at the !niversity of?acerata in )taly, /@rom the State of 7ontrol to a ;ra$is of

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    course of time, so thatI not only in economics and politics I but in every aspect of social life, thecrisis coincides with normality and becomes, in this way,just a tool of government.7onsequently, the capability to decide once for all disappears and the continuousdecision"ma#ing process decides nothing. To state it in parado$ical terms, we could say that, having toface a continuous state of eception, the government tends to ta#e the form of a

    perpetual coup d"#tat. 0y the way, this parado$ would be an accurate description of what happens here in reeceas well as in )taly, where to govern means to ma#e a continuous series of small coups dQJtat. overning the *Pects This is why )thin# that, in order to understand the peculiar governmentality under which we live,the paradigm of the state ofe$ception is not entirely adequate. ) will therefore follow ?ichel @oucaultQs suggestion and investigate the originof the concept of security in the beginning of modern economy, by @ranois uesnais and the ;hysiocrates, whose inFuence onmodern governmentality could not be overestimated. Starting with Mestphalia treaty, the great absolutist *uropean states begin tointroduce in their political discourse the idea that the sovereign has to ta#e care of its subjectsQ security. 0ut uesnay is the Krst toestablish security 9suretJE as the central notion in the theory of government I and this in a very peculiar way. %ne of the main

    problems governments had to cope with at the time was the problem of famines.0efore uesnay, the usualmethodology was trying to prevent famines through the creation of public granariesand forbidding the e$portation of cereals. 0oth these measures had negative ePects on production.uesnayQs idea was to reverse the process5 instead of trying to prevent famines, hedecided to let them happen and to be able to govern them once they occurred,liberalizing both internal and foreign e$changes. /To govern1 retains here its etymological cybernetic meaning5 a good #ybernes, a

    good pilot canQt avoid tempests, but if a tempest occures he must be able to govern his boat, using the force of waves and winds for

    navigation.This is the meaning of the famous motto laisser faire, laissez passer5 it is not only thecatchword of economic liberalismG it is a paradigm of government, which conceives ofsecurity9suretJ, in uesnayQs wordsE not as the prevention of troubles, but rather as the abilityto govern and guide them in the right direction once they ta#e place. Me should notneglect the philosophical implications of this reversal . )t means an epochaltransformation in the very idea of government, which overturns the traditionalhierarchical relation between causes and ePects. Since governing the causes is di-cult and e$pensive, itis safer and more useful to try to govern the ePects. ) would suggest thatthis theoremby uesnay is the a$iom ofmodern governmentality.The ancien regime aimed to rule the causesG modernitypretends to control the ePects. And this a$iom applies to every domain, from economy to ecology, from foreign and

    military politics to the internal measures of police. Me must realize that *uropean governments today gave up any attempt to rulethe causes, they only want to govern the ePects. AnduesnayQs theorem ma#es also understandable afact which seems otherwise ine$plicable5 ) mean the parado$ical convergence today ofan absolutely liberal paradigm in the economy with an unprecedented and equallyabsolute paradigm of state and police control. )f government aims for the ePects and not the causes, it willbe obliged to e$tend and multiply control. 7auses demand to be #nown, while ePects can only be chec#ed and controlled.

    $iometric surveillance of American citi%ens poses a gravethreat to democracy and reduces citi%ens to their biologicalidentityAgamben 1!9iorgio : ;h.ge )nternational de ;hilosophie in ;aris, and at the !niversity of?acerata in )taly, /@rom the State of 7ontrol to a ;ra$is of

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    %ne important sphere in which the a$iom is operative is that of biometrical securityapparatuses, which increasingly pervade every aspect of social life. Mhenbiometrical technologies Krst appeared in Lth century in @rancewith Alphonse 0ertillon and in*ngland with @rancis alton, the inventor of Knger prints, they were obviously not meant to preventcrimes but only to recognize recidivist delinquents. %nly once a second crime has occurred, you can usethe biometrical data to identify the oPender. 0iometrical technologies, which had been invented for recividist criminals, remained for

    a long time their e$clusive privilege. )n ODC, !S 7ongress still refused the 7itizen )dentiKcation Act, which was meant to introducefor every citizen an )dentity 7ard with Knger prints. 0ut according to a sort of fatality or unwritten law ofmodernity, the technologies which have been invented for animals, for criminals,strangers or (ews, will Knally be e$tended to all human beings. Therefore, in the courseof 23th century, biometric technologies have been applied to all citizens, and 0ertillonQsidentiKcation photographs and altonQs Kngerprints are currently in use everywhere for )< cards. The

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    disposition of the genes in the double heli$ of

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    was in Xth century, raison dQVtat, or state reason. )t is rather /security reasons1.The security state is apolice state, but, again, in the juridical theory, the police is a #ind of blac# hole. All we cansay is that when the so called /science of the police1 Krst appears in the Lth century, the /police1 is brought bac# to its etymologyfrom the ree# politeia and opposed as such to /politics1. 0ut it is surprising to see that /police1 coincides now with the true politicalfunction, while the term politics is reserved for foreign policy. Thus =on (usti, in his treatise on ;olicey"Missenschaft, calls ;oliti# therelationship of a state with other states, while he calls ;olizei the relationship of a state with itself. )t is worthwhile to reFect upon

    this deKnition5 /;olice is the relationship of a state with itself.1 The hypothesis ) would li#e to suggest here is that,placing

    itself under the sign of security, the modern state has left the domain of politics toenter a no manQs land, whose geography and whose borders are still un#nown.Thesecurity state, whose name seems to refer to an absence of cares 9securus from sine curaE should, on the contrary,ma#e us worry about the dangers it involves for democracy,because in itpolitical life has become impossible, while democracy means precisely the possibilityof a political life.

    $iometrics biologi%es life' entrenching violent biopolitics(uller 1) 90enjamin (. : Assistant ;rofessor in )nternational Relations and ;oliticalTheory at the !niversity of Mestern %ntario, ;h.

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    %ne might say in Neideggerian fashion that life is the stuP of biopolitics. )n the process of reducing life to stuP,biopoliticsmust determine the qualityof the stuP so that investment in its e$traction, promotionand reKnement may itself be continuously assessed . )t follows that some life will be foundto be worth investment, some life less worth investment, while other life may prove intractableto the powers of investment and the demands it ma#es on life. Nere, assaying morphs into

    evaluating the eligibility and not simply the e$pected utility of life forms. !ltimately,some life may turn out to bepositively inimical to the circulation of life in which this investment driven process ofbiopolitics continuously trades, and have to be removed from life if its antipathy tobiopoliticised life cannot otherwise be adapted , correctedor contained. 0ehind the life"charged rhetoric of biopolitics, lies the biologisation of life to which biopolitics iscommitted, the violence of that biologisation and the reduction of the classicalpolitical question concerning the good life 9and the good deathE to that of the endlesslye$tendable, Kt and adaptable life. The good life Agamben reKgures in terms of the pure " he also says &profane&but note that there is no profanity without sanctity " immanence of &happy life&.

    $iometric security technologies pre,emptively combat whom

    the powerful deem as a threat to society-attimer 1.97onnor : !ndergraduate Scholar at the !niversity of Hondon, /The;olitics of Surveillance in a Ris# Society,1 in *")R, O"4"C, http566www.e"ir.info623C63O6346the"politics"of"surveillance"in"a"ris#"society6E

    %bamaQs desire to continue the MoT through sophisticated surveillancetechnologies, such as the ?" ;redator drone, imposes a strategic rationale for anticipatorydefence or pre"emptive security. The !S at present deploys drones beyond the borders of )raq and Afghanistan toanticipate the rise of future threats, including ;a#istan, 'orth Zorea, and )ran, which raises questions on whether distant 9both intime and spaceE ris#s should be left to lie, or wo#en up by military invasion. The information collected through pre"emptive practicesdrive forward this new security culture as intelligence, is harnessed to aid creative scenario"ma#ing by civil servants in Mhitehall 9

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    this new security culture is based upon a political imagination and those in positionsof power are able to re"inscribe the societal landscape by determin ing who andwhat constitutes as a threat9not a ris#E. Surveillance technologies are furthering thechange in a security culture towards pre"emption and anticipatory logics within theris#"society, although such technologies have always been and will continue to be powered by political decision"ma#ing.

