Changes

The Obscenity anxious expectation that [[nothing]] will happen, that [[capitalism]] will go on indefinitely, the desperate [[demand]] to do something, to revolutionize capitalism, is a fake. The will to revolutionary [[change]] emerges as an urge, as an "[[I cannot do it otherwise]]," or it is worthless. With [[regard]] to [[Bernard Williams]]'s [[distinction]] between Ought and Must, an authentic [[revolution]] is by definition performed as a Must - it is not something we "ought to do" as an [[ideal]] we are striving for, but something we cannot but to, since we cannot do it otherwise. Which is why today's worry of Human Rights:<br>Violence the [[Left]]ists that revolution will not occur, that [[global]] capitalism will just go on indefinitely, is [[false]] insofar as Symptomit turns revolution into a [[moral obligation]], into something we ought to do while we fight the inertia of the [[capitalist]] [[present]].

The anxious expectation that nothing will happen, that capitalism will go on indefinitely, the desperate demand to do something, to revolutionize capitalism, is a fake. The will to revolutionary change emerges as an urge, as an "I cannot do it otherwise," or it is worthless. With regard to Bernard Williams's distinction between Ought and Must, an authentic revolution is by definition performed as a Must - it is not something we "ought to do" as an ideal we are striving for, but something we cannot but to, since we cannot do it otherwise. Which is why today's worry of the Leftists that revolution will not occur, that global capitalism will just go on indefinitely, is false insofar as it turns revolution into a moral obligation, into something we ought to do while we fight the inertia of the capitalist present.<br> <br> However, the ultimate argument against "big" [[political interventions ]] [[intervention]]s which aim at a global transformation is, of course, the terrifying [[experience ]] of the catastrophes of the XXth century, catastrophes which unleashed unheard-of modes of [[violence]]. There are [[three ]] main versions of theorizing these catastrophes: (1) the one epitomized by the name of [[Habermas]]: [[Enlightenment ]] is in itself a positive emancipatory [[process ]] with no inherent "[[totalitarian]]" potentials, these catastrophies are merely an indicator that it remained an unfinished [[project]], so our task should be to bring this project to completion; (2) the one associated with [[Adorno]]'s and [[Horkheimer]]'s "[[dialectic of Enlightenment]]," as well as, today, with [[Agamben]]: the "[[totalitarianism|totalitarian]]" potentials of the [[Enlightenment ]] are inherent and crucial, the "[[administered world]]" is the [[truth ]] of Enlightenment, the XXth century [[concentration camps camp]]s and genocides [[genocide]]s are a kind of [[negation|negative]]-[[teleology|teleological ]] endpoint of the entire [[history ]] of the West; (3) the [[third ]] one, developed, among [[others]], in the works of [[Etienne Balibar]]: [[modernity ]] opens up a field of new freedoms[[freedom]]s, but at the same [[time ]] of new dangers, and there is no ultimate [[teleology|teleological ]] [[guarantee ]] of the outcome, the battle is open, undecided.<br> <br> The starting point of Balibar's remarkable entry on "Violence" <tt><b><a name="1x"></a><a href="#1">1</a></b></tt> is the insufficiency of the standard Hegelian-Marxist notion of "converting" violence into an instrument of historical Reason, a force which begets a new social formation: the "irrational" brutality of violence is thus <i>aufgehoben</i>, "sublated" in the strict Hegelian sense, reduced to a particular stain that contributes to the overall harmony of the historical progress. The XXth century confronted us with catastrophies, some of them directed against Marxist political forces and some of them generated by the Marxist political engagement itself, which cannot be "rationalized" in this way: their instrumentalization into the tools of the Cunning of Reason is not only ethically inacceptable, but also theoretically wrong, ideological in the strongest sense of the term. In his close reading of Marx, Balibar nonetheless discern in his texts an oscillation between this teleological "conversion"-theory of violence and a much more interesting notion of history as an open-undecided process of antagonistic struggles whose final "positive" outcome is not guaranteed by any encompassing historical Necessity (the future society will be communism or barbarism, etc.).<br>

