Virno: Language, Biology, and Politics

Routine also inhabits language, which Virno defines as “preindividual and superindividual” (46).  Language, he states, "[j]ust like freedom or power, [] exists only relation between the members of a community. . . . In the case of language, it is [] sharing that creates the prerogative [of the species]; and it is the between of the interpsychic relationship that determines, by means of mirroring, an intrapsychic heritage.  Historiconatural language attests to the priority of the 'we' over the 'I,' of the collective mind over the individual mind" (46).  Virno emphasizes the importance of Saussure's statement that language is an institution--a "'pure institution,' the matrix and touchstone of all the other institutions" (46).

However, language in use involves what Virno refers to as a "gap and risk" (47).  The gap is caused by the difference between objective, collective language ("superpersonal" language) and "intrapsychic" language, which serves a protective role against risk.  The gap and the risk are caused by the biological "faculty of language" in humans.  Virno states, quoting Saussure, “‘Nature gives us man ready made for articulated language, but not actually in possession of it. The language system is a social fact.  The individual . . . may only use the vocal apparatus in the context of his community. . . . In this respect, then, the human being is whole only through what he borrows from society' (Saussure: 120)” (47).  Virno, interestingly, suggests that the protective feature in language is that it enables a faculty that we would otherwise not use (or at least not use in the same way).  Without language, he states, we would not develop from infancy: "Language protects the neotenic animal from the greatest of dangers to which it can be exposed: an ability that remains simply an ability, lacking any corresponding actions" (47).  Language, therefore, is the difference between the state of nature and the civil state.  Virno writes, "[i]t is exactly this difference [the difference between the faculty of language and historically determined languages] that implies an extremely strong connection between biology and politics, between zoon logon ekon and zoon politikon" (47).