COMMUNITAS

The Origin and Destiny of Community

Roberto Esposito
Translated by Timothy Campbell

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
 Contents

Stanford University Press

Stanford, California
Introduction: Nothing in Common
English rranslarion © 2010 by the Board ofTrusrees of the Leland Stanford Junior
University All rights reserved. Fear 20

Communitaswas originally published in Italian in 1998 under the title 2 Guilt 4I

Communitas: Origine e dessino della comrmitli© 1998, 2006, Giulio Einaudi
J Law 62
Edirore.
86
>~
4 Ecstasy
This book has been published with the assistance of the International
Wriring and Translation at rhe University of California, Irvine.
Center for
5 Experience 112 .
~
=
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any ~
Appendix: Nihilism and Community 135 v
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Notes 151
Stanford University Press. r:
"L
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality papet
C
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ~
Esposito, Roberto, 1950- {;
Communitas : the origin and destiny of community / Roberto Esposito ; <
translated by Timothy Campbell. :I
p. em. - (Cultural memory in the present)
"Communitas was originally published in Italian in 1998 under me title
Cornmuniras. origine e desrino del.la comunire."
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8°47-4646-5 (cloth, alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8047-4647-2 (pbk. , alk. paper)
1. Communities-Philosophy. L Title. II. S· u1
present. cries: C rural memory in the

B105.C46E8620IO
307·oI-dc22

2009013193
COMMUNITAS
 -_.~-- - '---

IL:::..:-=
-).,.

"- - ~ --

Introduction: Nothing in
Common

Nothing seems more appropriate today than thinking community:

>~
nothing more necessary, demanded, and heralded by a situation that joins ~
in a unique epochal knot the failure of all communisms with the misery of ]
~
new individualisms.' Nevertheless, nothing is further from view; nothing 4
so remote, repressed, and put off until later, to a distant and indecipher- ""
able horizon. It isn't that the philosophies expressly addressed to think- ::;
ing community were or are lacking. On the contrary, they tend to consti- 0
tute one of the most dominant themes debated internationally.' Yet not u
only do they remain well within this unthinkability of community bur
C
"
they constitute its most sY.!!l~Ill.~!icexpression. There is something else ~
as well that goes beyond the specific modalities in question (communal, ~
communitarian, communicative) that contemporary political philosophy ~
)

adopts now and again and that concerns instead community's very form:
the community isn't translatable into a political-philosophical lexicon ex-) 0

cept by completely distorting (or indeed perverting) it, as we saw occur so I

tragically in the last century. This appears to contradict the tendency of
a certain kind of political philosophy to see in the question of communi-
ty its vety same object. It is this reduction to "object" of a political-philo-
sophical discourse that forces co~~iO'i-conceptuallanguage that
radically alters it, while at the same time attempts to name it: that of the
individual and totality; of identity and the particular; of the origin and the
end; or more simply of the subject with its most unassailable metaphysical
connotations of unity, absoluteness, and inrerioriry' It isn't by chance that
 2 Introduction Introduction ( 3

/. I _//
,. beginning from similar assumptions, political philosophy
communiry as a "wider subjecriviry", as, and this in spire of the presup-
posed opposition ro the individualist paradigm, such a large parr of neo-
rends ro think Ferdinand Tennies's Gemeinschaft, which differs from Gesellschaft on the
basis of the originary appropriation of its own ptoper essence. It's enough
to recall in this regard Max Weber's most secularized communjty in order

~l:(...
· comrnurutanan phdosophy ends up doing, when it swells the self in the to find highlighred. albeir in a denaturalized form, rhe very same figure
r'l' I/hyperrrophic figure of "rhe unity of unities." This also occurs in those of belonging: "The communalization of social relarionships occurs if and
cultures of inrersubjecriviry always intent on finding otherness in an alter insofar as the orientation of social behavior-whether in the individual
ego similar in everything to the ipse that they wou\d like to challenge and case,on the average or in the idea type-is based on a sense of solidariry: v--

rhar Instead they reproduce. '6 w.'I, _ f.",,~,t, the result of emotional or traditional attachments of parricipants.Y That
, • -'1> r~ s.-v! this possession might refer above all to territory doesn't change things ar
. The truth IS that these concepnons arc united by the igno[e~ump-
/ ~ that community is a "£!!?Eerry" belonging to subjecrs that join rhern all,' since territory is defined by the caregory of "ae£!Q!1!Etion," as the
rogerher [acc0m.una]: an attribute) a definicion) a predicate that qualifies originary matrix of every other ptoperty rhat fol/ow0--'Jf we linger a little
\. - e . them as belonging to the same totality [insieme], or as a «substance" that and reflect on community without invoking contemporary models, rhe
J-~. ,'-1-' is pr~duced ,by their union. In each case community is conceived of as a mosttEfadoxical aspect of the question is that the "common" is defined'
oN I· quality tha'.'s added to their natu~e as subjecrs, making them also subjects exactly through its~b~~~: what IS common IS ~~w~~h £-= •

1/
V" 1
of commUnIty. More subjects, subjects of a larger entity, one that is senior
or even better
. '-- than simple
_ individual
. identity
--' but from W h' JC h' It ongl-
nates a~d In,the end reflects. Despite the obvious historical. conceptual,
and lexical differences, from this perspective the organicistic sociolo
,.

f
--
unites the ethnic, territorial. and spiritual property of everyone of ItS
members They have in common what is most properly their own; rhey
.
arethe owners of what is common to them all.
~

Gemeim~haft.,American neo-communitarianism, and the various etht:; ~f My first intention in rhis work lies in distancing myself from rhis '\
communJcatl~n (and the ~ommunist tradition as well, despite quite a dif-
ferent caregon~~1 profile) lIe beyond rhe same line thar keeps rhem within
dialectic, Yet if, as we say, this dialectic constitutively inheres in the coo- /
ceptuallanguage of modern political philosophy, rhe only way to escape
-
r
v
v
the unthmkabllIry of community. For all these philosophie . C • from it resides in locating a point ~fdeparture. a hermeneutic support,
ufi II " "h" ' , s, In laet, it is a C
thu ness....o~~~le .... (the ongmary meaning of the lemma teuta is fitting that is both outside and autonomous wit~ct to such a dialectic. I've
;;
l/J r
en, wnlch m different Indo-European
.. d h C h
ent, an r ererore r e "fullness" of rhe social b d'
lit /k I:;'
dialects means"
0 y InSOrar
C
II ""
swo en,
'. h
as It IS et. nos
po-
searched for this point,'in a manner of spea ing, within the origin of the
very thing itself under investigation, in rhe '(tymology of the Latin rerm
;.,I
1
~ ,peop eJ. 1t IS also, using a seemingly different terminology a good ~ communitas. ln order to do so, I had to ptoceed along a path that was )

) va ue. an essence. which clepe d' h' ' ~ , anyrhing bur easy. one rhar moves actoss lexical traps and difficulries in
rhen f, d h' n 109 on t e case In question, can be lost and
re oun as somet mg that once bid d h interpretation, but that can lead to a notion of com~nity that is radically
once again bela '. conge to us an t at therefore can
ng ro us; an anglO to be m d d' different from rhose rhat have been dealr with up to now.
owed based on rh c'-- au me or a esuny foteshad-
e penecr symmetry h r k h ~ Indeed, as dictionaries show, the first meaning of the noun commu-
case. community is h . t at in s arc e and teLos. In each
w at IS most properly " .. ['f ~, ' nitasand of its corresponding adjective. communis, is what becomes mean-
Wherher it needs to ap . h' p~wn 1 nostro plU propno].

and communitarianism )
prop nate w at IS COIn (C
, mon to us lOr commUnIsms
. ingful from ~e ~pposition to what is roper. In all neo-Larin languages ~ v
s or to commUnIcate wh ' (though nor only), "common" commun, comun, kommun) IS what IS not
own (for rhe erhics of co '. ar IS most ptoperly OUt
Th mmumcauon) whar' d d ' proper [proprio], rhat begins where what is proper ends: Quod commune)
/ e community remains cl bl . d ' lS pro uce doesn t change,
' au y Ue to rhe s . f cum alio est desinit esseproprium.9 It is what belongs to more than one, (0
th IS score it isn't n emanucs 0 proprium, On
, ecessary to touch on the R ,- many or to everyone, and therefore is rhar,which is "public" in opposition to' ,,/
post- omannc mannerism of
~~ "'d"dl"
"private"or "general" (though also "collective") in contrast to ill IVI ua \
 4 Introduction Introduction 5