The starting point of Balibar's remarkable entry on "[[Violence]]"<brref> Etienne Balibar thinks that, for necessary structural reasons"Gewalt, Marxism " in <i>Historisch-Kritisches Wüsrterbuch des Marxismus</i>, forthcoming </ref> is unable to think the excess insufficiency of violence that cannot be integrated into the narrative of historical Progress standard [[Hegel]]ian- more specifically, that it cannot provide an adequate theory [[Marx]]ist [[notion]] of Fascism and Stalinism and their "extremeconverting" outcomes, shoah and gulag. Our task is therefore double: to deploy a theory violence into an [[instrument]] of [[historical violence as something which cannot be mastered/instrumentalized by any political agentReason]], a force which threatens to engulf this agent itself into begets a self-destructive vicious cycle, and - new [[social]] [[formation]]: the other side of the same task - to pose the question "civilizing[[irrationality|irrational]]" revolutionbrutality of violence is thus <i>[[aufgehoben]]</i>, of how to make the revolutionary process itself a "civilizing[[sublimation|sublated]]" force. Recall in the infamous St Bartholomew's Day Massacre - what went wrong there? Catherine de Medici's goal was limited and precise: hers was a Macchiavellian plot strict [[Hegelian]] [[sense]], reduced to have Admiral de Coligny, a powerful Protestant pushing for war with Spain in the Netherlands, assassinated, and let the blame fall on the Guise family, the over-mighty Catholic family. In this way, Catherine hoped particular stain that the final outcome will be the fall of both houses that posed a menace contributes to the unity overall [[harmony]] of the French statehistorical [[progress]]. But this ingenious plan to play off her enemies The XXth century confronted us with catastrophies, some of [[them]] directed against each other degenerated into an uncontrolled frenzy of blood[[: in her ruthless pragmatism, Catherine was blind for the passion with which men clung to their beliefs.<br> <br> Hannah Arendt's insights are also crucial hereCategory: she emphasized the distinction between Marxist theory|Marxist]] political power forces and the mere exercise some of (social) violence: organizations run them generated by direct non-the [[Marxist]] political authority - by an order of command that is not politically grounded authority (Armyengagement itself, Church, school) - represent examples of violence (Gewalt), not of political Power which cannot be "rationalized" in the strict sense of the term. Here, however, it would be productive to introduce the distinction between the public symbolic Law and its obscene supplementthis way: their instrumentalization into the notion tools of the obscene superego double-supplement [[Cunning of Power implies that there Reason]] is no Power without violence. Power always has to rely on an obscene stain of violencenot only ethically inacceptable, political space is never "pure" but always involves some kind of reliance on "pre-political" violence. Of coursealso theoretically wrong, [[ideological]] in the relationship between political power and pre-political violence is one of mutual implication: not only is violence the necessary supplement strongest sense of power, (political) power itself is always-already at the roots of every apparently "non-political" relationship of violenceterm. The accepted violence and direct relationship In his close [[reading]] of subordination in the ArmyMarx, Church, family and other "non-political" social forms is Balibar nonetheless discerns in itself the his [[texts]] an oscillation between this teleological "reificationconversion" -[[theory]] of a certain ethico-political struggle violence and decision - what a critical analysis should do is to discern the hidden political process that sustains all these "non-" or "pre-political" relationships. In human society, the political is the encompassing structuring principle, so that every neutralization of some partial content as "non-political" is a political gesture par excellence.much more interesting <brb> <br> This acceptance notion of violence, this "political suspension of the ethical," is the limit of that which even the most "tolerant" liberal stance is unable to trespass history as an open- witness the uneasiness undecided process of antagonistic struggles whose final "radicalpositive" post-colonialist Afro-American studies apropos of Frantz Fanon's fundamental insight into the unavoidability of violence in the process of effective decolonization. One should recall here Fredric Jameson's idea that violence plays in a revolutionary process the same role as worldly wealth in the Calvinist logic of predestination: although it has no intrinsic value, it outcome is a sign of not guaranteed by any encompassing [[historical Necessity]]</b> (the authenticity of the revolutionary process[[future]] society will be [[communism]] or barbarism, of the fact that this process is effectively disturbing the existing power relationsetc. In other words, the dream of the revolution without violence is precisely the dream of a "revolution without revolution"(Robespierre). On the other hand, the role of the Fascist spectacle of violence is exactly opposite: it is a violence whose aim is to PREVENT the true change - something spectacular should happen all the time so that, precisely, nothing would really happen.<br> <br>

