Time Reborn

Neolithic conservative

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 30, 2026

Paul Goodman, one of the most radical anarchist thinkers of the twentieth century, once defined himself as a “neolithic conservative”. And Ivan Illich — who thought of himself as one who was standing with one foot in the Catholic tradition and the other in the mire of his own time — used to say that his orthodoxy was so ancient and complete as to be revolutionary. This means that to comprehend, and perhaps even dismantle, the historical time in which we live, one must keep a foot in prehistory. This situation on the threshold or boundary between two incommensurable epochs is precisely what our time proves unable to satisfy. Not only does our time think in one dimension only, but has lost any relation with its own past — a relation without which no access to the present is possible. For this reason it can only look to a future which is in reality nothing else than the consequence of a past to which it is entirely oblivious — and which moves it with its strings like a puppet. Only those who stand firmly on both legs between past and present can reckon with both of them without being unconsciously moved by them. Only a neolithic conservative can be revolutionary enough to open up a new space for thought and action.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Joseph Beuys, Hearts of the Revolutionaries: Passage of the Planets of the Future, 1955. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Future Self

Sea and Shore

Sergio Mariotti – Roberto Cosulich
16th International Festival; San Benedetto del Tronto, July 1967
Sicilian Defence B39

Comments in quotation marks by L’Italia Scacchistica, No. 8, August 1967, pp. 184-185. The commentary is unsigned but is probably the work of the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Giovanni Ferrantes.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nc3 Ng4. Gyula Breyer’s brand.
8. Qxg4 Nxd4 9. Qd1 Ne6. Aron Nimzowitsch’s trademark.
10. Qd2 d6 11. h4!? At the time a novelty, which was probably inspired to Mariotti by his early mentor, the exiled Russian Prince Nikolay Alekseyevich Obolensky, who, long before the coming of AlphaZero, did not fear to use the h-Pawn as an attacking weapon — with both White and Black.
11. ... h5 12. Be2 Bd7 13. f4 Bc6. L’Italia Scacchistica attaches a question mark to it, but maybe it is not so bad as they think. Nevertheless, 13. ... Qa5! 14. Rc1 Nc5⇄ was certainly best now.
14. f5 Nc5 15. Bd4. “Now Black finds himself in a very critical situation”.
15. ... Bh6 16. Qc2

16. ... Rg8? So far, this is Black’s only mistake, and alas for him — is an almost definitive one. Much better was 16. ... e5! 17. Bxc5 (17. fxe6 0-0! leads nowhere for White) 17. ... dxc5 18. Rd1 Qf6 19. Nd5 Bxd5 20. Rxd5⩲ leaving White with little or nothing of advantage.
17. b4. “Wins a piece. Now Black must seek for the most counterplay possible in the attempt to save the game”.
17. ... Nxe4!? 18. Nxe4 gxf5 19. Ng5 e5 20. Be3. Not 20. Nxf7? Kxf7 21. Qxf5+ on account of 21. ... Kg7! 22. Bf2 Rf8 with the upper hand for Black.
20. ... Bxg2. “If now 20. ... f4? 21. Qh7!”.
21. Qxf5 Bxg5 22. Bxg5 Rxg5 23. hxg5 Bxh1. At the end of the skirmish, Black is two Pawns up — but only temporarily.

24. 0-0-0! Here is the point. If now 24. ... Bc6 there would follow 25. g6! winning at once. Therefore Black’s reply is forced.
24. ... Be4! 25. Qxe4 Qxg5+ 26. Kb2 0-0-0. Black has three Pawns for the Bishop and his King is castled, but only straight into the enemy’s attack!
27. Bf3 Rd7 28. Qh7? Mariotti complicates life uselessly. More straightforward was 28. c5! f5 29. Qc4 e4 30. cxd6+ Kb8 (30. ... Kd8 31. Bxh5!+−) 31. Qe6+− with an easy win.
28. ... h4 29. Be4 Kc7 30. Bf5. Probably White had to think about exchanging Queens on f5, but who can blame him for not doing so?
30. ... Re7 31. Bh3. “Threatens 32. Qh8 f5 33. Qf8 and wins”.

