Why pólemos?

‘…whatever keeps its antithesis merely beneath it or even outside of it, as something to be battled and negated, cannot be great in the sense of grand style, because it remains dependant upon, and lets itself be led by what it repudiates. It remains reactive. On the contrary, in the grand style nascent law grows out of original action, which is itself the yoke… only what anticipates its sharpest antithesis, and not what merely holds that antithesis down and suppresses it, is truly great; such transformation does not cause the antithesis to disappear, however, but to come into its essential unfolding….’ (Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. 1, pp. 134-5).

The contention of this blog is that it is not pólemos, conflict, that is the issue, but rather its masking, its proscription, interdiction, its condemnation that leaves one unable to see and to understand. It is not rage that blinds but its absence. 

Much of this blog will be reflections on readings and materials I will translate for the blog. In time I would like for it to become a resource for thinking the foundational nature of conflict in various forms and media, as well as a space of exploration and – perhaps more importantly for those who choose to visit it – a collection of sources, many translated from Italian operaismo (Workerism) and the Italian reception of pensiero negativo (Negative Thought), which I hope will also be able to be of use to others in thinking the question of the negative, of conflict, of the irresolvable, of the unsettling always already unheimlich nature of thought and practice.