ButBalibar thinks that, againfor necessary [[structural]] reasons, the ultimate argument against this perspective [[Marxism]] is unable to [[think]] the simple encounter [[excess]] of excessive suffering generated by political violence. Sometimes, one that cannot but be shocked by integrated into the excessive indifference towards suffering[[narrative]] of [[historical Progress]] - more specifically, even that it cannot provide an adequate theory of [[Fascism]] and especially when this suffering is widely reported in the media [[Stalinism]] and condemnedtheir "extreme" outcomes, as if it is the very outrage at suffering which turns us into its immobilized fascinated spectators. Recall, in the early 1990s, the three-years-long siege of Sarajevo, with the population starving, exposed to permanent shelling [[shoah]] and snipers' fire[[gulag]]. The big enigma here Our task istherefore [[double]]: although all the media were full of pictures and reports, why did not the UN forces, NATO or the US accomplish just to deploy a small act theory of breaking the siege of Sarajevohistorical violence as something which cannot be mastered/instrumentalized by any [[political agent]], of imposing a corridor through which people and provisions could circulate freely? It would have cost nothing: with threatens to engulf this [[agent]] itself into a little bit of serious pressure on the Serb forces[[self]]-destructive [[vicious cycle]], and - the prolonged spectacle [[other]] side of encircled Sarajevo exposed the same task - to ridiculous terror would have been over. There is only one answer to this enigma, pose the one proposed by Rony Brauman himself whoquestion "civilizing" [[revolution]], on behalf of the Red Cross, coordinated the help how to Sarajevo: make the very presentation of the crisis of Sarajevo as revolutionary process itself a "humanitarian,civilizing" force. [[Recall]] the very recasting of the politicalinfamous [[St Bartholomew's Day Massacre]] -military conflict into the humanitarian terms, what went wrong there? [[Catherine de Medici]]'s [[goal]] was sustained by an eminently political choice, that of, basically, taking the Serb side in the conflict. Especially ominous limited and manipulative precise: hers was here the role of Mitterand:</font></p><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"> </font><blockquote><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"> </font><p align="justify"><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"><font size="3">The celebration of 'humanitarian intervention' in Yugoslavia took the place of a political discourse, disqualifying in advance all conflicting debate. /.../ It was apparently not possible[[Macchiavelli]]an plot to have [[Admiral de Coligny]], a powerful [[Protestantism|Protestism]] pushing for Francois Mitterand, to express his analysis of the [[war ]] with [[Spain]] in Yugoslavia. With the strictly humanitarian response[[Netherlands]], he discovered an unexpected source of communication orassassinated, more preciselyand let the blame fall on the Guise family, of cosmeticsthe over-mighty [[Catholicism|Catholic]] [[family]]. In this way, which is a little bit Catherine hoped that the same thing. /.../ Mitterand remained in favor of final outcome will be the maintenance fall of Yugoslavia within its borders and was persuaded both houses that only posed a strong Serbian power was in the position menace to guarantee a certain stability in this explosive region. This position rapidly became unacceptable in the eyes [[unity]] of the [[French people]] [[state]]. All the bustling activity and the humanitarian discourse permitted him to reaffirm the unfailing commitment of France to the Rights of Man in the end, and to mimic an opposition to Greater Serbian fascism, all in giving it free rein. <tt><b><a name="2x"></a><a href="#2">2</a></b></tt></font></font></p><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"><font