[particolare]. In addirion ro this first canonical meaning, which is already which are transposed in donum [gift], and situates in Benveniste's view the
traceable to the Greek koino (and also translated in the Gothic g,m,inand specificity of the latter in a present [regalo] that is potentially unilateral.
its derivatives Gemeinde, GemeinsclJaft, Vergemeinschaftung), there is still By this I mean that it does not require an equal return or remuneration,
another meaning to be added. one, however, Jess obvious because ir rrans- as is shown in the late Thomistic expression donum proprie est" datio ir-
fers properly within itself the ~rger semantic complexity of the term from redibilis," id est quod non datur intentione retributionisY
Yet it is in this
which ir originates: mu us (irs archaic form is moinus, moenus), which is withdrawal [tom being forced into an obligation that lies the lesser inten-
composed of the root mei- and the suffix -nes, both of which have a social sity of the donum with respect to the unrelenting compulsion [cogenza] of
connotation." This term, in fact, oscillates in [Urn among three meanings the munus. In short, this is the gift that one gives because one must give 1
that aren't at all the same and that seem to make it miss its mark, or at least and because one cannot not give. It has a tone so clearly of being obi iged
co limit the emphasis, the initial juxtaposition of "public/private" -munus [doverosita]as to modify or even to interrupt the one-to-one correspon-
dicitur tum de priuatis, tum de pub/ieis-in favor of another conceptual dence of the relation between the gift giver [donatore] and the recipient
area that is completely traceable to the idea of«oblig~on" [dovere].J1These [donatario].Although produced by a benefit that was previously received,
are onus, officium, and donum.12 In truth, for the firsr rwo the meaning the munus indicates only the gift that one gives, nor what one receives."
of duty [dovere] is immediately clear: obligation, office, official, position All of the munus is projected onto the transitive act of giving. It doesn't
[tmptego], and post. The third appeats, however, to be more problematic. by any means imply the stability of a possession and even less the acquisi-
In what sense would a .flift [dono] be a duty? Doesn't there appear, on the tive dynamic of something earned, but loss, subtraction, transfer. It is a
contrary, something spontaneous and therefore eminenrly voluntary in "pledge" or a "tribute" that one pays in an obligatoty form. The munus is
the notion of gift?
the obligation that is contracted with respect to the other and that invites
Yet the specificity of the gift expressed in the word munus with re- a suitable release from the obligation. The gratitude that demands new
spect to the more general use of do"..um has the effect of reducing the donations. Munus, in this sense, and even more ~ficus, is he who shows
initial dlsta~ce and of reaJlgnmg rhis meaning with the semantics of dur . the proper "l\.'3.ce," according to the equation of Plaurus's gratus-munus:'9
The munus In fact is to donum as "species is to genus "13 becaus y
" .fi .. b ' c, yes, J[ giving something that one can not keep for oneself and over whl~h, there-l
means gl~, ut a particular gift, "distinguished by its obligatory char-
fore, one is not completely master. I realize that I am forcing slightly the
acter, Jn~-pIJedby Its root mei-, which denotes exchange."14 With respect
concept of "gratefulness," which is more literally expressive of the munus.
t? the Clrc~lar relari~n ~etween gift and exch~ one can't help refer-
Vet what else does the "one obliged" [it riconoscente] accede to If not that
rmg to Emile Benveniste s well-known studies and even earlier t M I
Mauss's E ',Oarce he unequivocally "owes" something of which he was the ben~<ficiary and
( auss s rarnous essay on the relationship 15 But let's t C
I .h . s ay ror a moment that he is called to acknowledge in a form that places him at the dIS-
onger Wit the element of being obliged [doverosit;']· onc h
. e someone as position of' or more drastically "at the mercy of" so~eone "else? W.ha,~
accepte d t h e munus an obligation (0 ) h b
.h . ' nus as een created to exchange it predominates in the munus is, in other wotds, reeip!.ocltx-0r m~3lttr
elt er In terms of goods or service [servizio] Once' '.
rion between "gift" d" ffi" .".. again the supenmposl- (munus-mutuus) of giving that assigns the one to the other in an obliga-
an 0 ce comes IOta h' h . . .
disrincdy)'oined in the' View, W JC In addition are tion [impegno]. But let's also add in a common oa~iurare communzam or
expression munerefun . 16 I ' h .
following Mauss's Ie d h . gz. t s true t at BenvenISte, communionem in the sacred bon~r~f the coniuratio.
a ,ttaces t e necesSIty [ h h
tet-gift," even before in th cl dOt e exc ange, of the "coun- If we relate this final meaning of munus to the collective communitas,
e root 0- an thete£; . h d· .
dorea, and dosis' from th
,
Ii d h
ere we n ted bI
ore In t e envattves doron, we can draw forth a new force with respect to the classic duality "publicfl
[dare] and "take" [p, d ] " ou y crossed ditection of "give" private:' one that calls into question (or at least ptoblem.mes) the WIde-
en ere, to take (to give) to" [in English.-Trans.l,
spread but rather dubious homology between communitas and respublICa,
 6 Inrrodnction introduction ( 7

which in turn produces the equally problematic synonym koinonia-pel. precisely ~hem of rheir initial property (in parr or completely),
(originally aurhorized by rhe Arisrorelian koinonia polilike, which is rrans- of t~~!l?!~~!--I~rop--efJY-t.namely! ~h~ very subjecti~ity. ",?ethus c~me
Jared most frequenrly in Larin as communims and nor as IOCittas).20 The 180 degrees back ro the synonymy of common-proper, which the philos-
emanric disparity registered in this making pubSro
homologous
and communitas concerns. on rhe one hand, (he excessive vaguenessof
of",

the arrribure publico, but especially, on the orher hand, the "quality' of
ophies of community unconsciousl ~pose,

proper bur by what~R!£B.er,

and to the restoration ~f
the fundamental opposition: the common isn'Ot characterized by what IS
or even more drastically,~; by a
~,
the res. What is the "thing" that the members of the communiry havein voidingjsvuotamentoJ, be it partial or whole, of property into ItS negatIve;
common, and is it really '(something" positive? Js ir a good; is it wealrhi ~oving wh~s properly one's own [depropriazione] that invests and
1n[er~s[perhaps? Dictionaries provide us with a dear answer. Despite (heir decenters the proprietary subject, forcing him to take leave ["scire]of him-
warnmg [h~r we aren't dealing with a certified meaning. rhey do rellus self, to alter himself. In the community, subjects do not find a principle
,~ha[ the anctenr and presumably originary meaning of communis had to be of identification nor an aseptic enclosure within which they can establish
he who shares an office [carica], a burden [carrco], a task [incarico]." From rransparent communication or even a content [0 be communicated. They'

