Mirza Kabal
Israeli jets strike Qana, killing scores of civilians, most of them children. International criticism rises in pitch, Israel flatly denies responsibility. It claims that Hizbullah is responsible for these deaths, because it is deliberately and immorally using civilians as human shields, as sandbags.
Hizbullah is responsible for the massacre at Qana, it is finally responsible too for all civilian Lebanese deaths, on the same basis. It is naturally responsible for civilian Israeli deaths, since it is indeed launching the rockets which kill them, as equally it is responsible for IDF deaths, since it is actively engaged in fighting them.
The contours of the present Israeli-Hizbullah conflict reveal themselves as follows: Hizbullah is responsible for every single human death sustained by it. Israel does not kill, and cannot kill humans, such is a logical impossibility and if it does, this is only because some unforeseeable factor has unfortunately and sadly intervened.
Israel is spectacularly innocent, it cannot kill and will never kill, it is a democracy, the only democracy in the whole middle east, and democracies do not kill, they only defend with proportionate force against radically evil and barbaric attacks, made without motive by forces committed to killing, because they enjoy killing.
No other cause, none at all, is affirmed by a group such as Hizbullah, which is why Israel must destroy it, and indeed, why Israel can destroy it - because Hizbullah is inhuman. If Hizbullah were human, Israel could not destroy it, indeed Israel and Hizbullah could not even be enemies, since Israel cannot have humans for enemies, since it cannot kill humans, because it is a democracy.
Hizbullah is inhuman. It is inhuman, because it is able to coldly kill humans without compunction, and it is inhuman because, it is able to instrumentalize Israel itself towards this goal, it is able to force Israel itself to kill humans for it. In this way, it can clearly be seen that Israel faces a threat not just material, but moreover moral. Hizbullah corrodes as it kills, it corrodes the moral fabric of Israel, by forcing Israel to kill for it.
Hizbullah is inhuman, it is spectacularly inhuman. It is spectacularly inhuman, just as Israel is spectacularly innocent, which is to say, that it is Hizbullah who is responsible for this spectacular suffering which this war is creating. Hizbullah is responsible for it, Hizbullah is controlling it - in essence, it is Hizbullah has control over the spectacle, Hizbullah is a kind of mirza kabal.
If there is false appearance in the world, like the false appearance that Israel has killed, could have killed, then it is because of Hizbullah. It is because Hizbullah has dreadfully and deliberately managed to falsify the world, has managed to convert the world into a dreadful and dreamlike chimera.
It is clear that the world must be rejected. It must be rejected, because it has become Hizbullah. Hizbullah is spectacular, the world is spectacular, the world is Hizbullah. Israel must destroy Hizbullah, Israel must destroy the world - destroy it, in order to save it.
The world has become inhuman, and only Israel now still remains human, and because only Israel now still remains human, it is given to Israel to destroy this inhuman world. Destroy this inhuman world, this world of Hizbullah, this world of chimera.
Israel declares war on chimera, on Hizbullah, and on the spectacular. It can no longer believe in appearances, and so resolves to abandon them. It recognizes that it can no longer move, because every move it attempts would be the work of Hizbullah, only serving to strengthen Hizbullah, strengthen the inhuman which controls the spectacle: Israel must now no longer make spectacles, must no longer even itself present a spectacle.
Israel withdraws from Lebanon, and resolves to destroy itself: auto-da-fe.
11 Comments:
I agree with your description of the terrorist in the Israeli imaginary, but the state of exception, for Agamben, is a formal property of all modern states, not only the liberal one.
I also agree with you that the crisis will only dissipate when the Israeli superpower disappears, but this can't happen in the present suicidal mode.
"...is a formal property of all modern states, not only the liberal one..."
...all modern capitalist states.
"...this can't happen in the present suicidal mode..."
...it is the logical telos of the present suicidal mode.
I don't know of any place where Agamben says that the state of exception is particular to capitalist states. Do you?
Who cares what he says?