size="3"> </font></font></blockquote><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"> </font><p align="justify"><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"><font size="4">From But this specific insight, one should make the move ingenious plan to the general level and render problematic the very depoliticized humanitarian politics of "Human Rights" as the ideology of military interventionism serving specific economico-political purposes. As Wendy Brown develops apropos Michael Ignatieff, such humanitarianism "presents itself as something of an antipolitics - a pure defense of the innocent and the powerless against power, a pure defense of the individual play off her enemies against immense and potentially cruel or despotic machineries of culture, state, war, ethnic conflict, tribalism, patriarchy, and each other mobilizations or instantiations degenerated into an uncontrolled [[frenzy]] of collective power against individuals." <tt><b><a name="3x"></a><a href="#3">3</a></b></tt> However, the question isblood: "what kind of politicization /those who intervene on behalf of human rights/ set in motion against the powers they oppose. Do they stand for a different formulation of justice or do they stand in opposition to collective justice projects?" <tt><b><a name="4x"></a><a href="#4">4</a></b></tt> Say, it is clear that the US overthrowing of Saddam Hussein, legitimized in the terms of ending the suffering of the Iraqi peopleher ruthless [[pragmatism]], not only Catherine was motivated by other politico-economic interests (oil), but also relied on a determinate idea of blind for the political and economic conditions that should open up the perspective of freedom [[passion]] with which men clung to the Iraqi people (Western liberal democracy, guarantee of private property, the inclusion into the global market economy, etc.). The purely humanitarian anti-political politics of merely preventing suffering thus effectively amounts to the implicit prohibition of elaborating a positive collective project of socio-political transformationtheir beliefs.<br>

<br> And, at an even more general level, one should problematize [[Hannah Arendt]]'s insights are also crucial here: she emphasized the very opposition distinction between political [[power]] and the universal mere exercise of (presocial) violence: organizations run by direct non-political[[authority]] - by an [[order]] of command that is not politically grounded authority ([[Army]], [[Church]], [[school]]) Human Rights which belong to every human being "as such," and specific political rights - [[represent]] examples of a citizen[[violence]] ([[Gewalt]]), member not of a particular political community; Power in this the strict senseof the term. Here, however, Balibar argues for it would be productive to introduce the distinction between the "reversal [[public]] [[symbolic]] [[Law]] and its [[obscene supplement]]: the notion of the historical and theoretical relationship between 'man' and 'citizen'" which proceeds by "explaining how man [[obscene]] [[superego]] double-[[supplement]] of [[Power]] implies that there is made by citizenship and not citizenship by manno Power without violence." <tt><b><a name="5x"></a><a href="#5">5</a></b></tt> Balibar refers here Power always has to Hannah Arendt's insight apropos he XXth century phenomenon rely on an obscene [[stain]] of refugees:</font></font></p><font color=violence, political [[space]] is never "#000000pure" face=but always involves some kind of reliance on "DIDOT[[pre-political]]" size="4"> </font><blockquote><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"> </font><p align="justify"><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"><font size="3">The conception violence. Of course, the [[relationship]] between political power and pre-political violence is one of human rights based upon mutual implication: not only is violence the assumed existence necessary supplement of a human being as suchpower, broke down (political) power itself is always-already at the very moment when those who professed to believe roots of every apparently "non-political" relationship of violence. The accepted violence and direct relationship of subordination in it were for the first time confronted with people who had indeed lost all Army, Church, family and other qualities and specific relationships "non- except that they were still human. <tt><b><a name=political"6x"></a><a href="#6">6</a></b></tt></font></font></p><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"><font size="3"> </font></font></blockquote><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"> </font><p