Bauman, Zygmunt Stalin

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which the state administration can do nothing and nothing wishes to do.
Unlike in the case of the market-generated threats to livelihood and welfare, the
extent of dangers to personal safety must be presented in the darkest of colors so
that (much like in the Stalinist political regime) the nonmaterialization of
threats could be applauded as an extraordinary event, a result of vigilance, care,
and goodwill of state organs. This is the task with which the CIA and FBI are
mostly occupied in recent months: warning the Americans of the imminent
attempts on their safety, putting them in a state of constant alert, and so build-
ing up tension so that there is tension to be relieved when the attempts do not
occur and so that all credits for the relief may be by popular consent ascribed to
the organs of law and order to which the state administration is progressively
reduced.
Stalin s resolution of the official fear issue as the grounding of state power is,
we may hope, a matter of the past. This cannot be said, though, of the issue
itself. Fifty years after Stalin s death, it is still very much on the contemporary
powers agenda seeking desperately new and improved resolutions.
Notes
1. See Bakhtin (1965/1968); also Hirschkop s (1997) apt summary.
2. Schmitt (1963, p. 80); see the discussion in Agamben (1998, p. 137).
3. Schmitt (1922, pp.19-21); see discussion in Agamben (1998, pp. 15ff ).
4. Agamben (1998, p. 18)
5. See Beck (1986/1992, p. 137).
References
Agamben, G. (1998). Homo sacer: Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita [Sovereign power and bare
life] (D. Heller-Roazen, Trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. (Original work
published 1995)
Bakhtin, M. (1968). Rabelais and his world (H. Iswolsky, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press. (Original work published 1965)
Beck, U. (1992). Risiko Gesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in einere andere Moderne (M. Ritter, Trans.).
Newbury Park, CA: Sage. (Original work published 1986)
Bauman " Stalin 11
Hirschkop, K. (1997). Fear and democracy: An essay on Bakhtin s theory of carnival. Associa-
tions, 1, 209-234.
Schmitt, C. (1922). Politische Theologie: Vier Kapitel sur Lehre von der Souver�nit�t. Munich,
Germany: Duncker & Humboldt.
Schmitt, C. (1963). Theorie des Partisanen, Zwischenbemerkung zum Begriff des Politischen.
Munich, Germany: Duncker & Humboldt.
Zygmunt Bauman is emeritus professor of sociology, Universities of Leeds and
Warsaw. Recent publications include Society Under Siege (2001) and Individu-
alized Society (2002). [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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