The events of September 11th, 2001 have irreversibly marked the outlook of the entire world in the beginning of the twentieth-first century and its consequences will certainly continue to be felt for years to come. Although relatively new, such events have not passed without receiving attention from some among the foremost thinkers of our time. Given that, we intend to develop an interpretative hypothesis which, starting from the perspective opened by the reflections of Friedrich Nietzsche concerning the nihilism and (...) the great politics, seeks to understand both the violent actions which try to justify themselves from a fundamentalist world view as well as the recent political and military configuration of the U.S. liberal democracy as different forms of reaction against the deepening of the value crisis ​​through which the Western world passes. (shrink)

Previously published as a special issue of _Third World Quarterly_, this volume assesses the nature, power, role and function of names in global politics and the international media. Names are not objective, they accrue subjective associations, for example 'Terrorist' has a very different connotation to 'Freedom-fighter'. The contributors seek the truth beneath the names assigned in an effort to remove the obscurity created by the power of 'the politics of naming' to the reality of the situation, taking examples (...) from Al Qaeda, Russia's demonization of the Chechens and naming in the Israeli-Palestine conflict, among other important contemporary debates. _Terrorism and the Politics of Naming_ makes a substantial contribution towards elucidating the power of naming in the discourse of conflict and will be of great interest to students and scholars of political philosophy, political theory, and politics and the media. (shrink)

Nihilism, for Nietzsche, is the nothing that results from the devaluation of the highest values. There is widespread agreement with Nietzsche’s claim that the apostle Paul was the great devaluer of the values of the ancient world, even to the extent of breaking the history of the world in two. Yet the mode of Paul’s devaluating nihilism is contested. Using Nietzsche’s three types of nihilist, I frame this debate over Paul as giving us, respectively, Paul the reactive (...) nihilist, Paul the active nihilist and Paul the overman. I then read Agamben’s messianic Paul as a way to avoid the problem of nihilism tout court, which the two earlier accounts, despite releasing Paul from Nietzsche’s charge of passive nihilism, do not. I finish by arguing that while Agamben’s construction of the Pauline messianic vocation does indeed break with Nietzsche’s categories of nihilism, nihilism remains necessary to a genealogy of both Paul’s and Agamben’s messianism. (shrink)

Most significant problems of contemporary life have their origins in nihilism and its paradoxical logic, which is simultaneously destructive to and constitutive of society. Yet, in social theory, nihilism is a surprisingly under-researched topic. This book develops a systematic account of nihilism in its four main forms: escapism, radical nihilism, passive nihilism and 'perfect nihilism.' It focuses especially on the disjunctive synthesis between passive nihilism and radical nihilism, between the hedonism/disorientation that characterizes (...) the contemporary post-political culture and the emerging forms of despair and violence as a reaction to it. The book deals with nihilism at three levels. First, it addresses the genealogy and consequences of nihilism, which is followed by an excursus through film analysis. Then the book focuses on the 'social,' relating nihilism to capitalism, post-politics and terrorism. Another excursus fleshes out the theoretical argumens by focusing on Houellebecq's fiction. Finally, the possibilities of overcoming nihilism are considered by emphasizing the significance of concepts such as event, agonism and antagonism in this context. (shrink)

In the age of terrorism, the temptations of ruthlessness can be overwhelming. Yet a violent response to violence arguably makes us morally indistinguishable from our enemies. There is perhaps no greater political challenge today than trying to win the war against terror without losing our democratic souls. Michael Ignatieff confronts this challenge head-on, with the combination of hard-headed idealism, historical sensitivity and political judgement that has made him one of the most influential voices in international affairs today. Ignatieff argues (...) that we must not shrink from the use of violence. But its use - in a liberal democracy - must be measured. And we must not fool ourselves that whatever we do in the name of freedom and democracy is good. We may need to kill to fight the greater evil of terrorism, but we must never pretend that doing so is anything better than a lesser evil. In making this case, Ignatieff traces the modern history of terrorism and counter-terrorism, from the nihilists of Czarist Russia and the militias of Weimar Germany to the IRA and the unprecedented menace of Al Qaeda. (shrink)

47 ~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:3 JULY 1996 Keith Ansell-Pearson. An Introduction to Nietzsche as a Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihil- /st. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. xix + 243. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $14.95. Keith Ansell-Pearson is an exceedingly well-informed and sensitive reader of Nietzsche 9 who aims to write a text that will introduce the reader both to Nietzsche's thought as a whole and to his overt political thinking. He succeeds admirably; his text is a (...) fine "introduction to Nietzsche as a political thinker" that goes well beyond the level of the merely introductory. Thoughtfully organized and written in clear, engaging prose, Ansell-Pearson's text provides a thorough survey of Nietzsche's works. Ranging from his early unpublished essay "The Greek State" to his final thoughts on "great politics," Ansell-Pearson makes a strong case to support his central thesis, namely, that "from his early reflections on the Greek agon to his attempt to write a genealogy.. (shrink)

