War is peace
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 23, 2025
Among the horrors of war which are often forgotten is its surviving in peacetime through its industrial transformations. It is known — but forgotten — that the barbed wires with which many still fence off their fields and properties come from the trenches of the First World War and are stained with the blood of countless dead soldiers; it is known — but forgotten — that the dinghies which crowd our beaches were invented for the landing of troops in Normandy in the Second World War; it is known — but forgotten — that the herbicides used in agriculture derive from those used by the Americans to deforest Vietnam; and, last and worst consequence of all, nuclear power plants with their indestructible waste are the “peaceful” transformation of atomic bombs. And it is well to remember, as Simone Weil comprehended, that external war is always also a civil war, that foreign policy is, in thruth, a domestic policy. Reversing Clausewitz’s formula, now politics is nothing but a continuation of war by other means.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 23, 2025
Among the horrors of war which are often forgotten is its surviving in peacetime through its industrial transformations. It is known — but forgotten — that the barbed wires with which many still fence off their fields and properties come from the trenches of the First World War and are stained with the blood of countless dead soldiers; it is known — but forgotten — that the dinghies which crowd our beaches were invented for the landing of troops in Normandy in the Second World War; it is known — but forgotten — that the herbicides used in agriculture derive from those used by the Americans to deforest Vietnam; and, last and worst consequence of all, nuclear power plants with their indestructible waste are the “peaceful” transformation of atomic bombs. And it is well to remember, as Simone Weil comprehended, that external war is always also a civil war, that foreign policy is, in thruth, a domestic policy. Reversing Clausewitz’s formula, now politics is nothing but a continuation of war by other means.
(English translation by I, Robot)
Cagnaccio di San Pietro, Primo denaro (Money first), 1928. Courtesy of WikiArt. |
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