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political space*
—— Carlo Galli
Which implicit spaces can be re istance the distinction between civi-
vealed in political thought and in lization and barbarism is conceived
stitutions? Since the beginning as natural, while in the second one
of political modernity – marked it is based upon legal foundations.
by the discovery of America and
the enlargement of the Europe 2. Machiavelli’s agonistic space
an space on the one hand, and by According to Machiavelli, space
the rift in the supposedly universal is the field of civil and military
space of Christianity determined struggles. The city and the ter
by the Protestant Reform on the ritory interpreted by the Prince
other – different implicit concep must be marked by virtue, that is
tions of space followed one anoth by conflict. Accordingly, «unpleas
er. Though this movement seems ant places» – as Machiavelli calls
to be characterized by their mutu them in his Discorsi (book I, 11) –
al opposition, each of them actual should be preferred since they al
ly develops some implicit features low strengthening virtue. Further
of the previous one. These implicit more, the space should be seen
conceptions of space can be clas from the point of view of the pos
sified as follows. sibility of engaging a war (Discor-
si, book III, 39; Principe, 14).
1. A qualitative space characterized
by natural differences 3. The Catholic space of Thomism
This is the ancient political space and of the Second Scholasticism
both of the Greek polis and of Rome. This conception of space devel
There is, however, a difference be ops some features of the univer
tween these cases, since in the first sal Christian space of Middle-age
(even though the latter was actu there also exists an internal utopia
ally dualistic, insofar as it was built dressed as an external one, that is
upon the struggle against the Is a critique developed from a point
lamic world). Francisco de Vitoria’s of view as innocent as the one of a
De Indis is an early example of this stranger (this is the case of Mon
conception. For Vitoria, space is not tesquieu’s perspective in his Per-
differentiated according to onto sian Letters).
logical criteria, since every man is
an Imago Dei and everybody is able 5. The smooth universal empty
to govern himself. Only differences space of modern rationalism
in terms of development and of This space exists before things, it
knowledge of the Gospel may legit is a space where things are placed
imize the Christian powers to pro according to the order and seg
vide their benevolent help to the mentation provided by politics.
«savages». Furthermore, Christian I) First of all, it is an operative
powers should not be prevented universalism, insofar as space – as
from their commercial exchang Heidegger suggests – is where
es and the work of evangelization. the human artifice, the image of
Thus, the universal and homoge the world defined by technique,
neous space full of qualities is dif is placed (Heidegger 1950). The
ferentiated along lines that, at least true dimension of this space is a
in theory, are provisional. Beside progressive time: time is progres
Vitoria, a different conception of sive when an artifice is built with
space is articulated by Sepulveda in the homogeneous space, when
in his 1547 Democrates Alter, ac a movement from the state of na
cording to which Native Americans ture to the Political State, from bar
are nothing more than homunculi. barism to civilization, takes place.
However, as Gerbi explains in The This universal space is made up
Dispute of the New World (2000), of natural subjective rights. Para
the latter conception was accept doxically, the modern and secular
ed until the 18th century. universalism is realized by a plu
rality of particular States, each es
4. The utopian space tablishing itself as an empty, ho
Placed outside the is, this space mogeneous, neutral and legalized
concerns the ought to be: it is an space in order to overcome the rift
island in the middle of the sea, it is produced by religious civil wars. In
at the antipodes, and it is far away. such a space, as Isin pointed out,
It is an extreme universalism that the natural rights of each subject
stands before the real world and become civil and political rights,
its manifestations with an indif thanks to the systems of citizen
ferent abstractness. Furthermore, ship and to the struggles for being
from slave trade to piracy, from gle against privileges) and external
the devastation of South America (the armed revolutionary nation);
to the hard struggles – described in Ritter, space is not only politics
by Milton (1999) – between Portu or nature, but also history; even
guese, English and Dutch for the Hegel believes – in his Philosophy
Moluccas, the islands of spices. All of Law (§§ 244–7) – that space de
these processes are the one true velops progressively from East to
driving force of capitalist accumu West: in fact, the space is simulta
lation, where war and commerce neously crisscrossed by inner con
interlace on a global level (be tradictions (the civil society) that
side and against doux commerce). are pushed outside (through col
World capitalism is the truth of the onization). So, the relationship be
European State: the lines of the Eu tween the internal and the exter
ropean space of States dividing nal space is complicated since the
the interior and the exterior space “outside” is interpreted as the con
are actually interlaced and fueled dition of possibility of the “inside”.
by the multiple extra-European The space is articulated in time, in
lines of power such as the ocean a “before” and an “after”. In Marx
ic routes of unequal commerce, of this is even clearer: the internal
war for extermination (even be space (the State) is crisscrossed
tween European powers, though by a class line, which is truer than
outside Europe) and of slavery. The the empty homogeneity of democ
exterior space is the core of the in racy. This spatiality is made pos
terior one. Capitalist universalism sible by the spatiality – both dif
generates infinite differences that ferentiating and hierarchizing – of
are not ontologically determined the historically determined global
by the physical space. Rather, they capitalism. In other words, space is
are determined economically and modified by history and economy.
politically, according to their dif
ferent places within the regimes 7. The natural, quantitative, differ-
of production. entiated space of Positivism.
Here the space is ruled by physical
6. The revolutionary, romantic and and anthropological – that is quan
dialectical space between nature titative – laws, that can be scientif
and history ically known and that differentiate
The modern space, supposedly it: The burden of the white man con
empty, is now filled with nature, sists in managing these differenc
society and history by the Nation es rather than overcoming them.
and the bourgeois State. In Sieyès The (real) economic and technical
the lines of power are internal unbalance is politicized by refer
(the division of labor, the strug ring to natural laws that bound pol
Conclusions
Bibliografia