Di plebei, popoli e sollevazioni popolari

The purpose of the contribution is to analyze Michel Foucault’s threefold critique of political subjects that, within his thought, apparently do not have the same “citizenship” as the population or the state. It involves the plebs, the people and the barbarian – figures that Foucault introduced and soon abandoned by virtue of a parallel and common critique: while in the plebeian concept of power relations are thought of only in terms domination (so that one is either dominated or dominant, never both), the fictitious unity of the people is no less mystifying. On the contrary, Foucault’s intent is give dignity and citizenship to the subjects of the borders, the barbarians, and to the event of the uprising that never presupposes a subject (as revolutions do), but if at all provides an occasion for subjectification. Thus, the overcoming of the threshold or of the borders reveals its (even etymological) relation to a “class dysphoria” that – far from being a depressive disorder – turns into a symptom of the will for a politicization that leaves nothing and no one out of it.