Author Archives: Syndicated User

Stasis

Agamben, Stasis

Giorgio Agamben’s short book Stasis: Civil War as a Political Paradigm comprises two brief essays, one on the Athenian concept of “stasis” or civil war, the other on the role of the multitude in Hobbes’s Leviathan. What links them, he tells us, is the notion that “the constitutive element of the modern State” is “ademia [. . .] that is, [. . .] the absence of a people” (vi). Obviously enough, this will come as something of a surprise to “the Western political tradition” for which, as Agamben notes, the “concept of people” is “arguably the fundamental concept” (39). Think after all of the opening of the United States constitution, for which “we the people” are presented as that country’s basic political bedrock.

Agamben proposes instead the multitude as the core concept of political theory. So far, so good, and no doubt also so Italian. But what Agamben adds to the work of (say) Toni Negri and Paolo Virno is the observation that “the multitude is the subject of civil war” (40) and, further, that it is thus through civil war that the political realm is established. Or, as he puts it in his discussion of the Greeks:

it constitutes a zone of indifference between the unpolitical space of the family [oikos] and the political space of the city [polis]. [. . .] In the system of Greek politics civil war functions as a threshold of politicization and depoliticization, through which the house is exceeded in the city and the city is depoliticized in the family. (12)

For, as Agamben points out, Solon’s law explicitly punishes those who do not take part in civil war: such people forfeit their rights to citizenship; “not taking part in the civil war amounts to being expelled from the polis and confined in the oikos” (13). Civil war is, therefore, not (as we tend to see it) simply the point at which the political dissolves, as the state fractures and society is reduced to warring factions. It is also constituent, “the unforgettable that must always remain possible in the city,” however much today, by contrast, we regard it as “something that one must seek to make impossible at every cost” (16).

To put this another way (in terms that Agamben himself does not use), it is civil war that is the threshold or hinge between infrapolitics and politics per se. He offers here a theory of the ways in which the political emerges and is dissolved. Moreover, in his study of Hobbes, Agamben further offers civil war as the process by which what he calls the “dissolved multitude” (the multitude subject to biopolitical power) is transformed into the “disunited multitude” that makes itself known by turning on the absent people (absorbed into the figure of sovereign power, the Leviathan). And though it is not entirely obvious how these two conceptions mesh with each other, in both cases civil war has to remain an intimate possibility in the heart of any and every political order. For sovereignty, at least until the coming of the end times, can only remain an (optical) illusion, a trick of representation. In the meantime, “no real unity, no political body is actually possible: the body political can only dissolve itself into a multitude” (49). Agamben thus reverses the eschatological tendencies inherent (as I have argued elsewhere) in Negri’s vision of the multitude: here it is only the state that dreams of a substantial presence and unity to come. The multitude, by contrast, is located on a perennial threshold, figured as civil war, between house and city, infrapolitics and the political.

The sting in the tail of Agamben’s analysis, however, is given only sotto voce, in a digression or coda to the first essay that’s presented in smaller font than the rest. This is the observation that “the form that civil war has acquired today in world history is terrorism. [. . .] Global terrorism is the form that civil war acquires when life as such becomes the stake of politics” (18). This only goes to show once again that (whatever Negri thinks) nobody should look to the multitude for their salvation. But instead of denying the possibility of civil war, trying to exclude it from the political order, we need to recognize that order’s indebtedness to it, and pick one of the many sides (who says there should be just two?) that any such conflict opens up. For this is the very paradigm of the political, of the perpetual emergence and dissolution of political activity as such.

Crossposted to Infrapolitical Deconstruction Collective.

Sobre la discusión sobre San Camilo (II)

*OS DEJAMOS ABAJO EL LINK DE LOS APUNTES Y EL PPT QUE HICIMOS PARA MODERAR LA DISCUSIÓN*

No es sorprendente que planear y guiar una discusión sobre San Camilo, 1936 por Camilo José Cela (un libro sumamente difícil de leer y entender, tanto por los hispanohablantes como aquellos para quien el castellano es su segundo idioma) será una tarea bastante difícil y complicado, y aún más dado que a ninguno de los dos facilitadores les gustó al libro.