align="justify"><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"><font size=social forms is in itself the "4[[reification]]">This line, of course, leads straight to Agamben's notion of homo sacer as a human being reduced to "bare life": in a properly Hegelian paradoxical dialectics of universal certain ethico-political [[struggle]] and particular, it is precisely when decision - what a human being [[critical analysis]] should do is deprived of his particular socio-to discern the hidden political identity which accounts for his determinate citizenship, process that he, in one and the same move, is no longer recognized and/sustains all these "non-" or treated as human"pre-political" relationships. In short[[human]] [[society]], the paradox political is the encompassing [[structuring]] [[principle]], so that one is deprived every neutralization of human rights precisely when one is effectively, in one's social reality, reduced to a human being some [[partial]] [[content]] as "in general,non-political" without citizenship, profession, etc., that is to say, precisely when one effectively becomes the ideal BEARER of "universal human rights" (which belong to me "independently of" my profession, sex, citizenship, religion, ethnic identity...)a political gesture par excellence.<br>

<br> We thus arrived at a standard "postmodernThis acceptance of violence,this " "anti-essentialist" position, a kind of [[political version of Foucault's notion of sex as generated by a multitude suspension of the practices of sexuality: "manethical]]," is the bearer [[limit]] of Human Rights, is generated by a set of political practices that which materialize citizenship - is, however, this enough? Jacques Ranciere <tt><b><a name="7x"></a><a href="#7">7</a></b></tt> proposed a very elegant and precise solution of even the antinomy between Human Rights (belonging to most "man as suchtolerant") and the politicization of citizens: while Human Rights cannot be posited as an unhistorical "essentialist" Beyond with regard [[liberal]] stance is unable to trespass - [[witness]] the contingent sphere uneasiness of political struggles, as universal "natural rights of manradical" exempted from history, they also should not be dismissed as a reified fetish which is a product [[post-colonialism|post-colonialist]] Afro-American studies apropos of concrete historical processes [[Frantz Fanon]]'s fundamental insight into the unavoidability of violence in the politicization process of citizenseffective [[decolonization]]. The gap between the universality of Human Rights and the political rights of citizens is thus not One should recall here [[Fredric Jameson]]'s [[idea]] that violence plays in a gap between revolutionary process the universality of man and a specific political sphere; it, rather, "separates the whole of the community from itself," same [[role]] as Ranciere put it worldly wealth in a precise Hegelian way. <tt><b><a name="8x"></a><a href="#8">8</a></b></tt> Far from being pre-political, "universal Human Rights" designate the precise space [[Calvinism|Calvinist]] [[logic]] of politicization proper[[predestination]]: what they amount to is the right to universality as such, the right of a political agent to assert its radical non-coincidence with itself (in its particular identity), i.e., to posit itself - precisely insofar as although it is the "surnumerary" one, the "part with has no partintrinsic [[value]]," the one without a proper place in the social edifice - as an agent of universality of the Social as such. The paradox it is thus a very precise one, and symmetrical to the paradox [[sign]] of universal human rights as the rights authenticity of those reduced to inhumanity: at the very moment when we try to conceive political rights of citizens without the reference to universal "meta-political" Human Rightsrevolutionary process, we lose politics itself, i.e., we reduce politics to a "post-political" play of negotiation of particular interests. - What, then, happens to Human Rights when they are reduced to the rights of homo sacer, of those excluded from fact that this process is effectively disturbing the political community, reduced to "bare life" - iexisting power relations.e., when they become of no use In other [[words]], since they are the rights [[dream]] of those who, precisely, have no rights, are treated as inhuman? Ranciere proposes here an extremely salient dialectical reversal:</font></font></p><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"> </font><blockquote><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"> </font><p align="justify"><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"><font