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Political Theology and COVID-19: Agamben’s Critique of Science as a New >“Pandemic Religion”
Guillermo Andrés Duque Silva and Cristina Del Prado Higuera
From the journal Open Theology
https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2020-0177
Abstract
The philosopher Giorgio Agamben has reacted to the coronavirus

crisis in

a way that markedly contrasts with most other positions in contemporary >political philosophy. His position has been described as irrational, >politically incorrect, and unfair toward the victims of COVID-19. In
this article, we delve into the foundations of this peculiar, >pessimistic, and controversial reaction. From Agamben’s conceptual >framework, we will explain how state responses to the COVID-19 crisis >have turned science into a new religion from the dogmas of which

various

strategies have been developed in order for states to exercise >biopolitical power under theological guises.

Keywords: state of exception; political theology; COVID-19; sovereignty
1 Introduction
At the beginning of 2020, an important philosophical debate took place
on the COVID-19 crisis. Various contemporary thinkers such as Slavoj >Žižek, Roberto Esposito, and Jean-Luc Nancy put forward their positions >regarding the critical situations then developing. In February 2020,

the

Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben intervened with a press release

that

aroused the most relentless criticism from the philosophical community. >The title of the publication: The invention of an epidemic revealed the >critical position that Agamben advanced against the measures that have >been imposed by states within their responses to the health emergency.
In that publication, the renowned philosopher called the state

responses

to the pandemic crisis “frantic, irrational and completely

unjustified.”

Agamben questioned why the media and the authorities were making an >effort “to spread a climate of panic, causing a true state of

exception,

with serious limitations on movements and a suspension of the normal >functioning of living and working conditions in entire regions.” From >Agamben’s perspective, those measurements were totally out of

proportion

to what, according to him, was simply a typical common flu.

A coronavirus is simply different from a flu virus whether the latter
is either typical or common.

A wave of criticism was quickly levied against Agamben and we shall >examine in this article the most important elements thereof. We will

not

discuss the virus’s destructive capacity since Agamben’s classification >of COVID-19 as “simply flu” falls by itself. What interests us is the >link Agamben makes between the emergence of COVID-19 and what he >conceptualizes as a resultant permanent state of exception.

Agamben has devoted himself for more than twenty years to the scholarly >study of the state of exception in Western culture. While his study of >the subject began solely on a theoretical and abstract plane, it
suddenly took life before his eyes in the form of the worldwide

response

to COVID-19. For this reason, quite beyond Agamben’s controversial >position on the lethality of the virus, we are interested in the
argument that the philosopher puts forward about a growing tendency of >states to use the state of exception as a standard paradigm of >government, a propensity of theirs for which the cover given by

COVID-19

is ideally suited, as he explains in his most recent work.[1]

This article will fulfill three purposes, arranged into three sections. >First, we will examine Giorgio Agamben’s theoretical proposal of the >state of exception as a dialogue, on the one hand, with the criticisms >received from other philosophers, and, on the other hand, with the >possible applications that this theory would have in concrete

situations

generated by the COVID-19 crisis. Second, we will analyze the

conceptual

framework of political theology and economic theology in Giorgio >Agamben’s work, especially that developed in The Kingdom and the Glory: >For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government. Finally, we will >put this theory in the context of the health crisis and the question of >the origin and legitimacy of laws and measures that affect social life
in the state of emergency generated by the coronavirus. In Section

4, we

will draw attention to the scope of the current state of exception

that,

in the Agambenian theoretical framework, will not be overcome with the >end of the pandemic, in the same way, that it did not begin with it.