    The security culture of pre"emption is new, but the pre"emptive logic is not. Rooted within the environmentalmovementsQ precautionary principle, the ris#"management approach was away of advancing action on climate change andenvironmental issues before an evidence"base could be established 9%QRiordannE. The argument of Homborg 9233E suggests anevidence"base would ta#e too long to collect, thus it would be too late to deal with the ris#s from environmental change, and insteadpoliticians were required to act now. @urthermore, stamping on ris#s before they materialise into greater threats was also part offormer ?ayor of 'ew Uor# 7ity, Rudolph iulianiQs order maintenance policing that dealt with petty crimes in [radical waysQ which

    was understood to prevent ris#s from much larger forms of crime 9?orris, 233CE. ;re"emption is rooted within apolitical and policy"ma#ing history, but has recently been developed into a newsecurity culture as a result of the role surveillance technologies perform in the MoT.Hattimer politics lattimer politics 2 lattimer politics C 'ecessary Surveillance !nderstanding the role of surveillance technologies inthe MoT implies these technologies are a necessary component in underta#ing practices for a war on terror.

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    on it in generating a diversity of possible futures. Ne argues that having suchsurveillance technologies with capabilities of pre"empting bridges the gap betweenthe present and the future.

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    This isn&t just stupidity or faulty reasoning. There is a perverse logic to it. 0ecause if you accept that it&s paramount to respond tothreat, and that you have to act in response to it even if it has not yet fully emerged, or even if it is hasn&t really even begun to

    emerge, then you&re facing a real conundrum. )f you wait for the emergence, you&ll have waited too long "" too late. Aterrorist threat can strike like lightning. Hi#e lightning it can stri#e anywhere and anytime. 0ut worse than lightning, it can stri#e anywhere at any time in any guise.This time it might be planescrashing into buildings. 'e$t time it might be an improvised eplosive device. %r

    a bomb in a subway. %r anthra$ in the mail. 3o one knows.This only ma#es theurgency of action all the more acute. @aced with urgent need to act in the face of theun#nown"un#nown of a threat that has not yet emerged, there is only onereasonable thing to do5 4ush it out. ;o#e the soft tissue. ;rod the terrain. Stir things up and seewhat starts to emerge. 5reate the conditions for the emergence of threat.Start the threat on the way to becoming a clear and present danger, and then nip itin the bud with your superior rapid"response capabilities. (ake it real so you canreally eliminate it. )&m not saying that the 0ush administration consciously decided to ma#e )raq a staging ground forterrorism. )&m only saying that the fact that their preemptive actions did in fact do that Kts perfectly into the logic of preemption,

    and says something fundamental about what that logic implies. )t is fundamental to the logic of preemptionto produce what it is designed to avoid. That is the only way to give its urgent need to go #inetic inresponse to threat something positive to attac#. This is what distinguishes preemption from the logic presiding over the previous

    age of conFict, the 7old Mar. The logic of the 7old Mar was deterrence5 ma#ing something not happen. The goal, faced with theclear and present danger of nuclear Armageddon, was to hold it in potential, to ma#e sure the threat was never realized, preciselyby refraining from preemptive attac#. Mhat was fundamental to the logic of deterrence was the impossibility of a Krst stri#e :

    e$actly what preemption requires.

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    just one e$ample. )n many eyes it might seem a wea# one, since it could be laid to unforeseen collateral ePects, and dismissed as a

    mere anomaly or accident, or simply a product of a miscalculation. The point ) want to ma#e is that in the operative logicof preemption more"or"less unforeseen ePects are precisely what is and must beproduced. )f the situation is really one full of un#nown"un#nowns, in a perpetuallycrisis"ridden, ungraspably comple$, increasingly chaotic world, then unforeseen ePects willalways accompany any action carried out according to any logic. That&s a corrollary of theforegone conclusion. Mhat&s particular about preemption is that ma#es a virtue of this. )t turns this problem intosomething positive as well. )t turns it into a mechanism that fosters its owncontinuation and proliferation. )t can&t ma#e the un#nown"un#nown #nown. )t can&t pre"form or fore"see the e$actnature of the reality it will produce. 0ut if it is ready with fast"adapting rapid response capabilities, it can Keld theePects it brings into being, by immediately going #inetic in a follow"up action. Mhen itFushes out threat, it can contrive to #eep the emergence within parameters it can handle, more"or"less.&here will bethreat again. 0ut if all goes well it will be in more controllable parameters. ;reemption can then re,legitimate itself a8ectively, and redeploy. )n this way, to use the military theory jargon, theoperative logic of preemption leverages uncertainty. Mhat preemptive power mustdo is remain poised to go kinetic again and again, in serial response to thee$ercise of its own ontopower. *very time it acts, it must already be poising itself to act again, with equal urgency.)n that way, each of its actions will contain within it the seeds of the net action' andthat action' the action after, so that the deployment of preemption cascades,bringing its aPective legitimation by threat with it, step by step. reemptive actionhas become self,driving. )t only stands to reason that if terrorist threat is ever"present andproliferates in unforeseen ways, then the power mobilized against it must besimilarly ever,present and proliferating. ow could anyone argue that we shouldn&t be capable ofKelding uncertainty Me must always be poised for threat. Me must assume the posture "" even if the stated doctrine has changed.

    )f we sit on our hands, all it will ta#e to delegitimate a government would be another terror attac# that happened on its watch.'ogovernment can aPord not to be in a posture of preemption. Me must assume the posture atevery moment : we must be poised to go #inetic at a moment&s notice, whenever and wherever in the world that threat is felt toloom. Mhenever and wherever. The realignment on time ) mentioned earlier ends up driving a a tendency for the logic set in motion

    to turn space"Klling.The operative logic of preemptive is not only self"drivingG it is self"

    e$panding. Me watched this happen. )raq was in fact used as a terror training ground.Terrorist techniques such as the improvised e$plosive device and suicide bombingswere perfected there, then carried to the other front, Afghanistan, where theyfueled a resurgent insurgency. The preemptive follow"up response on the part of the !S was to e$pand the use ofcounter"terrorist tactics that matched the )*< attac# in terms of their ability to stri#e by surprise with lightning speed, and to morphthemselves to the shape any #ind of circumstance, ta#ing any number of guises. The use of these techniques by the !S militarye$ploded. 7hief among them were targeted assassinations using rapidly"deployed special operations forces, and unmanned drone

    attac#s.This escalation began under 0ush, but was ta#en to new levels by %bama, whohad criticized the war in )raq and called for its winding down only in order to shift attention to Afghanistan, which he deKned as the

    good war and the right war. The right war overFowed to the wrong side of the border, into ;a#istan.The blowbackfrom !S cross"border drone attac#s and spe cial op erations in ;a#istan haveenergized activity elsewhere in the world5 in Somalia, in Uemen. Uet another proliferation. !Sdrone attac#s and special ops have followed. ;reemptive !S military intervention has e$panded to yet another continent. The

    invasions of )raq and Afghanistan may be winding down. 0ut the preemptive military posture of the !S has only spread. Andnowhere has terrorist threat stopped looming. Hast month 9(uly 23E was the bloodiest formonths for !S military personnel in )raq, and terrorist attac#s in Afghanistan pic#ed up spectacularly with the assassinations of thegovernor of Zandahar province and the mayor of Zandahar city. *ven after the withdrawal of !S troops from )raq, there will be acontinuing !S presence indeKnitely into the future, as %bama&s Secretary of

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    the reach of this almost industrial scale #illing machine. ;reemption doesn&t go away. )t spreads itstentacles. Things change. 0oots on the ground may recede as drones advance, following the rhythms of public opinion and theelectoral cycle of politicians& engrossment in domestic aPairs. 'ation"building might get bac#grounded in favor of targeted

    assassination campaigns. 0ut the operative logic of preemption only becomes morewidespread and insidious. The more it changes, the more it stays the same, ever"e$panding. To the point that it canbe said to become the dominant operative logic of our times. reemption octopuses on. %ntopower rules.

    $iometric technologies blur the line between wartimetechnology and domestic security' creating a permanent stateof emergency(uller 1) 90enjamin (. : Assistant ;rofessor in )nternational Relations and ;oliticalTheory at the !niversity of Mestern %ntario, ;h.