I
!"ere rr en~:rges that cornmnnirsr is the rorahry of persons united nor by a don't find anything else except that void. that distance, that extraneous-
-
" pr~perry bu~ pte~sely by a obligation or a debt; not by an "addition" ness that constitutes them as being ~ngJ:rQIn themselves; "givers to" >~
" [pm] but by a ~rraction". [meno]: by-EJacls.a J.0:llu:hat is configured as inasmuch as they themselves are "given by" [donati da] a circuit of mutual.
an O~US, or even as a defectlve modality for him who is "affected" unlike
~orhun who is instead "e.xe:npt" [esente] or "exempted." Here we'find the
gift giving that finds its own specificity in its indirectness with r~spect to ,
~
the frontal nature of the subject-object relation or to the ontologICal full-
nal. and most chara~teClsnc of the oppositions associated with (or that ness of the person (if not in the daunting ~eman icluR!.9ty of the French ~
dommate) the alternat~ve bet~n public and private. those in other words
personne, which can mean bot h~ ®OFl a~~e" ")23
.
......,. "
that contrast communztas to(!.mmunitas. If communis is he who is required
Fbjects. Or subjects of ~n 1'2:O~~ of the lack of the' -'
r
t~ carry OUt the ~J~ions ~e-or to the donation [e/~el
proper. Subjects of ,t3dical ~pr~~ that COInCides WIth an absolute ~ "~
a a grace~on t~e ~o~(rary,he is called immune who has to perform
contingency or just simply-'<Zoinades;' that falls [O~ether.~lmte subJ~cts, I C
~o office [tmmums dtCltttr qui nullo ftngitur officio], and for that reason ":;
Cut by a ~~hat cannot be interiorized because It constitutes. preCisely \
e ~~mamsungrarefuJ [ingrams]. 21 He can completely preserve his Own
posltlon [sostanza] through a vacatio muneris Whe h .
their "outside";the exteriority that they overlook and that enters mto them I,
~
is bound b h . . reas t e communztas ~~mon non-belonging. Therefore the community cannot be
y t e sac lfice of the c~ensatio
) beneficiary of rhe dispensatio.
the imm 't . r h 5
-. unz as Imp Ies t e thought of as a bod)' as a corporation [corporazione] in which lIldlVldu- "
als are founded--------
in a '-, -
larger ;--a~d
In IVI ua.
IN' elt h er IS
. commUnI 'ty to be inter-
.
preted as a mutual. Intersu b"" .."
Jec[lve reco~nItlon .In W hich individuals are 1
The ~ result of this etymolo ic I . . . .
~
the various philosophies ofc . g a Journey WIth respeer to "--h . . . . I'd '. colleCtIve
ommunlty cannot b' d A reflected in each other so as to confirm t elf Inttla 1 en~y, as a
though equally unambiguous et I h e Ignore - s the complex bond that comes at a certain point to connect .m d"d 1 h t before were
IVI ua s t a" ."
d emonstrares. the munus that th ymo ogy t at we h -II

!I
. ave tl now undertaken separate. The community isn't a mode of being, much less a maklllg
. e communztas sha ')
possession [appartenenza] 2t It' 'h' b res ~n t a property or a of the individual subject_ It isn't the subject's expanSIOn or multIpbca-
h ~
I
The subjects of comm'
. Isnt avmg
a p edge, a gift that is to be give d h '
Ut
on t e Contrary, is a debt,
n, an t at therefote will establish a lack
'.
tlon bur Ir~posure t~
h .
~l1~~P~ hi' ng and tUfllS it inside
. 1 ./
« unity are unIted b an "obJi . ". . Out: a dizziness, 3(S)'ffcope. a spasm in the con[lnutty of t~e subject. The
we say I owe you something" b ~, anon, In the sense thar common "rose"ofitsbeing "no subject." No one's rose (NzemandsroseJ, or
h ' Ut not you 0 .
w at makes them not less th h we me somethlOg." This is even b"etter, no person ,,,
s rose [rose ue
J
perso nn-)~, as the greatest poet of the
an t e masters of themselv d h
es, an t ar more
 Introduction 9
8 Introduction

{l\:-....
twentieth century would have said about community, abandoning himself
The grand philosophical tradition has always intuited that rhe ques-
tion of community borders on death to such a degree that one could read
1I [deponendoSl] to the ultimate munus.24
Naturally, the subject who experiences this exposure (or devotion, Plato and Machiavelli, as di~ they are, precisely by rhe optic that
the munus of self) doesn't perceive it as painless. Exposure, which pushes such an equation between death and community creates. Yet it's only in
him into contact with what he is not, with his "nothing," is the most [he modern period, let's say at the end of the respublica christiana, rhar this
extreme of its possibilities but also the riskiest of threats, as was largely facr begins ro appeat as a problem,
indeed as the fundamental problem that
implicit in the always ~k.y~(when not conflict-producing) semantics of political philosophy is obliged to
interpret and resolve. Before seeing how
the donum-damnum, expressed with extraordinary clarity in the Virgil ian it does so, we need to turn for amoment to the Christian conception of
/' timeo Danaos et ...
dona ferentes, that is, nor in spite of the fact that they community if we are to complete the ~gorical and semantic frame that
bring gifrs but because they do." That which everyone fears in the munus, functions as the presupposition for the communitarian genealogy u nder
which is both "~~e" and :hostile," according to the troubling lexi- examination here. Things ate made more difficult by the double move-
./ cal proximity of bospes-hostis, is the violent los of borders, which awarding historical-institutional and theological-philosophical-the term commu-
identity to him, ensures his subsistence." We always need to keep these nitas undergoes when it is interwoven with that of~ especially in
two faces of communitas uppermost in mind: comrnunisas is simultane- the New Tesrarnenr." The first vector would seem to follow an itinerary of >It
r ously both the most suitable, indeed the sole, dimension of the animal the increasing erasure of the originary ancipital character of the munus in
the direction of that "appropriating" drift in meaning to which the lectio ~
) ) "man," ~u~commu~itasis also its most potentially ~~grating impe!.,us '-'
I for a drift In meanIng of that dimension of the animal "man." Seen from difJiciliorof communitas is still sacrificed. In all of the medieval lexicons, in 1
I
this point of view, therefore, the community isn't only to be identified fact, the lemma commtmitas is associated with the concept of "belonging,"
in its contemporary subjective and objective meaning: the community is
"
II
f with the res publica, with the common ."thing,': but rather is the'~ into t;

which the common thmg continually risks falling, a sort oflands ide pro- thatwhich,belong~':'.i' ~ect~e and is that to which it belongs as its own I ./
~
I'
l-
duc:d late:,"lly and within. This fault line that surrounds and penetrates properly essential type [genere]: communitas en tis. Over time, however, the V
the SOCial 15 always perceived as the constitutive danger afour co-living, particular [localiJitico] character of this totality always takes on the shape C.;
~~re than in it. We need to watch out for this without ~ forgetting that of a fixed territory, as emerges in the nearness of usage between the con- ;;
It IS communitas itself that causes the landslide; the threshold that we can't ceptof communitas and those of civitas and castrurn; the latter having an
~
le~v~behind because it always outruns us as our very same (in)originary obvious military inflection, signifying the ~efense of proper borders. It's
ongm; as the unreachable Object into which our subjectivity risks falling true that this meaning initially takes on a noninstitutional force. unlike ~
and being lost. Here then is rhe blinding truth that is kept within the the parallel expression universitas." Yet slowly, and above all in France
etymological
-b '- folds of communuas; . th e pu bliIC t himg [respublica] is insepa- and Italy, those communia that before signified a simple rural or urban
ra
, Ie from no-t11Ing
"- [. 'I· . Iy t h e no-thing
me!'!.e,. t IS precISe . of the thing [hat collection now begin to acquire the increasingly formal traits of a true
? (IS .our common ground [fmdo]. All of the stories that tell of the founding juridical-political institution, until communia designates, from the twelfth
cnme,
c.
the collective crim e, th e ntua
. I assassmanon,
.. the sacrificial victim century on, the features that autonomous cities possess both factually and
leatured m. the histor yo f·elVITIZatlon
. d on ' [ do anything else except evoke legally, which is to say, they are the proprietors of themselves.
.? 1 metaphoncally the delin u h k Nonetheless, this drastic simplification that communitas undergoes
// (' of "to I k" d"" b q e!e t _a-,--"el'~ u~gether, in the technical sense
ac an h b h~h juridically, especially in the early centuries, is accompanied (and subtly
of h' h . .to ewant' 109;
"27

l
t e reac , t e trauma, the lacuna our
w IC we ongmate N h 0·· b . COntradicted) by the semantic complexity that concerns the rheolOgIcal
is the origin . Co or t e ngtn_.!!t ItU-b~ irs withdrawal. It
morral fi . ary munus that const'(I utes us an d rna kes us destitute in our
term koinonia. In reality it isn't completely equivalent to communitas nor
oneness.
 Introduction 11
10 Introduction