Pero a pesar de las dificultades inherentes, creemos que hicimos un esfuerzo admirable generar varios temas y citas de discusión, intentando cubrir la mayoría de lo que sucede en la segunda mitad del libro. Si hubiéramos podido hacer algo más para mejorar la presentación, habríamos preparado más preguntas específicas de discusión para incluir en el PPT para así estimular más discusión. Al planear cómo íbamos a guiar la discusión, nos pareció que tuvimos demasiado que decir entre nosotros dos y por eso, decidimos cortar las preguntas de discusión del PPT. Otra motivación por esta decisión fue nuestra creencia que las citas, las cuales habíamos seleccionado el libro para estimular la discusión, eran bastante reveladoras y así estimularían discusión sin la necesidad de articular una pregunta específica. Pero al fin, debido a los pocos comentarios y preguntas que estas mismas citas generaron (a pesar de nuestros intentos de guiar la clase un poco hacia estas respuestas), nos dimos cuenta que hubiera sido útil incluir preguntas específicas.

Obviamente, otro factor para nuestra discusión guiada en particular era el hecho de que pocos habían leído el libro, y por eso sólo pocos podían participar y contribuir a la discusión. Pero, otra vez, si hubiéramos incluido más preguntas, tal vez habríamos podido estimular más participación. Al fin y al cabo, el libro de Cela fue muy difícil y confuso, justo como fue la tarea de intentar descifrarlo y determinar qué se podía decir sobre ello, con fin de llegar a algunas conclusiones sobre ello y entender cómo cabe este texto no sólo en nuestra clase, sino también en nuestro entendimiento sobre cómo se representa la guerra civil española por través de la literatura.

*Aquí puedes ver los apuntes y el PPT que hicimos para preparar para esta discusión.*

 

L’espoir

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El desaparecido Hotel Colón de Plaça Catalunya, en el centro de Barcelona (convertido hoy en un Apple Store), donde transcurren las primeras páginas de l’Espoir, acá retratado durante los últimos años de la República, antes de ser tomado por los falangistas. Más fotos acá.

Uno de los elementos que más me llamó la atención del L’espoir (1937) fue la fascinación del narrador por la tecnología bélica. Por un lado, me hizo pensar en el potencial destructor de la tecnología, me recordó las ideas que enarbolaron Adorno y Horkheimer al pensar Auschwitz en Dialéctica de la ilustración. Aquellas que nos hablan sobre cómo la producción sistemática de muerte a escala industrial, por parte del nacional socialismo alemán durante la primera mitad de los cuarenta, más que una muestra de barbarie irracional es la culminación lógica del proyecto racional ilustrado y el triunfo de una dimensión particular de la razón: la instrumental. Aquella que emplea la capacidad racional del hombre para controlarse y dominarse en lugar de emanciparse a sí mismo, utilizándolo como un medio más que como un fin en sí, fundamentalmente, a través de la implementación de rigurosas herramientas técnicas, fruto de la evolución científica. En este sentido, las batallas representadas en L’espoir del verano español de 1936 pertenecen ya a ese mundo. Esta fascinación del narrador (que es tecnófila y tecnófoba al mismo tiempo) agota todas las posibilidades, como podemos observar en las múltiples elecciones léxicas que escoge para enumerar un sinfín de armas: metralletas, arietes, subfusiles, mosquetes, escopetas, carabinas, dinamitas, aviones bombarderos de combate, algunos de ellos elementos inéditos, nunca utilizados en guerras anteriores, desfilan por las páginas de la novela a la par que los múltiples personajes, dándonos una idea de paralelismo entre la técnica y hombres atrofiados, que terminan mecanizándose y convirtiéndose en un arma más.