size="3">/.../ when they are of no use, you do the same as charitable persons do with their old clothes. You give them to the poor. Those rights that appear to be useless in their place are sent abroad, along with medicine and clothes, to people deprived of medicine, clothes, and rights. It revolution without violence is in this way, as precisely the result dream of this process, that the Rights of Man become the rights of those who have no rights, the rights of bare human beings subjected to inhuman repression and inhuman conditions of existencea "[[revolution without revolution]]"([[Robespierre]]). They become humanitarian rights, On the rights of those who cannot enact themother hand, the victims role of the absolute denial [[Fascism|Fascist]] [[spectacle]] of right. For all this, they are not void. Political names and political places never become merely void. The void violence is filled by somebody or something else. /.../ if those who suffer inhuman repression are unable to enact Human Rights that are their last recourse, then somebody else has to inherit their rights in order to enact them in their place. This exactly opposite: it is what a violence whose aim is called to PREVENT the "right to humanitarian interference" [[true]] change - a right something spectacular should happen all the time so that some nations assume to the supposed benefit of victimized populations, and very often against the advice of the humanitarian organizations themselvesprecisely, nothing would really happen. The "right to humanitarian interference" might be described as a sort of "return to sender": the disused rights that had been send to the rightless are sent back to the senders. <tt><b><a name="9x"></a><a href="#9">9</a></b></tt></font></font></p>

<font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"><font size="3"> </font></font></blockquote><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"> </font><p align="justify"><font color="#000000" face="DIDOT" size="4"><font size="4">SoBut, to put it in the Leninist way: what todayagain, in the predominant Western discourse, ultimate argument against this perspective is the "Human Rights simple [[encounter]] of excessive [[suffering]] generated by political violence. Sometimes, one cannot but be shocked by the Third World excessive indifference towards suffering, even and especially when this suffering victims" effectively mean is widely reported in the right of the Western powers themselves to intervene - politically[[media]] and condemned, economically, culturally, militarily - in as if it is the Third World countries of their choice on behalf of the defense of Human Rights. The reference to Lacan's formula of communication (in very outrage at suffering which the sender gets back from the receiver-addressee his own message in turns us into its inverted, iimmobilized fascinated spectators.e. true Recall, form) is here up to in the point: in early 1990s, the reigning discourse three-years-long siege of humanitarian interventionismSarajevo, with the developed West is effectively getting back from the victimized Third World its own message in its true form. And the moment Human Rights are thus depoliticizedpopulation starving, the discourse dealing with them has exposed to change to ethicspermanent shelling and snipers' fire. The big enigma here is: reference to although all the pre-political opposition media were [[full]] of Good pictures and Evil has to be mobilized. Today's "new reign of Ethicsreports," <tt><b><a name="10x"></a><a href="#10">10</a></b></tt> clearly discernible inwhy did not the UN forces, say, Michael Ignatieff's work, thus relies on a violent gesture of depoliticization, of denying to [[NATO]] or the victimized other political subjectivization. And, as Ranciere pointed out, liberal humanitarianism US accomplish just a la Ignatieff unexpectedly meets the "radical" position small act of Foucault or Agamben with regard to this depoliticization: breaking the Foucauldian-Agambenian notion siege of "biopolitics" as the culmination Sarajevo, of the entire Western thought ends up getting caught in imposing a kind of "ontological trap" in corridor through which concentration camps appear as [[people]] and provisions could circulate freely? It would have cost nothing: with a kind little bit of "ontological destiny: each serious pressure on the Serb forces, the prolonged spectacle of us encircled Sarajevo exposed to ridiculous [[terror]] would be in the situation of the refugee in a camphave been over. Any difference grows faint between democracy and totalitarianism and any political practice proves