31. ... e4! “The only move”.
The way in which Cosulich saves the ending is remarkable, and remarkably technical. The punctuation of the following moves is that of the original text from L’Italia Scacchistica.
32. Qh8 Qe5+ 33. Qxe5 Rxe5 34. Re1. “If 34. Rf1 Black intended to reply with 34. ... b5! exchanging as many Pawns as possible”.
34. ... f5 35. Kc3 f4 36. Kd4 e3 37. Bg2 Rg5 38. Bf3 b5! 39. Rh1 bxc4 40. Rxh4 Re5! 41. Rh2! “It was a draw with 41. Rh1 on account of 41. ... e2! 42. Re1 Re3! 43. Bxe2 c3 and White can no longer move anything".
41. ... a5! 42. a3 axb4 43. axb4 Rg5 44. Rh4 Re5 45. Rh2 Rg5 46. Ke4? “This move leads to a draw by force. The only try was 46. Rh7+ Kb6! 47. Kxc4 d5+! (to close the f3-Bishop) 48. Kd4 (if 48. Bxd5? Rxd5! and Black queens) 48. ... Rf5! [sic] and it is problematic for White to win”.
Oh, no! The last move of the analysis is totally wrong, as after 48. ... Rf5?? 49. Rh6+! Kb5 (49. ... Kc7 50.b5+−) 50. Kc3 the Black King is caught in a mating net.
Therefore after 46. Rh7+ Kb6 47. Kxc4 d5+! 48. Kd4 Black has to look for 48. ... Rg3! 49. Bxd5 e2 50. Rb7+ Ka6 51. Re7 Kb5!= with a draw soon (but not 51. ... f3?? because of 52. Kc5!+− with unaivodable mate).
46. ... Rb5 47. Kxf4 Rxb4 48. Kxe3 Rb3+ 49. Ke4 d5+ ½–½. “The last three moves were made by inertia”.

Short on Time

Roberto Cosulich – Daniele Della Lunga
36th Italian Chess Championship; Pesaro, June 1975
5r2/4RNbk/1p2Q1p1/8/3q4/6P1/5PKP/8 w - - 0 1

“Short on time, White won after a long skirmish; he could, however, mate in three moves”, Grandmaster honoris Caïssa Enrico Paoli writes in his book L’arte della combinazione scacchistica, U. Mursia editore, Milano, 1986, p. 136. The proffered solution (Ibid., p. 143) is 1. Qh3+ Kg8 2. Qh8+!! Bxh8 3. Nh6#. However, it should be noted that after 1. ... Bh6 2. Qxh6+ Kg8 3. Qxg6+ Qg7 4. Nh6+ Kh8 5. Qxg7# it takes five moves for White to mate.

The Incommensurable Multitudes of the Being

The unnumberable people

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 23, 2026

One of the fundamental political problems — if not the most urgent one — is how to think of a not-numberable multiplicity (or multitude). As a political concept, the people only makes sense on the condition that it cannot be numberable; if it can be counted, what becomes decisive is no longer the people as such, but rather a numerical quantity — the so-called majority — into which the people dissolves through the perverse device of elections or plebiscites. The people — as well as the human species — is not a whole constituted by numberable singularities: the “popular” or “generic” character — i.e., the political character — must fully belong to the individual as such. It is what Marx sought to think through the concept of Gattungswesen (“species-being”), which defines each human being and not a numberable quantity. Since every human being “relates to himself as to the present, living species”, this cannot be a numerical sum of individuals, but it is a reality which is essentially and completely present in each one. If the people, like the species-being, gets numbered, it divides not only into a majority and minority, but also into factions, among which civil war necessarily arises. In Leviathan, Hobbes attempted to unravel this aporia by hypothesising a numberable multitude — which he calls multitudo disunita (disunited mutitude) — that constitutes itself as a unity into the body of the sovereign; but this means that the people has no unity other than by abolishing itself into the artificial person of the sovereign.
How to think, then, of a not-numberable multitude? Popularity and politicality are not definable properties, which, like the racial unity for the Nazis, can be attributed to any individual. Rather, they arise from the absence of a common identity element, which determines its belonging to this or that whole, to this or that class, and thereby renders it numberable. Like the proletariat according to Marx, the people cannot coincide with itself: it is, by its own constitution, non-all. If one attempts to seize it as a non-all, it resists any definition — and this resistance, this unnumberable rest is the people; it is the genuine political element.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, The Living Torrent, 1895–1896. Courtesy of Pinacoteca di Brera.