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    intersection between the legal and politicalG a civil war, an insurrection, an armed resistance 9Agamben23345 E. ?oreover, the state of e$ception is the result of a /political crisis,1 indicating thatit should be understood in political terms and not on juridical"constitutional grounds9Agamben 2334E. @or Agamben, what is particularly challenging about the state of e$ception isthe way in which it functions in a /zone of undecidability,1 or what he and others

    have referred to as a /zone of indistinction1 9Agamben OOLG *d#ins 2332E. As the sovereign isboth the law and outside the law, with subsequent power to suspend the law, there is a sort of legalsanction to the state of e$ception, which is e$tra"juridical. Therefore, as Agamben contends, thestate of e$ception is awarded a certain legal status, such as the notion of the /legal civil war1 he e$plores 9Agamben 23345 2: CE.@urthermore, and perhaps most important to the transformation of the state of e$ception becoming the norm, is the way in which

    e$ceptional powers, or permanent states of emergency, become important technologies ofgovernmental control. Nere, as Agamben accurately notes, the state of emergency is not alwaysopenly declared in a technical sense , yet statutory amendments and changes thatoccur in the bac#ground spea# directly to the permanence of the state of e$ception.4 ?oreover , the suspension of conventional legislative and judicial powers and theconcentration of power in the hands of the core e$ecutive constitute the state ofe$ception.The ways in which this creeps into hidden statutes that lie in wait, ready

    to spring forward when required, and the general way in which this state ofe$ception seems to have become an ePective technology of rule for contemporarygovernments emphasize the permanence of the state of e$ception . ?uch of this spea#sdirectly to ?ichel @oucaultQs point made in the collection of his lectures entitled Society ?ust be

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    facilities, or for the security of particular products, such as the narcotics necessary for anesthesiologists. 0iometric technologies arealso not strangers to the panoptic sphere of surveillance and are consistently used to trac# the comings and goings of employees inlarge institutions. 7ontemporary debates over the applications of biometrics are subject to some very particular phenomena of both

    the contemporary information age and the post"O6 security conte$t.The events of September , 233deKnitely had an impact on the biometrics industry, if only to open a policy windowfor already supportive legislators.

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    ?ichael 0rown grand jury verdict, the state of ?issouri sawsomething perhaps even more startling than amilitarized police force5 a pre,emptive state of emergency. As (anai 'elson from the 'AA7; Hegal

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    between discourses of State [homeland securityQ and martial practices . )ndeed for raham,what we are seeing is /;&

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    our current state of aPairs, in which5 law can ... be obliterated and contradicted withimpunity by a governmental violence that, while ignoring international law e$ternallyand producing a permanent state of e$ception internally , nevertheless still claims tobe applying the law. The state of e$ception enables this contradiction since it is neither inside nor outsidelaw. %n the one hand, it is not a special #ind of law& since it is a suspension of the juridical order itself&G on the

    other, it is not merely the absence of law, since law contains provisions for its suspension. Thistopographical parado$ means that law functions unusually within the state ofe$ception. The state of e$ception doesn&t create chaos or anarchyG it sepa"rates thelaw&s force from its application.Haw&s purely formal applicability comes loose from its direct impact onlife. As a result, acts that are not authorized by any law can employ the force of legalaction 5 in e$treme situations force of law& Foats as an indeterminate element thatcan be claimed by both the state authority ... and by a revolutionary organization.Agamben argues that this ultimately ma#es law and life indistinguishable5 every action ispotentially a legal action .!nfortunately, however, we can&t simply return to a situationprior to the state of e$ception 5 from the real state of e$ception in which we live, it isnot possible to return to the state of law, for at issue now are the very concepts ofstate& and law&. )f we ta#e Agamben&s claims about the reach of the state of e$ception seriously, we are

    left to grapple with theodd solutionthat Agamben suggests. This solution is what ) would li#e tointerrogate here. Agamben argues that to get beyond the state of e$ception we must dosomething more radical than modify the law, since the e$ception has revealed thatthe normal functioning of law depends on violent force .As a consequence, we mustpursue Bthe only truly political action === which severs the neus betweenviolence and lawC= $ut it is di-cult to imagine how we might actually ta#e this truly political& action'which Agamben calls BplayC5 %ne day, humanity will play with law just as children play with disusedobjects, not in order to restore them to their canonical use but to free them from it for good... . +This studiousplay is the passage that allows us to arrive at ... justice .;lay& is a surprising answer to theproblems that Agamben has dramatically s#etched5 it seems simultaneously too abstract and not serious enough.

    0ut can we ta#e play seriously ;lay might be able to counteract the law&s violent

    application to life because of its lac# of seriousness5 play suspends bothinstrumentality and normativity . )n this sense, play deinstrumentalizes whatAgamben frequently calls the machine& or apparatus& of the state of e$ception .

    &raditional political dissent merely strengthens the securitystate ,,, we must instead epose and depose of the securitytechnologies the government employsAgamben 1!9iorgio : ;h.ge )nternational de ;hilosophie in ;aris, and at the !niversity of

    ?acerata in )taly, /@rom the State of 7ontrol to a ;ra$is of

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    can aim at, a goal it can set. As far as etymology is concerned, the word studium is closely related to a root that indicates aco-sion, a shoc# or inFuence. Study and surprise are closely related in that sense. Mhoever studies Knds oneself shoc#ed, amazedand is, in a certain sense, stupid 9cf. studium, stupefyingE. %n the one hand, study is undergone and, on the other, underta#en.

    Nere Agamben sees a close a-nity with AristotleQs description of potentiality, which ispassive on the one hand I an undergoing I and activeon the other I a n unstoppable drive to underta#esomething, to do something, to engage in action. Studyis the place where undergoing andunderta#ing convergeG it is a gesture 9);, BDE. The rhythm of studying is an alternation between amazement and clarity, discovery

    and loss, doing and undergoing. This combination of undergoing and underta#ing yields a #ind of passive activity,a radical passivity. Something happens without seeming to happen. Agamben arguesthat study is pre,eminently unending. Study does not have an appropriate endnor does it desire it. This gives the scholar a woeful air. At Krst glance, the students in Zaf#aQs wor#s seem to be of littleuse or signiKcance. 'evertheless, 0enjamin contends that they have a major role to play5 [Among Zaf#aQs creations, there is a clanwhich rec#ons with the brevity of life in a peculiar way. The students who appear in the strangest places in Zaf#aQs wor#s are thespo#esmen for and leaders of this clanC Agamben is in complete agreement with this view5 +The latest, most e$emplaryembodiment of study in our culture is not the great philosopher nor the sainted doctor. )t is rather the student, such as he appears incertain novels of Zaf#a or Malser. 9);, B4E )t is precisely the apparent uselessness of the students and the hopelessness of study thatplays such an important role in the strategy they develop with respect to power. Zaf#aQs useless students without Schrift So thestudents operating in Zaf#as stories have an important characteristic5 their studies seem to be useless. )n Ameri#a, Zarl sees astrange young man5 Ne watched silently as the man read in his boo#, turned the pages and occasionally chec#ed something inanother boo# that he always pic#ed up at lightning speed, often ma#ing entries in a noteboo#, his face always bent surprisingly lowover it. 7ould this man be a student Ne did seem to be studying. ... [UouQre studyingQ as#ed Zarl. [Ues, yesQ, said the man, using thefew moments lost to his studies to rearrange his boo#s.CQ 9...E And when wiK you be Knished with your studiesQ as#ed Zarl. [)tQs slowgoingQ, said the student. ... [+Uou can be happy about having given up your studies. ) myself have been studying for years, out ofpure single"mindedness. )t has given me little satisfaction and even less chance of a decent future. C2 Zarl e$plains his problemswith

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    not practiced but only studied does not itself become justice but only the door to it .The study of the law has no /higher purpose" : that is why the law hasbecome inoperative.DQ [That which opens the passage to justice is not theabolishment of the law but its deactivation and inactivityI that is, another use of thelawQ 9S*, BCE.This is a law that is liberated from all discipline and all relation to

    sovereignty. 0ucephalus depicts a Kgure of the law that is possible after its lin# withviolence and power has been deposed, a law that is no longer in force and applied 9S*, BC"BDE,just as the study of door#eepers by the man from the country ma#es itpossible to remain living outside the law. Agamben then outlines the followingpicture of the future5 %ne day humanity will play with law Dust as children playwith disused obDects, not in order to restore them to their canonical use, but tofree them from it for good. 9S*, BDE

    ower separates us from our impotentiality' causing us to loseour capacity to resist ,,, only impotentiality solves

    0noek 129An#e : ;h.