The Bush administration's military war on terrorism is a blunt, ineffective, and unjust response to the threat posed to innocent civilians by terrorism. Decentralized terrorist networks can only be effectively fought by international cooperation among police and intelligence agencies representing diverse nation‐states, including ones with predominantly Islamic populations. The Bush administration's allegations of a global Islamist terrorist threat to the national interests of the United States misread the decentralized and complex nature of Islamist politics. Undoubtedly there exists (...) a “combat fundamentalist” element within Islamism. But the threat posed to U.S. citizens by Islamist terrorism neither necessitates nor justifies as a response massive military invasions of other nations. Not only does the Bush administration's war on alleged “terrorist states” violate the doctrine of just war, but in addition these wars arise from a new, unilateral, imperial foreign‐policy doctrine of “preventive wars.” Such a doctrine will isolate the United States from international institutions and long‐standing allies. The weakening of these institutions and alliances will only weaken the ability of the international community to deter terrorism. (shrink)

A great deal of violence in civil wars is informed by the logic of terrorism: violence tends to be used by political actors against civilians in order to shape their political behavior. I focus on indiscriminate violence in the context of civil war: this is a type of violence that selects its victims on the basis of their membership in some group and irrespective of their individual actions. Extensive empirical evidence suggests that indiscriminate violence in civil war is (...) informed by the logic of terrorism. I argue that under certain conditions, that tend to be quite common, such violence is counter productive. I specify these conditions and address the following paradox: why do we sometimes observe instances of indiscriminate violence evenunder conditions that make this strategy counterproductive? I review four possible reasons: truncated data, ignorance, cost, and institutional constraints. I argue that indiscriminate violence emerges because it is much cheaper than its main alternative – selective violence. It is more likely under a steep imbalance of power between the competing actors, and where and when resources and information are low; however, most political actors eventually switch to selective violence. Thus, given a balance of power between competing actors, indiscriminate violence is more likely at early rather than late stages of the conflict. Overall, the paper suggests that even extreme forms of violence are used strategically. (shrink)

David Hume and James Madison believed that a republic can secure domestic tranquility by discouraging the development of factions. Modern computer technology shatters these hopes, which rest on the idea that factions will not grow because great distance makes it difficult for individuals to discover that others share their interests or grievances. Today, technology renders geographical distance increasingly irrelevant to communication with others. If Madison and Hume were right about the effects of distance prior to the current development of (...) computer technology, then we may experience the growth of factions and associated violence that Hume and Madison feared. Increased domestic terrorism made more effective by technologically developed weapons of mass death could be the way of the future. I contend that education can modify such developments by giving priority to Jane Roland Martin's suggestion that we adopt an educational aim intent on securing domestic tranquility. I revise the content of her proposal to include features of communicative rationality as an indispensable element of political dialogue. This provides resources by which factional elements can access and influence political discussion. If we are to enjoy a decent degree of domestic tranquility in the future, we must integrate potentially factious elements into the political process. To marginalize such elements, no matter how repugnant their political views, will merely serve to legitimate their use of terror as the only option available to them for political expression. (shrink)

This paper takes forward reflections begun in my book After the Terror and then continued in a paper, “After the Terror: A Book and Further Thoughts.” Maybe this third offering on the terrible subjects in question will be the last from me for a while—despite my not having got as close as may be possible to proofs or the like of some principal propositions. It must be easier to deal with the terrible subjects if strong moral convictions about Palestine or (...) whatever come together with great confidence about the very nature of moral philosophy and the possibility of proofs. Still, silence or hesitancy is not an option. (shrink)

Nihilism has been a most characteristic feature of the psychology and world-view of several generations of young people in capitalist society. A rejection of traditional religion, of the dominant ideology and morality; a disdain for all authorities; a demand for total emancipation of the spirit, going so far as denial of cultural values and established life-style - all are to a greater or lesser extent characteristic of the outlook of both the "lost generation" that emerged from World War I (...) with the single conviction that it had been cruelly misled and of the "beatniks" of the 1950s, the followers of the apostles of "moral and sexual rebellion." An obvious lack of positive ideas and value orientations impels them to mass-scale "retreat from society," to suicide, to terrorist actions, or to demonstrations of a mutinous nature. Nihilism in all its manifestations of protest and desperation has become a cause of concern to governments and a source of stupid hatred on the part of Philistines, and is under serious discussion by figures in all political parties. Quests for a way out of the cul-de-sac of the nihilist outlook are the inspiration for the work of many twentieth-century writers and philosophers. (shrink)

