On the advantages of not being listened to
In contemporary is first of all that word that is addressed to an audience that under no circumstances will be able to receive it. But this is precisely what defines his rank. If a book that is addressed only to its intended readers is uninteresting and does not survive the public to which it was directed, the price of a work is instead measured precisely by the temerity with which it challenges those who will not be able to accept it. Prophecy is the name of this special temerity, destined to remain unheard of and illegible. This does not mean that it expects to be recognized one day - far away for now -: a work remains alive only as long as there are readers who cannot accept it. Canonization, which makes its acceptance obligatory, is in fact the form par excellence of its decay. Only insofar as it maintains a part of its out-of-dateness over time can the work find its authentic readers, that is, those who will have to pay for the indifference or aversion of others.
The art of writing therefore does not only consist, as has been suggested, in dissimulating or leaving unsaid the truths one cares most about, but first and foremost in the ability to select the audience that will not want to receive them. It goes without saying that this selection is not the result of a calculation or a plan, but only of a language that concedes nothing to current events - that is, to the rules that define what can be said and how to say it. Whether it is clear and firm - or, as often happens, obscure and stammering - that word is in any case prophetic, the effectiveness of which is precisely a function of its remaining unheard.
October 13, 2023
Giorgio Agamben