Dominoes

Visions of Joanne

The Enough Life

Hope and desire

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 20, 2026

As for hope and desire, our condition resembles that of those who, in Dante’s Divine Comedy, dwell suspended in Limbo and, in Virgil’s words, without hope live in desire (sanza speme vivemo in disio). We too, like the inhabitants of Limbo, are suspended between desire and hope; we’ve lost hope for a better world and, nevertheless, we vainly continue to desire it — we cannot help but do so. In order to exit from this status of limbo, we must direct our hope not to a good we lack but wish to possess, but rather to the one we already possess — the good which is within us — so that it may remain alive and makes us live. And if, in the apostle’s words, faith is the substance of things hoped for, then these things are present within us and before us, and the desire for a good in which we believe is always already fulfilled. Hope in what we already possess is, therefore, a special form of memory, which does not merely recall a past good, but acts relentlessly so that it remains present and alive. And this inversion of hope into memory is the thought, the life of the mind.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Valentine Hugo, Dream of December 21, 1929 (Self Portrait). Courtesy of WikiArt.

Not Yet Goodbye

Roberto Cosulich – Roman Shlemovich Pelts
15th International Festival; La Spezia, March 1978
Sicilian Defence B82

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. f4 Nc6 7. Be3 a6 8. Qf3 Qc7 9. Bd3 Bd7 10. Nb3. Alternatively, 10. 0-0-0 Rc8 11. h3!? b5 12. Kb1⩲ gives White slightly better chances, Sax – 叶江川 (Yè Jiāngchuān), 1st World Team Chess Championship, Lucerne 1985.
10. ... Na5? This time-wasting move is a harbinger of trouble for Black. If anything, the Knight should move to b4.
11. 0-0 Nc4 12. Bxc4 Qxc4 13. e5 Bc6 14. Qh3 Nd5 15. Na5 Qb4 16. Nxc6 bxc6 17. Nxd5 cxd5 (17. ... exd5 18. e6!)
18. f5! dxe5 19. fxe6 f6

20. Qh5+? White could and should take advantage of the Black King still in the centre with 20. c4!!, in order to open either the c- or the d-file. Apparently Black has no satisfactory reply, for if 20. ... Qxc4 then 21. Rac1 followed by the invasion to the seventh rank; if, instead, 20. ... dxc4 there would follow 21. Qh5+! g6 22. Qf3 with too many threats. On the other hand, the attempt to keep the files closed with 20. ... d4 fails to 21. Qh5+! Kf8 (21. ... g6 22. Qf3) 22. Bxd4! with an overwhelming initiative.
20. ... g6 21. Qf3 Be7. 21. ... Bc5 22. Rae1 0-0 23. Qxd5 Bxe3+ 24. Rxe3 Rad8 was also playable.
22. Qxd5 0-0

23. Rxf6! Cosulich tries his way by a spectacular Exchange sacrifice which, at least from a psychological perspective, is hardly separable from its practical justification.
23. ... Rfd8. Black cannot take the Rook at once, either with 23. ... Rxf6 (because of 24. Qxa8+) or 23. ... Bxf6 (on account of 24 e7+).
24. Qxe5 Bxf6 25. Qxf6 Rf8 26. Qd4 Qxd4 27. Bxd4 Rf4? This is the losing move. After 27. ... Rfe8! 28. Re1 Rac8 Black should somehow hold to the end.

