I have a question…
A country, indeed a culture, is imploding and nobody seems to care. What is going on in front of our eyes in those countries that claim to be civilized?
Where is the limit beyond which you are unwilling to give up the basic principles that shape our coexistence?
- I want to share a question with those who feel like it that I've been thinking about for a month. How could it happen that an entire country collapsed ethically and politically in the face of a disease without being noticed?
- I have carefully chosen the words I use to formulate this question. The measure of rejection of one's own ethical and political principles is indeed very easy to find. The question is: where is the limit beyond which you are unwilling to renounce these basic principles?
- I think the reader who is preparing to think about the following points cannot help but agree that the threshold that separates humanity from barbarism has been exceeded. Without you noticing it or by pretending not to notice.
Three points
1.) The first and perhaps most serious point concerns the bodies of the dead people. How could we accept, in the name of a risk that we could not determine in more detail, that the people we love and all people in general not only had to die lonely in most cases, but that their bodies were cremated without being buried? This has never happened in the history of the mythical Greek king Antigone.
2.) We accepted without hesitation, again only in the name of a risk that cannot be determined in any more detail , that our freedom of movement was restricted to an extent that has never before occurred in our country, not even during the two world wars (the curfew at that time applied to certain ones Hours). So we accepted to stop cultivating our friendship and love relationships in the name of a risk that cannot be determined because our neighbor became a possible source of infection.
3.) This could happen - and here we touch the root of the phenomenon - because we have split the unity of our life experience, which is always both physical and mental, into a mere biological unit on the one hand and into an affective and cultural life on the other. The philosopher and theologian Ivan Illich has shown the responsibility of modern medicine in this division. It seems to understand itself, but in reality it is the largest of all abstractions. I know that this abstraction was achieved by modern science through revitalization devices that are able to maintain a body in a state of vegetative life.
There is no going back
But if this state - this condition - extends beyond its own spatial and temporal limits, as one tries to do today, and if it becomes a kind of principle of social behavior, then one gets into contradictions, from which there is no Way back. I know that some will now answer immediately that the current regime is a temporary state, after which everything will be as it was before. It is really unique that one repeats this against better knowledge.
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| We are responsible for the sick, for the dead, for ourselves, says Giorgio Agamben - but do we perceive them? |
What about the church?
Since I have reminded of the responsibility of all of us, I cannot avoid mentioning the worse responsibility of those who would have had the task of guarding human dignity. Above all, the Church, which - by making itself the handmaid of science, which has now become the new religion of our time - radically denies its essential principles.
The church under a Pope who calls himself Francis has forgotten that Francis hugged the lepers. She has forgotten that one of the works of mercy is to visit the sick. She has forgotten that martyrdom teaches readiness to sacrifice life rather than faith, and that to renounce one's neighbor is to renounce faith.
Why are the lawyers silent?
- Another category of people who are no longer able to do their job are the lawyers. We have been accustomed to the careless use of emergency decrees for some time now, which effectively puts executive power in the place of legislative power, thereby undermining the principle of separation of powers that defines democracy.
- But in this case, every limit was crossed, and it is believed that the words of the Prime Minister and the Chief of Civil Protection have direct legal force, as was once said of the Fiihrer's words. And one does not see how, contrary to all announcements, the restrictions on freedom - after the emergency regulations have expired - can be maintained. With what legal means? With a constant state of emergency? It is the job of the lawyers to ensure that the rules of the constitution are observed, but the lawyers are silent. Quare siletis iuristae in munere vestro? (Why are you silent, lawyers, when it comes to your task?)
- I know that there will always be people who will stand up and answer: The very difficult sacrifice was made in the name of moral principles. I would like to remind you that Adolf Eichmann - obviously in good faith ("buona fede") - did not stop repeating that what he had done, based on his conscience, was sufficient to do what he was supposed to do the Kantian morality held.
A norm that says that one has to do without good in order to save good is just as wrong as the one that requires one to give up freedom to save freedom.
Giorgio Agamben is an Italian philosopher and author. He has published a lot on the subject of the state of emergency, including the book of the same name entitled «State of Emergency» (Suhrkamp-Verlag, 2004). His most recent works are "What is Philosophy?" (Fischer-Verlag, 2018) and "The Power of Thought: Collected Essays" (Fischer-Verlag, 2013). - Translated from Italian by René Scheu.