[Q communio, to which it's often joined in the translations. Nor does it is given to us; or that it is given to us in the form of its withdrawal. This
coincide with ekkiesia, to which it's just as often confused. Indeed, one gift-giving [donativo] inflection of "participation" restores to the Christian
could argue that it is the arduous relation that the koinonia has with the koinonia all of the exptopriating drama of the ancient munus; what one
originary form of munus that distances it from its strictly ecclesiastical participates in isn't the glory of the Resurrection but the suffeting and the
inflection. How so? We know that at least from Acts of the Apostles (2:42), blood of the CtoSS ,~' Cor. Io:I6;. ~~il. 3:10). Any possibility ~f
appr0f,tia-;
but especially from Paul's entire letter to the Corinthians (and then fol- tion IS diminished: taking part 10 means everything except to take; on
....lowing along the entire course of Patristic literature), the "common place" the contrary, it means~~ng. to be weakened, [0 share the fate

[luogo comune] of the koinonia is consrirured by the Eucharistic parricipa- of the servant, not of the rnaster (Phil. pO-II). His death. The gift oflife,
,.-......
(tion in the Corpus Christi that the Church represents. Yet the problem offered in the communitarian archetype of the Last Supper.
posed lies in these two joined (though nevertheless distinct) figures of One will want to say that Augustine "inflects" Paul's message in
"represenrarion" and "participation." The most perceptive commentators a direction that is even more contradictory. Also. the dilectio proximi is
have always underscored that what is not to be lost in the latrer notion is thought from the essence of a created being, as finished, as heteronymous,
the vertical dimension that unites man and God. but also separates them and nonsubjective. What joins us in the same "0.f!1m~nity of destiny."
due to the infinite heterogeneity of substance." Indeed, it is God and man in a communal future, is our being morituri;32 therefore the communis
since only God is entitled to subjectivity, to being the initiative of the rela- fides that we share with those like us can be experienced only in the bit-
tion, to which man can't be anything but receptive. Man receives the gift tet solitude of the singular relation with God" That, however, isn't any-
(here surfaces once again the munus) that God, through the sacrifice of thing other than the consequence of an earlier communitas that Augustine _
Christ, makes to him, a gift that is both free and overabundant." Against doesn't hesitate in describing as "the community of guilt" since "Torus ~ ....
a purely anthropological reading, one that is completely horizontal, one etgo mundus ex Adam reus.'?" The community coincides with the com- \ V.
ineeds to respond firmly that it is only this first rnunus from on high that plicity established initiall~ by ~.'!! and fixed b~, ~ even before the ./
/ puts men In the position of having something in common with each oth- moment when Abel constituted the city of God: Natus est Igltur pnot
er. And it is precisely this "given -what l1
is giY-en.....tQ
us. we ourselves as Cain posterior Abel."? On this point Augustine is terribly explicit-it is
"given,". "donated," born from a gif;-that stands in ~way of any hasty the sedentary Cain and not the pilgrim Abel who founds the human com-
translation of koinonia into a simple philia-"friendship," "fellowship" [in muniry" And that first fratricidal violence inevitably refers to every future
EnglIsh .-Trans] .. " camara derie." erre, or "Freun tisehaJ....,1+" Yes we are brothers founding of community, as that of Romulus confirms with a sort of tragIc
koinonoi . but brothe rs tn . Ch··rtst, 111 an at h erness t hat at wi
Withdraws us from' punctuality." What this means is that the human commUnlty IS 111 close
our subj.' ectivity our own sub)·ect·lVe property. so as to pm .. It sub·JectIvlty,
.. Contactwith death. "a society from and WIth . th e d'"-"a
ea. "'" Th· IS secon.d
1

to a POInt that is "void o f su b·Ject " f rom w h·lC h we corne and toward which otigin (an otigin through bitrh) remains stuck like a kind of thorn or pOl-
we are called J·Ustas long as we remam ." gratelu c I" "d bi l'
1. so as to respond to that soned gift in the first origin (the Creation); as te,stimony to a ou eness,
first munuswlth a co d··f Th·
c h .. rrespon mg gl t. IS, nevertheless, doesn't alter the to the duplicity of the origin, from which it will no longer be pOSSIble to
ract t at Our glvmg is . . bl . d .
meVlta y ma equate. wantIng, purely reactive with freeoneself not even when men will be called to the sanetorum commumo.
tespect to the onl if h· I
h· h h I Y g t t at IS ttu y such, because it is unconditional, The reason'is that the past, that past, cannot be erased by a caritas [love]
w 1C as a ready come to f h C ~
F h· h us tom t e reator (I COt. 1:9; 2 '-..Ot. 9:15)· from which it logically descends." . \
rom t lSI owever we can d d h h Yet Augustine says something else that introduces us lIlt? th~ mod-
that the 'f' 1 e uce t at w at we o.ffer isn't a true gift or
gl t IS not completely 0 (C ) \JJern, Hobbesian, petception of community: the love for one s neIghbor ./
possibility of th .f· .h uts lOt. 4'7 . We can deduce that the
e gl t IS Wit drawn ft . h· . is directly ptopotrional to the vmory of comIIl0-,,- d~pger (communis
am us 111 t e preCise moment when It
 Introduction 13
IZ Introduction
/
periclliz) that we shar~f the community of sin from which we originate the two inseparable faces joined in the combined concepr of munus-gift ""
is marked by fear, no one can be secure in this life, which is literally be- and obligation, benefit and service rendered, joining and threat, Modern
sieged by death, but also the communitas fidei. which, structured so as [0 individuals rruly become that, the perfectly individual, the '~~' in-; <::::-
be the salvi fie compensation of the first, inevitably remains prey [Q the fear dividuaJ," bordered in such a way that they are isolared and protected,
(timore] no less acute of another, and even more definitive, death. Caught
In the grip of this double danger, rhe communitas (on rhe Christian side as
~if
on! to
rhey are freed in advance from the "debr" rhar binds rhew
the other; i t ey are released from, exonerated, or relieve of that
vU
JJ well, we should note) acknowledges irs consrirurive alliance with §Iling, ~, which threatens their identity, exposing them to possible, conflict l
I
"Eating up lime [devorans temporal as I was myself ~1Lby ir [dellorata with their neighbor, exposing them to rhe COnl;!gion of the relation wit
.'It' othersr4S
~
j temporlbus]":41 communttas seems ro defer the gifr of life at the unbearable
abduction of the fear of death.
'-- ,
As will emerge in the following pages, the philosopher who first
and more radically rhan anyone else followed this logic to irs extreme
(Modern political philosophy a[[empts to respond to rhis unaccepr- theoretical consequences was Thomas Hobbes. His extraordinary herme-
able munus. How? Here reappears that category of "immunization" that neutic force lies in having extended the semantic complexity of the c~-
we saw as constituting the most incisive semantic counterpoint of com- ~ere [Q ~bare literalness of colle~"-r~ the society / /"
munitas.4.2 The thesis I would Jike to advance in this regard is that the of Cain, which Hobbes in rheological terms unconsciously mcorporares
J,-,) ~ J oJ \ ca.teg~ryof ~~on is so import~nr that it can. be taken as the ex- into his own lexicon at the same time that he attempts to free the lexicon
(~ , l P~ key of the entire modern paradigm, not only III conjuncrion wirh precisely from the rheologicaL What men have in common, what rna es 1
\ Jbur even more rhan orher hermeneutic models, such as those we find in r~ like each othe;rhan anything else, is their generalized ca ac- ..::;,..-
II "~ec~l~rization,":'Iegit!m~tion:' and "rarionaJizarion," terms that hide or i~: rhe facr rhar anyone can be killed by anyone d~e, This is i
dJnlInish the lex~calslgmficance o~<@erl1ity.The reason is that, yes, what Hobbes sees in rhe dark depths of rhe communlry: rhlS IS how he I
rhere are echoes 111 these models, distant with respect to the premodern interpretscommunity's indecipherable law: the communitas carries within J

