State and anomie II
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 27, 2026
If we refer to the doctrine contained in the second Pauline epistle to the Thessalonians, then we can say, as we already did in this column, that the katechon, the power that holds back and delays the end, which the fathers identified with institutions (the Roman Empire and the Church itself), is now in crisis everywhere. We are therefore witnessing the advent of the anomos, a lawless power that produces ruin and proclaims itself to be God (for this reason the fathers identified it with the Antichrist).
This is evident in the United States, where institutions no longer seem to work and all power is in the hands of a man who speaks and acts without any more laws (the same can be said for Israel), and disguises himself as God. It is well to reflect on this epochal situation, which involves the entire West. Since istitutions (the State and its historical articulations) lost any credibility, it is vain to found the power that holds back the eschatological event on them. And this is all the more true because the anomos, the lawless, is not an external principle, but the appearance the institution itself assumes in its decay. Trump and Netanyahu do not come from outside: it is the State itself, the power that should hold back and delay the end, which becomes the agent that hastens and precipitates it into its most ruinous forms.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 27, 2026
If we refer to the doctrine contained in the second Pauline epistle to the Thessalonians, then we can say, as we already did in this column, that the katechon, the power that holds back and delays the end, which the fathers identified with institutions (the Roman Empire and the Church itself), is now in crisis everywhere. We are therefore witnessing the advent of the anomos, a lawless power that produces ruin and proclaims itself to be God (for this reason the fathers identified it with the Antichrist).
This is evident in the United States, where institutions no longer seem to work and all power is in the hands of a man who speaks and acts without any more laws (the same can be said for Israel), and disguises himself as God. It is well to reflect on this epochal situation, which involves the entire West. Since istitutions (the State and its historical articulations) lost any credibility, it is vain to found the power that holds back the eschatological event on them. And this is all the more true because the anomos, the lawless, is not an external principle, but the appearance the institution itself assumes in its decay. Trump and Netanyahu do not come from outside: it is the State itself, the power that should hold back and delay the end, which becomes the agent that hastens and precipitates it into its most ruinous forms.
(English translation by I, Robot)
Marc Chagall, Moses receiving the Tablets of Law, 1966. Courtesy of WikiArt. |
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