No en vano, por otra parte, comienza el narrador la novela poniendo en el centro de la escena un artefacto técnico: la centralita telefónica, una herramienta que mediatiza la relación de milicianos y rebeldes, al mismo tiempo que despliega Madrid hacia el resto de la Península. El teléfono, dicen Horkheimer y Adorno, es el último estadio en el desarrollo técnico en el que la tecnología aún no uniformaba ni paralizaba al sujeto. El teléfono, «dejaba aún jugar al participante el papel de sujeto. La radio, democrática, convierte a todos en oyentes para entregarlos autoritariamente a los programas, entre sí iguales, de las diversas emisoras». Este atributo de los avances tecnológicos para conferir paulatinamente cada vez más pasividad a los sujetos, homogeneizándolos, puede palparse también en la dependencia por las armas que experimentan los milicianos republicanos en la novela: es la asimetría en relación al desarrollo técnico que ostenta cada uno de los dos bandos, en otras palabras, es la capacidad de poseer tecnología lo que parece condicionar el devenir del conflicto, una idea que reside en las palabras de García y Vargas, cuando discuten con Monsieur Magnin: «Los zaristas no tenían tanques ni aviones; los revolucionarios usaban barricadas. ¿Cuál era la idea detrás de estas barricadas? Resistir al Calvario Imperial […] Hoy España está repleta de barricadas para resistir a los aviones de combate de Franco».

Por otro lado, el imaginario relativo a la tecnología bélica no participa solamente de la estrategia descriptiva que sigue el narrador para brindarnos una atmósfera vívida de los primeros días de la Guerra Civil; también es utilizada como símil en distintas ocasiones. «La esperanza», según la define el americano Slade, «es la fuerza impulsora de la revolución»; el coraje «algo que debe mantenerse como los rifles»; la pipa de García es apuntada «como un revolver» cada vez que realiza una afirmación. La técnica invade y contamina al lenguaje como una forma, tal y como quiere Beatriz Sarlo, de estructurar la imaginación.

Days of Hope by André Malraux

Tanto el inglés como el español para mí son idiomas extranjeros, necesito admitir que cuando leía este libro, Days of Hope, me encontraba con dificultades, sería menos complicado para mí si fuera en español. En todo caso, es interesante conocer la guerra civil española desde la visión de un extranjero como el autor, un francés. En el libro Malraux se sienta en la posición de los republicanos al contar al historia. En las primeras párrafos, los cortos diálogos en teléfono nos cartografian las fronteras y sus situaciones actuales, y se terminan por las frases de emoción como ¨viva España¨, ¨viva el Cristo Rey¨, etc. me suenan muy familiar, que según lo que mis padres en China me contaron, en sus tiempos, cuando estaban en el colegio, al terminar sus frases, añadieron unas slogans similares, tales como ¨viva el Presidente Mao¨ o ¨viva la revolución¨ ¨viva el pueblo ¨o ¨camarada¨...las cuales no tenían realmente ningún relación con la charla, pero se las añadieron al final de sus palabras. Estos slogans eran típicos en la Comunista China durante el tiempo rojo.