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    impotentiality 977, CE. )nstead of ma#ing use of our possibility of [not being we fail it, we4ee from our lack of power, [our fearful retreat from it in order to e$ercise ...some power of beingQ 977, C2E. 0ut this power we try to e$ercise turns into a malevolentpower that oppresses the persons who show us their wea#ness . )n Zaf#aQs world, evil does nothave the form of the demonic but that of being separated from our lac# of power. 'othing ma#es us more impoverished and lessfree than this estrangement from impotentiality. Those who are separated from what they can do, can, however, still resist they can

    still not do.Those who are separated from their own impotentiality lose, on the other hand, Krstof all the capacity to resist9', D4E And it is evident, according to Agamben, from the e$ample of *ichmann how rightZaf#a was in this 977, C2E. *ichmann was not so much separated from his power as from hislac# of power, tempted to evil precisely by the powers of right and law977, C2E. Mhat shouldone do A clash with activists At the end of 233O, Agamben gave a lecture in honour of the presentation of a collection of te$tswritten by the Tiqqun collective. This @rench collective has written several political manifestoes and in 233L their compound wasraided by the anti"terrorist brigades. The charges were quite vague belonging to an ultra"left and the anarcho"autonomous milieuGusing a radical discourseG having lin#s with )breign groupsG participating regularly in political demonstrations. The evidence that wasfound was not weapons, but documents, for e$ample a train schedule. Although Agamben calls these charges a tragicomedy andaccuses @rench politics of barbarismB, in his lecture he emphasizes another important political value of the Tiqqun collective. Thiscollective embodies @oucaultQs idea of the non"subject. %ne of the latterQs greatest merits is that he thought of power no longer asan attribute that a certain group had over another, but as a relation that was constantly shifting. A second merit of @oucaultQs

    thin#ing was the idea of non"authorship.The subject itself its identity is always formed within apower relation, a process that @oucault termed [subjectivization techniquesQ. )n @oucault,

    the state attempts to form the subDect via disciplinary techniques and thesubDect responds via subjectivization techniques 5 it internali%es theepectations of the state in the formation of its own identity . That is why @oucault rejects theidea of a subject and the idea of actorship, of attributing an act to a subject. Nence, as long as we continue tothink in terms of a subDect resisting oppressive power via deliberateaction, we cannot liberate ourselves from power relations. The gesture Tiqquninsteadis ma#ing is, according to Agamben, not one of loo#ing for a subject that can assume therole of savior or revolutionary. Rather, they begin with investigating the force Kelds thatare operative in our society 9instead of focusing on the subjectE. )n describing these Kelds of force and the momentthey become diPuse, new possibilities can arise that are not dependent on a subject. Thediscussion that followed this lecture provides a very clear picture of AgambenQs position. ?any activists present at

    the lecture as#ed what his theory entailed concretely with respect to the direction inwhich they should go. AgambenQs constant reply was that anyone who poses thisquestion has not understood the problem at all . ) always Knd it out of place to go and as# someone whatto do, what is there to be done ... )f someone as#s me what action, it shows they missed the point because they still want me tosay5 go out in the streets and do this )t has nothing to do with that. 9%TE )nactivity as active resistance to the state was hardly

    conceivable for many of the left wing activists present at AgambenQs lecture at Tiqqun.Although the stateac#nowledges the anti"law tendencies in the writings of the Ttqqun collective, the activistspresent atAgambenQs lecture failed to recognize this speciKc form of resistance. Mhat Agamben attempted toshow was that the powerof the Tiqqun collective lay precisely in the fact that they did notprescribe any concrete actiona but sought une$pected possibilities in [being thus5 )nthat same sense, AgambenQs analysisof Zaf#aQs wor# should not be seen as a manual foractivist freedom but as a description of small opportunities, of e$amples in which the powerrelation is diPuse and that we must attempt to recognize, create and use. Agamben shows usdiPerent possibilities and means for resistance, but these are not regular acts with agoalG rather, they are means without end. As Ziahi# pointed out, AgambenQs wor# is an attempt to/[ma#e means meet19not with their ends, but with each otherE %ne way to achieve this isthrough gestures. The gestures of the people in the %#lahoma theatre and elsewhere in Zaf#aQs wor#, the shame of (oseph Z. andthe [as notQ in Zaf#aQs [%n ;arablesQ show us that there are other strategies, aside from active resistance, to reverse politicalsituations.

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    7ur playful study of the law deactivates its instrumentality'opening it up to a new potential(ills E97atherine : Associate ;rofessor at the 7entre for Numan 0ioethics at?onash !niversity, /;laying with law5 Agamben and

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    action, it is e$posed and put in question together with it. )n this sense, these verbs can oPer the paradigm to thin# in a new way not only action and

    pra$is, but also the theory of the subject. L. 0enjamin once wrote that there is nothing more anarchicthan the bourgeois order. )n the same sense, ;asolini ma#es one of the gerarchi in Salo say that the trueanarchy is that of power. )f this is true, one understands then why the thought that tries to thin#anarchy remains trapped in aporia and contradictions without end. Since power9archeEconstitutes itself through the inclusive e$clusion9the e$"ceptioE of anarchy, the only possibility

    of thin#ing a true anarchy coincides with the e$hibition of the anarchy internal topower. Anarchy is that which becomes possible only in the moment that we graspand destitute the anarchy of power. The same goes for every attempt to thin# anomy5 it becomes accessibleonly through the e$hibition and the deposition of the anomy that law has captured within itself in the state of e$ception. This is trueas well for the thought that see#s to conceive the [a"demyQ, the absence of a demos or people that deKnes democracy 9here ) usethe term [ademyQ because a people that must be represented is by deKnition absentE. %nly the e$hibition of the ademy internal todemocracy allows us to depose the Kction of a people that it pretends to represent. )n all of these cases, constitution coincideswithout remainder with destitutionG positing has no other consistency than in deposing.

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    remainder of potentiality that ma#es the destitution of wor# possible.To destitutewor# means in this sense to return it to the potentiality from which it originates, toe$hibit in it the impotentiality that reigns and endures there . All living beings are in a form of life,but not all are 9or are not alwaysE a form"of"life. )n the moment that the form"of"life constitutes itself, it deactivates and rendersinoperative not only all the individual forms of life, but Krst of all the dispositif that separates bare life from life. )t is only in living alife that a form"of"life can constitute itself as the inoperativity immanent in every life. The constitution of a form"of"life coincides,that is, completely with the destitution of the social and biological conditions into which it Knds itself thrown. The form"of"life is, in

    this sense, the revocation of all factical vocations, which deposes and puts in tension from within the same gesture by which it ismaintained and dwells in them. )t is not a question of thin#ing a better or more authentic formof life, a superior principle or an elsewhere, which arrives from outside the forms oflife and the factical vocations to revo#e and render them inoperative. )noperativity isnot another wor# that appears to wor#s from out of nowhere to deactivate anddepose them5 it coincides completely and constitutively with their destitution, withliving a life. And this destitution is the coming politics. %ne understands, then, theessential function that the tradition of Mestern philosophy has assigned to thecontemplative life9to theoriaE and to inoperativity5 pra$is, the properly human life is thatwhich, rendering inoperative the speciKc wor#s and functions of the living, ma#esthem, so to spea#, spin idle+girare a vuoto, and, in this way, opens them to possibility.

    7ontemplation and inoperativity are, in this sense, the metaphysical operators ofanthropogenesis, which, free ing the living being from every biological or socialdestiny and from every predetermined tas#, renders it open for that particularabsence of wor# that we are accustomed to calling [politicsQand [artQ. ;olitics and art are neithertas#s nor simply [wor#sQ5 they name, rather, the dimension in which the linguistic and corporeal, material and immaterial, biologicaland social operations are made inoperative and contemplated as such.

