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NOTES TO PAGES 197–201

ilar remarks on the lawmaking violence of the police can be found in the works of Giorgio Agamben
and of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. They discuss the law-positing authority of the police
explicitly in the context of an analysis of new forms of sovereignty. Hardt and Negri emphasize, in
the spirit of Benjamin, that the police’s lawmaking violence is related to its competence to decide
the exceptional case: ‘‘here, therefore, is born, in the name of the exceptionality of the intervention,
a form of right that is reallya right of the police’’ (Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri,Empire
[Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000], 17).

43. Benjamin, ‘‘Critique of Violence,’’ 191 / 244.


44. Ibid., 190 / 244.


45. Walter Benjamin, ‘‘U ̈ber Sprache u ̈berhaupt und u ̈ber die Sprache des Menschen,’’ in
    Benjamin,Gesammelte Schriften, 2.1:142; translated as Walter Benjamin, ‘‘On Language as Such and
    on the Language of Man,’’ in Benjamin,Selected Writings, vol. 1,1913–1926, 64.


46. Georges Sorel,Re ́flexions sur la violence(1908; Paris: Rivie`re, 1950). See: Manfred Gangl,
    ‘‘Mythos der Gewalt und Gewalt der Mythos: Georges Sorels Einfluss auf rechte und linke Intellek-
    tuelle der Weimarer Republik,’’ inIntellektuellendiskurse, ed. Gangl and Raulet, 171–96; and Chrys-
    soula Kambas, ‘‘Walter Benjamin, Lecteur des ‘Re ́flexions sur la Violence,’ ’’Cahiers Georges Sorel 2
    (1984): 71–87.


47. Benjamin, ‘‘Critique of Violence,’’ 199 / 249–50 (trans. modified).


48. Derrida, ‘‘Force de loi,’’ 119.


49. Ibid., 134.


50. A critical analysis of metaphors suggesting a war beyond the political is urgent. We could,
    for example, refer to wordings like the ‘‘decisive victory for the forces of freedom’’ in the National
    Security Strategy of the United States (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf)..)


51. See Charles Lane, ‘‘Secrecy Allowed on 9/11 Detention: High Court Declines to Hear
    Appeal,’’The Washington Post, January 13, 2004, and Ronald Dworkin, ‘‘What the Court Really
    Said,’’The New York Review of Books51 (2004): 13.


52. Judith Butler argues that the detention of ‘‘illegal enemy combatants’’ in Guanta ́namo Bay
    may well be in agreement with international law and, more specifically, the Geneva Conventions.
    International law proves to be biased toward the nation-state, offering protection only to its sub-
    jects: ‘‘The Conventions aid and abet the United States by guaranteeing prisoners not affiliated
    with state-centered military actions fewer rights than those who are’’ (Judith Butler, ‘‘Guanta ́namo
    Limbo,’’The Nation274 [2002]: 12).


53. Under Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention, should any doubt arise as to whether
    captured individuals do in fact belong to one of the hostile parties, a ‘‘competent tribunal’’ must
    ascertain their identity. According to the U.S. government, however, such an examination is not
    necessary in the exceptional case of ‘‘non-state enemy combatants.’’


54. Benjamin, ‘‘Critique of Violence,’’ 189 / 243.


55. Ibid., 188 / 242.


56. Ibid., 186 / 240.

Judith Butler, Critique, Coercion, and Sacred Life in Benjamin’s ‘‘Critique of
Violence’’

1. All citations in this essay are from Walter Benjamin,Selected Writings, vol. 1,1913–1926,
   ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), and in

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