No one can turn on the news these days without hearing of fundamentalism. Christian fundamentalists form the fastest growing sect in the United States and are arguably the most politically potent. Both the president and vice-president, as well as prominent members of the Cabinet call themselves “fundamentalists.” In the Islamic world, fundamentalism has an equal currency. Everywhere ascendant, it has, since September 11th, become linked to terrorist attacks and the actions of suicide bombers. Among the Jews of Israel, (...) it also has a growing influence. The fundamentalist “settlers” of the West Bank, most observers agree, hold the political process hostage. What, then, is fundamentalism? What do Christian, Islamic, and Jewish “fundamentalists” have in common that makes them worthy of this name? One answer is that all three religions are “religions of the book.” They all define themselves in terms of a religious text.1 There is here a certain reciprocal constitution. What makes a person a believer in one of these faiths is that he holds a certain text sacred—be this the Christian Bible, the Koran, or the Torah. Reciprocally, what makes these texts sacred is just such belief. It forms the context, the constitutive medium which allows the sacred character of these texts to appear. When the belief goes, so does this character. No one, for example, takes the ancient hymns to the Latin Gods seriously. We use the names of Jupiter (or Mars or Venus) neither to swear nor to blaspheme. Lacking the ancients’ belief, such actions would be pointless. Of course, not every believer in the sacred character of a text is a fundamentalist. Something else must be added. The thesis I am going to defend is that 2 fundamentalism is a way of reading a religious text. Those who engage in it maximize the “staying power” of this text. The price they pay, however, is that of denying the transcendence that the religions of the book claim for their texts.. (shrink)

This paper takes forward reflections begun in my book After the Terror and then continued in a paper, “After the Terror: A Book and Further Thoughts.” Maybe this third offering on the terrible subjects in question will be the last from me for a while—despite my not having got as close as may be possible to proofs or the like of some principal propositions. It must be easier to deal with the terrible subjects if strong moral convictions about Palestine or (...) whatever come together with great confidence about the very nature of moral philosophy and the possibility of proofs. Still, silence or hesitancy is not an option. (shrink)

The concepts of “Islamic Fundamentalism” and “Islamic Terrorism” are the usual suspects in the present political reality and discourse. After the tragic events in New York, Madrid, Istanbul, and London, one has every reason to think that Islam is somehow a part of the problem. But in terms of the issues that we currently face, we must be careful to distinguish between understanding and the creation of scapegoats. There is no doubt that a terrorist act is unjustifiable, and (...) it must be categorically condemned in every situation. We must resolutely fight against any claim to the contrary. Even so, the…. (shrink)

In the explosion of recent books on Heidegger, Karl Löwith’s work, now available in an excellent English edition, distinguishes itself by careful historical scholarship and insightful immanent critique. Along with Hannah Arendt, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse, Löwith was one of Heidegger’s first students; all were later forced into exile by the National Socialist movement their teacher publicly supported for a time. Löwith’s work on the philosophy of history and the nineteenth century is already well known in English; now we (...) can appreciate his evaluation of Heidegger. Invoking Nietzsche’s dictum, “One repays a teacher poorly if one always remains only a pupil”, Löwith here achieves a balanced critique of Heidegger’s thought and its political implications. He avoids both defensive apologies and ad hominem attacks: “Between the two extremes of fascination and repulsion, we are attempting to pursue a critical middle path”. As Richard Wolin explains in the introduction, “Throughout Löwith’s narrative it is not Heidegger’s greatness as a thinker that is in dispute, but the uses to which that greatness allowed itself to be put”. (shrink)

A hallmark of the war on terror is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, to kill terrorists abroad. I argue that the justification for targeted killing is based on the same logic as the justification for killing the Naked Soldier in traditional wars. Since many drone strikes are personal strikes—the targeted killing of known individuals—this seems like a more justifiable attack than one against anonymous soldiers. Yet, I propose there are three problems to this analogy that (...) makes killing the Naked Terrorist—one unaware of the danger he is in—worse than killing the Naked Soldier: First, there is the epistemological problem regarding knowing with some certainty that the targets are indeed terrorists. Second, terrorists do not seem to pose a great enough danger for the necessity claim. Lastly, drones may not be as precise as the US claims they are. (shrink)

