TERM PAPER TOPICS

Attempt any one:

Biopolitics and the Question of the Animal.

OR
Citing different examples from Partha Chatterjee's Politics of the Governed, write a
note on 'Political Society', especially highlighting its moral component. Is it possible
to include Fitzpatrick's understanding of 'responsive law' in a discussion of political
society?

"Biopolitics" is described as "an intersectional field between biology and politics." 1

The term derives from the concept of "Biopower", coined by the French
philosopher/theorist Michel Foucault. In the Foucauldian sense, Bio-politics refers to
what he described as the power and techniques of rule employed by the modern
state on its populations. This idea of the control, subjugation and management of
populations is possible by what Foucault would call carceral techniques that is
employed by the modern state in all kinds of public institutions in contrast to pre-
modern forms of absolute sovereign power. Discipline is not merely punitive but
formative. Movements and actions of the subjects are calibrated and orchestrated
through many subtle techniques. In Foucault's analysis, these subjects would
believe that they are free, when in fact they are but the sum of several calculations
devised to produce them as docile and predictable. According to Foucault, modern
bio-political power was made possible by the biological speciation of the human.
However, the human is attributed a special and privileged place in the taxonomy of
living beings. The human may be even considered an animal and as having instincts
similar to what are recognized and considered to be animals. However, animal is
also used pejoratively to describe a human who has lost or does not possess what
may be considered as special human characteristics. This lack makes him/her less
than a human, closer to an animal and hence in a less than desirable position.
Though, it is important to note that animality has also been used to describe a
redeeming quality in the human, connoting a proximity to what might be considered
as pure and unadulterated2.

1 Wikipedia.org. Entry for "Biopolitics".

2 Animality is defined as something "physical, instinctive behaviour or qualities."

www.Google.com. Entry for "Animality".
"Animal" is defined as "a living organism which feeds on organic matter, typically
having specialized sense organs and nervous system and able to respond rapidly to
stimuli."3 It is also used to define "any such living organism other than a human
being."4 Humans and animals are arranged into a taxonomy that classifies them on
the basis of a genus, specie, sub-specie etc. These classifications help to cite
similarities and differences amongst what are considered as humans and non-
humans (or even humans and non-human animals). What has also been of great
interest in the modern sciences since Darwin's theory of evolution, has been to
trace "continuities" between human and non-human species. Existing apes such as
the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Orangutan and the Bonobo are considered to be the
closest relatives to humans. This idea suggested by Darwin was extremely
controversial and was ridiculed on both biblical and scientific grounds. Modern
biological anthropology, that began in the 18th century was founded on the
question of racial classification. There are now detailed taxonomies and theories
related to the genealogy of the human species and primate ancestors, of which the
Homo Sapien is considered as the result and the only surviving species of the genus
Homo. Homo Sapien is the broad term for what is considered as the modern
currently existing human, irrespective of race. Of course, as I mentioned, it is the
very question of race and what could be considered as human, that led to these
sciences in the first place. The question of the animal is then related to the question
of race. Unlike what is considered as the scientific and rational genealogy of the
genus Homo, racial classification is today recognized as socially and politically
regressive. Extra-ordinary events of ethnic cleansing like the Jewish holocaust and
the slavery enforced on African populations by European enterprise from the 17th
through 19th centuries, in the name of racial inferiority symbolize the adverse
effects of racial attitudes. However, racial identity is also affirmed and highlighted in
contemporary struggles in identity politics. The question of race then, like what
Jacques Derrida would observe about democracy, is of a movement in turns. Race is
both the site of oppression and of the mobilization and articulation by the
oppressed. There is a back and forth movement that is socially and politically
tentative. What does it then mean to assert oneself as a legitimate human and
hence avail of certain rights, or what does it mean to be provided rights on the
grounds of humanity or what does it mean to granted specific non-human rights by
humans? The question of what is human, is then always related to what is animal,
since they seem to stand in a negative relation to each other. One seems to define
the other. What the human is, can only be a historically relative question, whether
from the perspective or racial theory or biological anthropology(especially biological
anthropology). Hence, the question of the human is a bio-political one. If one agrees
on what a human is, then one agrees on the criteria that makes one human. Such

3 www.Google.com. Entry for "Animal".

4 Ibid.
criteria can be used to include and exclude, hence the question of humanity is
necessarily a racial one. What is 'anthropocentric' then, excludes not only non-
humans as such, but also humans who are considered to be not completely human.
Even if one were inducted into humanity, the fact remains that one's humanness
will always have to be clarified, confirmed and preserved. Hence, the animal needs
to be articulated. It is never only a biological question, for it has social and political
implications on more or less everything.