2 Pandemic and homo sacer: Our neighbor has been abolished
The Italian philosopher has attempted to carry further the

philosophical

project dealing with biopolitics and their underlying genealogical >considerations that was initiated by Michel Foucault. Agamben describes >the contemporary age as a time that manages to materialize the

diagnosis

that Foucault hinted at in reference to the concept of “biopolitics” in >his last works. The notion of biopolitics has been used to describe the >administration of power in human life as a government paradigm in
Western culture. According to Foucault’s conception of human powers: >these act in two ways:[2] those that boost life or those that end

it.[3]

From the first perspective, that of the impulse of life, human beings
are, for those in power, simply raw material to be preserved; however,
in the second case, those in power are compelled to exercise mechanisms >that end the life of a part of the population that they administer. The >two visions are complementary because, ultimately, the deaths of some >subjects may serve to protect the lives of others. Giorgio Agamben >revives the concept of biopolitics in order to describe contemporary >society and goes one step further: he focuses his attention on a >pessimistic perspective of biopolitics. Agamben dedicates himself to >understanding the criteria for the administration of death that are >exercised in the history of the West so as to identify biopolitical >patterns in the governments of Western societies, as well as the

reduced

possibilities of resistance that may emerge in a world that has been >turning into a “gigantic concentration camp.”[4]

From Agamben’s perspective, the most reprehensible cruelties that have
taken place in the exercise of power in the West, instead of being >exceptional anomalies, constitute instances inherent in the process of >the social construction of modernity.[5] In this way, Giorgio Agamben >interprets Ernst Nolte’s position on Auschwitz: history seems to resist >being left in the past. Indeed, Auschwitz constitutes the obscene >paradigm of the modern that Agamben turns into the founding myth of a >biopolitical era. This paradigm refuses to “remain in the past” and
gives meaning to contemporary forms of government. The Italian follows >the weak but the constant beat of the Musselman [6] of Auschwitz. The >philosopher carries out, in a research program over a decade and >producing six books, a prodigious archaeological excavation of power so >as to identify among its meanings what is the essential core of the >modern, an explanation of the question of “how did we get to

Auschwitz?”

and through that genealogy journey finds the origins of the concept of >“Nuda Vita.”[7]

Contemporary life, in the concept of biopolitics proposed by Agamben,
has become a bare life. Life thus conceived is reduced to what is >produced and managed by law. The individuals in a concentration camp

are

stripped of all rights and political–legal status; their life is
treated, by the agents of power, as matter without human form, naked >life: they are data, figures, biological units that are always >disposable, as opposed to the greater value of the future and the >preservation, paradoxically, of other lives.[8] Under the rule

exercised

by the agents of power, Nuda Vita, according to Agamben, gives rise to >the pauperization of human life in general. Among the concentration

camp

subjects, Agamben focuses on two figures; the Musselman, on the one
hand, represents the most powerless figure in the concentration camp. >Resigned to dying, he is engulfed in humiliation, fear, and horror. On >the other hand, there is the homo sacer, who lives trapped in the

middle

of an incongruity; on the one hand, he bears the burden of a crime, but >he is legally unsacrifiable. That is, it is forbidden to subject him to >death at the same time that he has to live knowing that others are >allowed impunity if they kill him.[9] Agamben advances and relates the >nuda vita and the homo sacer as metaphors of modern life and the >concentration camp as its paradigm. In this regard, Múnera and

Benavides

indicate that:

Bared life [as life for death] is not the simple natural life, but a >politically unprotected life, permanently exposed to death or the >humiliations caused, with total impunity, by the sovereign power or by >those who compose it as citizens.[10]

It is inevitable to compare Agamben’s bare life concept with his >statements about the disease and the states of emergency that COVID-19 >has generated.

In particular, the intergenerational differences that are promoted in >defense of general well-being are striking. All, but particularly the >older generations, have experienced, in a certain way, being locked

in a

politically unprotected life, permanently exposed to death. The older >adult has become a Musselman of the twenty-first century, resigned to >death but while being unsacrifiable. His death is an expected result >that, however, is not directly ordered. The death is, in this case, >expected as a natural result of the isolation offered, in European >nursing homes, for instance. His death is considered a natural and >inevitable result. The fact that consideration of the option of

saving a

patient with a ventilator leans naturally to a question as to who

“has a

whole life ahead of him,” at no time admits the other option of >considering that choice as a criminal act in respect of other patients >not so saved, puts us face to face with biopower. If the meaning of

that

choice seems justifiably natural, it is because in that

normalization of

horror lies the essence of the administration of power in the >contemporary age, a power that conserves one life and ends another.