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    2ac case

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    2ac overview7ur role of the ballot is who best a@rms an ethics beyondsovereign violenceAgamben 2k9iorgio : ;h.ge )nternational de ;hilosophie in ;aris, and at the !niversity of?acerata in )taly, &eans Without End: 'otes on Politics, p. OC"O4E

    *$position is the location of politics. )f there is no animal politics, that is perhaps because animals are alwaysalready in the open and do not try to ta#e possession of their own e$positionG they simply live in it without caring about it. That is

    why they are not interested in mirrors, in the image as image. Numan beings, on the other hand, separate imagesfrom things and give them a nameprecisely because they want to recognizethemselves, that is, they want to ta#e possession of their own very appearance.Numan beings thustransform the open into a world , that is, into the battleKeld of a political strugglewithout quarter. This struggle, whose object is truth, goes by the name of Nistory. )t is happening more and more often thatin pornographic photographs the portrayed subjects, by a calculated stratagem, loo# into the camera, thereby e$hibiting theawareness of being e$posed to the gaze. This une$pected gesture violently belies the Kction that is implicit in the consumption of

    such images, according to which the one who loo#s surprises the actors while remaining unseen by them5 the latter, rather,#nowingly challenge the voyeurQs gaze and force him to loo# them in the eyes. )n that precise moment, the insubstantial nature ofthe human face suddenly comes to light. The fact that the actors loo# into the camera means that they show that they aresimulatingG nevertheless, they parado$ically appear more real precisely to the e$tent to which they e$hibit this falsiKcation. Thesame procedure is used today in advertising5 the image appears more convincing if it shows openly its own artiKce. )n both cases,the one who loo#s is confronted with something that concerns unequivocally the essence of the face, the very structure of truth. Memay call tragicomedy of appearance the fact that the face uncovers only and precisely inasmuch as it hides, and hides to the e$tentto which it uncovers. )n this way, the appearance that ought to have manifested human beings becomes for them instead aresemblance that betrays them and in which they can no longer recognize themselves. ;recisely because the face is solely thelocation of truth, it is also and immediately the location of simulation and of an irreducible impropriety. This does not mean,however, that appearance dissimulates what it uncovers by ma#ing it loo# li#e what in reality it is not5 rather, what human beings

    truly are is nothing other than this dissimulation and this disquietude within the appearance.0ecause human beingsneither are nor have to be any essence, any nature, or any speciKc destiny, theircondition is the most empty and the most insubstantial of all 5 it is the truth. Mhat remainshidden from them is not something behind appearance, but rather appearing itself, that is, their being nothing other than a face.

    &he task of politics is to return appearance itself to appearance, to causeappearance itself to appear.The face, truth, and e$position are today the objects of aglobal civil war, whose battleKeld is social life in its entirety, whose storm troopersare the media, whose victims are all the peoples of the *arth. ;oliticians, the media establishment,and the advertising industry have understood the insubstantial character of the face and of the community it opens up, and thus

    they transform it into a miserable secret that they must ma#e sure to control at all costs.State power today is nolonger founded on the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence I a monopolythat states share increasingly willingly with other nonsovereign organizationssuch asthe !nited 'ations and terrorist organizationsG rather, it is founded above all on the control ofappearance9of do$aE. The fact that politics constitutes itself as an autonomous spheregoes hand in hand with the separation of the face in the world of spectacle I aworld in which human communication is being separated from itself.*$position thus

    transforms itself into a value that is accumulated in images and in the media, whilea new class of bureaucrats jealously watches over its manage ment.

    7nly studious play can deactivate the law"s coupling withviolence and re,engage politics(organ 90enjamin, !niversity of 7alifornia, 0er#eley, /!ndoing Hegal =iolence5 Malter 0enjamin&s andiorgio Agamben&s Aesthetics of ;ure ?eans1, (ournal %f Haw And Society, volume CD, 'umber , ?arch,

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    application removes law&s functionality and normativity while maintaining thatsomething called law still e$ists .

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    from highly comple$, tightly coupled systems. !nder these conditions there is little Fe$ibilityor buPering, such that a small deviation in some part of the system can havecascading ePects that can lead to a system"wide collapse. Scholars have pointed to the dangersinherent in such high"ris# systems, and this article has noted the degree to whichterrorists may see# to /fail1these systems, essentially provo#ing their collapse. )mportantly, this concern can apply to

    counterterrorist technology itself. Although there are various competing forms of biometric technology in play atthis time, it is clear that for many advocates and policyma#ers the goal isa centralized system that brings variouscriminal, immigration, and national )< databases together and lin#s them to a system foridentiKcation and veriKcation.2L The objective, then, is the creation of a comple$, tightlycoupled system Ithe very system that organizational theorists believe is prone tocatastrophic failure. )t is not di-cult to imagine the ways in which such a system could be brought down. Some ofthese have already been identiKed by the !.S. 'ational Research 7ouncil&s 7ommittee on Authentication Technologies and their

    ;rivacy )mplications. )n their report, they noted that the implementation of a centralized system wouldrequire widespread access from various remote locations. Some e$amples might be customs des#s,airline chec#"ins, security clearance stations, police vehicles, and access points at high"ris# public facilities such as power plants and

    ports.This ubiquity in turn generates numerous points of failure, ma#ing it prone tobrea#"inby /physically accessing one of the sites, by Knding some communication"based vulnerability, or by bribing or

    corrupting someone with access to the system.12OSuch attac#s would allow intruders access into thesystem, giving them the opportunity for identity theft or to otherwise alter data.)dentity theft by terrorists is already a major concern, and a biometric system may only provide more opportunities for such theft tooccur.C3 0iometrics could give terrorists the ability to build sophisticated identities online, giving them unprecedented levels of

    access. Nowever, the 'ational Research 7ouncil report mentions a less commonly anticipated danger. That is, /if veriKcationof identity required an online database query at airports, a handful of [accidentsQ at#ey places around the country couldcripple +damage civil aviation and any othercommerce that required identity veriKcation 9for e$ample, the purchase of guns or certain chemicalsE.1CThis concern is completely consistent with ;errow&s notion of tightly coupled, comple$ systems, wherea failure at onelocation can have cascading ePects throughout the system as a whole. Such afailure, the study notes, could be achieved either through a physical attac# on theinfrastructure or a cyberattac#. They note that especially in the absence of a costly dedicated networ#, such an

    )nternet"based system would /inevitably be the target of malicious attac#s as well as subject to unintentional or incidentaldamage.1C2 0ringing down a centralized security system could paralyze +destroy thosesystems dependent on identiKcation and veriKcation, leave critical sites open tophysical attac#, and generate widespread panic. Some specialists on cybersecurity dismiss theseconcerns, arguing that fears of an /electronic ;earl Narbor1 are scare tactics peddled by government to a gullible media.CCNowever, this s#epticism is not ePectively bolstered by any particular evidence, other than the assertion that such attac#s are toodi-cult for terrorists to carry out. This, however, echoes similar criticisms made before 233 that concerns over large"scale terroristattac#s in the !nited States were deliberately overblown and hysterical.CD )n contrast, a 2332 report from the )nstitute for SecurityTechnology Studies at

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    it would solve the apparently rampant issue of card clipping, and, well, ) donQt really #now why it wasnQt required in the Krst place. )still thin# judges should call for cards, but they should call cards for additional scrutiny, not to ma#e up for the fact that they neverunderstood the content in the Krst place. Top policy judges and coaches should consider leading on this issues by writing andendorsing a pact establishing norms for clarity. The standard should be simple5 the relevant warrant and argument in the cardshould be on your Fow. There are certainly other problematic norms that ) havenQt addressed. )Qd love to hear others comment onspeciKc norms and practices that they Knd problematic.

    Knternational events are fundamentally unpredictable andeperts have no more success than the general population&aleb 9'assim,

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    2ac at try or die&imeframe based try or die calculations Dustify consolidation ofpower and radical' unprecented violenceMivian 1.90radford : ;rofessor of 7ommunication and Rhetorical Studies at

    Syracuse !niversity, ;h.