Below, I will attempt to provide a brief summary of Derrida's arguments and

analyses in his essay "But as for me, who am I(following)?" regarding the question
of the animal. Derrida moves through several characteristically human faculties and
facets such as self-reference, shame etc. and meditates on the question of what is
considered as the animal.

Derrida begins with the question "As for me, who am I?". He explains the generally
accepted understanding that such a question can be at least by repeated by
animals like parrots and chimpanzees even if they may not understand what it
means. Derrida observes that philosophers over the ages have reached a consensus
of sorts that animals do not respond. In a similar way, Derrida notes that writing
also does not respond. "No matter what question one asks them, writings remain
silent, keeping a most majestic silence or else always replying in the same terms,
which means not replying."5 According to Derrida, the crucial question for the
human when it comes to speech or lack of it in animals is not so much the fact that
the animal cannot speak, but that it does not respond. "What counts when it comes
to speech would be above all exchange, or the question-response coupling." 6

One of the crucial differences between human and animal that is always cited is the
faculty of language and the specific ability the human possesses of self-reference.
The faculty of self-reference and the inability of animals to perform this, has largely
been an accepted fact since Descartes. For Descartes, unlike the human, the animal
does not possess a separate faculty of thinking and therefore of intelligence. It is an
automaton. Derrida argues that the "I" is always possible, by imitation, pure
repetition etc. but it is only considered as legitimate when uttered by the human.
However, he argues that the "I" has always signified an "autobiographical
guarantee"7 even if the source of utterance has already passed over to death. This
is what happens in autobiographical writing too, that does not respond when spoken

5 'But as for me, who am I(following)?'; "The Animal That Therefore I Am", Jacques
Derrida. Pg.52.

6 Ibid. Pg.53.

7 Ibid. Pg.56.
to. Derrida argues that autobiography always carries with itself an modesty and lack
of it simultaneously that reveals itself and declares that it is telling the truth.
Derrida asks if the animal can recognize the naked human, and if it can realize itself
as naked and therefore have shame and modesty.

Derrida discusses Descartes' negotiations with the "I". He observes that some or the
other aspect of sensation or bodily experience is necessary to articulate in order to
use "I" or while using it. "..something tenuous, like a wind or fire or ether, which
permeated my more solid body parts." The "I" is not like a commander of a vessel.
There is an effort to access a pure "I" which would need to refer to the body,
reference to life etc. Descartes comes up with thought, thinking as the only and
purest way of accessing the "I". "The presence to itself of the present of thinking,
the presence that presents itself to itself in the present, that is what excludes
everything detachable constituted by life, the living body, animal life." 8 It is also
something that distinguishes the human from the animal, and hence draws the line
at the human as the only possible thinking animal. It is also interesting to note that
"Homo Sapiens" comes from Latin meaning "wise man".

For Descartes' it was important to not make inferences or correlations of animals

possessing similar sentiments to the human purely from physical similarities. The
lack of response from an animal/automaton even if subjected to harm is evidence
enough of man's superiority to the animal. For Descartes, even if a man constructed
an artificial automaton, he would inevitably come to the conclusion that animals are
in fact automatons in flesh and blood, lacking sentiments and hence inevitably
inferior to the human. As Derrida notes, "..this conclusion, let us never forget,
follows from a judgment."9 This animal, like any other lacks a crucial faculty, that is
of being able to respond. Derrida argues that this reveals that the question of the
response is also hence a question of the question to which the response is
expected. "What is this interest in a true question, that is the whole question, that
which has been subsequently determinedno sooner said than doneas the
question of the logos, of reason, being, and the other?" 10

Derrida explains Kant's understanding of the sense of the "I". For Kant, Derrida
argues that "Power over the animal is the essence of the "I" or the "person", the
essence of the human..This personal subject is capable of its selfness, is capable of
doing it without saying it, if I can say so; it can affirm itself in its selfness and in its
dignity, which is to say its responsibility, its power to respond, to answer for

8 Ibid. Pg.72.

9 Ibid. Pg.83

10 Ibid. Pg.84.
itself..."11. Auto-referentiality, auto-prescription and self-determination is considered
as granting and the source of "..privilege or absolute advantage of the human.." 12.
Derrida explains that Kant's arguments imply that the animal is non-rational, lacking
in subjectivity and hence lacks the facet of dignity, which again becomes a uniquely
human characteristic. Dignity however, is also the very grounds on which human
beings have frequently demanded rights and attempt to do so on behalf of non-
humans too. He also explains Adorno's analyses of Kant's attitudes towards
animality as reflective of a implicit cruelty, the implications of which affect severely
the question of humans who have been or may be considered sub-human and
hence deserving of murder, on the grounds of what is perceived as lacking in
rationality and capacity to think. Extending what he felt was the affinity between
idealist aspirations and the general urge of mastery over nature, Adorno even goes
as far as to claim that in an idealist system, animals are in the same position as the
Jews were with respect to the Nazi fascists. "And such a fascism begins whenever
one insults an animal, even the animal in man. Authentic idealism consists in
insulting the animal in the human or in treating the human as animal." 13