This

is the meaning of the criticism that Agamben makes of the health >emergency’s political background, which not only affects the elderly as >Musselman of the XXI century but, in general, is directed at all >individuals of Western civilization destined to become a contemporary >homo sacer. For Agamben, the message that sustains the biopolitics of >COVID-19 is based on the promotion of horror: the governmental machine >tells us that “our neighbour has been abolished.”[11]

To analyze how life in the West has been transformed into a simple

naked

life due to the pandemic, we have systematically studied all of Giorgio >Agamben’s discourse on the health emergency and the changes that are >taking place in some Western democracies. After studying the sixteen >chapters of the book A che punto siamo? L´epidemia come politica we

have

come upon an interesting finding: not only can it be verified that we >live in a permanent state of exception, as Agamben presented in his >research, but the pandemic has created a particular religious need to >which the church cannot respond, but to which science can. That is, in >the pandemic crisis science has become the new religion and takes from >religion its forms and strategies of governing life, all the while

using

scientific arguments.

The author presented his arguments in the face of the COVID-19 crisis,
as quarantines and restrictions on movement were being put into

place in

Europe, being presented as the most plausible means of handling the
peaks of contagion during 2020. In our study, we have identified that
the progression of Agamben’s argument follows three basic stages, the >first of which is present in his February 2020 publications. Here we

can

identify the notion of a fear of contagion as a key element.

The central idea raised by Agamben indicates that the management of the >COVID-19 crisis has generated “a perverse vicious circle: the

limitation

of freedom imposed by governments is accepted in the name of a desire
for security that has been induced by governments themselves, the same >governments that are now intervening in order to satisfy that >desire.”[12] In this sense, this fear of contagion forms the

fundamental

basis of a new form of the traditional transaction between protection
and obedience that has characterized the relationships between modern >states and their citizens.

In his March 11 publication, at one of the most critical moments of the >pandemic, Agamben explains that the fear of contagion has made citizens >accept unprecedented restrictions on their freedoms, fuelled by the >uncertainty generated by not being able to identify materially the
source of risk and harm. The second group of arguments follows from the >previous ones and supposes the transition from collective fear to >individual isolation, with the deterioration in human relationships

that

this produces. These two elements, collective fear and individual >isolation, support the third argument, which leads to the

culmination of

Agamben´s criticism of governments. More specifically, in Riflessioni >sulla pestee the author claims that the pandemic has reactivated a need >for religion that the church cannot satisfy. This demand for

religiosity

is met today by what we refer to as science.

In summary, beyond confirming that we live in a permanent state of >exception, the interesting finding that we would like to highlight is
the emergence of a need for religion that the Church can no longer >satisfy but that science can, even if only through theological
strategies of government.

Agamben describes the theological form of science as a new religion

made

evident through a discourse disseminated via the media that combines >religiosity with science. The author affirms that the obsessive appeal, >“especially in the American press, to the word ‘apocalypse’ and to the >end of the world is an indication of this.”[13] However, blind faith in >science is not only evident in the media’s discourse, but is also >transferred to politics and decision making, that is, to the terrain of >sovereignty. The decisions that promote life or end it in the

context of

the pandemic have been supported by scientific reasons that are
sometimes contradictory. This reveals to us a science of differing >opinions and prescriptions that range “from the heretical minority >position (also represented by prestigious scientists) of those who deny >the seriousness of the phenomenon to those within the mainstream
orthodox discourse who affirm it and yet radically diverge among >themselves in their opinions on how to deal with the pandemic.”[14]