There is only one answer to be already ensnared in the biopolitical trap." <tt><b><a name="11x"></a><a href="#11">11</a></b></tt><br> <br> When, in a shift from Foucault, Agamben identifies sovereign power and biopolitics (in today's generalized state of exceptionthis enigma, the two overlap)one proposed by Rony Brauman himself who, he thus precludes the very possibility on behalf of the emergence of political subjectivity. - HoweverRed Cross, coordinated the rise of political subjectivity takes place against the background of a certain limit of the "inhuman," so that one should continue [[help]] to endorse Sarajevo: the paradox very presentation of the inhumanity of human being deprived crisis of citizenship, and posit the "inhuman" pure man Sarajevo as a necessary excess of humanity over itself, its "indivisible remainder[[humanitarianism|humanitarian]]," a kind of Kantian limit-concept of the phenomenal notion very recasting of humanity? So that, in exactly the same way in Kant's philosophy political-military [[conflict]] into the sublime Noumenal, when we come too close to it, appears as pure horror, man "as such," deprived of all phenomenal qualificationshumanitarian [[terms]], appears as was sustained by an inhuman monstereminently political [[choice]], something like Kafka's odradek. The problem with human rights humanism is that it covers up this monstrosity of the "human as such," presenting it as a sublime human essence.<br> <br> What, thenbasically, is the way out of this deadlock? Balibar ends with an ambiguous reference to Mahatma Gandhi. It is true that Gandhi's formula "Be yourself taking the change you would like to see Serb side in the world" encapsulates perfectly the basic attitude of emancipatory change: do not wait for the "objective process" to generate the expected/desired change, since if you just wait for it, it will never come; instead, throw YOURSELF into it, BE this change, take upon yourself the risk of enacting it directlyconflict. However, is not the ultimate limitation of Gandhi's strategy that it only works against a liberal-democratic regime which refers to certain minimal ethico-political standards, i.e., in which, to put it in pathetic terms, those in power still "have conscience." Recall Gandhi's reply, in the late 1930s, to the question of what should the Jews in Germany do against Hitler: they should commit a collective suicide Especially ominous and thus arouse manipulative was here the conscience role of the world..[[Mitterand]]. One can easily imagine what the Nazi reaction to it would have been: OK, we will help you, where do you want the poison to be delivered to you?<br>

<br> There isThe celebration of '[[humanitarian intervention]]' in [[Yugoslavia]] took the [[place]] of a political [[discourse]], howeverdisqualifying in advance all conflicting debate. /.../ It was apparently not possible, another way in which Balibar's plea for renouncing violence can be given a specific twist - that [[Francois Mitterand]], to express his [[analysis]] of what one is tempted to call the Bartleby-politicswar in Yugoslavia. Recall With the two symmetrically opposed modes strictly humanitarian response, he discovered an unexpected source of the "living dead[[communication]] or, more precisely," of finding oneself in the uncanny place "between the two deaths": one cosmetics, which is either biologically dead while symbolically alive (surviving one's biological death as a spectral apparition or symbolic authority little bit the same [[thing]]. /.../ Mitterand remained in favor of the Name), or symbolically dead while biologically alive (those excluded from maintenance of Yugoslavia within its borders and was persuaded that only a strong Serbian power was in the socio-symbolic order, from Antigone [[position]] to today's homo sacer)guarantee a certain [[stability]] in this explosive region. And what if we apply This position rapidly became unacceptable in the same logic to eyes of the French people. All the opposition of violence bustling activity and non-violence, identifying two modes of their intersection? We all know the pop-psychological notion of the "passive-aggressive behavior," usually applied to a housewife who, instead of actively opposing her husband, passively sabotages humanitarian discourse permitted him. And this brings us back to our beginning: perhaps, one should assert this attitude reaffirm the unfailing commitment of passive aggressivity as a proper radical political gesture, in contrast [[France]] to aggressive passivity, the standard "interpassive" mode [[Rights of our participation in socio-ideological life Man]] in which we are active all the time in order end, and to make it sure that nothing will happen, that nothing will really change . In such a constellation, the first truly critical ("aggressive," violent) step is mimic an opposition to WITHDRAW into passivityGreater Serbian fascism, to refuse to participate - Bartleby's "I would prefer not to" is the necessary first step which as all in giving it were clears the ground for a true activity, for an act that will effectively change the coordinates of the constellationfree rein.