In her keynote address to the Kristeva Circle 2014, Julia Kristeva argued that European Humanism dating from the French Revolution paradoxically paved the way for “those who use God for political ends” by promoting a completely and solely secular path to the political. As an unintended result of this movement this path has led, in the late 20 th and early 21 st centuries, to the development of a new form of nihilism that masks itself as revolutionary but in (...) fact is the opposite, in Kristeva’s view. Kristeva analyzed the culture of religious fundamentalism as “adolescent” in the sense that the adolescent, in contrast to the child, is a believer rather than a questioner. Although the psychoanalytic consideration of religious fundamentalism added a new dimension to attempts to explain the increase of this phenomenon in the late 20 th and 21 st centuries, Kristeva’s subsequent linkage of fundamentalism to the revolts in French suburbs in 2005 and beyond fell short of an insightful critique by neglecting the historical context of France’s colonial history. (shrink)

The following is an attempt to grasp synthetically the strategy and development of Jean Baudrillard’s intellectual standpoint. My view emphasizes late ideas by French Philosopher, while the earlier ones are treated from this perspective as preliminary. After having left Marxist and post-Marxist positions, Baudrillard developed an original and idiosyncratic way of thinking about contemporary world that—inspired by Nietzschean idea that the power of interpretation prevails over representation of truth—evolves around rejection of the traditional ideas of the social, reality and revolt, (...) while employing categories of mass, simulation or catastrophe. This attitude took him not only beyond good and evil, but also to affirmation of death and terror, conducting to an extreme standpoint of “intellectual terrorism”. (shrink)

A text, written in 2005 and first published in 2008, exploring the prevalence of non-dualist philosophical and spiritual praxes, inserted from Buddhist and Hindu contexts into a Western postmodern one, in the post-9/11 era of intersecting existential crises: global terrorism/s, environmental urgency, and the geopolitical uncertainty ensuing from maladaptive responses to these security crises, among others. What ethical or philosophical role does the range of neo-nondualistic or neo-idealist metaphysics, East and West, broadly construed, have in engaging the social evolution (...) that might begin to do justice to the nature of such widespread crises? (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn International Relations, the actions of great powers are usually assessed through their direct effects. Great powers are generally considered to be responsible for the consequences of their actions if they intentionally caused them. Although there is discussion on “double-effects” and “side-effect harms” in the realms of philosophy and political sociology, these largely remain absent from the field of IR. This article bridges that gap by clarifying a set of yardsticks through which side-effect harms of great powers’ (...) actions can be evaluated, including “capacity”, “historical precedent”, “voluntarism” and “unintentional causality”. These yardsticks are deduced through the Theory of Special Responsibilities, which combines elements of Constructivism and the English School. The theoretical framework presented is then applied to the case of American drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. A number of terrorists in FATA have relocated elsewhere within Pakist... (shrink)

Extremism is one of the most charged and controversial issues of the 21st Century. Despite myriad programs of deradicalization and prevention around the world, it remains an intractable and poorly understood problem. Yet it can also be regarded as a positive force - according to Martin Luther King Jnr., "the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be." In this much-needed and lucid book, Quassim Cassam identifies three types of extremism--ideological; methods; and (...) mindset extremism--and uses them to discuss the following fundamental topics and issues: What is extremism? What are the methods adopted by extremists? Is there an extremist 'mindset' and if so, what is it? What role do ideas of purity, victimhood and humiliation play in understanding extremism? How does extremism differ from fanaticism and fundamentalism? How does one become an extremist and how should we understand deradicalization? Throughout the book, Quassim Cassam uses many compelling examples, ranging from the Khmer Rouge, the IRA, Al-Qaeda, and Timothy McVeigh to Philip Roth's novel American Pastoral and counter-extremism programs, including the UK's 'Prevent' strategy. Clear-headed and engaging, Extremism: A Philosophical Analysis is essential reading for anyone interested in this important topic, not only in Philosophy but related disciplines such as Politics and International Relations, Conflict and Terrorism studies, Law, Education and Religion. It will also be of great interest to policy makers and those engaged in understanding extremism at any level. (shrink)

For some while we have been witnessing a series of destructive phenomena which seem to indicate a full-fledged return to the negative on the world stage – from terrorism and armed conflict to the threat of environmental catastrophe. At the same time, politics seems increasingly impotent in the face of these threats. In this book, the leading Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito reconstructs the genealogy of the reciprocal intertwining of politics and negation. He retraces the intensification of negation (...) in the thought of various thinkers, from Schmitt and Freud to Heidegger, and examines the negative slant of some of our fundamental political categories, such as sovereignty, property and freedom. Against the centrality of negation, Esposito proposes an affirmative philosophy that does not negate or repress negation but radically rethinks it in the positive cipher of difference, determination and opposition. The result is a rigorous and original pathway which, in the tension between affirmation and negation, recognizes the disturbing traumas of our time, as well as the harbingers of what awaits at its limits. This highly original and timely book will be of great value to students and scholars in philosophy, cultural theory and the humanities more generally, and to anyone interested in contemporary European thought. (shrink)