Contrary to what the essence of science would indicate, some experts

(or

some self-defined as such) act like governmental commissioners to

define

how life is to be promoted or ended. This situation is similar to that
of a religious conflict, where the role of experts is not always to
reach the best solution but rather “to ensure the favor of the monarch, >who at the time of the past religious disputes that divided
Christianity, took sides according to his interests with one current or >another and imposed his solutions.”[15] In other words, this new >“science” of religion comes interweaved with a new biopolitical >government relying on theological strategies. In this article, we will >analyze arguments that explain this change based on Agamben’s work, >mainly his genealogy of sovereignty in his work Il regno e la gloria.

It is indispensable to compare Agamben’s bare life concept with his >statements about the disease and the states of emergency that COVID-19 >has generated. In particular, the intergenerational differences that

are

promoted in defense of general societal well-being are striking. All,
but particularly the older generations, have experienced, in a certain >way, being locked into a politically unprotected life, permanently >exposed to death. The older adult has become a Musselman of the >twenty-first century, resigned to death, while being unsacrifiable. His >death is an expected result that, however, is not directly ordered. The >death is, in this case, expected as a natural result of the isolation >they offer, in Europe, for instance, in nursing homes. His death is >considered a natural and inevitable result. The fact that the choice >between saving a young patient with a ventilator leans naturally to who >“has a whole life ahead of him,” at no time admits the option of >considering it as a criminal act, puts us face to face with

biopower. If

the meaning of that choice tends to naturalize, it is because in that >normalization of horror lies the essence of the administration of power >in the contemporary age, a power that drives one life and ends another. >This is the meaning of the criticism that Agamben makes of the health >emergency’s political background, which not only affects the elderly as >Musselman of the XXI century but, in general, is directed at all >individuals of Western civilization destined to become a contemporary >homo sacer. For Agamben, the message that sustains the biopolitics of >COVID-19 is based on the promotion of horror: the governmental machine >tells us that “our neighbor has been abolished.”[16]

The sovereignty exercised by the governmental powers in this >interpretation by Agamben does not require greater legitimacy than the >very fact of being able to dispose of the lives of subjects. That is,
the decisions of government agents are considered legitimate “by the >simple fact of their sovereignty.”[17] This is what grounds as legal

and

legitimate the sovereign decision of the attribution of the ventilator >referred to above, where reasons may be given or not since the symptom >and the expression of sovereignty do not need reasons in order to be >exercised.

For Agamben, where this sovereignty is developed is closely related to >the duality between normality and exception that Carl Schmitt raised; >however, it breaks the dichotomous scheme that characterized >Plettenberg’s jurist. Agamben indicates that the sovereign is not the
one who decides in and on the state of exception but rather is the one >capable of maintaining exceptional actions as an area subject to his >control and presenting them as standard actions. Thus, to the old

logic:

normality – exception – new normality that we would long for with >Schmitt’s scheme, Agamben proposes a notion of permanent

exceptionality.

If Carl Schmitt went so far as to affirm that “the sovereign is at the >same time, outside and inside the legal order”[18] for his ability to >suspend normality with the declaration of a state of exception and >reinstitute a new legal order, Giorgio Agamben goes one step

further: He

affirms that his sovereign acts under a self-justifying imperative,
which indicates: “the law is outside itself, and I, the sovereign, who
am outside the law, declare that there is no outside the law.”[19]

