Negativity in Spinozist Politics

In this article I challenge a common reading of Benedict de Spinoza’s political philosophy, which holds that since his metaphysics is entirely positive or affirmative, his politics must be affirmative as well. In the first part, I show how this interpretation is found in the works of Gilles Deleuze and Antonio Negri. In the second part, I show that the negative has no ontological reality in Spinoza’s metaphysics. In the third, building on the work of Alexandre Matheron, I show that there is nevertheless real and unavoidable negativity in Spinozist politics, and that according to Spinoza, sad passions and repression must lie at the heart of any political society.