! past, bur not. of the p~ospective

in:ersion ~nd the negative power [potenza]
of rhe negative that Juxtaposes dlfectly zmmunitas and communitas. The
"immune" .is n.ot simply different from the "common" but is ~,
ir a gift of death, From it inevitably arises rhe following: if community is"
so\hrear;;;i;;gro the individual integriry of t~,e subjecrs tha,~ ir purs into \l v
relation,nothing else remains for us except to ~s bef~rehand
whar empties It out UTIliI it has been complerely left bare, nor only of and, in so doing, to negate the very same foundations of community. The
ItS effects
. but also of ItS Own presupposition' ,lmmunltanan
}'ust as rhe ". .."
keenness of Hobbes's observarion is marched by the drastic nalUre of the
,£IQ!~~. of mo~y isn't directed only against the specific m;n;;'a (class Solution.Since the common origin threatens to drag down with it into the
oblIgations, ecclesial bonds, free services that wel'gh on m ' h
I' h ) b en 10 t e ear- VOrtexall those rhar it artracrs, the only way to save oneself is by breaking
'] ler p ase
. .
lit against the very sa I f h '
JJ J I} [
me aw 0 t elf associated coexistence cleanly from ir: by lim iring it in a "before" that cannot be joined to whar
I~ convzvenza.
.fi .
The modern II1dlvidual h .
,w 0 aSSIgns to every service its spe- comes "after"jto institute between before and after a border that cannot
C1 c ~,nbce,I can no longer bear rhe grarirude that the gift demands" The be crossed wirhour carasrrophically falling back again into the condirion
term a so utlsm" also ca' . h' , h '
. rnes WIt 111 It t is meaning of« d ., " h' h from which one had wanted to escape, Whar is to be loosened IS rhe hnk]
(; means Violent br k' f h' eClSlon, w IC
ea 1I1g 0 IS roots There' d h
SOrt of former idyll' " IS no nee to yporhesize any wirh ~riginary dimension of ~ (Hobbes w~lI saY"na~UJ-
ICcommunity no primiti« .
ists only in the Ro .. "~---~ organic society" that ex- rain living) via the institution of another artificial origin t at comCI e
mantic zmagerze of the' h
modernity is affi~d;-' . I ~Ineteent century, to see how wirh rhe juridically "privatistic" ~ndlogicaIlY"privative"-figure of~-
ill Its VIOent separation f d
_b enefits no longer b I -h -,-k~ - ro:n an °Ler in which rhe ~. Hobbes perfectly registers Its Immu~1I1g power WIth regard to the
a ance tens s that th
ese same
b enefits require as
 Introduction Introduction 15

previous situation when he defines the statute through the juxtaposition pages that follow. What I have tried to reconstruct is that line of thought,
IIJ 1\ with rhar of rhe gift: above all, rh Quact is thar which is nota gifr; it is which from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Georges Baraille, moving through
the absence of munus, the neutralization of irs poisonous fruits. Immanuel Kam and Marrin Heidegger, reimroduces the question of com-
Naturally, the immunirary, and more generally, the modem option in munity that modernity seemed to have completely closed off, but also
Hobbes has a price, indeed a terribly high price. What is cut and expelled the radical transformation that community experiences in this transition
in the sovereign decision is ehe very same content of the new form, which from Rousseau's semamics of "guilt" [copa] to that Kantian one of "law,"
in any case is inevitable given the homeopathic nature of the remedy: oc- until we arrive at the "ecstatic" opening of Heidegger and the "sovereign"
cupy the void of the munus, the originary faule line, with an even more experience of Baraille. It needs ro be said straightaway that we're dealing
radical void [vu'1.'~J; e1iminare [svuotare] rhe danger of the cum by utterly with an extremel subtle_kiJ:td of thought-a "broken path," a space that
e!adicating it.46 In face, the Leviathan-State coincides with rhe breaking is always on the point of being closed off, nor only because it is objectively
of every cornmunirarian bond, with the squelching of every social relation restricted by the "immunizing" vocation of the most substantial art of
J II that is foreign to the vertical exchange of protection-obedience. It is the the modern pr5'j~t bur ex~~sly~ause this kind of thought is com- v
ba!Z [nuda] rdation of no relation." If the community entails crime, the pletely jeopardized by. a m thic drifr.rHat accompanies it like an originary
only wayan individual can survive lies in the crime of the communi . risk or a slippery slope across the entire arc of its development.
Here is sketched for the firsr time in its most t};;,;;.etically accomplished This myth is generated when the constitutively concave character of
'" form that "pyramid of sacrifice," which in a certain sense constitutes the communitas is displaced by its affirmative enrificarion. All of the figures
predominant fea~re of ~d_ern history.48 What is sacrificed is nothing of identity, fusion, and endogamy that the representation of community

I
~ther than the~um, the relation amo~g ~en, and for that reason as well, will assume in modern political philosophy are nothing other than me
In some w~ymen the~se1ves are sacrificed. They are paradoxicalJ:t sacri- unavoidable result of this first conceptual shorr-citcuit. If the communitas \ II
liced ro thelt own survival. They live in and o>theit refusal to Iive r th is the escape or release from the in~vidual subject, irs myth is the ime- VI
. "I'"
[con~lVereJ' l' oge er
t.s Imposslbl~ not to recognize here a remnant of irrationality riorizarion of this extenonty, the representative doubling of its presence
thar
. d Introduced Into the folds of the most rational ofsyst ems..J·erre
ISsubtly and the essentialization of its existence." Nevertheless, there's no need to
preserve through the e:esupposition
IS of irs sacrifice, the sum of refus- look at ili'fs" excessive superimposition only as a subjective "error"on the
als out o~ which sovereign authoriiation is ~de. Life is sacrificed to the parr of the interpreter. It does nothing other than express the objectively

I
preservanon of life: In this convergence of the preservation of life and irs inherem ~erv.'!l.of difference with regard to the semantic double bottom I
capacity to b~ sacrificed, modern immunization reaches the height of its
own destructive power [potenza].
of the concept ofJ?ZJjnus, to the structural ambiguity of its ~onstitu~ively 1
equivocal ligure. The mytbological inclination that all phtlosoph'es of ./'

Neverrheless mode . d ,. . community experience -as the irresolvable blind spot of their own petspec- /
mechanism to h·' h· Irn1t~ oe~n t entIrely COIncide with the sacrificial
.. w IC It a so gives nse. It's true tha d . . If .
tive consists in the diflicultJL-o'£taking on and supporting the VOIdof the v
Imatmg cu[[ing' If fff . t mo erntty IS se -Ieglt- munus as the obj.c:.ctof philosophical reflection. How are we ro think the
'___ use 0 rom every so 1b d t:
from every commo 1 v h __ cia ~, Jrom every natural link, pure relation without supplying it with subjective substance? How do we
. n aw. .let t ere also erne f . h' .
Itself the tragic kno I d f h .... rges rom Wit 10 modernity fix our gaze on it, without lowering it from the norhing that surrounds
we ge 0 t e nthlhstlc cha f h' d ..
Hobbesian uprooting [ta lio d. II '----a,.....---: . racter 0 t IS eClSlOn.The and traverses the common res? Notwithstanding all the theoretical pre-
"guilt" with respect to ~ e e ra ,c,l IS lIved therefore with a sense of cautions intent on guaranteeing the void of pure relation, that void tends j
one recognizes. It is th'
a community
,W
both
IS Vector of self-probl
h b
ose a sence and necessity
..
to presem itself in almost irresistible fashion as fullness; it tends ro reduce I
subterranean river throu h d '- -... e~~, running like a ~he generality of J cQ!!l!!!-on" in the specilici<r. of a common subject.
g mo ern pFilrosopliy that is the object of rhe
 16 Introduction Introduction 17

