Three unexpected partners: Zoe, Bios, and the Homo Sacer

What makes a beauty of Giorgio Agamben’s depiction of the homo sacer (in English, sacred man) is the fact that even if the said individual is condemned by the state to death, wherein anyone can kill him, he is at the same time forbidden to be sacrificed. The beauty of this, in contrast to Michel Foucault’s biopolitics, is that Agamben goes back to the classical Greek politics of Aristotle, wherein life is distinctively different into two terms, which is the zoe and the bios.
The zoe is referred to life in general, as life is an essential part of man, that man should know how to manage and live his life. On the other hand, the bios, as Aristotle said in his book Nicomachean Ethics, is the life that is desired in a city, which is the good life. The good life, hence, is the kind of life the city wants to share with the individuals who are a part of that state. Agamben’s separation of life into the traditional way, as opposed to Foucault’s biopolitics where the very essence of life is the source of political power, and hence invested with politics, is very clear to the people that there is a distinction of life, which was pointed out by Aristotle but Foucualt has neglected.
Going back to the distinction of the zoe and the bios, such distinction is made that in the bios, a series of exclusions in the polis is involved, giving the zoe no involvement in politics. But although the zoe is excluded in the political sphere, which is here represented by the bios, it has been explicitly mentioned that the zoe is still, in one way or another, included within the bios. Although the bios is a privileged space that the zoe cannot be part of, it can still be seen that the inclusiveness of the zoe is still evident by the fact that a particular aspect of life is still respected in the polis. Even if the zoe, which can be likened to the aliens and outcasts of the polis, is excluded in being involved together with the bios, which is likened to the intellectual elites, middle class, and businessmen of that state, the inclusion of the zoe would still manifest to life in general as a basic structure to politics, similar to that of Foucault’s biopolitics.
But however, it must be clear that Agamben is pointing out the involvement of life with politics as different to that of Foucault’s biopolitics: Foucault makes no distinction of life in his definition of biopolitics while Agamben makes that distinction in his work on the homo sacer.
In contemporary times, the homo sacer can be likened to threats that are imposed to structures on a daily basis. As these threats, like the homo sacer, which cannot be sacrificed but can be destroyed, these threats are addressed by the sovereign through making ways or means in order to destroy that threat and at the same time maintaining the overall integrity of the state. In such manner, the use of power here is not for legitimization purposes but for emergency and critical situations, which is similar in matter in the formation of martial law in the Philippine constitution, wherein the threat becomes to strong for the traditional sovereign to handle, causing the government to make more use of the power it has to address that threat. In addition, the homo sacer cannot be likened to the bare life, the life where only the basic necessities that man needs for survival, as bare life does not have the sacredness the homo sacer has. Because of the sacredness of the homo sacer, of which bare life does not have, democracy is possible such that the homo sacer can be killed by anyone but at the same time contradicts it because of the fact that is sacred.
To understand the homo sacer much better, Agamben points out that he is not contradicting what is Foucault pointing out with regards to biopolitics; instead, what Agamben wants us to do is not to resist biopolitical power but to rethink the ethics behind it.
By rethinking the ethics means understanding the human body, specifically ourselves, as a limiting figure in terms of power. For me, such makes sense as the human body itself has its own unique limits. The human body is no invulnerable figure like that of a God; it is because of our limits that we can only do so much, and hence, the presence of the specialty system that Plato has pointed out in The Republic, as individuals have specialized jobs in order to benefit society the most. By understanding ourselves as limiting figures, we are able then to set the limits in society as well, creating what is to be called an ideal type of democracy: a type of political system that gives freedom to its people and at the same time sets just limits to maintain the integrity and equality of society.
Hence, the homo sacer, being a paradoxical figure of the state, is essentially a powerful figure, possibly more powerful than those individuals who make the most of being part of the bios. What makes the homo sacer powerful, despite its paradoxical function in the sovereign, is that it is a determining figure in the state, as despite its condemnation by the state and its mere exclusion to the bios, the homo sacer is still forbidden to be sacrificed by the state, as the state that desires for the bios has still respect for the zoe as well.