Es la esperanza que une a los diferentes grupos en contra los fascistas. Malraux indica claramente el desequilibrio en el poder de tecnología y arma entre ambas partes en guerras. En una materia que leí, dice que en la guerra civil española el gobierno francés mandó aviones para los republicanos españoles pero esos aviones eran obsoletos y sirvieron mucho para aumentar realmente su fuerza aérea, además dice:
The Ministry of Defense of France had feared that modern types of planes would easily be captured by the Germans fighting for Francisco Franco, and the lesser models were a way of maintaining official "neutrality".
 No entiendo muy bien por qué esta neutralidad, pero parece que Malraux no está en neutral, para mí el libro sí tiene cierto nivel de propagada de la parte republicana. En muchas partes describe con mucho detalle la figura, el aire y las acciones de sus caracteres, los cuales son como protagonistas en alguna película, que el autor nos está trazando unas imágenes refinas. Los caracteres son valientes e idealistas, tienen dentro un ideal sublime o unos ideales sublimes que les apoyan, a pesar de la gran desventaja de las armas que poseen. Están esperando, esperando y esperando. Aquí me recuerda San Camilo, que de pronto para Cela, para concluir las causas de la guerra civil español es difícil o imposible, la guerra es inevitable e irreversible, pero al mismo tiempo es casual o accidental, por el montón de posibilidades. Aquí, aunque existe una gran disparidad de armas, los republicanos están insistiendo su(s) esperanza(s), igualmente es porque creen en las posibilidades para ganar.

Espoir: Sierra de Teruel

From the Encyclopédie Larousse:

Espoir est le seul film de l’écrivain André Malraux, par ailleurs auteur d’un roman intitulé l’Espoir, consacré au même thème.

Montré clandestinement en 1939, ce pamphlet sobre et lyrique n’est sorti qu’à la Libération, précédé d’un commentaire de Maurice Schumann. Plus que d’une œuvre de pure propagande, il s’agit de l’une des premières tentatives françaises (réussie) de cinéma-vérité. Auteur complet de son film, qu’il a écrit, dialogué, réalisé et même monté, Malraux use des images et des sons de la même manière qu’il se servait des mots dans la Condition humaine. Pour lui, le contexte socio-politique est un personnage à part entière. Il prend soin de décrire la guerre d’Espagne comme un catalyseur de passions vécues non pas par des individus isolés, mais plutôt par une communauté déchirée dans sa chair. En ce sens, il annonce le reportage tel qu’il s’est développé à l’occasion de la Seconde Guerre mondiale à l’instigation de photographes comme Robert Capa, fondateur de l’agence Magnum en 1939. En outre, Malraux évite le piège dans lequel tombent souvent les écrivains cinéastes : les grands discours moralisateurs.

Espoir est une chronique dépouillée qui tend à ressembler le plus possible aux actualités cinématographiques de l’époque, sans en reprendre le ton sentencieux. Les faits sont là et les images se suffisent à elles-mêmes, l’une des qualités primordiales de cette œuvre étant l’habileté avec laquelle les documents pris sur le vif sont intégrés aux scènes de fiction pure. La distribution composée d’inconnus renforce encore cet aspect et confère aux différentes anecdotes une authenticité qui sait ne jamais tricher avec la vérité des sentiments.

Cette osmose est sans doute due à la dérive d’un projet qui ne devait constituer initialement qu’un post-scriptum au roman écrit en 1937. Les deux œuvres n’ont d’ailleurs finalement que très peu de points communs, sinon cette passion de la liberté qui allait conduire l’auteur dans les rangs de la Résistance.

See also the film’s IMDB page.

Days of Hope

At first glance, André Malraux’s novel Days of Hope, gives the reader the impression of a novel filled with the sentiments of people overcoming their obstacles, continuously trying despite their failures. Although it appears to be like a glimmer of light, it is something that people aren’t able to control perhaps. I can’t help thinking that hope has something to do with fate because of it’s uncontrollable nature.

The novel starts off in the first few months of the Spanish civil war, the beginning is quite fast paced, which can be seen from it’s narration and dialogues between Ramos, the secretary of the Railway workers’ union as he makes quick and efficient calls to the other stations, in-order to get a grasp of their situation. The sense of urgency can be felt, but Ramos appears to be calm and capable in handling the situation. The format of the dialogues were somewhat confusing because sometimes it was hard to tell who said which line. As the novel progresses, it is told from the point of views of the combatants on the Republican side. Numerous characters are mentioned, as a detailed and descriptive account of their experiences and thoughts during this war are written down, for example their feelings and how they dealt with Guerilla warfare with tanks and the use of dynamite. It is apparent that the fascists are the opposing force in this novel, it mentions specifically Captain Hernandez, who was someone that got executed in the first part of the novel. I believe that it is worthwhile to mention the part where there was a temporary ceasefire between the republicans and Fascists. I think that this serves as a pause and in some ways, is a sign of hope, but not really.

