Theatre and politics
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, January 19, 2024
It is at least singular that one does not question oneself about the fact, no less unexpected than disquieting, that in our times the role of political leader is more and more often taken over by actors: it is the case of Zelenskyy in Ukraine, but the same had happened in Italy with Grillo (gray eminence of the 5 Star Movement), and even before in the United States with Reagan. To be sure, it is possible to see in this phenomenon evidence of the decline of the figure of the professional politician and of the growing influence of the media and propaganda on every aspect of social life; it is nevertheless obvious in any case that what is happening implies a transformation of the relation between politics and truth which needs to be reflected on. That politics had to do with lies is, in fact, obvious; but this simply meant that the politician, to achieve goals that he believed to be true from his point of view, could tell falsehoods without too many scruples.
What is happening before our eyes is something different: there is no longer a use of lies for political ends, but, on the contrary, the lie became, in itself, the very end of politics. Politics is, i.e., purely and simply the social articulation of false. One then understands why the actor is today necessarily the paradigm of political leader. According to a paradox that has become familiar to us from Diderot to Brecht, the good actor is not, indeed, the one who passionately identifies with his role, but the one who, maintaining his coolness, keeps it, so to say, at a distance. He will seem all the more true, the less he will hide his lie. The theatrical scene is, i.e., the place of an operation on truth and lie, in which the truth is produced by exhibiting the false. The curtain rises and falls just to remind spectators of the unreality of what they are seeing.
What today defines politics — which has become, as has been effectively said, the extreme form of the spectacle — is an unprecedented reversal of the theatrical relation between truth and lie, which aims at producing the lie through a particular operation on the truth. The truth, as we could see in these last three years, is not, indeed, hidden, but rather it remains easily accessible to anyone who wants to know it; however, if earlier — and not only at theatre — the truth was reached by showing and unmasking the falsehood (veritas patefacit se ipsam et falsum), instead now the lie is produced, so to say, by exhibiting and unmasking the truth (hence the decisive importance of the discourse on fake news). If the false was once a moment in the movement of truth, now the truth is worth only as a moment in the movement of false.
In this situation the actor is, so to say, at home, even if, with respect to the paradox of Diderot, he must somehow double himself. No curtain anymore separates the scene from reality, which — according to an expedient that modern directors have made familiar to us, forcing spectators to participate in the play — becomes it itself theatre. If the actor Zelenskyy sounds so convincing as a political leader it is just because he always and everywhere succeeds in uttering lies without ever hiding the truth, as if this were nothing but an unavoidable part of his recital. He — like the majority of the leaders of NATO countries — does not deny the fact that Russians have conquered and annexed twenty percent of Ukrainian territory (which on the other hand has been abandoned by more than twelve million of its inhabitants) nor that his counteroffensive completely failed; nor that, in a situation in which his country’s survival depends entirely on foreign financing which can cease at any moment, neither he nor Ukraine have any real chance ahead of them. This is the decisive reason why, as an actor, Zelenskyy comes from comedy. Unlike the tragic hero, who must succumb to the reality of facts that he did not know or believed to be non-real, the comic character makes one laugh because he never ceases to exhibit the unreality and absurdity of his own actions. Ukraine, once called Little Russia, is not, however, a comic scene and Zelenskyy’s comedy will only turn at last into a bitter, very real tragedy.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, January 19, 2024
It is at least singular that one does not question oneself about the fact, no less unexpected than disquieting, that in our times the role of political leader is more and more often taken over by actors: it is the case of Zelenskyy in Ukraine, but the same had happened in Italy with Grillo (gray eminence of the 5 Star Movement), and even before in the United States with Reagan. To be sure, it is possible to see in this phenomenon evidence of the decline of the figure of the professional politician and of the growing influence of the media and propaganda on every aspect of social life; it is nevertheless obvious in any case that what is happening implies a transformation of the relation between politics and truth which needs to be reflected on. That politics had to do with lies is, in fact, obvious; but this simply meant that the politician, to achieve goals that he believed to be true from his point of view, could tell falsehoods without too many scruples.
What is happening before our eyes is something different: there is no longer a use of lies for political ends, but, on the contrary, the lie became, in itself, the very end of politics. Politics is, i.e., purely and simply the social articulation of false. One then understands why the actor is today necessarily the paradigm of political leader. According to a paradox that has become familiar to us from Diderot to Brecht, the good actor is not, indeed, the one who passionately identifies with his role, but the one who, maintaining his coolness, keeps it, so to say, at a distance. He will seem all the more true, the less he will hide his lie. The theatrical scene is, i.e., the place of an operation on truth and lie, in which the truth is produced by exhibiting the false. The curtain rises and falls just to remind spectators of the unreality of what they are seeing.
What today defines politics — which has become, as has been effectively said, the extreme form of the spectacle — is an unprecedented reversal of the theatrical relation between truth and lie, which aims at producing the lie through a particular operation on the truth. The truth, as we could see in these last three years, is not, indeed, hidden, but rather it remains easily accessible to anyone who wants to know it; however, if earlier — and not only at theatre — the truth was reached by showing and unmasking the falsehood (veritas patefacit se ipsam et falsum), instead now the lie is produced, so to say, by exhibiting and unmasking the truth (hence the decisive importance of the discourse on fake news). If the false was once a moment in the movement of truth, now the truth is worth only as a moment in the movement of false.
In this situation the actor is, so to say, at home, even if, with respect to the paradox of Diderot, he must somehow double himself. No curtain anymore separates the scene from reality, which — according to an expedient that modern directors have made familiar to us, forcing spectators to participate in the play — becomes it itself theatre. If the actor Zelenskyy sounds so convincing as a political leader it is just because he always and everywhere succeeds in uttering lies without ever hiding the truth, as if this were nothing but an unavoidable part of his recital. He — like the majority of the leaders of NATO countries — does not deny the fact that Russians have conquered and annexed twenty percent of Ukrainian territory (which on the other hand has been abandoned by more than twelve million of its inhabitants) nor that his counteroffensive completely failed; nor that, in a situation in which his country’s survival depends entirely on foreign financing which can cease at any moment, neither he nor Ukraine have any real chance ahead of them. This is the decisive reason why, as an actor, Zelenskyy comes from comedy. Unlike the tragic hero, who must succumb to the reality of facts that he did not know or believed to be non-real, the comic character makes one laugh because he never ceases to exhibit the unreality and absurdity of his own actions. Ukraine, once called Little Russia, is not, however, a comic scene and Zelenskyy’s comedy will only turn at last into a bitter, very real tragedy.
(English translation by I, Robot)
1 comment:
Very interesting.
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