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GIORGIO AGAMBEN — TRUTH AND SHAME
My translation of Agamben’s intervention on Quodlibet, January 24, 2023
“After what has happened in the past two years, it is difficult not to feel somewhat diminished, not to feel — whether one wants to or not — a kind of shame. This is not about the shame that Marx called “a kind of anger turned inward,” in which he glimpsed a possibility of revolution. Rather, it is about that “shame of being a man,” which Primo Levi spoke of in connection with the camps, the shame of those who saw happening that what should not have had happened. It has rightly been said that this is the shame of the kind, that, given due distance, we feel in the face of too much vulgarity, in the face of certain television broadcasts, the faces of their hosts and the confident smiles of the pundits, journalists and politicians who have knowingly sanctioned and spread lies, falsehood and abuse — and continue to do so with impunity.
Anyone who has experienced this shame knows that he or she has not become any better as a result of it. He knows, rather, as Saba used to repeat, that he “is much less than he was before”-more alone, even though he has sought out friends and companions, more mute, even though he has tried to testify, more powerless, even though someone has listened to his word. One thing, however, he has…