Some of the messages I find, make clear sense and could be applied to ‘life’ in general, such as how “Hope alone, is insufficient.” Although in the novel, there was a clear indication that technology was also important, that hope has to come with effort, the Republicans seem to be running the war based on emotions. How they run things, lack organization, which eventually leads to the downfall of the Republicans. The  idea of losing, hope equates giving in and letting pessimism take over. I think like in most cases, no one really wants war. It is all dependent on the perspectives of each side. Mutual understanding is the first step to reaching peace. It seems Malraux’s message is that the Republicans might lose the war and the revolutions might be lost, but it is for the better because of the high likelihood that they would adapt to the approach of fascism.

 
 

Malraux — Days of Hope (L’Espoir)

Malraux’s Days of Hope is an account of the Spanish Civil War told from the perspective of the Republicans. It is a unique novel in that he does not demonstrate the perspective of the Fascists. Malraux completely rejects the Fascist perspective on the war, and explores the Republican psyche extensively. He demonstrates two sides of the Republican movement. First, the unitive nature of the Republican faction, provoked through their unanimous distaste for the Franco leadership and support for the Second Spanish Republic; and the second, the divisive nature of the Republican faction through political disputations between the Communists, the Anarchists, and the like which in turn contributes to the defeat of the Republican faction.

The first part of the novel maps the battleground and gives a brief overview of numerous characters. It also takes the readers to the battleground during the beginnings of the civil war using specific phrases in Spanish used during the war: “Salud,” “Arriba España,” “Viva El Cristo Rey,” and “Compañeros.” It’s a constant dialogue through the telephone operators, between Republicans and at times brief moments of communication between the Nationalists and the Republicans trying to locate which areas they control. I was overwhelmed by the amount of action that was occurring in the story and could not quite get into the story. However, as the story progressed Malraux demonstrates that the war wasn’t just a battle between the Republicans and the Nationalists but also the socio-philosophical ideas that were unveiled by the characters and their version of the revolution. The conversations between the Anarchists and the Communists and their own ideas of what they should get out of the war gave me a better understanding of why the Civil War was a complete failure for the Republicans.

 

“The communists, you see, want to get things done. Whereas you and the anarchists, for different reasons, want to be something. That’s the tragedy of a revolution like this one. Our respective ideals are so different; pacifism and the need to fight in self-defense; organization and Christian sentiment; efficiency and justice—nothing but contradictions. We’ve got to straighten them out, transform our Apocalyptic vision into an army—or be exterminated.” (210-211)

 

There was no desire between the Anarchists and the Communists to form a unitive structure. It was interesting for me that Hernandez claims the Anarchists have a “Christian sentiment” which almost sounds like he is suggesting the Anarchists are no different from the Nationalists, who had the backing of the Church. It almost sounded like Malraux was sympathizing with the Communists and suggesting that the Anarchists were ruining the revolution. In general it was interesting for me to see how organization, the very thing that unified the Left, ultimately failed the Left.

Malraux — Days of Hope (L’Espoir)

Malraux’s Days of Hope is an account of the Spanish Civil War told from the perspective of the Republicans. It is a unique novel in that he does not demonstrate the perspective of the Fascists. Malraux completely rejects the Fascist perspective on the war, and explores the Republican psyche extensively. He demonstrates two sides of the Republican movement. First, the unitive nature of the Republican faction, provoked through their unanimous distaste for the Franco leadership and support for the Second Spanish Republic; and the second, the divisive nature of the Republican faction through political disputations between the Communists, the Anarchists, and the like which in turn contributes to the defeat of the Republican faction.

