Monday 12 January 2009

Agambenian Anarchism

Excellent report on the 'Tarnac 9' from Alberto. I'd like to comment more on this attempt to articulate an Agambenian anarchism, not least in terms of the attempt to give some more substance to the concept of indistinction. Writing on Badiou it struck me on the amount of common ground between his concept of indiscernability and the work of Ranciere, Agamben, or even Negri. All some to pose resistance to power as 'grounded' in some uncapturable ontological (or in Badiou's case exceptional to ontology) indiscernibility that cannot be 'seen' by power, and which I guess then 'surges forth' in certain forms or at certain moments. I'm a little concerned at how this might function as an alibi, in supposing an always resistant moment that comes to the rescue. I have never really been convinced by Deleuze's contention (in relation to Foucault) that 'resistance comes first'. I'd like to believe that, but I'm not sure it's true - either practically or ontologically / metaphysically. Also, as Peter Hallward has already pointed out, this topoi of 'invisibility' seems to risk a kind of inactivity, or ignoring the necessary visibility to actually change power relations.

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