For starters, often Zizek cares very much, not to mention most major social philosophers writing today, whether they're associated with poststructuralism, Marxism, or whatever tradition.
Also, though your above answer quotes me, you now suggest that you weren't answering my post, because I explicitly said that 'for Agamben' the state of exception is a formal property of modern states.
So, you write in social philosophy but don't care about the social philosophical community. You respond to me without without caring what I actually say. Is there a pattern emerging here?
I'm sorry Wesley - it just seems to me that there are more pressing matters at present, and I accordingly don't understand why you want to discuss Agamben right now.
To me this sounds suspiciously like the conservative anti-intellectual logic that says that philosophy should be ignored, or even despised, because of its unwillingness to participate in the ‘real world.’ My question about Agamben emerged from your mention of the term ‘state of exception’, and your call for the Israeli state to become ‘the most universal state of all.’ If you’re not interested in speaking about Agamben, at most this requires that you say so. It doesn’t require an imposition of the beginning and end of debate about the current crisis.
The words "state" "of" and exception" can be found in the all decent english dictionaries; they have not to my knowledge been trademarked by Giorgio Agamben.
You will respond to this, "Perhaps so, but nonetheless, in the circles we travel in, the phrase itself is certainly associated with Agamben, and it is disingenuous to claim this is not so."
I accept this point, but am unsure as to exactly what it implies. Is your claim here that one cannot use the phrase "state of exception" without referring to Agamben explicitly?
Clearly, it may seem strange to certain observers not to do so, but on the other hand, it is true that the phrase itself - and not just the individual components of it - predates Agamben, predates Schmitt, predates even Benjamin, and now stands as a commonly used phrase in the English language. Why must I footnote with the name of a critical theorist in order to use it? Especially in order use it in the manner which I have used it here - a manner does not really correspondant to the technical Agambian usage, rather meaning less. In short, my claim with it was merely that Israel considers itself as a special case, and conducts itself on this basis.
Can we now close this matter?
You’re incorrect to assume that my response is that Agamben is most often associated with this term in contemporary philosophy. Rather, while I agree that the use of the term state of exception exceeds Agamben’s use of it, this doesn’t answer my point. The argument that has developed here is about whether Agamben can be spoken of at all, not whether he must be spoken of.
I didn’t object to your unwillingness to introduce Agamben at all, but to your foreclosure on even the capacity to raise his name here. This was demonstrated by you rhetorical question ‘who cares what Agamben thinks?’, followed by your professed inability to understand why anyone would discuss Agamben when there are ‘more pressing matters at hand.’
I didn’t argue that we must always speak of Agamben, that Agamben must always be footnoted, or that he must always be associated with the state of exception. On the contrary, I said that if you don’t wish to discuss Agamben, the most that this requires is that you say so, and that it doesn’t require such a dismissive foreclosure.
So, you argue that because I assert that Agamben can be spoken of, therefore I argue that he must be spoken of. To point to another rhetorical pattern, you conflate what can be done with what must be done. As far as I can tell so far, this is one of the distinctive features of ‘politics as drive.’
If you want to ‘close this matter’, that’s up to you, but such foreclosure goes to the larger point of how you deal with alternative points of view. Do you think that it’s fair to say that you have a habit of bringing a hostile attitude to almost all alternative points of view, and that you subject every other point of view to an almost equal share of hostility?
What are you talking about? What alternative point of view? What is your substantial point? What are you trying to prove here? What do you want from me? These questions are not rhetorical - I really am mystified.
Look, I have nothing against Giorgio Agamben! I have nothing against people writing about Agamben, or people talking about Agamben - in fact, people doing at all anything with regards to Agamben! You could fuck Agamben in the ass and film yourself doing it, for all that I care. I would even be willing to host the video file! But why are we still talking even talking about this? What are we even supposed to be talking about at this point?
OK Daniel, I guess I'll let that stand on its own. I'll let you know about the mpeg hosting.
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