HUM 321 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Primo Levi, Purgatory, Categorical Imperative
4 Mar 2016
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Carl schmitt: sovereign monopoly on totality (1888-1985: threat to the state & suspension of the law, re-establish the laws effectiveness, sovereign decision is without justification borders (legal/extra- legal) Walter benjamin: relation of violence, politics & the law. Means to an end just, unjust. Task of critique: violence as a means in itself. Mythical violence: law-making & law-preserving, bloody (blood = mere life, sets boundaries, guilt retribution, threatens. Divine violence: law-destroying, expiates, strikes, lethal without spilling blood, revolutionary. Thomas hobbes talks about first law of nature everybody against everybody else: normal citizen doesn"t have ability to exercise violence, border between what is legal and what is not legal came with rise of modernity. Carl schmitt: the grip on the totality of a society is what makes something sovereign: can suspend the law in response to threat. Then re-establishes itself: doesn"t have to justify itself (ex.