28. Bc5! Of course, Cosulich didn’t miss the point, as the e6-Pawn is worth a treasure! The rest is a matter of technique.
28. ... Rc4 29. Ba3 Rxc2? Wins back a Pawn, but hastens the end. On the other hand, after 29. ... Re8 30. e7 Kf7 31. Rf1+ Ke6 32. Re1+ Kf7 33. c3 Black could not save the ending in any case.
30. Rf1 Kg7 31. e7 Rg8 32. Rf8 Re2 33. Kf1 Re6 34. b3 h5 35. h4 Kh7 36. Kf2 a5 37. Kf3 Re1 38. Bc5 Re6 39. a3 Re5 40. b4 axb4 41. axb4 Re6 42. b5 g5 43. b6 gxh4 44. Rxg8 1–0. For after 44. ... Kxg8 45. b7 the b-Pawn queens.

King’s Indian

Shernaz Kennedy, a lifelong friend of Bobby Fischer and author of Bobby Fischer’s Chess Queen. The untold story of the Indian woman who captured the American World Champion’s heart, has recently revealed that she had originally titled her book King’s Indian, but the pubisher, New In Chess, followed convention and switched the title to its present didascalic form.

À la recherche du temps non perdu

A Summer in the Seventies

The 2nd International Tournament at Bari, from August 9–23, 1970, was not the happiest one for Wolfgang Unzicker, who experienced most, if not all of the vicissitudes of a German tourist visiting Italy in summer. As wrote Bernard Zuckerman in his article “Tournament at Bari”, Chess Life & Review, Volume XXVI, No. 1, January 1971, p. 11, “Grandmaster Unzicker of West Germany was not in good form in this tournament. He was soundly trounced in the first round by the talented young Italian master, Cosulich, who incidentally, made the first leg of his international master title at this event”. But Unzicker’s misfortunes have not been limited to the board: “Besides his loss to Cosulich, Unzicker was upset by the fact that his car was broken into and some of his money stolen”, writes Zuckerman. “In fact, he postponed his game with Tatai for this reason”.

Roberto Cosulich – Wolfgang Unzicker
2nd International Tournament; Bari, August 9, 1970
Spanish Game C73

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 d6 5. Bxc6+ bxc6 6. d4 Bg4. In his annotations for Chess Informant, No. 10/1970, 302, p. 94, Grandmaster honoris Caïssa Enrico Paoli, maybe too influenced by the outcome of the game, gave his preference to 6. ... f6! (even the punctuation is his).
7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qxd8+ Rxd8 9. Be3! 9. Nfd2 f6 is assessed as equal by theorists. Likewise 9. Nbd2 f6 10. Nc4 Be6 is perfectly fine for Black; for example: 11. Ne3 Bc5 12. Bd2 Ne7 13. Ke2 Nc8 14. Ne1 Bd4 15. Nd3 Nd6 16. f3 a5 17. c3 Bb6 18. b3 a4 19. c4 Bd4 20. Rab1 f5 21. exf5 Nxf5 22. Nc2 0-0 23. g4 Nd6 24. Nxd4 exd4 25. Rbf1? Rb8 26. Nc5 axb3 27. axb3 Rxb3! 28. Nxb3 Bxc4+ 29. Kf2 Bxb3 30. Bb4 c5! 31. Ba3 c4 32. Re1 c3 33. Re7 Bd5 0–1 Klundt – Keres, International 100-Year Jubilee Tournament, Bamberg 1968.
9. ... Bd6. 9. ... f6! 10. Nbd2 Be6! (Paoli) is a suggestion worthy of attention.
10. Nbd2 Ne7 11. Nc4 f6 12. Nfd2! Intending c2-c3, followed by b2-b4 and Nd2-b3-a5.
12. ... Kf7 13. c3

13. ... Rb8? The question mark is from Paoli, who recommends 13. ... c5 14. Nb3 Be6 15. Nca5 Rb8 16. Bxc5 Bxc5 17. Nxc5 Rxb2⩱ with Black being slightly preferable, but he evidently overlooked that White is not compelled to capture on c5. Much better is 16. 0-0-0! (instead of 16. Bxc5?), retaining the Pawn and keeping the bind. There might then follow 16. ... Rb5 17. c4 Rb4 18. Bxc5 Ra4 19. Bxd6 cxd6 20. Rhe1 Bxc4 21. Nb7! Bxb3 22. Nxd6+ Ke6 23. axb3 Rb4 24. Nc4 Rxb3 25. Rd6+ Kf7 26. Rxa6 Rc8 27. Ra4 Ng6 28. Re3! Rb7 29. Rc3± with a Pawn up and chances for a win.
14. b4 Rhd8 15. Nb3 Nc8 16. Nba5± Bd7 17. 0-0-0 Ke7? Enveloping himself within his own walls. 17. ... Be7! was much more resilient and stubborn.
18. Rd2 Be8. 18. ... Nb6? 19. Rxd6!+− is an exemplary instance of euthanasia.
19. Rhd1 g6

