So I've been reading alot of 'thinkers of the biopolitical', for lack of a less ugly term: Foucault, Agamben, Hardt&Negri. The biopolitical argument is a potent one, historically and theoretically it would seem. I think there is little doubt that the power of sovereignty, capital, empire, whatever is increasingly focusing on the body and the figure of human 'bare life.' The lines of division are increasingly drawn, and now even genetics redraws with sharper accuracy many of the same pseudoscientific epistemological gaffes of 19th century Anthropology.
However, I'm not here to praise biopolitics, but to bury it. The question I have is, assuming there is escape or emancipation from this vast biopolitical paradigm, what Agamben gloomily calls the "nomos of the camps," how do we save medicine? How do we do organ transplants without reducing the overcomatose patient to their bare life? The lines of cutting are arbitrary and cruel, but is the alternative simply reverting to herbs and draconian mysticism? I recognize how a great deal of the emphasis on modern medicine has been the extension of life, very much in service of the biopolitical regime, but is that really all it is? Can we concieve of a practice of medicine, of healing, divested from the political project of biopolitics? Badiou, in the beginning of the Ethics wants to say that for the doctor there is no 'ethical' situation, there is only the clinical situation, which must be carried out without hesitation. Badiou is no dupe, and no stranger to the biopolitical arguments. I see in this idea of the clinical situation a particular figure which offers some hope, but I'm not quite sure how to contextualize this alternative subject. Any takers?
However, I'm not here to praise biopolitics, but to bury it. The question I have is, assuming there is escape or emancipation from this vast biopolitical paradigm, what Agamben gloomily calls the "nomos of the camps," how do we save medicine? How do we do organ transplants without reducing the overcomatose patient to their bare life? The lines of cutting are arbitrary and cruel, but is the alternative simply reverting to herbs and draconian mysticism? I recognize how a great deal of the emphasis on modern medicine has been the extension of life, very much in service of the biopolitical regime, but is that really all it is? Can we concieve of a practice of medicine, of healing, divested from the political project of biopolitics? Badiou, in the beginning of the Ethics wants to say that for the doctor there is no 'ethical' situation, there is only the clinical situation, which must be carried out without hesitation. Badiou is no dupe, and no stranger to the biopolitical arguments. I see in this idea of the clinical situation a particular figure which offers some hope, but I'm not quite sure how to contextualize this alternative subject. Any takers?