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. Appropriating this conceptualization, Hardtand Negri rename this divine violence constituent power, that is to say, the constitutive practice of the multitude. 27Certainly, there are effects of the event of September 11 that are beyondrepresentation, that make it an act of unrepresentable violence. And if theattributions of ultimate responsibility to Osama bin Laden are to be believed, wecan also imagine that those who carried out the acts might claim that they wereacts of divine violence. Indeed, we hear a whisper of this justification on thepart of Bush or other leaders as they rationalize the West s response.Hardt andNegri reject both terrorism and nonviolent protests because they areperformances that rely on representation for their effects.But to determinewhether this is an act of the multitude, the event will have to be represented.Howto represent the event, what it means in terms of this or that (in other words,exploring the multiple significances of the event), and why the dominant 328 EMPIRE S NEW CLOTHESrepresentation is dangerous are exactly the questions that have to be asked rightnow.These contestations are generally understood as politics.But on thesequestions of how to differentiate (to re-present) the acts of force and violence inplay around this event, Empire remains unresponsive.Therefore, if we assess September 11 as an immediately subversive directaction of the multitude that has sought to evade the logic of representation, thenwe must say that the multitude can neither do justice to this event nor provide aposition from which an ethico-political response to global capital might come.There is a pathos in the world today when two or three thousand lives identifiedas American (hundreds of non-Americans also lost their lives) produce globalmourning but tens upon tens of thousands of deaths elsewhere due to a lack ofinfrastructure, medicine, health care, or armed violence fail to cause even a blinkof an eye.Without taking anything away from this truth, however, there is anabsolute value to human life such that the violent and unnecessary taking of it, nomatter where, is a tragedy, and so we find the loss of life on September 11 to be atragic injustice.In saying that this violent act does not represent a position fromwhich we might better appreciate the value of human life, we must leave theterrain of the multitude.Hardt s and Negri s evasion of the problematic ofrepresentation does not give us the tools we need to do justice to the event.ConclusionIn this essay we consider the logic of violence at work in the totalizingmobilization to counter terrorism.It is a logic of power different from the logic ofnational state sovereignty.While the militarized response put into play by thislogic is as dangerous as it is totalizing, we lack a position from which this eventcan be put into discourse for less dangerous and more adequate ends.Although itis a call to resist global capital, Hardt s and Negri s Empire doubles the death ofrepresentative democracy that we find in the hegemonization of the event.28Perhaps these parallel couplets global capital and a globally networked violentattack; the attack on representative democracy in the presently dominantideological formation and Hardt and Negri burying it with their advocacy ofdirect, nonperformative, and unrepresentable action are indicative of a newlogic of domination, the Other of which is easily construed as terrorism due tothe foreclosure of representation and democracy.In some ways, the event of September 11 can be seen as having interrupted thelogic of Empire.Starbucks closed all its shops.Railroads honored air tickets.Numerous companies expressed sympathy in full-page ads.Others suspendedadvertising.Commercialism, now of all times, seemed crass, pointing towardsomething other than Empire that made its presence felt.An ethical responseseems to inhere in the way that agents of Empire pressed pause on the hungry,consumptive logic that animates imperial practices [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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. Appropriating this conceptualization, Hardtand Negri rename this divine violence constituent power, that is to say, the constitutive practice of the multitude. 27Certainly, there are effects of the event of September 11 that are beyondrepresentation, that make it an act of unrepresentable violence. And if theattributions of ultimate responsibility to Osama bin Laden are to be believed, wecan also imagine that those who carried out the acts might claim that they wereacts of divine violence. Indeed, we hear a whisper of this justification on thepart of Bush or other leaders as they rationalize the West s response.Hardt andNegri reject both terrorism and nonviolent protests because they areperformances that rely on representation for their effects.But to determinewhether this is an act of the multitude, the event will have to be represented.Howto represent the event, what it means in terms of this or that (in other words,exploring the multiple significances of the event), and why the dominant 328 EMPIRE S NEW CLOTHESrepresentation is dangerous are exactly the questions that have to be asked rightnow.These contestations are generally understood as politics.But on thesequestions of how to differentiate (to re-present) the acts of force and violence inplay around this event, Empire remains unresponsive.Therefore, if we assess September 11 as an immediately subversive directaction of the multitude that has sought to evade the logic of representation, thenwe must say that the multitude can neither do justice to this event nor provide aposition from which an ethico-political response to global capital might come.There is a pathos in the world today when two or three thousand lives identifiedas American (hundreds of non-Americans also lost their lives) produce globalmourning but tens upon tens of thousands of deaths elsewhere due to a lack ofinfrastructure, medicine, health care, or armed violence fail to cause even a blinkof an eye.Without taking anything away from this truth, however, there is anabsolute value to human life such that the violent and unnecessary taking of it, nomatter where, is a tragedy, and so we find the loss of life on September 11 to be atragic injustice.In saying that this violent act does not represent a position fromwhich we might better appreciate the value of human life, we must leave theterrain of the multitude.Hardt s and Negri s evasion of the problematic ofrepresentation does not give us the tools we need to do justice to the event.ConclusionIn this essay we consider the logic of violence at work in the totalizingmobilization to counter terrorism.It is a logic of power different from the logic ofnational state sovereignty.While the militarized response put into play by thislogic is as dangerous as it is totalizing, we lack a position from which this eventcan be put into discourse for less dangerous and more adequate ends.Although itis a call to resist global capital, Hardt s and Negri s Empire doubles the death ofrepresentative democracy that we find in the hegemonization of the event.28Perhaps these parallel couplets global capital and a globally networked violentattack; the attack on representative democracy in the presently dominantideological formation and Hardt and Negri burying it with their advocacy ofdirect, nonperformative, and unrepresentable action are indicative of a newlogic of domination, the Other of which is easily construed as terrorism due tothe foreclosure of representation and democracy.In some ways, the event of September 11 can be seen as having interrupted thelogic of Empire.Starbucks closed all its shops.Railroads honored air tickets.Numerous companies expressed sympathy in full-page ads.Others suspendedadvertising.Commercialism, now of all times, seemed crass, pointing towardsomething other than Empire that made its presence felt.An ethical responseseems to inhere in the way that agents of Empire pressed pause on the hungry,consumptive logic that animates imperial practices [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]