Derrida explains how insult can be performed not just by calling one an animal. The
same may apply to the case of the woman, the child or the Jew. Citing Elisabeth
Fontenay, Derrida reveals how important Jewish writers such as Kafka, Adorno etc.
were deeply interested in the question of the animal. Fontenay sees this interest in
the question of the animal as a critique of 'rationalist humanism'. Also, she sees the
interest in the question of the animal as a common thread shared by victims of
catastrophes throughout history. Derrida also argues that what is of interest to him
in not only a critique of rational humanism, but also in the creation of an alternative
mode of history that questions the basis of what is now current as human history.
He believes that a certain "simplisticness, misunderstanding, and violent
disavowal"14 is at work in the present time against questions of the animal and
therefore of the human and vice versa.

Following Fontenay's thesis regarding the prevalence of the question of the animal
amongst major modern Jewish thinkers, Derrida takes on the work of Emmanuel
Levinas. Derrida perceives a lacuna on the question of the animal in Levinas' work.
What is crucial to note, he argues, is a particular way of thinking of the human
subject that continues from Descartes to Levinas, who in spite of their differences

11 Ibid. Pg.93.

12 Ibid. Pg.100.

13 Ibid. Pg.103.

14 Ibid. Pg.105.
"..by situating the possibility and necessity of sacrifice at the heart of its ethics, fails
to feel concerned or looked at, if I may say so, by the animot and fails to recognize
in it any of the traits attributed to human face." 15 Derrida argues that despite
Levinas locating the self as fundamentally tied to the other, the subject as hostage,
the subject of this ethics of responsibility and fraternity possesses ultimately, a
human face. Ethics as such is human. It is only by translation and analogies that a
human-like suffering is located in the animal. Even is the ethical is claimed to
include all living beings, it is based on human prototype. Derrida argues that in
avowing that he cannot say what the face of a snake is, Levinas is also implying that
he does not actually know what the legitimate face is, where the face begins. This
compounded with the faculty of refusing to respond(as also an ability that the
human assumes for him/herself) seems to render Levinas' entire discourse and the
face of the other undone. As Derrida argues, if one is responsible and fundamentally
tied towards the other "..wouldn't it then also be toward the animal, which is still
more other than the other human, my brother or my neighbour?" 16 Derrida argues
that the entire western philosophical tradition from Descartes to Levinas and Lacan
speak of the animal always in a disavowal of it.

In "The Lesser Animal", Daniel Heller Roazen discusses the phenomenon of Aphasia
in humans. He cites the 10th century Arab scholar Al-Jahiz's work "Book of Living
Things" and his accounts of natural history. Even though Al-Jahiz mentions the
several traits and abilities that man is endowed with, yet he argues that man is
fundamentally limited as compared to other animals. He concedes that man, with
some natural aptitude and hard work can achieve great intellectual heights.
However, according to Jahiz, man lacks the spontaneous creativity and ability that is
found in other animals. However, it is not merely the the inferiority of man as
compared to other animals that is of interest to Jahiz. He notes that there is one
facet of existence over which man has a unique dominion. That is of failure, of being
able to do something with lesser proficiency or choosing to perform an act that
requires a lower level of skill. Roazen argues that speech is frequently the most
prudent example of this 'failure', that Al-Jahiz attributes as a unique ability in
humans. "More than once scholars of language have found that they could learn the
most about their object by exploring the varying forms of its possible failure: its
distortion, omission and disappearance among those who would otherwise seem its
masters."17

15 Ibid. Pg.106.

16 Ibid. Pg.107.

17 'The Lesser Animal', "Echolalias: On the Forgetting of Language", Daniel Heller

Roazen. Pg.132.
Through a discussion of Freud's early essay "On Aphasia", Roazen theorizes Aphasia
and its symptoms as the perpetual inability and effort at translating and re-
arranging certain perceptions and experiences leading to the "..perpetual
recurrence of one utterance at the expense of all others." 18 For Roazen, then
Aphasia is "..not a type of forgetfulness but exactly the reverse: an aggravated form
of recollection .."19. He cites a passage from Kafka, describing a person who has not
forgotten the inability to swim and explains this very condition in speech as the
condition of aphasia. Hence, the aphasic always reaches a primordial stage where
"..the aphasic would obstinately bear witness to what was never written and what
could not be said."20 He argues that it is forgetting that leads to speech, for memory
will render one unable to speak. The aphasic reaches a point in memory which is
like a blank slate that does not respond. The only thing that remains is a perpetual
repetition of the "remnant". Aphasia refers back to a stage before speech, memory
and language as such.