The first part of the novel maps the battleground and gives a brief overview of numerous characters. It also takes the readers to the battleground during the beginnings of the civil war using specific phrases in Spanish used during the war: “Salud,” “Arriba España,” “Viva El Cristo Rey,” and “Compañeros.” It’s a constant dialogue through the telephone operators, between Republicans and at times brief moments of communication between the Nationalists and the Republicans trying to locate which areas they control. I was overwhelmed by the amount of action that was occurring in the story and could not quite get into the story. However, as the story progressed Malraux demonstrates that the war wasn’t just a battle between the Republicans and the Nationalists but also the socio-philosophical ideas that were unveiled by the characters and their version of the revolution. The conversations between the Anarchists and the Communists and their own ideas of what they should get out of the war gave me a better understanding of why the Civil War was a complete failure for the Republicans.

 

“The communists, you see, want to get things done. Whereas you and the anarchists, for different reasons, want to be something. That’s the tragedy of a revolution like this one. Our respective ideals are so different; pacifism and the need to fight in self-defense; organization and Christian sentiment; efficiency and justice—nothing but contradictions. We’ve got to straighten them out, transform our Apocalyptic vision into an army—or be exterminated.” (210-211)

 

There was no desire between the Anarchists and the Communists to form a unitive structure. It was interesting for me that Hernandez claims the Anarchists have a “Christian sentiment” which almost sounds like he is suggesting the Anarchists are no different from the Nationalists, who had the backing of the Church. It almost sounded like Malraux was sympathizing with the Communists and suggesting that the Anarchists were ruining the revolution. In general it was interesting for me to see how organization, the very thing that unified the Left, ultimately failed the Left.

Days of Hope

What occurs to me when reading Days of Hope is the amount of variation in ideologies between the different characters. The dialogue hints at a sense of unity among the various Republican factions insofar as the struggle against Franco is concerned, but also reveals deep gulfs between how they would ideally like society to be organized. The different factions of communists, anarchists, and everyone else opposed to fascism mostly all held genuinely left-wing, egalitarian ideals but their disunity and lack of a clear chain of command were what doomed them from the start, notwithstanding their clear technological disadvantages.

There’s a lot at play in this book and it feels like as one reads it the sense of despair and hopelessness that engulfs the characters only becomes more apparent. It’s somewhat ironic considering the title of the novel. The militias are ill-equipped to take on a well-trained and supplied army that has the support of two fascist states with a group of rag-tag peasants and laborers operating shoddy rifles that easily jam. It dawns upon the characters that if they truly want to win this war they’ll have to compromise their egalitarian and anti-fascist beliefs. But most of all they’ll need more technology that they simply don’t have access to: more planes, machine guns, and bombs.

Malraux’s emphasis on the technological aspects of warfare are what put the Republican’s situation into perspective. It all comes down to logistics: who has more machine guns? Who controls the train station? How many men do they have? This focus on technology, and the destruction it can cause, adds to the sense of hopelessness one feels throughout the book. It also helps one see how the Spanish Civil War was a sort of precursor to World War II. Though Malraux couldn’t have been intentionally foreshadowing (as the book was published before the end of the Civil War), he certainly helped set the mood for what was to come to Europe as a whole. The book helps one understand the political and ideological fervor with which people were acting. The conflict brought people from all over, inspired by their strongly-held beliefs, to fight for or against fascism in what they saw to be a global struggle. Spain was just one arena in which it would be fought, and it would overtake the rest of Europe and much of the rest of the world in the following decade.

I also want to make a note about the idea raised in class yesterday regarding the novel as possible pro-Republican propaganda. Later in life, Malraux was the French Minister of Information and then Minister of Cultural Affairs under Charles de Gaulle, which seem to me like good positions for a propagandist. The idea that Malraux wrote this and emphasized the clear technological disparity between the two sides to try to persuade the French government to arm the Republicans seems plausible to me.