The Remnants of Giorgio Agamben: The Omnibus Homo Sacer upon Its Completion

ABSTRACT

Just as they did two decades earlier during the so-called war on terror, they inflamed the public's fear over a miniscule threat to declare a "state of exception" and radically expand oppressive capacities.1 Merely a week later, when the pandemic's terrible advance was overwhelming Italy's health system, it became clear how wrong Agamben had been and how necessary sweeping social restrictions were. The Hungarian parliament transferred legislative authority to the cabinet, establishing a de facto dictatorship;the Israeli police forced individuals to install tracking aps (ignoring courts' rulings that deemed those illegal);and the United States government harshly restricted the processing of student and immigrant visas, all of which were blatantly unrelated to any health consideration. If Viktor Orban, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Donald Trump used the pandemic to pursue goals beyond improving the health of their subjects (a task in which all of them showed remarkable lack of interest), it was not because they embodied the universal logic of state power. According to Agamben, the homo sacer was not a marginal character nor was he an anachronistic remnant of ancient rites;he was the very center of the Roman system.