29th March 2010
Quote
War, because in each singular play between forms-of-life, the possibility of a fierce confrontation—the possibility of violence—can never be discounted.
Civil, because the confrontation between forms-of-life is not like that between States—a coincidence between a population and a territory—but like the confrontation between parties, in the sense this word had before the advent of the modern State. And because we must be precise from now on, we should say that forms-of-life confront one another as partisan war machines.
Civil war, then, because forms-of-life know now separation between men and women, political existence and bare life, civilians and military;
because whoever is neutral is still a party to the free play of forms-of-life;
because this play between forms-of-life has not beginning or end that can be declared, its only possible end being a physical end of the world that no one would be able to declare;
and above all because I know of no body that does not get hopelessly carried away in the excessive, and perilous, course of the world.
