On the website Antinomie, Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy and Roberto Esposito started a debate on the coronavirus epidemic. In his response to Jean-Luc Nancy, Esposito brings the problem of comparability into the discussion. There is not one biopolitics and there is not one state of emergency, but there are always many different biopolitics at work simultaneously. Espositio sees the concept of biopolitics as a way of understanding and analysing the diverse intertwining of different fields under the paradigm of life support, that is, the health not of individuals but of the population. It is precisely in the virus, in its spread as well as in its ‘combating’, that the intertwining of medical, political, technological, economic, social and psychological spheres under one paradigm, which was already prevalent before the pandemic, becomes apparent.
All texts are also translated into English and can be found together on European Journal of Psychoanalysis.