once identified, be it with a ~ple,_a territory, or an essence, the com- fracture is always on 'the point of falling prey again to the myth of a natu-
) munity is walled in within itself and thus separated from the outside. tally incorrupt dimension (with all the aporetic consequences that ensue)
his is how the m thic ~al takes place, The Western tradition is doesn'terase the critical potential with regard to modern immunization.
literally hammered by this koine-cennic conversion, almost like a recur- Kant, more than any other, appears to have understood both the
ring countenendency, more than a simple residue, a tradition on which is importance and the limit of rhese discoveries when he shifts the defini-
imprinted its g£owingj~n impulse,Yesterday as well as today tion of community from the anthropological level of will to that of the
(indeed mote so today than yesterday), community appeats to be marked, transcendental one of law. The result of this move is a further and more
'indeed saturated with communirarianism, patriotism, and local a fac- powerful desrructuring of the philosophy of the origin, Caught between
~i0E.alinter~t that with regard to communitas constitute not only some- the antinornical conjunction of freedom with evil, the origin literally be-
4 thing different but the clearest kind of ne arion, both the paroxysm and comes impenetrable in the precise sense that it cannot be defined except
\ parody that are produced every now and then in rhe "impropriety" of the by the otherness that separates it from itself, It is from this perspective
common, when the reference to the "proper," or the voice of the "authen- that, together with the myrhologerne of rhe state of nature, every recorn-
\ tic," or the assumption of being pure, reappears. It's useful here to consider pensatory dialectic berween origin and later accomplishment fails, Kant
chat communis (always referring [Q its earliest meaning) meant in addition criticizes it not only for the irremediably unsocial character of human
to "vulgar" and "of the people," also "impure": "dirry services" [sordidll nature but above all because the law of communiry isn't feasible as a mat-
munera], We could say that this mixed or hybrid elemenr, togerher not ter of principle, That the categorical imperative doesn't dictate anything I
only WIth common sense but also political-philosophical discourse, is un- otherthan its ~er..pblig~~s~it has no fixed cO~,te~t-:~e~ns
able to endure when the search for its own proper and essential foundation that its object is in and of itself unattainable or that our thing IS in-
is taken up again. Then what is simply exposed, namely, the cum, takes habited by ,no-rtling'_thar
• > men
~ are united bvJ~a "not" that joins them in . a
on the characteristic of a presupposition that is destined to be actualized. diffuence that cannot be lesseneUhus, Kant regISters for the first nrne
rlJ It. is the dialectic of ~t and found, of alienation and reappropriation, of the anribiological character of ,om'!!!!!!i.!.as: its being a gift that does not (
f1lghr and return that joins all phllosophies of communiry in a mythology belong to the subjecr, indeed that weakens [reduce] the subject and that ././
of ~n. If t~ecommunity belongs to us as our deepest and most proper hollows him out through a never-ending obligation, one that prescribes
ro~r:we can, 1J1 fact we must, find it again or reproduce it, in line with its what is prohibited and prohibits what is prescribed,
ongmaryessence.
In the case of Kant, nevertheless, rhe rhoughr of community doesn't
lack for conrradictions and subtle wrinkles of meaning, The reason is not
. It's nor by accident that the rand thought of community coincides
only that his transcendental perspective is shown to be open to a return
WIth the.~c~~ of thi~tic. What Rousseau previously had
of sorts to empirical anthropology, and therefore to a latent superimposi;
refused IS the Idea of an origin fully reproducible as such th h h
COurse of h H h fi roug t e tion between the radical language of commumty and a more tradltlo~a
Isrory. e was r erst to register the fracture of diff
that CUt h b ' , ['" - 1 lerence inrersubjective semantics, hut also that the same reducti~n of commu~lty
s t e egInnIng ,nzZIO] through an itrecoverable-d'lf' ,-
I . 1 . terence Into a to its unattainable law discloses a residue of teleology, It IS the underlying
oglc~ c~mmencl~g [cominciamento] and a historical genesis and therefore
claim that Heidegger makes with respect to Kantian cri:ieism, ~lbeit in a
lwas t erst to withdraw the conce t of
entificacion Com' P
. .
commuOlty from Its affirmative
.
readingthat recovers and valorizes more than all of Kant s other mterpre~-
c that ch~ractet:~snIlttYIatPpearshto behdefinable only on the basis of the ers his tense problematic with respect to subjectivity. Not even the law IS
. IS not zn ot er .
~t e non historic backdrop fro-hgh h' than what hlSrory has negated, to be made absolute as the very origin, because jt is in turn preceded by
m W Ie Istory art . h'
necessary betrayal Th' h g1l1ates 111 t e rotm of a an "our-law"[fUorilegge] even more originary that is precisely that cum to
. e laCt t at Rousseau's d" f
ISCOvery 0 the originary
 18 Introduction Introduction

which we always belong with respect to temporal existence: coexistence, we enter into a relation not only with the other but with the other of the
This means that the community is unattainable because it is barred by a other, he too the victim of the same irresistible ~o~tive imp'!!:e. ThiS,
cruel nomos rhar blocks our access and because of the simple fact that it is meeting, this chance. this contagion, more intense than any imrnunitarian
already given. here and now, in its constitutive withdrawal. For this reason cordon, is the community of those that manifestly do not have it, when 1
community is neither promised nor [0 be disdosed beforehand, neither not losing it, and losing themselves in the very same process of flowing
presupposed nor predetermined. Communiry doesn't require a teleology awayfrom i~ What this flow might mean, and above all if it doesn't risk,
nor an archaeology since the origin already lies in irs after; the origin is in turn, falling again upon a different but specular sacrificial logic, is the
already perfectly contemporaneous with whar follows. It is rhe opening of question on which the book closes. No answer is given except in the form
being rhar is given by and in irs wirhdrawal, and thar draws back when it of a further. final question: If existence cannot be sacrificed, how are we to

is offered, in rhe very trembling of OUf existence. think the originary opening co it?52How are we to fight the irnrnunizatio;r
There's no need to recall that Heidegger's thinking of community is oflife without making it do dearh's work? How are we ro break down the
'anyrhing bur sheltered from a return ro myth, and indeed from one of the wall of the individual while at the same time saving the singular gift that
.rnosr terrible of all political myrhs. This was obvious when he was tempt- the individual carries?
ed ro reinstate the munus within the horizon of the proper, and indeed of
the property, of a single people-losing the munus together with the Cllm
2
[ha[~s~i[Ures it. as our "we-others" [noi-altrt]. This is exactly the knot ~
ce
than Bat~llle cuts In an extreme combat with that thought, thanks [Q the -'

C'"
formulation of a "non-knowledge" that decidedly exceeds the sacrificial /
horizon of po1iti~al philosophy, Yet even more of interest in the economy u-
o~ our work i.([~tajlJe's positioning of this excess in such a way as to drive :)

him to t~e final, or better, the first meaning of that munus, which was C
u
our starting poin.t from the central void of community; to the gift of ~elf
C
ro which the subject feels driven by an unavoidable obligation because it ~
IS one With the.A:~b~ct·s own proper desire." Here one finds the most ex-
<
plicit contradiction of that proceS;-of imrnu njzarjmj that b egmnmg
" ,h
[;
. . WIt
Hobb~s IS put forw~rd as t~e prevalent vector of meaning in the modern 1
paradigm. That
" which. Baraille contrasts with the "restricrcd economy " 0f
a conseruatia vuae. w.hlch cuJminates in the compulsory sacrifice of all who
emerge. as nonfuncuonal
.
fe, IS. a conception
to such a preservation of Ii14 . 0f
negative energetic excess that pushes the individual beyond hi 1"
w hilI e ns. kilIlg hiIS liife. In a flash rh at reI'anon b erween IS own muts
. d
death is displayed hi h h . community an
,w IC t e munus carnes f ". "
and unapproachabl I I' h rom irs inception as its fiery
e nuc eus. t IS tenon bei . di .d
the continuum that " f "- - -ezng In WI ual of the relation;
oCigmates OUta and to hi h ----
that is directly- counte d he i . W IC we are drawn by a force
rpose to t e msttnc' .---
( we cause or from which t for su rvjva]; the~und that
we emerge when w e ourse IYes are changed when
 Notes

INTRODUCTION

I~ On this point and ochers. sec the crucial essay by Jean-Luc Nancy, The Ino;-"/ /'
mtlve Community. trans. Peter Connor er aI. (Minneapolis: University of Minne-
soraPres,s,1991), a [ext [0 which lowe an unpayable debt, as is the case for every
munusglven us in the form of the most unexpected gift.
1. On the ambiguous "rerum" of community, see more generally Renaissance