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    assigned to it from time to timeE 9Agamben OOL5OE. Thus for Agamben the state of e$ception is the principle ofterritorialization 9ordering and orientingE but is itself essentially unlocalizable. Mhile Schmitt e$plicitly renders the state of e$ceptionas spatially and temporally bounded, Agamben&s contribution to the theory of the e$ception is to reread Malter 0enjamin&sengagement with Schmitt and to bring into sharp relief its contemporary relevance. @or Agamben, this state inaugurates a rupturewithin the Schmittian correspondence between order and orientation, between law and space. @or Schmitt the decision on the

    e$ception merely demarcates the inside and the outside of the law, but for Agamben the e$ception alsoproduces and diPuses a /zone of indistinction1 within which the law and its

    suspension become indistinguishable.This state of e$ception is not itself a #ind ofspace, but rather a technique of government9Agamben 233452E that produces atopographical juridical"territorial order by determining the inside and the outside oflaw9as Schmitt also arguesEG establishes the principles by which we distinguish law from itsapplicationG and produces a topological relationship between the inside and outsideof law such that they become indistinguishable 9delocalizationE. 0ecause topological space is always aprocess of becoming, we use analytics of governmentality, which itself refers to the everyday emergence of power and control, tothin# through how the e$ception wor#s. @or @oucault, governmentality refers to a Keld of everyday practices, organized by acomple$ of techniques of power that govern and optimize processes immanent to a population. )n this Keld, discipline, government,and sovereignty are imbricated and indistinguishable, so that the e$ception operates as a potential 9disEordering principle, apotential technique of government 9@oucault OO532E. @or Agamben, /the declaration of the state of e$ception has gradually beenreplaced by an unprecedented generalization of the paradigm of security as the normal technique of government1 9Agamben

    23345DE. This governmentalization of the structure of the e$ception forms a /comple$

    topological Kgure in which not only the e$ception and the rule but also the state ofnature and law, outside and inside, pass through one another1 9Agamben OOL5CXE.As atechnique of government, then, the eception is never completely hidden, nor isit purely manifested= The state of e$ception produces material ePects , even whenit remains virtual. This poses an important question for geographers5 how do we analyze the material ePects of the virtual)f the topological character of the state of e$ception means that it operates at the edges of materiality, how should we ma#e use ofAgamben&s theories to understand the spatiality of the e$ception 9and governmentality, for that matterE Me argue that

    Agamben&s limit case, the state of e$ception, is spatializing, not spatialized. Mhen we saythat the e$ception is spatializing,we emphasize processes of transformation and emergence9the topologicalE and fold the operation of spatialization into the Keld of potential.The e$ception thus produces a governmental potential to lin# speciKc arrays ofdiscursive objects, procedures, and rationalities towards particular ends. 0ased on thisunderstanding of Agamben, which emphasizes the emergent spatialization of the e$ception rather than its determinate spaces,weargue for foregrounding the idea of potentiality in geographical analyses of thee$ceptional. Situated on the edge of materiality, the state of e$ception has the potential to materialize or not to materializeactual spaces of e$ception. ;otentiality, for Agamben, is the tension between actuality9materializationEand the potential not to beIthe faculty to say /) can1, without the action beingmaterialized9Agamben OOO5XOE. To have a faculty, argues Agamben, means /to have a privation1, ie the potential not tobe. This potentiality, argues Agamben, /maintains itself in relation to actuality in the form ofits suspensionG it is capable of the act in not realizing it, it is sovereignly capable ofits own im"potentiality1 9Agamben OOL5D4E. @or e$ample, in his discussion of sovereignty, Agamben poses/abandonment1, the rationality of power that mar#s the e$ception, as topological in that it has the ability not to be5 it is potential.

    The e$ception is the zone of indistinction between constituting and constituted

    power.The decision on the e$ception /realizes itself by simply ta#ing away its ownpotentiality not to be, letting itself be1 9Agamben OOL5DBE.Topological space is thereforenot only emergent and governmental, but also always potentialIthat is, both capableof becoming and of not becoming. )t is no coincidence that in the denouement of his essay /%n potentiality1 thatAgamben Knds the /root of freedom1 also within the /abyss of potentiality19AgambenOOO5LCE. Agamben&s political pra$is is one of radical desubjectivation, adesubjectiKcation that refuses to be captured in a topological state of e$ception+asynthesis between Malter 0enjamin&s /divine violence1 9OOBE and illes

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    Kf life is a production of biopolitics it is circular to claimbiopolitics saves lives*illon +9?ichael : ;rofessor of ;olitics and )nternational Relations at Hancaster!niversity, /7ared to

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    political structure5 naked life ;people< and political eistence ;eople

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    7itizenship in American Hife,1 A dissertation submitted to the raduate @aculty of'orth 7arolina State !niversity in partial fulKllment of the requirements for thedegree of

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    2ac preemption daFramework is a pre,emptive attempt to constrain and deterdi8erent modes of rhetorical being>eeves 1.9(oshua : Assistant ;rofessor in 7ommunication at the !niversity of

    ?emphis, /)f Uou See Something, Say Something5 Surveillance, 7ommunication and7itizenship in American Hife,1 A dissertation submitted to the raduate @aculty of'orth 7arolina State !niversity in partial fulKllment of the requirements for thedegree of

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    be based on a personQs race, religion, or gender, but rather on behaviors that seemsuspicious. . . . So if you see something that just isnQt right, report your observations to your state or local authorities1923aE. Mhile this assertion is standard politically correct fare, it should be identiKed within the larger trend toward governingthrough ambiguity. Mhile the logic of deterrence spawned #nowledge"building enterprises aimed at understanding, containing, andoutsmarting the enemy, the logic of preemption is rooted in a more ambivalent epistemology5 it is faced with the relative futility of

    establishing the truth of the terrorist enemy. Thus while ris# assessment practices remain an essentialpractice of preemption, they are complemented by specialized forms of citizenmobilization whose primary utility isnot the generation of practicable #nowledge. As thevideo reminds us, /Nomeland security starts with hometown security, and we all have a role to play. Mor#ing together, we can all

    help secure our country. )f you see something, say something1 923aE. 0y cultivating this sense of civic duty,and by mobilizing citizens to operate within its appropriate realms ofcommunicative"surveillant practice,

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    2ac hardt S negri&he society of the spectacle ensures %ero solvencyro%orov 1)9Sergei : ;rofessor of ;olitical and *conomic Studies at the !niversityof Nelsin#i, /Mhy iorgio Agamben is an optimist,1 in ;hilosophy Social 7riticism,

    =olume CB, 'umber O, p. 34O"3B3, 'ovember 233,http566psc.sagepub.com6content6CB6O634C.abstractE

    %n the other hand, Agamben considers it impossible to confront the logic of sover"eigntyfrom the terrain of the social, which is the strategy, for e$ample, of?ichael Nardt andAntonio'egri, who posit the Keld of biopolitical production, deKned by the post" @ordist[immaterial labourQ, as the site of possible resistance to the [sovereign bio"powerQ of*mpire, conceived as a purely negative, e$propriating force in relation to the plenitude and authenticity characteristic of thesocial [plane of immanenceQ.X )n contrast to this approach, which unwittingly replicates the[state phobiaQ that gave rise to the very neoliberalism that Nardt and 'egri decry ,LAgamben is clearly aware of the degradation of social life in the late"capitalistspectacle and insists on[+distinguishing between the massive inscription of social

    #nowledge into the productive processes 9an inscription that characterizes thecontemporary phase of capitalism, the society of the spectacleE and intellectualityas antagonistic power and form"of"lifeQ.O As we shall see, to the e$tent that the spectacle can be a site of anytransformation, it is only as a site of its own destruction.

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    2ac identity politicsFeminism perm cardFla TT9(ane, ;rofessor of ;olitical Science, Noward !niversity, /7A' TN*R* 0*7)T)\*'SN); M)TN%!T RA7* A'< *'

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    race6gender domination, have after all systematically distributed great freedom tosome subject positions . ace6gender is a prime locus of biopower= &hecontinuing operation of norms and regulation reproduce it= Kt is a way oforgani%ing bodies= ower e8ects the transformation of certain physicalfeatures into determining social facts and ideas. S#in color does not compel the idea ofrace any more than genitals require an idea of gender. %nce these categories e$ist and regulate the lives ofsubjects, further e$pert #nowledge emerges to justify them. Since all subjects must live within their constituting#nowledge6power networ#s, these categories are socially real. This transformation of bodies into social fact through

    the e$ercise of power is the fundamental problem. >ace6gender domination cannot be solvedby ignoring the social power of its categories= &his particular organi%ationof subDects is the problem. Attempting to attain equality by articulating abstract principles of justicewill not destroy the domination required to reproduce race6gender. Mhile upheld by juridical power,

    race6domination is not amenable to liberal, juridical solutions alone. Me can see thisin the failures of law, especially Supreme 7ourt decisions, to successfully resolvematters of race6gender. The entire construction must be dismantled, not to create a race blind societybut one in which these categories cease to operate. 0iopower requires us to rethin# what countsas public or private and the proper subjects of politics. This deconstruction cannot occurwithout admitting that a particular set of relations were constructed. The categories and practices retain theirconstituting ePects. Me cannot just pretend that race6gender does not shape usG that we are simply individuals. Allthe ePects of race6gender on American subjects and our institutions must be actively confronted and undone. Thisis what necessitates a-rmative action and why it is the site of so much anger and resistance. 'o defense can bemounted of such a policy without e$plicit reference to a history that many Americans would li#e to declareirrelevant or without current consequences. Appeals to abstract reason, such as Rawls&s least advantagedprinciple are counterproductive, because the race6gender subte$t will not disappear.

