THE LAW OR LIFE: NOTES ON AGAMBEN AND BATAILLE

Abstract

This article aims to explore the similarities between the philosophies of Georges Bataille and Giorgio Agamben regarding the intimate connection, for both, between law and human life. In both, and based on certain works in which this connection is explored, law and life interrelate in such a way that they become, in practice, indistinguishable from one another. Indeed, the conception held by both authors seems, at first glance, quite peculiar, as it is not intuitively understood how exactly these terms can be juxtaposed so that their relationship is evident to the uninitiated reader. Therefore, to achieve its objective, this work must clarify not only the similarities in their thinking but also define, without claiming to be exhaustive, how law and life are conceived, and will consequently help to dispel the strangeness felt in the unceremonious union of these two concepts. It is important to emphasize that we will not discuss the technical differences between law, norm, rule, interdict, taboo, and more, due to the short text space. We intend, in a later study, and in a suitable space, to delve into these distinctions and point out what dissimilarities exist—if any—between the relationships between law and life, norm and life, rule and life, interdict and life, taboo and life, etc. In any case, we conceive of all these terms under a common meaning. Law, norm, rule, interdict, and taboo are orders, or ordinances, although there is no synonym between these concepts, they are more or less explicit, which conform patterns. Likewise, repetition, recurrence, organization, configuration, and characterization occur because there are orders that permit and impede, provide space or block—whether descriptive or normative. Anticipating, by way of introduction, what we will explore later in the text, we affirm that, for Bataille in *Eroticism*, law and life are opposed. Life is seen, in its purest state, as Dionysian chaos, in which the living and dying of beings are simple and inexorable facts of existence. This confusion is radically transformed by the incidence of the law—what in Bataille's reading is called "interdict"—which establishes the limits of conduct and behavior, imposing order on chaos, preventing life—in all its exuberance—and death—in all its rawness—from spreading freely, in a tragic cornucopia. It is in the midst of this imbroglio that the human being emerges—oscillating between the two. That is, while the law establishes the thresholds that guide conduct, life is extravagance, disruptive intensity. For Agamben, in the formulations found in *Altissima Poverty*, law and human life are constructively related. Life is its law, and thus, there is no life that is not legal. Investigating the Christian regula vitae of the 13th century—with special attention to Franciscanism in its clashes with the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the time—the author perceives how, over time and for the West, the indiscernibility between living and having a law is consolidated—with all the philosophical, theological, and legal consequences that derive from it. It is important to recall here the Apostle Paul's principle that "the Christian dies to the law." In this case, anomie emerges as a deviation that persistently leads thought back to the empty space in which the different elements of a binomial dance and replace each other in their respective roles, maintaining the Western anthropological machine. We emphasize that the scheme presented so far has primarily an expository function. The thoughts we intend to explore are more nuanced than the description we have provided. Let us see what they actually are. In the conclusion, we will revisit them with sufficient critical balance to provide a more accurate description.