What is crucial for Roazen then, is the question of what constitutes being able to do
more or less. If aphasia were understood simply as a disorder of speech and inability
to speak, it can be considered as a failure of speech. There is a disconnection in the
sequence from thought to action, from the signal emitted by the neurons to the
movement of the body, for instance. There is lack of response to a question. Though
as Derrida would argue, in the western humanist tradition the choice to not respond
is also considered as a unique human ability. In aphasic state however, the human
comes closest to the conception of the animal as automaton, in that there is a
perpetual repetition and response that is nonetheless not the right one. Again the
question of the response is a question of the question that demands the response.
Failure may be interpreted as the wrong response but in being theorized as a unique
human ability, it is still a response that may not be correct but can be even
substantiated by a statement "I cannot". In other words, Al-Jahiz's claim of the
superiority of the non-human animal attributed to its natural proficiency can be a
description of animal as automaton. Failure itself, in the guise of the inability of the
human is again an assertion of the unique position of the human and his/her
agency. The failure of the aphasic is however, not in not being able to speak, but in
not being able to respond correctly to the question.

Derrida argues that the very constitution, the idea of rights, and that which is also
now being granted to animals is problematic from the very outset. For this, he refers
to the fundamentally problematic nature of rights as such. "..a certain concept of

18 Ibid. Pg.145.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid. Pg.146.
the subject, which, while founding law and right, will have led at the same time to
the denial of all rights to the animal, or rendered radically problematic any
declaration of animal rights."21 If the animal is that which cannot respond, does not
have rights, or is provided with rights 'later', or possesses secondary rights, it is
because of the question of the response. This is in fact the explicit argument posed
by critics of animal rights such as Carl Cohen, who argue that any holder of rights
should be able to understand and comprehend the differences between their
interest and their rights; that which is able to respond to the other with a legitimate
face and response. Hence, rights are only possible amongst living beings who
possess language, or at least those who seem to speak the same language. An
animal and aphasic are described as not being able to respond. This failure is
however different from the failure of not having been able to perform.

The granting of rights to animals then, is an act of empathy that they too feel pain
and hence a measure to protect them. Rights then, are in fact always granted to
beings that can respond (the first evidence of response being revealed in the
response to pain)and they are immediately produced as subjects. Bio-politics then,
is the management of populations through the measurement and measured
application of pain to subjects who may nonetheless respond in various ways. If the
subject who bears rights is one who is also bound by duty, then response and pain
are inevitably connected to responsibility i.e. answerability. Bio-politics then, is the
creation of subjects who are answerable, hence bound by law. Interestingly, it is in
instances of the efforts towards obtaining rights for animals and/or to conserve their
populations that one confronts the 'difficult' choice to be made between the human
and the animal in cases of conflict and confrontation 22. What is at stake again is
language. To speak in language then is always to express pain, the ability to provide
the correct response to the question that always asks for proof of 'worth' 23. The
lowest denomination of expressing worth is language, both for one of a 'lower race'
of human and the animal. Bio-politics or bio-power then, is the management of the
response-able subject.

21 'But as for me, who am I(following)?'; Pg.88.

22 On May 21st, 2016, two resident lions were shot dead at the Santiago
Metropolitan Zoo in Chile, after a man jumped inside their enclosure, in what
seemed to be a suicide attempt. The lions mauled him after he provoked them. The
zoo officials shot the lions dead claiming that they did not have fast-acting
tranquilizers to sedate the lions soon enough.
[http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/22/americas/chile-zoo-lions-naked-suicide-trnd/]

23 Not only to express 'pain', but even the pain of not being able to express, to
express imperfectly. The correct response is the expression of imperfection, or
failure.
BIBILOGRAPHY:

1. Jacques Derrida; 'But as for me, who am I(following)?', The

Animal That Therefore I Am. Trans. David Wills, Ed, Marie-Louise
Mallet. Perspectives in Continental Philosophy, Fordham
University Press, New York, 2008.

2. Daniel Heller Roazen; 'The Lesser Animal', Echolalias: On the

Forgetting of Language. Zone Books, New York, 2005.
 SUBMITTED BY:
Ivan Iyer
2nd Semester M.Phil(2015-17)