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    5ase 3N

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    framework

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    the diPerence5 The world found nothing sacred in the abstract na#edness of the human being 9Arendt OBB5 2OOE. L. Mhat Arendt means is that only when they are realised in a political commonwealth do human rights have anymeaning. They are an abstraction otherwise. ?ore important than the right to freedom or the right to justice is the right to have rights, that is, to be the member of a political community. Arendt therefore asserts the opposite ofwhat Agamben wants to say5 she believes that the political solution lies in what he considers to be a Kction, namely the citizen. Ner point is that when man and citizen come apart, we realise that man never really e$isted as a subjectof rights. This is the e$act opposite of Agamben for whom the citizen is just a travesty. O.

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    thereby strongly distinguish politics from the police order viewed as the functionalmanagement of communities9Ranci>re OOOE, then it is possible to ac#nowledge thenormative brea# introduced by the democratic revolutions of the modern agewithout falling into a one"sided view of modernity as a neat process ofrationalisation. Mhat should be stressed about modernity is not primarily the list of

    substantive inalienable and imprescriptible human rights , but the equal entitlementof all to claim any rights at all. This deKnition of politics must be accompanied by the parallel ac#nowledgment thatthe times that saw the recognition of the fundamental equality of all also produced the total negation of this principle. 0utthisparallel claim does not necessarily render the Krst invalid . Rather it points to a tensioninherent in modern communities, between the political demands of equality and thesystemic tendencies that structurally produce stigmatisation and e$clusion. DL. %necan ac#nowledge the descriptive appeal of the biopower hypothesis withoutrenouncing the antagonistic denition of politics. As Ranci>re remar#s, @oucaultQs late hypothesisis more about power than it is about politics 9Ranci>re 2332E. This is quite clear in the OXB lectures 9Society must be defendedEwhere the term that is mostly used is that of biopower. As Ranci>re suggests, when the biopower hypothesis is transformed intoa biopolitical thesis, the very possibility of politics becomes problematic. There is a way of articulating modern disciplinary powerand the imperative of politics that is not disjunctive. The power that subjects and e$cludes socially can also empower politicallysimply because the e$clusion is already a form of address which unwittingly provides implicit recognition. ;ower includes bye$cluding, but in a way that might be diPerent from a ban. This insight is precisely the one that @oucault was developing in his last

    writings, in his deKnition of freedom as agonism 9@oucault OLC5 23L"22LE5 ;ower is e$ercised only over free subjects, and only

    insofar as they are free 922E.The hierarchical, e$clusionary essence of social structuresdemands as a condition of its possibility an equivalent implicit recognition of all ,even in the mode of e$clusion. )t is on the basis of this recognition that politics cansometimes arise as the vindication of equality and the challenge to e$clusion. DO. Thisproposal rests on a logic that challenges AgambenQs reduction of the overcoming of the classical conceptualisation of potentiality

    and actuality to the single Neideggerian alternative. )nstead of collapsing or dualistically separatingpotentiality and actuality, one would Knd in NegelQs modal logic a way to articulatetheir negative, or reFe$ive, unity, in the notion of contingency. 7ontingency is preciselythe potential as e$isting, a potential that e$ists yet does not e$clude the possibility of its opposite 9Negel OBO5 4D"44DE. Negel can lead the way towards an ontology of contingency that recognises the place of contingency at the core of necessity,instead of opposing them. The fact that the impossible became real vindicates NegelQs claim that the impossible should not be

    opposed to the actual. )nstead, the possible and the impossible are only reFected images ofeach other and, as actual, are both simply the contingent. Auschwitz should not be called absolutenecessity 9Agamben OOOa5 DLE, but absolute contingency. The absolute historical necessity of Auschwitz is not the radicalnegation of contingency, which, if true, would indeed necessitate a Fight out of history to conjure up its threat. )ts absolutenecessity in fact harbours an indelible core of contingency, the locus where political intervention could have changed things, wherepolitics can happen. \ygmunt 0aumanQs theory of modernity and his theory about the place and relevance of the Nolocaust inmodernity have given sociological and contemporary relevance to this alternative historical"political logic of contingency 90auman

    OLOE. 43. )n the social and historical Kelds,politics is only the name of the contingency that stri#esat the heart of systemic necessity. An ontology of contingency provides the model with which to thin# togetherboth the possibility, and the possibility of the repetition of, catastrophe, as the one heritage of modernity, and the contingency of

    catastrophe as logically entailing the possibility of its opposite.?odernity is ambiguous because it providesthe normative resources to combat the apparent necessity of possible systemiccatastrophes. ;olitics is the name of the struggle drawing on those resources. 4.This

    ontology enables us also to rethin# the relationship of modern subjects to rights.

    ?odern subjects are able to consider themselves autonomous subjects becauselegal recognition signals to them that they are recognised as full members of thecommunity, endowed with the full capacity to judge.This account of rights in modernity is preciousbecause it provides an adequate framewor# to understand real political struggles, asKghts for rights. Me can see now how this account needs to be complemented by the notion of contingency thatundermines the apparent necessity of the progress of modernity. ?odern subjects #now that their rights aregranted only contingently, that the possibility of the impossible is always actual.This

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    2nc t version of a8A politics of dissent from the state beginining from our appealto hope in the face of the security state and /War on &error"allows us to create political communities around dissensus and

    inspire ethical resistance5ritchley 9Simon : ;rofessor of ;hilosophy at the 'ew School, *n4nitely5emanding: Ethics o# 2ommitment, Politics o# Resistance, =erso, 233X, p. "DE

    Zeeping these e$amples of the political function of rights in mind, ) would li#e to move on to the question of the state. Me inhabit

    states. &he state: whether national li#e 0ritain or @rance, a supranational quasi"state li#e the *!, or imperial li#e the !SA :is the framework within which conventional politics takes place. 'ow, it is arguablethat the state is a limitation on human e$istence and we would be better oP without it. )t is arguable that without state systems ofgovernment, bureaucracy, the police and the military, human beings would be able to cooperate with each other on the basis of freeagreement and not merely through obedience to law. )t is arguable that interwoven networ#s of such cooperative associations mightbegin to cover all Kelds of human activity so as to substitute themselves for the state. )t is arguable that the vertical hierarchy of thestate structure could be replaced with horizontally allied associations of free, self"determining human beings. Such is, of course, theeternal temptation of the anarchist tradition, particularly for someone li#e Zropot#in, and ) will come bac# to anarchism in more

    detail below. Nowever : to put it at its most understated : it seems to me thatwe cannot hope,at this point

    in history, to attain a complete withering away of the state , either through concertedanarchosyndicalist or anarcho"communist action or through revolutionary proletarian pra$is with the agency of the party. Mithinclassical ?ar$ism, state, revolution and class form a coherent set5 there is a revolutionary class, the universal or classless class ofthe proletariat whose communist politics entails the overthrow of the bourgeois state. The locus classicus for this position is Henin&sState and Revolution, a te$t that is, in my view, fatally sundered by conFicting authoritarian and anarchist tendencies. %n the onehand, in the name of the &authentic& ?ar$, Henin claims that the bourgeois state must be smashed and replaced by a democraticallycentralist wor#ers& state : the dictatorship of the proletariat : but, on the ot her hand, he claims that this is only a pre"conditionfor the eventual withering away of the state in communism or what he calls the &fullest democracy&. 2O The condition of possibilityfor the Heninist withering away of the state is the emergence of a revolutionary class, the proletariat, whom Nardt and 'egri see# toupdate into the multitude. C3 'ow, if class positions are not simplifying, but on the contrary becoming more comple$ through theprocesses of social dislocation described in this chapter, if the revolution is no longer conceivable in a ?ar$ist"Heninist manner, then

