As we proposed in the previous chapter, to exclude human beings from humanity does not erase their humanness and, indeed, may actually confirm it. In large part, this and the following chapter set out to verify this statement by pinning down the key elements in Agamben's approach to power and politics in contemporary Western societies. Once clarified, these points shall put us in a much better position to appreciate and evaluate the significance of the notion of the ‘camp’ as the key tendency, according to Agamben, in democratic politics today.

Of course, we now know that Agamben is indebted to Aristotle's distinction in defining life in terms of zoē (life as mired in necessity and the satisfaction of basic needs, but also life as natural life or as alive-ness) and bios (life as a form or way of life). Bios, as a political life, was a way of life; as such, it was the way of freedom. This freedom is possible to the extent that the exclusion of bare life founds the ‘city of men’ (= the polity). In our view, this is similar to Arendt's position in relation to ancient Greek society, where the exclusion of pure necessity founds the realm of action as freedom and creativity – the political realm proper.