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The katechon in the age of biopolitical nihilism

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Abstract

The article addresses the ‘messianic turn’ in contemporary continental philosophy, focusing on the concept of the katechon as the restraining force that delays the advent of the Antichrist in the Second Letter to the Thessalonians. While Carl Schmitt held the passage on the katechon to ground the Christian doctrine of state power, Giorgio Agamben’s reading of Pauline messianism rather posits the ‘removal’ of the katechon as the pathway for messianic redemption. In our argument, the significance of this text goes beyond the persistence of a vestige of the theological in modern politics. On the contrary, the logic of the katechon only comes into its own under modern nihilism as the resolution of the problem of social order in the absence of the eschatological dimension. The article focuses on the lethal paradox of the logic of the katechon, whereby the function of protection and restraint is converted into violence and anomie, and global political order becomes indistinguishable from global civil war. We conclude by outlining the conditions for suspending the katechonic function in a critical engagement with Agamben’s messianic politics.

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Notes

  1. 2 Thessalonians 2, 6–8, cited in Agamben (2005a, p. 109). Since we shall primarily deal with Agamben’s interpretation of this passage, we rely on Patricia Dailey’s translation of the Pauline text in the Time that Remains.

  2. For theological interpretations of the Letter see e.g. Best (1972), Jones (2005).

  3. Schmitt (2003, p. 60). For other references to the katechon in Schmitt’s texts see Schmitt (1997, pp. 8, 43, 2008, p. 92). In his late writings Schmitt designated numerous institutions and persons as the katechons of their time (the Jesuit Order, Emperor Franz Joseph, Jus Publicum Europeaum, Masaryk, Pilsudski, etc.) yet this designation arguably remained allegorical. See e.g. Palaver (1996, pp. 123–124), Meier (1988, pp. 158–166).

  4. Schmitt (2003, p. 60).

  5. Cf. Balakrishnan (2002, p. 224).

  6. Schmitt (2003, p. 63).

  7. Schmitt (2003, p. 238).

  8. See Strauss (1976, p. 103), Palaver (1996, pp. 105–127), Ojakangas (2006, pp. 189–201).

  9. Schmitt cited in Meier (1988, p. 162).

  10. Agamben (2005a, p. 110).

  11. Agamben (2007, p. 77).

  12. Rasch (2007, pp. 102–108).

  13. Agamben (1998, pp. 15–36).

  14. Agamben (1998, pp. 105–106).

  15. Agamben (2005a, pp. 95–101).

  16. Agamben (2005a, p. 111).

  17. Agamben (2005a, p. 111).

  18. Cf. Schmitt (1985).

  19. Agamben (2005a, p. 111).

  20. Virno (2008, p. 45).

  21. Schmitt (1976, pp. 58–66).

  22. Virno (2008, p. 16).

  23. Virno (2008, p. 21).

  24. Virno (2008, p. 31).

  25. Virno (2008, pp. 56, 189).

  26. Virno (2008, p. 57).

  27. Virno (2008, p. 59).

  28. Virno (2008, p. 60).

  29. Virno (2008, pp. 60–61).

  30. Derrida (1985, pp. 1–28).

  31. Derrida (1981, pp. 61–172).

  32. Agamben (1993, p. 7, see more generally pp. 39–41, 79–105).

  33. Virno (2008, p. 61).

  34. Hardt and Negri (2000).

  35. Virno (2008, p. 64).

  36. Virno (2008, p. 54).

  37. Virno (2008, p. 190).

  38. See Virno (2008, p. 60).

  39. Esposito (2008a, pp. 50–51).

  40. Esposito (2008a, p. 46).

  41. Esposito (2008a, p. 56).

  42. Esposito (2008a, p. 58).

  43. See Derrida (1998, pp. 145–146).

  44. Derrida (1998, p. 92).

  45. Derrida (1998, p. 112).

  46. See Esposito (2008b, p. 640).

  47. Esposito (2008a, p. 115).

  48. Esposito (2008a, p. 138). See also Derrida (2004, pp. 33–37).

  49. Esposito (2008a, p. 54).

  50. Benjamin (2003). For a detailed discussion of the Benjamin–Schmitt debate see Agamben (2005b, pp. 53–57), Weber (1992, pp. 5–18), Bredekamp (1999, pp. 247–266).

  51. Schmitt (1985, pp. 13–32, 35–63). Cf. Schmitt (1994).

  52. Benjamin (2003, p. 88).

  53. Foucault (2007, p. 260).

  54. Benjamin (2003, p. 81).

  55. Benjamin (2003, p. 66). In State of Exception Agamben contested the conventional version of this fragment, arguing that Benjamin’s editors have erroneously replaced the original “there is a baroque eschatology” (Es gibt eine barocke Eschatologie) by “there is no baroque eschatology” (Es gibt keine barocke eschatology), distorting the meaning of the text. In Agamben’s (2005b, p. 57) reading, Benjamin’s point is precisely that the baroque age knows an eschaton, but this eschaton is wholly immanent to this world, consigning the world “to an absolutely empty sky.” The plausibility of Agamben’s correction is somewhat tempered, since he does not consider another occasion on which the absence of eschatology is invoked in Benjamin’s text: “[Consequent] upon the total disappearance of eschatology is the attempt to find, in a reversion to a bare state of creation, consolation for the renunciation of a state of grace.” Benjamin (2003, p. 81, see also the passage on the “rejection of eschatology” on the same page). On the other hand, Agamben’s correction does not entirely modify the conventional reading but rather adds an insightful nuance to it: the vacuity of the eschaton is not the same as its absence, as the “white eschatology” without any content persists in this world and configures it as a permanent state of exception, a site of “catastrophe.” Benjamin (2003, p. 66).

  56. Benjamin (2003, p. 66).

  57. Benjamin (2003, p. 55).

  58. Agamben (2005b, p. 57).

  59. Benjamin (2003, p. 85).

  60. Benjamin (2003, p. 70).

  61. Benjamin (2003, p. 70).

  62. Benjamin (2003, p. 88).

  63. Benjamin (2003, p. 95).

  64. Weber (1992, p. 12).

  65. Foucault (2007, pp. 87–133).

  66. Foucault (1990, pp. 133–159, 2008, pp. 27–73).

  67. Benjamin (2003, p. 96). See also Weber (1992, p. 17).

  68. See also Badiou (2003), Zizek (2003).

  69. Milbank (2008, pp. 159, 161).

  70. See Agamben (1991, p. 39, 2005a, p. 102, 2005b, p. 64).

  71. Derrida (1994, pp. 15–38, 56–74).

  72. Agamben (1995, p. 82).

  73. Agamben (1991, p. 106).

  74. Agamben (2007, pp. 73–92).

  75. Agamben (1993, p. 106).

  76. Agamben (1993, p. 102).

  77. See e.g. Agamben (1991, pp. 49–53, 99–101, 1998, pp. 60–62, 2000, pp. 109–111, 2005a, pp. 99–103).

  78. Benjamin (2003, p. 92).

  79. Agamben (1993, p. 57).

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  1. Academy of Finland Research Fellow, Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Sergei Prozorov

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Prozorov, S. The katechon in the age of biopolitical nihilism. Cont Philos Rev 45, 483–503 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-012-9232-y

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