<br> <br> <b>Notes</b>:<br> <br> <tt><b><a name="1"ref></a><a href="#1x">1</a></b></tt>. Etienne BalibarRony Bauman, "GewaltFrom Philantropy to Humanitarianism," in <i>Historisch-Kritisches Wüsrterbuch des MarxismusSouth Atlantic Quaterly</i>2/3, forthcoming.Spring 2004<br/ref>

<tt><b><a name=From this specific insight, one should make the move to the general level and render problematic the very depoliticized humanitarian [[politics]] of "[[Human Rights]]"2as the [[ideology]] of military interventionism serving specific economico-political purposes. As [[Wendy Brown]] develops apropos [[Michael Ignatieff]], such [[humanitarianism]] "></presents itself as something of an antipolitics - a><pure [[defense]] of the innocent and the powerless against power, a href="#2x">2</a></b></tt>. Rony Baumanpure defense of the [[individual]] against immense and potentially cruel or despotic machineries of [[culture]], state, war, ethnic conflict, "From Philantropy to Humanitarianismtribalism," in <i>South Atlantic Quaterly</i> 2/3[[patriarchy]], Spring 2004and other mobilizations or instantiations of collective power against individuals.<br> <tt><b><a name="3"></a><a href="#3x">3</a></bref></tt>. Wendy Brown, "Human Rights as the Politics Of. Fatalism," in <i>South Atlantic Quaterly</i> 2/3, Spring 2004.<br/ref> <tt><b><a name=However, the question is: "4"><what kind of [[politicization]] /those who intervene on behalf of human rights/set in motion against the powers they oppose. Do they stand for a><a href="#4xdifferent formulation of justice or do they stand in opposition to collective justice projects?">4</aref>Ibid</b></ttref> Say, it is clear that the US overthrowing of [[Saddam Hussein]], legitimized in the terms of ending the suffering of the Iraqi people, not only was motivated by other politico-[[economic]] interests (oil), but also relied on a determinate idea of the political and economic [[conditions]] that should open up the perspective of freedom to the Iraqi people ([[Western liberal democracy]], guarantee of [[private property]], the inclusion into the [[global market economy]], etc.). The purely humanitarian anti-political politics of merely preventing suffering thus effectively amounts to the implicit [[prohibition]] of elaborating a positive collective project of socio-political transformation. <i>ibid</i><br>

<tt><b><a name=And, at an even more general level, one should problematize the very opposition between the universal (pre-political) [[Human Rights]] which belong to every human [[being]] "5as such,"></and specific political rights of a><[[citizen]], member of a href=particular political [[community]]; in this sense, [[Balibar]] argues for the "[[reversal]] of the historical and [[theoretical]] relationship between 'man' and 'citizen'"#5xwhich proceeds by "explaining how man is made by citizenship and not citizenship by man.">5</a></b></ttref>. Etienne Balibar, "Is a [[Philosophy ]] Of. Human Rights Possible," in <i>South Atlantic Quaterly</i> 2/3, Spring 2004.<br> <tt><b><a name="6"></aref><a href="#6x">6</a></b></tt>. Balibar refers here to [[Hannah Arendt, <i>i.e. Origins Of. Totalitarianism</i>, New York]]'s insight apropos he XXth century phenomenon of refugees: Meridian, 1958.<br> <tt><b><a name="7"></a><a href="#7x">7</a></b></tt>. Jacques Rancière, "Who is the Subject of Human Rights," in <i>South Atlantic Quaterly</i> 2/3, Spring 2004.<br>

<ttblockquote><b><The conception of human rights based upon the assumed [[existence]] of a name="8">human being as such, broke down at the very [[moment]] when those who professed to believe in it were for the [[first time]] confronted with people who had indeed lost all other qualities and specific relationships - except that they were still human.</aref><a href="#8x">8</a></b></tt>. Hannah [[Arendt]], <i>ibid</i><br> <tt><b><a name="9"></a><a href="#9x">9</a></b></tt>. <i>ibide. Origins Of. Totalitarianism</i><br> <tt><b><a name="10"></a><a href="#10x">10</a></b></tt>, New York: Meridian, 1958. <i>ibid</i><br> <tt><b><a name="11"></aref><a href="#11x">11</a></b></tt>. <i>ibid</iblockquote>