    that means that, for good or ill : let&s say for ill : we are stuck with the state. &he question thenbecomes5 what should our political strategy be with regard to the state , tothe state and states that weCre in)n a period when the revolutionary proletarian subject has decidedlybro#en down, and along with it the political project of a withering away of the state, ) thin# thatpolitics should beconceived at a distance from the state .C %r, better, politics is the prais oftaking up distance with regard to the state, working independently of thestate, wor#ing in a situation.olitics is prais in a situation and the labour of politicsis the construction of new political subDectivities, new politicalaggregations in specic localities, a new dissensual habitus rooted incommon sense and the consent of those who dissent. )n addition to the e$amples of thepolitics of indigenous rights discussed above, this is arguably a description of the sort of direct democratic action that has providedthe cutting edge and momentum to radical politics since the days of action against the meeting of the MT% in Seattle in OOO andsubsequently at ;rague, 'ice, enoa, uito, 7ancun and elsewhere. C2 )n the face of the massive re"territorialization of state powerin the Mest after O6, this movement has continued in the huge mobilizations against !S and !Z intervention in )raq, and innumerous other protests, such as the opposition to the Republican 'ational 7onvention in 'ew Uor# in late summer 233D.

    *espite obvious electoral failures, it is the eperience of such mobili%ationsthat provides, in my view,the ethical energy for a remotivation of politics andfuture democratic organi%ation. Nowever, to forestall a possible misunderstanding,this distancefrom the state is within the state, that is, within and upon the stateCsterritory. Kt is, we might say, an interstitial distance, an internal distance thathas to be opened from the inside. Mhat ) mean, seemingly paradoically, is thatthere is no distance within the state . )n the time of the purported &war onterror&, and in the name of &security&, state sovereignty is attempting to saturate theentirety of social life.The constant ideological mobilization of the threat of e$ternal

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    attac# has permitted the curtailments of traditional civil liberties in the name ofinternal political order, so"called &home land security&, where order and security havebecome identiKed. Such is the politics of fear, where the political might be deKned with 7arl Schmitt as that activity whichassures the internal order of a political unit li#e a state through the more or less fantastic threat of the enemy. CC Against this,thetask of radical political articulations is the creation of interstitial distance

    within the state territory. &he (eican eample of indigenous identitydiscussed above is a powerful instance of the creation of such a distance,an act of political leverage where the invocation of an international legalconvention created the space for the emergence of a new political subDect.Similarly, political activism around the so"called illegal immigrants in ;aris, the sans"papiers, is the attempt to create an interstitialdistance whose political demand : &if one wor#s in @rance, one is @rench& : invo#es the principle of equality at the basis of the @rench

    republic. 7ne works within the state against the state in a political articulationthat attempts to open a space of opposition. ;erhaps it is at this intenselysituational, indeed local level that the atomi%ing, epropriating force ofneo,liberal globali%ation is to be met, contested and resisted. That is,resistance begins by occupying and controlling the terrain upon which onestands, where one lives, works, acts and thinks. &his neednCt involve millions

    of people. Kt neednCt even involve thousands. Kt could involve Dust a few atrst. >esistance can be intimate and can begin in small a@nity groups. &heart of politics consists in weaving such cells of resistance together into acommon front, a shared political subDectivity. What is going to allow for theformation of such a political subDectivity: the hegemonic glue, if you will : is an appeal touniversality, whether the demand for political representation, equality oftreatment or whatever. Kt is the hope, indeed the wager, of this book that the ethicaldemand described above the innite responsibility that both constitutesand divides my subDectivity might allow that hegemonic glue to set intothe compact' self,aware' ghting force that motivates the subDect into thepolitical action spokenof in the epigraph to this chapter.

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    h,triv

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    terror da links

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    2nc$iometrics could have prevented T611' stopped 7sama $in-aden and have stopped numerous criminals from gettingaway

    Norman 1197hristine : reporter at ScientiKc American, /Now 0iometrics Nelped to)dentify the ?aster Terrorist,1 in ScientiKc American, 4"2",http566www.scientiKcamerican.com6article6how"biometrics"helped"to"identify"master"terrorist6E

    Mhen the !.S. military attac#ed )raq in ?arch 233C, it brought to bear the most advanced technology then available for identifyingpotential terrorists by their physical features. The equipment measured all sorts of physical featuresIfrom Kngerprints to images ofthe irisIbut it was not particularly easy to use. The apparatus weighed a hefty 43 pounds and consisted of a hardened laptop

    hoo#ed up to a camera, an iris scanner and a Kngerprint device. *ight years later, the tool#it used to identify%sama bin Haden in his ;a#istani hideout was probably a lot li#e one of thehandheld devices that are now routinely usedby thousands of !.S. soldiers throughout the world tocompare people&s faces against the images of many #nown or suspected terrorists.

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    photos came up as possible matches. An @0) analyst then whittled the number down to just oneman, who was later arrested and positively identiKed as the fugitive.

    $iometrics increase certainty of verication which is key to

    preventing terrrorismAdkins 9Hauren

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    mar links

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    device to hold open the revolutionary possibilities of transforming society to doaway with capitalism. Mhere 'egri is optimistic, largely through philosophicalspeculation, while as always thin on empirical evidence, Agamben is pessimistic . @orhim, the state of e$ception is now not so e$ceptional. Rather its very imminence, its very e$istence as a possibilityalways under the modern state has now led to it becoming the predominant political form in liberal democraticcountries as well as authoritarian ones. Agamben traces the roots of states of e$ception in the historicaldeclarations of states of emergency in every western nation with painsta#ing and e$tremely valuable detail, withthe intention of showing that these historical antecedents have developed into a monstrous reality that is nowpoised to be the everyday reality and the political common sense of the relation of human beings to thegovernments they live under . )t gets worse. @or with the aggrandizement of state sovereign power imposing apermanent state of e$ception, despite the etymological parado$ of such a condition, comes the reduction ofmembers of society from citizenship, from legally protected social belonging endowed with human rights or civilrights, to humans stripped of all legal protection, all rights, and dispossessed of societal membership. Thus comestheir reduction, leaning on a concept from Nannah Arendt, to /bare life1, to mere physical e$istence whoseprecariousness is vulnerable to the whim of either state power or even the hostility of their neighbors who may

    decide that their very e$istence could prove to be inconvenient or undesirable. iven the lac# of anyrestraint on state powerQs ability to impose a state of e$ception, various parts of thepopulation now, and in principle potentially all of us, are in danger of being reducedto this condition of bare life, which Agamben calls Nomo Sacer.

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    2ncAgamben doesn"t account for class' and has no eplanatorypower5olatrella 119Steven : taught at 0ard 7ollege and the 'ew School, and has

    served as 7hair of the ;olitical and Social Sciences

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    our times, ) will rely on the classic ?ar$ist categories of enclosure and e$propriation, or primitive accumulation. To

    address " ) wonQt pretend ) can answer it here " but at least to address the second question, ) rely on theconcept of class struggle and on a historical overview of the state and ofdemocratization. ) thin# that understanding the accomplishments and thelimitations of democratization up to now, and the basis of democratization in classstruggle by wor#ers, is the surest basis for seeing where to begin in bestunderstanding and addressing the root causes, the material bases of the politicalrepression of civil liberties that threatens us and in rolling it bac# .

    Agamben misses the fact bare life is the condition of theproletariat5olatrella 119Steven : taught at 0ard 7ollege and the 'ew School, and hasserved as 7hair of the ;olitical and Social Sciences

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    e$ception and homo sacer. The most important of these moments in thee$propriation of the peasantry of *urope was the witch trials of the Bth and Xthcenturies, as Silvia @ederici has shown in her boo# 7aliban and the Mitch. @ederici indeed shows the limitationsof @oucaultQs own analysis of the growth of control of the body by state and medical authorities, of biopolitics .@oucault ignores the torturing to death of hundreds of thousands of women across *urope over several centuries,and the role these horrors played in the construction of gender inequalities under capitalism and in dividing themedieval and