20. g3! With methodical consistency, Cosulich conquers the board. One can only note that 20. Nxe5! fxe5 21. Bg5+ Kd7 22. f4! is another way to crush the defendant (28. ... exf4 29. e5+−).
20. ... Nb6. Neither 20. ... Ke6 21. f4+− nor 20. ... g5 (hoping to prevent, as far as possible, the advance f2-f4) 21. Nxe5! fxe5 22. Bxg5+ Kd7 23. f4!+− helps.
21. Nxd6 cxd6 22. Bxb6 Rxb6 23. Nc4 Rbb8. If 23. ... Rb7 then 24. Nxd6 Rbd7 25. Nb7+− (Paoli).
24. Nxd6 c5 25. Nxe8 Rxd2 26. Rxd2 1–0. Whether Black retakes with King or Rook, White will gain a second Pawn by 27. bxc5 and have an easily won ending.

La Vie en rose

Hollywoodly speaking, Edna, can you be absolutely certain that after all, tomorrow is another day?

Artwork © Jose-Ramiro

War and Peace in a Nonlinear World

Word Puzzlers

Day of the Locusts

Almond-Eyes & Long-Tail

A beautiful voice

Beauty and the Beast

Knowledge and knowability

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 5, 2026

Always and again we must question the primacy of knowledge in our culture, and ask ourselves whether indeed — according to the words which open Aristotle’s Metaphysics — what human beings desire is, first and foremost, to know. Indeed, if we restore truth to its etymological meaning of un-concealment (a-letheia), then what is at stake in truth is not knowledge, but knowability — the openess from which only something like knowledge becomes possible. If we call “face” the being manifest, the self-giving and appearing of each thing, then truth lies in this original openess; it is a remembrance of the faces of things, not their reduction to objects of knowledge and science. And since we feel pleasure and fall in love with appearances and faces, a knowledge which claims to do without it cannot in any way contribute to our happiness. If art and philosophy still hold our interest, it is because they deal not with knowledge, but with the knowability of things and people. A culture like the one we live in — which forgets faces and pursues knowledge at all costs — can only end, as is now evident, in a blind and destructive domination of the world by a science transformed into the most intolerant of religions.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Pavel Nikolayevich Filonov, Faces, 1940. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Seven To Eternity

Fugit Irreparabile Tempus

Lectures to the Working Classes

A general demobilisation

Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 1, 2026

In 1932, Ernst Jünger published Der Arbeiter, The Worker (or, perhaps more precisely translated, The workman — Marx’s Arbeiterklasse translates to “the working class”), in which this new figure of human being defined the new world order. The centrality of labour corresponds to the dominance of technology. By carrying out concepts he articulated two years earlier in his essay, Total Mobilisation, Jünger writes: “technology is the way in which the form of the worker mobilises the world”. Such a diagnosis — which revisited Marx’s analyses from a radically different perspective — exerted considerable influence across both the political right and left.
It is all the more surprising that this crucial epochal figure has now vanished over the past few decades. Technology continues to rule the world and has certainly increased its power everywhere, yet it is no longer “the way in which the form of the worker mobilises the world”. On the contrary, in the form of artificial intelligence, it rather seems to imply the decline of the centrality of labour which Jünger had in mind. Instead of the servitude linked to exploitation and mobilisation, technoogy — by progressively blurring the lines between social strata and classes — appears now to aim for an unprecedented subservience through a sort of general demobilisation.

(English translation by I, Robot)

Erró, Chinese man at the Guggenheim, New York, 1976. Courtesy of WikiArt.

Gaza Riviera

Cinema Paradiso