The first friend and the first enemy
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 17, 2026
As an intellectually lively scientist friend writes to me, the fundamental event in the history of the living was the appearance of a microorganism capable of feeling pain. This thesis obviously needs to be clarified, putting before — or adding — “pleasure” to “pain”. If we relate this fundamental capability of the living to what Aristotle writes about the perception of the sensation of existence (“sensing that we are alive is in and of itself sweet, for life is by nature good and it is sweet to sense that such a good belongs to us”), we can then say that a primordial form of the capability to feel pleasure or pain refers to the very fact of existing, to the feeling of living. The sensation of the sweetness of living corresponds, indeed, to its symmetrically opposite one, in which for some reason — or even for no apparent reason — the feeling of living is painful.
The Aristotle quote is from his treatise on friendship that takes up Books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics. After defining the sweetness of the sensation of living, Aristotle adds that we feel the same sweetness for the existence of a friend and friendship is this con-senting (synasthanesthai, sensing together) (to) the existence of an-other man, who thus becomes “an other self” (heteros autos). Not only is there a sensation of existence, a feeling of living, but this sensation is always already shared, it is always already consent to the existence of the other; and friendship is the instance of this con-senting (to) the existence of the friend in the very feeling of one’s own existence.
It will then be possible to develop this thesis in relation to the other polarity of the sensation of existence, in which it no longer appears joyful, but painful. The con-senting (to) the existence of the friend will now correspond to the con-senting (to) the existence of the enemy. And if the friend-enemy pair defines politics according to Schmitt, then at the foundation of politics are the pleasure and pain that define the human sensation of existence and the con-senting of the existence of the other inherent in it. Friendship and enmity, love and hate, the philein of philos and the echthairo of echthros do not refer to a doctrine of affections, but are first and foremost two fundamental ontological-political categories. If we feel the sensation of living as sweet, then we are in friendship and peace; if, instead, we feel it as hateful, we fall into war and enmity. Once again, at the basis of our relationship with others lies the relationship with ourselves, the way we con-sent (to) our existence determines the way we situate ourselves in the world. Our first friend and our first enemy are ourselves.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, July 17, 2026
As an intellectually lively scientist friend writes to me, the fundamental event in the history of the living was the appearance of a microorganism capable of feeling pain. This thesis obviously needs to be clarified, putting before — or adding — “pleasure” to “pain”. If we relate this fundamental capability of the living to what Aristotle writes about the perception of the sensation of existence (“sensing that we are alive is in and of itself sweet, for life is by nature good and it is sweet to sense that such a good belongs to us”), we can then say that a primordial form of the capability to feel pleasure or pain refers to the very fact of existing, to the feeling of living. The sensation of the sweetness of living corresponds, indeed, to its symmetrically opposite one, in which for some reason — or even for no apparent reason — the feeling of living is painful.
The Aristotle quote is from his treatise on friendship that takes up Books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics. After defining the sweetness of the sensation of living, Aristotle adds that we feel the same sweetness for the existence of a friend and friendship is this con-senting (synasthanesthai, sensing together) (to) the existence of an-other man, who thus becomes “an other self” (heteros autos). Not only is there a sensation of existence, a feeling of living, but this sensation is always already shared, it is always already consent to the existence of the other; and friendship is the instance of this con-senting (to) the existence of the friend in the very feeling of one’s own existence.
It will then be possible to develop this thesis in relation to the other polarity of the sensation of existence, in which it no longer appears joyful, but painful. The con-senting (to) the existence of the friend will now correspond to the con-senting (to) the existence of the enemy. And if the friend-enemy pair defines politics according to Schmitt, then at the foundation of politics are the pleasure and pain that define the human sensation of existence and the con-senting of the existence of the other inherent in it. Friendship and enmity, love and hate, the philein of philos and the echthairo of echthros do not refer to a doctrine of affections, but are first and foremost two fundamental ontological-political categories. If we feel the sensation of living as sweet, then we are in friendship and peace; if, instead, we feel it as hateful, we fall into war and enmity. Once again, at the basis of our relationship with others lies the relationship with ourselves, the way we con-sent (to) our existence determines the way we situate ourselves in the world. Our first friend and our first enemy are ourselves.
(English translation by I, Robot)
Mahmoud Farshchian, Pleasure and Pain, 1990. Courtesy of WikiArt. |
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