The film opens and closes with a phrase that, without Antonio Negri’s story to illuminate it, might seem like an expression of cynical disaffection. Instead, it is the keystone of his philosophy, his true recantation: «I prefer to know you than to recognise myself.» In this confession lies the seed of his entire philosophy of joy, of the power of conatus. Toni, the man—not the philosopher or the politician—always preferred discovery, movement, and the state of «being-in-the-making» rather than fossilising into a photograph, into an identity. To recognise himself would mean accepting being a monument, an icon, a statue to be admired or to be torn down. But the real Toni, the one who shaves his beard every morning as an act of resistance in solitary confinement, cannot afford the luxury of stasis, not even as a prisoner. Shaving isn’t a simple act of hygiene; it is a Spinozian gesture of conatus, of self-affirmation against the identity that has been stitched onto him. It is an act of removing, of taking away, to be able to start existing again every day, in every moment. It is about happy passions against sad ones.
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[Conversazione tra Leonardo Caffo e Anna Negri in Italiano]
Leonardo Caffo™
Nomadic philosophy, curatorial studies, conceptual design, writing
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Leonardo Caffo™ 