Political Activity

Abstract

We start our analysis of political activity by asking the question: in what sense can activity be attributed to politics or to the political sphere? This question becomes even more acute when we keep in mind the context of our analysis and the modes of activity we have already treated. We have seen labour and work as motivated by needs and producing, at least to some extent, products meant to satisfy these needs; together with the process of production certain techniques are evolved. We have seen that the activity of playing sometimes involves the agents in their own bodily existence, and sometimes involves them in the interaction between their segragated sphere of activity and the norms governing that activity. The aspect of activity is, to some extent, two-fold — in the performance and in the creation of rules. Hence it is only proper to ask: what does political activity create? Does it create — at least partially — material products or inter-subjective rules? Moreover, as we have seen, structurally there is a difference between labour and play. Labour intervenes in reality, while play presupposes it and moves further towards a construction of ‘monadic’ spheres of games, whose whole raison d’être lies in that very character.