~ Gtmtinschafi? Smbils Theone und: neue Theoreme, ed. Carsten Schulter (Ber-
~n: Duncker & Humbler, 1990); and Gemeinschaft und Gerechtigkeit, ed. Micha
rurnlik and Hauke Brunkhors (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1993)·
3. Seein this regard the entry for "political" in Roberto Esposito, Nove pensieri ./
Jul" politica (Bologna: l\ Mulino, 1993), 15-38.
,4. As Michael J. Sandel expresses it in Liberalism and the Limits ofJustice (Cam-
bn~~e:Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1430The second expression comes from
Philip Se1znick, "Foundations of Communitarian Liberalism," in The Essential
Communitarian Reader, ed. Arnitai Etzioni (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
1998), 6.
5. See Emile Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, trans. Elizabeth
Pal~er (Coral Gables, FL.: Ul1.iversity of Miami Press, t973), even ifBenvenisre ex-
'plainsthat totus doesn't appear to be derived from ieuta but rather from tomentum.
I j
Yetgiven (hat this term signifies "filling" [imbottitura), "compactness," and "full-
ness," (he semantic framework doesn't change.
6. Max Weber, Basic Concepts in Sociology, trans. H. P. Secher (New York: Phil-
osophical Library, 1962), 91 [emphasis in original]. Compare on this point Furia
Ferraresi's "La comunita polir'ica in Max Weber," Filosofta palitica 2 (1997): ~.8I~
lOnJ
110, as well as Gregor Fitzi , "Un problema linguisrico-concetruale nelle rraduz
z68
di Weber: 'comunidl,''' Filosofia politica Z (1994): 257- . .

\ .
]. Ferdinand Tennies as well in Community and Civil Society, ed. Jose Harns.
trans. Jose Harris and Margaret HoUis (Cambridge:

manity community.
J
On this poim, see Sandra
no est ae territorio- Nota sul rapporro
Cambridge University Press,
zoor] thought the earrh was the firsc thing that was properly possessed by the hu-
Chigno1a,
tra comuntra
• , .
"Quidquid
etruca e a -
e~ttn
S( to nazrone rr:
,
Ftlo-
 152 Notes Notes 153

sofia politica I (1993): 49-51. More generally, see Etienne Balibar and Immanuel rheent for Gesellschaft, Gemeinscnaft in Gescbicbtliche Gnmdbegriffe· Historisches
Wallerstein. Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, trans. Chris Turner (New politisch-sozialen Spracbe in Deutschland, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta,
LtxicQn~ur
York: Roudedge, 1991).
80
8. This is arl Schmitt's well-known thesis. See especially The Nomos of the 197», 4-8°5. h C in Realmcyclo'/'iidie der Classischen AI-
21. P.E, 127.7.See t e entry lor munus . . B
Earth in the International Law of the fits Publicum Europeaum, trans. G. L. Ulmen ItrtumswisJenschafi,ed. August Pauly and Georg Wissowa, vol. 31 (Srutrgart: J. .
(New York: Telos Press, 2003), 67-79. Lee's not forger though that it wasprecise-
Metzler,(894), 65°· . h f ample <he
ly Schmirr who attempted in his own way to distance the concept of "communi- 22 In this regard note the first meaning of commumtas t a~,. or ~x ,
ry" from the "tyranny of values." See Le categoric del politico (Bologna: H Mulino, f)..{..,rd. Latin Dictionary supplies: "Joint possession
. or. use partICipation,
C d parrner-
U' _
[972), especially note 59. where Schmitt refers [0 his previous text on community, V'}"
ship, sharing,"even if concluding with . "ObI"'Igmgness " (Oxford' . Oxsor ruver
..Der Gegensan von Gemeinschafr und Gesellschafr als Beispiel einer zweigliedri-
sitv Press,1982), 37°· d ,. B' Given: Toward a
gen Unterscheidung," in Estudios [uridico-Sociales. Homenaje al ProfesorLuisLegaz ' " .IT d" [ onnt:J In emg ...
2J. ]. L Marion now suggests gl e a (Stanford: Stanford Univer-
y Lacambra (Saragossa, Spain: Universidad de Santiago de Composrela, 1960),
r60. Phenomenologyof Giuenness, trans. Jeffrey L. Kosky ible" '05 of <he gift
rh "impossi e semann ,
siryPress,2002), 248-319. Always see. on . e P Kamuf (Chica-
» 9· "That, again, which is .E.?mmon to anything else, will!!ot ~_peculiar to me JacquesDerrida, Given Time. l, Counterfttt Money, trans. e , ggy t L'Ethique
thing defined." Quint£L!ian's Institutes of Oratory: Education of an Orator, trans. .., ) I h perhaps more re evan ,
>-
~ Rev. John Selby Wacson (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1856), 39.
2
go:University of Chicago Press, 199 , t roug . M" .,., 1i sirion: Diffusion
'da '- ,j d don (Pans: etar 1<- ran
du don:Jacques Dern et UL pens e u . .. I' of the gift in re-
~ 10. See AloisWaJde and Johann Baptist Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches 2 al d d · d this "deconsrructlve me
Seuil.199 ). I have rea y tscusse . by those au(hors
Cl:l Wb"rterbuch (Heidelberg: C. Wimer, 1938-1956). .
Ianonto " ." laborated for some time now
-J that constructlve one e .' I AI' Caille and Serge
ll. Thesaurus linguae latinae, vol. 8, 1662; Egidio Forcellini, Lexicon totim Ia- . I MA..... US Sand , 10 partlcu ar, am d MAUSS.,
\.JJ groupedaround ehe Journa ."
<.; tinitatis, vol. 3 (Lipsiae: In Libraria hahniana, 1835),313. . "0 la techntque, La revue u .,
Larouchein Roberto ESPOSitO, onner
u.. 12. Julius Paulus, Dig. 50.16.18.

13· Domirius Ulpianus, Dig. 50.16.194. 00.6 (1999), 190-206. M . B da shows rhe suon- -./'
f Paul Celan artlne ro al
Of course I am spe aki. ng 0
2c 14· Nerra Zagagi, <~ Note on munw, munus fUngi in Early Latin," Glotta 60
([982): 280.
24·
"
gercoherence0f the F renc h tit e,
Germantitle, Die Niemanasrose.
L
La
10 IS
.
Rose
'.
depersonne,
CI
Wit
h spect to the origin
re
. I d Dans La main e
h' fine essay on e an tit e
d

-
~
"_..
15· Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, 53-104; and Problems in
General Linguistics, trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek (Coral Gables, FL Universityof
Miami Press, [971). For Marcel Mauss, see The General Theory of Magic, trans.
p""nne (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1986), 31.
'5· "Though Gree ksb' ffi·gsIfeartemstl.
rmg 0 enn .'
h
P bl" rions 1995),21.
'1' " Virgil Aeneid
,
crans'.

-.-.".
C::: CharlesJames Billson (New York: Couner O~er ~ u h.I~'arci;elago (Milan: Adel-
Roberr Brain (London: Roudedge, 1972), 108-[21.
16. P.E,125.[8. 26. Massimo Cacciari takes hiS cue from t. IS ~ '~l ,.{;dell'Europa (Milan:
7.. ''A gift is properly an unreturnable giving ... a thing which is not giv- phi, 1997), which together with the precefdmg eor :soJ;derstanding the idea
kror
1
Adelphi,2003), constitutes an .
Irrep Iaceable ramewor
en WIth the inr~ntion of a return" (Summa Theologictl, la, q.38, a.2, c). On the
doubled semantics of the term Gift, see also Mauss, Gift-Gift, in Melanges offirts ofcommunity. , . t essay "Le corps du delit," in
B nard Baass Imporcan ) h' h
27· Irefer t h e read er to er . al de Philosophie, 1992 , to w IC
a Charus ~n~ler p~r ses amis et ileves (Strasbourg: Publications de la Facuhe des o /. . d'
1"0ltlque et rno ermte '(P '.
ans. College Imernanon
lettres ~e I ~ntversI[e de Strasbourg. 1924); and Jean Starobinski, Largesse (Chica-
go: UmvefSlty of Chicago Press, 1997). I will have occasion to rerum later. .' d rhunity see the enrry
· b tween komoma an com , b h
18. On the complex reIanon e . d C'L' tu Sachworter uc zur
La ~8.AJf:ed Ern~ut and Antoine Meillet, Dictionnaire itymologique de 10kmguf 'k ii, Anrzke un rmsten m, Kl
ttne (Pans: C. K1mcksieck, 1967). for Gemeinschaft in Real IeXI on J""r 'k Wtlr, ed Theodor auser,
L . tms mit der antI en e· d' f
19· Plautus, Mercator, 105. Auseinandersetzung des CrJrzstentt 6) 02 For an understan 109 ~
W & A H'ersemann,199 ,12 . ., if' nUl
20. Chari eOn T L . d Ch I A vol.9 (Stungart: K.. . I k" Pier Cesare Bort s 1\.Omo
drews ,.Eamon
J. . • eWISan ar es Shorr, A lAtin Dict£onary Founded on
of Fr, u d' L . D' .
fl-
rhe broad and differentiate d I·Iteraru re on mnoma,
R . ( ens attn lcttonary: Revised, Enlarged. and in Great Part (Brescia:Paideia, 1972) is still quite usefuL
eWrtlten Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). Manfred Riedel observes as much in
 Notes Notes '55
'54

