Identidad del enemigo y civilidad política: una lectura de Hobbes desde Balibar

Abstract

In this paper, I propose a critical reading of the figure of the enemy in the political thought of Thomas Hobbes, contrasting it with Carl Schmitt’s characterization and bringing it into dialogue with Étienne Balibar’s notion of “ultrasubjective violence.” Although Hobbesian philosophy is often associated with a pessimistic view of human nature and the justification of absolute sovereign power, I will argue that his theory contains elements that can be interpreted as strategies of civility –ways of avoiding the dehumanization of the other even in contexts of extreme violence. In contrast, Schmitt’s friend-enemy opposition, insofar as it depends on an identitarian rather than merely circumstantial logic, opens the door to forms of ferocious violence that Hobbes manages to avoid. The aim, therefore, is to recover certain aspects of Hobbes’s proposal as useful tools for critically thinking about contemporary politics, marked by forms of enmity that overflow the political sphere and result in exclusions, discriminations, and forms of violence justified by supposedly incompatible essences.