Emergency Powers: Art and Society in a Time of Crisis - i

A characteristic sense of crisis afflicts any society experiencing an attack on its central structures, both physical and symbolic. In a crisis such as the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the response can be to demonize the ethnic or religious group from which the enemy emerged; in short, an unwitting belligerence can descend on societal relations generally. In some instances, a pugnacious leader is celebrated, and politics can slip further into bullying, xenophobia, and distraction. Ensuing economic crises can set off waves of panic, despite the unprecedented investments made in arms as the reach of an empire expands, and as new technologies are harnessed to make the instruments of war more ruthless, shocking, and efficient.

Against the specter of “global terror” and waves of economic instability, the traditional hierarchy of power may attempt to confirm itself with a regressive declaration of “emergency powers” in various guises. In some instances, protests are treated as treasonous acts, and the government can fine or imprison publishers and writers. Ultimately, it may impose emergency police state measures; even an ostensibly ‘advanced’ democratic society may threaten to suspend habeas corpus. While not all these consequences of crisis are to be noted in the United States during the first decade of the twenty-first century, there are points of similarity, particularly as the fading images of the terrorist assault are refashioned into the spectacle of propaganda projected across the media. A society in the ongoing throes of such a crisis becomes less and less habitable.

How to confront this political and cultural crisis is a central question recently posed by many contemporary thinkers, among them Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Rancière, and Slavoj Zizek. In my next few posts, I’ll explore some answers proposed by one of these writers, Giorgio Agamben. As I do so, I want to note some of the ways that their shared thinking has been influenced by two significant earlier theorists – first, in the next post, Walter Benjamin and then, later, Maurice Blanchot. All of these writers analyze and encourage certain modes of resistance to extreme political measures, as they attempt to reframe how we should observe and engage the potentially decadent and regressive behavior of governments.