Peace and War

Abstract

In this article, we begin from the assertion that global war does not affirm itself as an imperial ordering power without `opacifying' every regulative idea of peace, which is thereby reduced to the status of a deceptive illusion. `Postmodern' peace, which is absolutely contemporaneous with war, is deduced from war in the guise of the `post-democratic' institution of a permanent state of exception, of a continuation of war by other means (externally as well as internally), and of a reduction of sovereignty to the imbalance of terror, in accordance with the principle of distinction that opposes friend and enemy. Once war, peace and barbarism interact with no rule other than the common sense of the unworldly squalor ( l'immonde), only Combat against War can destroy the sensorial evidence of a false social peace and open on to the construction of a World ( Monde) that is once again possible for the singularities that we are in common. Whence derives the character of social threat that marks out contemporary art (and explains the trials to which it is subjected) when it focuses on the mediatic world-image by putting to work a new transversalist aesthetic paradigm, exposing itself to the tearing asunder of the sensible in the over-exposition of peace to war. This could be art's new address, tracing its difference in a creative machination of affects that can no longer find support in any remembrance of the being of peace.

I Kill, Therefore I Am: War and Killing as Structures of Human Spirit

“…From the time of the ancient Greeks, war has been the model for human life and the foundation for communication, culture and religion. Since the Islamist terror attack on the West on 11 September 2002, war emerged again as a key principle for organising societies (Alliez and Negri 2003;Hardt and Negri 2006, 12;Montgomery 2005, 149;Foucault 2003). For contemporary society, as it was for the ancient Greeks, "warfare constitutes the chosen framework within which all other activities of men are placed, and to which they relate" (Havelock 1972, 21;Sidebottom 2004, 16).…”

Mexico, the failed state debate, and the Mérida fix

“…As Žižek () argues, ‘we do not have wars proper, but merely ‘unlawful combatants’ resisting the forces of universal order’. In a similar vein, Alliez and Negri () argue that the state of exception allows states to define war‐like operations as instances of keeping the peace.…”

“…These empirical changes have led scholars to make two theoretical assertions about the changing nature of war. First, the non‐state actors who now dominate the battlefield have been placed in a ‘state of exception’, neither governed by nor accorded protections from the law (Alliez and Negri ). They are in Agamben's () terms, the homo sacer of modern life, relegated by the state to live a ‘bare life’ outside the law (Žižek ).…”

Interreligious Peacebuilding and Minority Problems in Islamic Mystical Teachings

“…This high position led to pacifism being considered one of the main characteristics of the mystic (Taufik, 2019;Waston, 2018). In terms of mysticism, peace is divided into two types (Alliez & Negri, 2003):…”