29. See in (his regard P. Michaud-Quantin's Universitas. Expression du mou- matpoint that Pietro Barcellona lingers instead in his L'individualismo propriemrio
uement comrnunautaire dans Ie Moyen-Age Latin (Paris: J. Vrin, 1970), 147-166, [Turin:Bollari Boringhien, 1987)'
pages dedicated ro the terms commnnitas, commune, communio, communia; and 43- Georg Simmel previously posed the question in his exemplary excursus on
communa. grarirude,which is included in his Sociology, trans. Kurt H, Wolff (New York: Free V~
30. See especially W. Elert, Koinonia (Berlin: Lurherisches Verlagshaus, 1957). P;;;;-ofGlencoe, 1964).
Still helpful and moving in the same direction is the earlier [ext by Heinrich Seese- 44, "Absolute" in the sense that Roman Schnur uses it in his Individualism.us
mann, Der Begriff"Koinonia" im NT. (Clessen: A. Topelmann, 1933). unO, Ahsolutismus: zur politischen Theorie vor Thomas Hobbes, r6oQ-J640 (Berlin:
31. John 3"6: 7:37-38. Duncker & Humbler, 1963).
)2.See Augustine's Confessions X, 6: "sharers in my mortality" tconsortium 45. How can one forget the pages on the "fear of being touched" that open ~
rnortalitatis meae). Sr. Augustine, The Conftssions of St. Augustine. trans. Maria with a tragic and incomparable coup de theatre? Elias Canetri's m~gnificenr Crowrfs /
Boulding (London: Hodder & Sroughron, 1997), 240. and Power,trans. Carol Stewart (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1960). Eli-
33· De Trinitnte, XIII, 2, 5. gio Reser refers helpfully to the same theme in Le stelie e le masserizie (Rome: Lat-
o 31'.
"The whole world is guilty because of Adam." Augustine, ''Answer ro Ju- erza,1997),67-70. . .
lian, III The WOrks of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the zrst Century, vol. 1 46. For an attentive and radical thematization of the relation betw.een origm
(New York: New City Press, 2001), 479. and politics, see Carlo Calli, Genenologia della politica (Bologna: 11Mulino, '996),
35· "Bur the vessel unto dishonour was made first, and afterwards came [he °
as well as my own L'origine della politica. Simone wei! Hannah Arendt (Rome:
vessel unro ho~our." Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, trans, R. W, Donzelli. 1997). . ) .
Dyson ~Cambfldge: Cambridge University Press, '998), 635. 47, On the Hobbesian moment seen from the perspective of ItS ending, c?m-
36. It IS written, then, char Cain founded a city, whereas Abel, a pilgrim, did . and productive.
pare (he rich an alvsi
YSls 0 f C' raceme. --M a rramao.'. Dopo "il Leuiata-
nor found one." Ibid. no,lndividuo e comunita nella filosofia politica (Turin: Bollari Bonnghlen, ~99~)'
37· lbid., 639-640. even "If one might express some d ou b t a b out tee
h U;e crive end of the sacrificial
."38. This reading of the "com mUnlty . 0 f gUl'1'"
t In S'amt A ugustme
.. IS pur Crorwar d
with particular force in H h As d' L d Sai . ed. Joanna
paradigm.
,
ifi n I"
7"L Py -amids 0.( Sacri ee: rO mea
I
, anna en ts ove an Samt Augustine, 48. This is Ihe lide of Peter L. Berger s essay, ,ne" ". f h
VecchIarelli Scon and Jud'tht Ch e I'IUSS tar k eChoIcago: University
.. . . B k 4) On the persistence 0 t e
of ChlCago Press, Ethicsand Social Change (New Yor:k B aSic 00 S,197 . . . . d I' I .
1996), 98:-II2 ~the phrase can be found on page 103). Compare as well Alessandro P ' . D moerazia e dzrtttr. eg. I. a trr.
sacrificialparadigm, see as well FrancescO Lstettl, e
~al Lagos ltal .. n translation of Asendt's The Lift o[the Mind [La vita della mente] (Bari:Palomar di Alternative, 1992). C . C t'ry /
( ologna: II Muhno, '987), 29-33. . C' . A b n The ommg ommun 'if
49. Compare also on this pomt IOrglO. gam : '
, This is the title of O'lernc. h Bon hoe fli'er 5 Sanetorom Communio. Eme
39· . avg-
"~ trans. Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: UniverSity of Mmnesota Press, ~993)',
-. mansche Untersuchunu
0 zur
S' L . J '
oz/.owgte aer Kr.rehe (Munich: ehr. Kaiser, 196o), as
,
50. Umberto Galimberti has drawn attentIOn to t e
h se themes ID vanous ar-
"
we II_ as rh at of Paul AJrhau G . (' , . d '1 b I ggio" Repubbltca (August '3,
IG' h do k s, ommUntO Janetorum. Die Gemeinde im luthertschen tides. See in particular "Nosteo pa ee I uon se va , ll'al "Rp bbliea
r.rc.enge n:n (Munich: Kaiser, 1929). 1997), as well as "Sapere tutto dell'amore e non sapee nulla de [[0, e u
40. Augus~Ine, Commentary on Epistle to the Galatians, 56.
41. Augustine, Confessions, (November 18, 1997)· h k . The Unavow- ./
217. C I h' h M ice Blanc or ta es up In
51. The Bataillian rorffiU a, w 1C aur . Hill P ss r988) is
42. Bruno Accarino has h I full
relation to th b' I' e p
II d
y ca e attention to this category, especiaHy in
. J' (B arrytown, NY.. StationC
able Community, crans. Pierre ons
re , ,
. dell"m,/,olitieo
e IpO aflty of Belastunu/E tlas . L . . ,11:' (R " . ~d II oree" in my ategorr.e I.
Manifestolibri, 1986) h . 0" n .tu~gIn a ragtone msuJpcr.ente orne: the center of the chapter La comuOita earn
trattualismo tr. ~b' tough he dId so earlier In Mereanti ed eroi. La crisi del COll- (Bologna: 11 Mulino, '988), 245-322. ks . hi 'lluminaling essay
a e ereLuhmann(N
porram to observe th h
I.L' ' .. "
~p es, tquon, 1986). Nevertheless, It ISIm- ' . h . th J Luc Nancy as us III s t
52. Th IS IS t e questIon at ean. . . Th' k' (Stanford: Stanford
gift which' hat were Accanno sheds lighr on the "aggressiviry" of [he on the unsacrificable, which is included In A Fr.ntte m mg
, IS to say t e restricrion f" d' 'd 1 L'b
compensatio it " 'f h 0 in IVI ua I erry implicit in the premodern University Press, 2003), 5I-77·
, IS as I e doesn't s h 'all d
ern immunization h' h . ~e t e parenti y sacrificial character of rna -
, w IC IS ContaJ.n d' h' .
e m t e semantIC of the disprosalio. If ISon