Of Habits and Lived Rules: Agamben’s Political Theology and the End of Law

By taking the cue from Agamben's re-conceptualization of monasticism and putting it in relation to his broader critique of normativity, this article will try to retrace his vision of the renewed use and form of the law that his political theology of redemption purports. Without explicitly formulating a strategy for political actions, the ideas Agamben has developed by looking at the monastic rules point toward the idea of law as a form of non-coercive rule akin to a habit or custom. Rather than consisting of a series of commands supplemented by the usual sanctions the renewed use of the law, Agamben has in mind, entails the idea of a norm that speaks but does not command anything, a rule that is lived but not obeyed. However, such a new form of law, far from being a renewed use of legal categories and norms, represents a radical abandonment of law as such.