While in the Schmittian approach, exceptionality and sovereignty are >attributes of the political struggle,[20] in Agamben, the place of

power

and its exercise are transcendent to political groups and actors. >Authority and administration are expressed from a permanent >exceptionality. For that reason, the sovereignty in Agamben is a place, >not a specific actor. The government is a verb rather than a noun. So, >while the sovereign for Schmitt may be a political party, a monarch, a >populist leader, or even, in its last stage, a guerrilla group that >decides in and on the state of exception, for Agamben, that role is the >experience of governing, not a specific social actor.[21] That is,

it is

not the result of a specific decision-maker but of the social and legal >order that has been built in the West.[22] This form of exceptionality
is expressed permanently, without breaks or claims of new normalities. >For Agamben, sovereignty and the right that emanates from it do not
arise from the pauses of exceptionality that Schmitt proposes because,
in the contemporary West, there is nothing more normal than living in a >permanent state of exception. In other words, the state of exception in >Giorgio Agamben’s thought is not characterized by its abnormality and >contingency, and it is not explained in terms of “normality to come,”
but instead by its permanence, which is why it is, in most cases, an >imperceptible exceptionality.[23]

Although the approach to a permanent state of exception places the >COVID-19 crisis in a broad panorama, the criticisms received by another >biopolitics researcher, Roberto Esposito, reflect that it is still too >early to see beyond the “death toll,” as Agamben urges. It is not yet >time to analyze the qualitative effect that the decision to quarantine >humanity and its freedoms will leave in the long term. Specifically, >Esposito indicates to Agamben that the comparison between spending a

few

days in isolation in a comfortable Italian middle-class house and the >horror of a concentration camp is implausible and irresponsible.[24] >Esposito is right. However, we should add to his reply that the way >COVID-19 restrictions are assumed is not the same in regions of the
world where, for example, washing hands with soap and water has been a >luxury for centuries. So, Esposito seems to lose sight of the fact that >the exceptional is not dictated by the circumstances in which isolation >is assumed but comes from how we internalize in customs what should not >under any circumstances be accepted.[25] For example, we have >incorporated as something “normal” that enormous regions of the world >live under the quarantine imposed by hunger and misery. Agamben reminds >us that the genuine plague is none other than the meekness with

which we

accept to live with exceptional and reprehensible situations.[26] >Finally, this “normalization of the exceptional” is a consequence of >sovereignty in the biopolitical era and the permanent state of
exception, and the emergence of COVID-19 is settling into it, like its >most advanced chapter.

3 COVID-19 and democracy: A people that can reign but not govern
Many of the criticisms that Agamben received sought to label him as

part

of the “conspiracy theorist paranoiacs” who assign to the states and

the

capitalist elites the responsibility of having spread fear amongst >citizens when, in fact, capitalism and its government elites have been >highly affected by the crisis capitalism and its government elites have >been the main affected by the crisis. Žižek’s criticism of Agamben, for >example, questioned the benefit that the state of emergency could bring >to governments and capitalist elites because, in the end, the emergency >has accentuated, on the one hand, general distrust in the governments >and, on the other hand, an unprecedented economic crisis. Žižek asks >Agamben: what elite would be interested in promoting such a movement >against their interests? The answer in favor of Agamben to this

question

can be found in the criticism that Paolo Flores d’Arcais made of

Agamben

in MicroMega. For Flores d’Arcais, COVID-19 has not strengthened the >state or capital’s power. This position coincides with that of Žižek. >However, the pandemic has been characterized by the appearance of a new >“conspiracy of white coats”: doctors and scientists who appear today as >depositaries of the “last word” in government on the lives of its >citizens. According to Flores d’Arcais, this is/represents a power more >significant than the interests of governments and capital.[27]

If we focus on the way decisions are made in the COVID-19 state of >exception, and in the Agambenian theoretical framework, we will see

that

governments rely on the medical-scientific argument to justify their >decisions with two benefits to them, such administrators; on the one >hand, they avoid the need to submit their proposals to the demanding >deliberation of democratic systems and, on the other hand – with that >shortcut and delegation to the scientists – the governments exempt from >their original responsibilities; as simple “operators” of a scientific >decision that, after all, is alien to them. So, that last decision of
the “white coats” to which Flores d’Arcais refers is not taken in some >way above the governments themselves but is instead used by the latter
as an argument of authority that operates theologically. If we consider >the theological background in which the scientific decisions that >subsequently sustain government actions arise, we see a correlation >between earthly government authorities and “scientific sovereignty.”
This self-power justifies coercive decisions under the irrefutable halo >that medicine offers. In the long term, contrary to what Žižek says, >those measures that in principle seem to affect capital and the states >will strengthen them notably, since the exceptional will become

