NEGRI ON NEGRI NEGRI ON NEGRI ANTONIO NEGRI WITH ANNE DUFOURMANTELLE TRANSLATED BY M.B.DEBEVOISE ROUTLEDGE NEW YORK AND LONDON Published in 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 www.routledge-ny.com Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE www. routledge. co. uk Copyright © 2004 by Taylor & Francis Books, Inc. Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère français chargé de la Culture— Centre National du Livre Originally published as Duretour: Abécé-daire biopolitique, © Calman-Levy, 2002 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Negri, Antonio, 1933– [Du retour. English] Negri on Negri/Antonio Negri with Anne Dufourmantelle ; translated by iv M.B.DeBevoise. p. cm. Includes bibligraphical references and index. ISBN 0-415-96894-1 (Print Edition) (HB)— ISBN 0-415-96895-X (Print Edition) (PB) 1. Communism—Italy. 2. World politics—20th century. 3. Political science. I. Dufourmantelle, Anne. II. Title. HX289.N374L3 2004 335. 43′092–dc22 2003022839 ISBN 0-415-96895-X(Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-50810-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-58005-2 (Adobe eReader Format) CONTENTS INTRODUCTION vii A AS IN ARMS 1 B AS IN BRIGATE ROSSE 33 C AS IN CAMP 39 D AS IN DEFEAT 41 E AS IN EMPIRE 59 F AS IN FASCISM 73 G AS IN GLOBALIZATION 75 H AS IN HEIDEGGER 79 I AS IN I—THE SELF 85 J AS IN JAMAIS PLUS 97 K AS IN KANT 105 L AS IN LOMBARD 109 M AS IN MULTITUDE 113 N AS IN NAMING 121 O AS IN OPPRESSION 129 P AS IN PANIC 133 Q AS IN QUESTIONING 147 vi R AS IN RESISTING 151 S AS IN SENSUALITY 157 T AS IN TEMPTATION 161 U AS IN UNITY 167 V AS IN VENICE 169 W AS IN WlTTGENSTEIN 175 X AS IN X 185 Y AS IN YET 187 Z AS IN ZENO 189 INDEX 193 INTRODUCTION ANNE DUFOURMANTELLE: I propose that we collaborate on a biographical and biopolitical abecedary, isolating words for each letter that have a particular meaning for you—thus, for example, A as in Arms, B as in Brigate Rosse, C as in Camp, and so on. ANTONIO NEGRI: This would be a departure from the familiar conventions of the interview—and one that would give it a certain liveliness! It may also permit me to express myself in a new way, and to address topics I’ve never talked about before. Since your thought is highly structured, this alphabetical device might serve to introduce a musical counterpoint. I don’t know if I’d be capable of anything musical. But there is a sort of polyphonic motif that I’ve been living with for a long time, the motif of return, which is now at the center of my biography. This return has had different meanings: the first, quite obviously, has been that of a physical return to Italy after fourteen years of exile—and therefore in prison after fourteen years of liberty; a dramatic return that viii once again put my whole life at stake. But there has also been another return, another meaning that was both intellectual and political: I reintegrated myself into the vita activa. Exile, even when it is extremely active—as mine had been—is draining. I lived for fourteen years without papers. It’s hard to make others understand how difficult it is to get by, how much of a void this type of life ends up creating. In coming back to Italy, even if I am deprived of my civil rights and forbidden to hold public office, I nonetheless have the feeling of being ence as having been enriched by exile: I bring to the current a citizen. In this new situation, I am able to think of my experidebate a prior life that hasn’t been frustrated by the sense of failure that many of my comrades experienced after the catastrophic outcome of the 1970s and 1980s. Today there is a renewed hope of transforming ourselves and transforming the world, and so, ingenuously perhaps, I continue to believe in the power of another revolutionary moment. I recall Machiavelli when he speaks in the Discourses of political and religious bodies, and affirms that “those changes make for their conservation which lead them back to their origins .”1And, after having noted how much constituent activity is required to maintain republics, he adds that the necessity of such “renovations” is no less clear from “the example of our own religion, which, if it had not been restored to its starting point by Saint Francis and Saint Dominic, would have become quite 1. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, edited with an introduction by Bernard Crick, using the translation of Leslie J.Walker, with revisions by Brian Richardson (New York: Penguin, 1998), 385. ix extinct.”2 This renewal is—return! Physical return is also a return to the physical passion of the past, to the renewal of the spirit. And so it remains for us only to set out on our way, going back to the past in order to discover in it the themes of the present. 2. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses, edited with an introduction by Bernard Crick, using the translation of Leslie J.Walker, with revisions by Brian Richardson (New York: Penguin, 1998), 389