Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 01:23:51 -0100
Subject: Re: marxist grand narrative - the return?


Eric/All,

 Eric wrote:
> So here is the gauntlet I am laying down. Would you be willing to
>  discuss Empire critically with us here?  To evaluate what AN and MH have
>  to say both as theory and in its implications for action?

 O.K.

 I suggest we start with these assertions which  I've copied from Empire
 online  -

 I see this approach it as a very grand narrative, which we can work our
way
through beginning with an understanding of its seminal terms, such as
"immanence",
 "multitude",  the democratic elements of  armies, fascism and assorted
 historical despotisms

 best,
 Hugh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIS EXTRACT BEGINS AT PAGE 391 OF THE ONLINE VERSION
( BOOK PAGES ARE DIFFERENT.)

Christian religion is what destroyed the Roman Empire by destroying the
civic passion that pagan society had sustained, the conflictual but loyal
participation of the citizens in the continuous perfecting of the
constitution and the process of freedom.

We should be clear where that when we speak of the "city" or "democracy" in
quotation marks as the basis for the expansive activity of the Republic, and
as the only possibility for a lasting empire, we are introducing a concept
of participation that is linked to the vitality of a  population and to its
capacity to generate a dialectic of counterpowers - a concept, therefore,
that has little to do with the classical
or the modern concept of democracy.

Even the reigns of Genghis Khan and Tamerlance were from this perspective
somewhat "democratic," as were Caesar's legions, Napoleon's armies, and the
armies of Stalin and Eisenhower, since each of them enabled the
participation of a population that supported its expansive action.  What is
central in all these cases is that a terrain of immanence be affirmed.

Immanence is defined as the absence of every external limit from the
trajectories of the action of the multitude, and immanence is tied only, in
its affirmations and destructions, to regimes of possibility that constitute
its formation and development.

Here we find ourselves back at the center of the paradox by which every
theory of Empire conceives the possibility of its own decline - but now we
can begin to explain it.  If Empire is always an absolute positivity, the
realization of a government of the multitude, and an absolutely immanent
apparatus, then it is exposed to crisis precisely on the terrain of this
definition, and not for any other necessity
or transcendence opposed to it.

Crisis is the sign of an alternative possibility on the plane of Immanence -
a crisis that is not necessary but always possible.  Machiavelli helps us
understand this immanent, constitutive, and ontological sense of crisis.
Only  in the present situation, however, does this coexistence of crisis and
the field of crisis and the field of immanence become completely clear.
Since the spatial and temporal dimensions of political action are no longer
the limits but the constructive mechanisms of imperial government, the
coexistence of the positive and the negative on the terrain of immanence is
now configured as an open alternative.  Today the same movements and
tendencies constitute both the rise and the decline of Empire.
























 imminet apparatus, then it is exposed to crisis precisely on the terrain of
this definition, and not for any other necessity or transcendency opposed to
it.  Crisis is the sign of an alternative possibility on the plane of
immanence - a crisis that is not necessary but always possible.  Machiavelli
helps us understand this immanent , concstitutive
constitutive, and ontological sense of crisis.  Only in the present
situation,
however, does this coexistence of crisis and the field of immanence become
completely clear.  Since the spatial and temporal dimensions of political
action are no longer the limits but the
constructive mechanisms of imperial government, the coexistence of the
positive and




 Eric/All,

Eric wrote:
 > So here is the gauntlet I am laying down. Would you be willing to
 > discuss Empire critically with us here?  To evaluate what AN and MH have
 > to say both as theory and in its implications for action?

O.K.

 I suggest we start with these assertions which  I've copied from Empire
 online:.

I see this approach  as a very grand narrative, which we can work our
way  through beginning with an understanding of its seminal terms, such as
"immanence", "multitude",  the democratic elements of  armies, fascism and
assorted
historical despotisms

 best,
 Hugh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIS  EXTRACT BEGINS AT PAGE 391 OF THE ONLINE VERSION ,
( BOOK PAGES ARE DIFFERENT.)

Christian religion is what destroyed the Roman Empire by destroying the
civic passion that pagan society had sustained, the conflictual but loyal
participation of the citizens in the continuous perfecting of the
constitution and the process of freedom.

We should be clear where that when we speak of the "city" or "democracy" in
quotation marks as the basis for the expansive activity of the Republic, and
as the only possibility for a lasting empire, we are introducing a concept
of participation that is linked to the vitality of a  population and to its
capacity to generate a dialectic of counterpowers - a concept, therefore,
that has little to do with the classical
or the modern concept of democracy.

Even the reigns of Genghis Khan and Tamerlance were from this perspective
somewhat "democratic," as were Caesar's legions, Napoleon's armies, and the
armies of Stalin and Eisenhower, since each of them enabled the
participation of a population that supported its expansive action.  What is
central in all these cases is that a terrain of immanence be affirmed.

Immanence is defined as the absence of every external limit from the
trajectories of the action of the multitude, and immanence is tied only, in
its affirmations and destructions, to regimes of possibility that constitute
its formation and development.

Here we find ourselves back at the center of the paradox by which every
theory of Empire conceives the possibility of its own decline - but now we
can begin to explain it.  If Empire is always an absolute positivity, the
realization of a government of the multitude, and an absolutely immanent
apparatus, then it is exposed to crisis precisely on the terrain of this
definition, and not for any other necessity
or transcendence opposed to it.

Crisis is the sign of an alternative possibility on the plane of Immanence -
a crisis that is not necessary but always possible.  Machiavelli helps us
understand this immanent, constitutive, and ontological sense of crisis.
Only  in the present situation, however, does this coexistence of crisis and
the field of crisis and the field of immanence become completely clear.
Since the spatial and temporal dimensions of political action are no longer
the limits but the constructive mechanisms of imperial government, the
coexistence of the positive and the negative on the terrain of immanence is
now configured as an open alternative.  Today the same movements and
tendencies constitute both the rise and the decline of Empire.
























 imminet apparatus, then it is exposed to crisis precisely on the terrain of
this definition, and not for any other necessity or transcendency opposed to
it.  Crisis is the sign of an alternative possibility on the plane of
immanence - a crisis that is not necessary but always possible.  Machiavelli
helps us understand this immanent , concstitutive
constitutive, and ontological sense of crisis.  Only in the present
situation,
however, does this coexistence of crisis and the field of immanence become
completely clear.  Since the spatial and temporal dimensions of political
action are no longer the limits but the
constructive mechanisms of imperial government, the coexistence of the
positive and