Sovereign+Power+and+Bare+Life




 * =Sovereign Power and Bare Life= ||
 * =Giorgio Agamben= ||
 * =1998= ||
 * =Summary By Eddy= ||
 * =Summary=
 * =Summary=

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Agamben's work traces the merging of the //zo////ȇ//  (life) with the //polis// , or state. In the pre-modern era the biological event of being alive was separate from living in the “get a life” sense. The Greeks even had two separate words for these : //zoȇ//  and  //bios.//   ======

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 Foucault is one of the first philosophers to trace the merging of natural life with the mechanism of state power. In modernity the state has become a wielder of “biopolitics.” This can be viewed in the way in which states are involved with the lives of their citizens. States, at least in the liberal-western sense now have responsibilities for looking after the welfare of their citizens. This also gives the state immense power over its citizens as well. The state is concerned with making “docile bodies” that acquiesce to state power without resistance. ======

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 Agamben uses Foucault's notions of biopower and biopolitics to examine his own idea of //homo sacer. Homo Sacer//  is a term from Latin which meant “the accursed man.” This was a legal category under Roman law that denoted a person who could be killed by anyone without repercussions. For Agaben, this category of killing is novel, as it does not fit into either murder or religious sacrifice. This is linked to the notion that we are living in a constant state of exception. Sovereign power has imposed this state of exception and thus violence carried out by the state is neither homicide or sacrifice. ======

 What exactly is Agamben talking about? Can the state kill its own citizens in a state of exception? I think perhaps of the London police shooting a suspected suicide bomber on the underground in 2005. Unfortunately the man, Jean Charles de Menezes   was not a terrorist, but a Brazilian student running to catch his train. The defence put forward by the London police was that these were exceptional circumstances (following the 7/7 attacks). Menezes was not murdered (according to the authorities) nor was he sacrificed. He was perhaps a //Homo Sacer...// or at least was mistaken for one. ||