routine,

in an accelerated way and with a high democratic cost that will be >difficult to recover. In the end, with the irrefutable and self-imposed >argument of “medical reason,” the governments that have sustained the >temporary suspension of the legal order will have been able to justify >unprecedented control over the individual and society to protect them >from an unprecedented danger. In summary, by dint of the >medical–political duality, in the crisis of COVID-19, a contemporary >version of the theological–political duality that Agamben studied is >forged to explain that who governs, in the occidental democracies is
that power capable of converting the state of exception into order, and >the world – into a gigantic “concentration camp.” Seen like this, the >relationship between theology and politics that can be established in
the decisions taken to contain COVID-19, coming from Agamben, does not >correspond in any way with a conspiratorial agenda.

In Agamben’s viewpoint, the world configured as a concentration camp >predates COVID-19; in fact, it is as old as Western societies’ very >formation. How does Agamben explain why we got to this point? Agamben >considers that the West’s history is the history of creating a bipolar >biopolitical “governmental machine” that operates theologically on

human

lives, despite having eliminated the need to sustain its actions in

some

essence or primary political substance: the machinery of government

that

does not need to refer to a divine foundation and, nevertheless, is >always presented as a sacred institution.[28]

The biopolitical government is clothed with celestial majesty without >properly a divine substance from which its authority emanates. In Il >regno e la gloria, Agamben performs a genealogical exercise of modern >government. He explains the emergence of this governmental machine, >moving back to the Judeo-Christian theological origins. This
genealogical development is highly relevant for understanding Agamben’s >criticism of the global state of exception that has unleashed through >COVID-19. Agamben’s research allows us to understand that modern

Western

culture has built a type of government that can dispense with the need
to refer its decisions to a fundamental, essential, and superior power >and, even so, operate under theological principles. The modern
understood in this way does not presuppose, much less arise from, the >rupture between substance and form, nor the separation between
auctoritas and potestas. Rather, the modern invokes the discovery of an >absent, immobile divine power, whose sacredness depends not on itself, >but on the glorification of those who, without being God, have assumed >the management of its praxis on earth.

In modern government the providential and scientific levels?–?that of >power and that of authority–make up two poles that cooperate: they >maintain the place of the sacred as an empty throne, that is, without a >specific substance and, at the same time, they preserve the sacredness
in the management rites that, “in the name of the sacred,” are carried >out by angels, ministers, shepherds, saints for each prayer and, in >general, all the bureaucratic machinery responsible for religious
praxis. To reach this conclusion, Agamben faces the task of creating a >genealogy of government, similar to that carried out by Foucault while >going beyond Foucault’s work. Concurrently, the French philosopher

finds

in the pastoral work of the first two centuries of Christianity the >authentically modern moment that found the birth of political power in >the theological contamination of the human government’s world. Let us >remember that for Foucault, this moment is characterized by

transforming

power into a properly human management attribute, that is, detached

from

transcendental sovereignty. Modern political power, that is, the
capacity to provide security, administration, and management to the >state, would be born, in Foucault’s perspective, from that pastoral >power, in essence, private, and oriented to the economic technique that >the priests and first Christian leaders carried out on their flock and >over each one his “sheeps.”[29] For his part, in various theological >treatises, Agamben analyzes how the political is also present in the >origins of Jewish and Christian religious dogmatic discourses. Agamben >explains, for example, that the term oikonomia, which characterizes the >first private management of the “pater familias,” not only has the >political implications that we know today in the states but also had

and

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