Biopolitics and force majeure reason in Eduardo Nicol

Abstract

In Nicol’s work exists an original conception of biopolitics that differs from the best-known theories. It proceeds from a conception of humanity characterized by the tension between “historical community” and “natural species”; and proposes a substantial difference between the world of culture-technology-liberty vs. biological nature and necessity. Nicol argues that in our era human freedom is declining, as humanity is being reduced to behaving as a natural species struggling for its survival in the face of the possibility of civilizational collapse. Therefore, he formulates a conception of biopolitics that not only consists of a mechanism to impose biological control over human populations, but also discovers a new biopolitical dimension arising from the predominance of the “reason of force majeure”, a systematic reason of extreme necessity, which emerges because of the possible civilizational collapse that is spreading globally, and which has been triggered by the expansion of technological power and ecological destruction. The outcome of this collapse would be an unthinkable regression of humanity to the level of a biological species struggling for its collective survival, with the consequent loss of historical purposes and freely chosen decisions. Those theses are critically analyzed, and their validity and theoretical consequences are evaluated.