This book is our century’s most comprehensive and wise treatment of nihilism in all of its guises, comparing favorably with Rosen, Cavell, and indeed with Spengler. Crosby argues that our culture is genuinely haunted by nihilism expressing itself in the fideism of fundamentalism as well as in the debilitating alienation from all orientation. This results from a one-sided development of Western culture. Unlike most writers on this topic, Crosby acknowledges many sources colluding to frame the culture of (...) nihilism, including “the death of God,” the objectification of nature, the meaninglessness of suffering in a mechanical universe, the ephemerality of time in a world where value does not accumulate, the arbitrariness of historicized reason, the reduction of value to will, and the alienation of the Cartesian ego. These sources are reviewed in the first two parts of the book with the result that the phenomenon of nihilism becomes understandable. In its third and fourth parts, Crosby provides a critical analysis of the religious and philosophical forces leading to nihilism by discussing authors from the early modern period through Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Russell, and Derrida. He shows that these forces are skewed and impoverished and should not be allowed to determine our situation. The comprehensive attention to detail and the multi-perspectival interpretation demonstrates as well as asserts the richness of the culture that puts nihilism in its place. Part Five, finally, rephrases the criticism of the sources of nihilism in positive ways. Part Four in particular is a tour de force of philosophical argument. Its richness of nuance, plurality of views examined, and adroitness of critical interpretation provide cumulatively a powerful, non-nihilistic reading of the philosophic tradition. The force of the argument derives from its comprehensive, cumulative character. Crosby distinguishes and relates five areas of nihilism: political, moral, epistemological, cosmic, and existential. Throughout the book, he illustrates and examines these as they are expressed in literature and art, in daily life and practical affairs, and in philosophy. The book is richly erudite in its marshalling of consciousness from so many domains. (shrink)

This article explores the rhetorics of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair in the aftermath of 11th September. It takes their differing versions of masculinity as a starting-point. The speeches refer extensively to `ways of life', a concept also worth recovering theoretically. Anti-terrorism is a defence of ways of living which are without moral ambiguity and are in absolute opposition to terrorist `evil'. Bush constructs a hegemony at home as a basis for unilateral global interventions. His Americanism draws on (...) familiar themes, but also invokes compassion, pugnacity and sporting masculinities, drawn especially from the game of baseball. Blair's more `intellectual' version aims at the construction of an international `community' or coalition with Britain in a pivotal role. The contexts, strengths, vulnerabilities, and political and ethical limits of anti-terrorism are explored in detail, including some correspondence with Al-Qa'ida's fundamentalism. (shrink)

Traumatic events happen in every age, yet there is a particularly cataclysmic feeling to our own epoch that is so attractive to some and so terrifying to others. The terrible events of September 11th 2001 still resonate and the repercussions continue to this day: the desperation of immigrants fleeing terror, the uncertainty of Brexit, Donald Trump in the White House, the rise of the alt-right and hard left, increasing fundamentalism, and terror groups intent on causing destruction to the Western (...) way of life. If that were not enough, we also have to grapple with the enormity of climate change and the charge that if we do not act now, it will be too late. Is it any wonder many are left overwhelmed by the events they see on the news? Galvanised by the events outside of his consulting room, in 2015, David Morgan began The Political Mind seminars at the British Psychoanalytical Society and their successful run continues today. A series of superlative seminars, mostly presented by colleagues from the British Society plus a few select external experts, that examine a dazzling array of relevant topics to provide a psychoanalytic understanding of just what is going on in our world. This book is the first in The Political Mind series to bring these seminars to a wider audience. The Unconscious in Political and Social Life contains compelling contributions from Christopher Bollas, Michael Rustin, Jonathan Sklar, David Bell, Philip Stokoe, Roger Kennedy, David Morgan, M. Fakhry Davids, Ruth McCall, R. D. Hinshelwood, Renée Danziger, Josh Cohen, Sally Weintrobe, and Margot Waddell. They investigate so many vital issues affecting us today: the evolution of democracy, right-wing populism, prejudice, the rise of the far right, attitudes to refugees and migrants, neoliberalism, fundamentalism, terrorism, the Palestine-Israel situation, political change, feminism, austerity in the UK, financial globalisation, and climate change. This book needs to be read by all who are concerned by the state of the world today. Psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts with their awareness of what motivates human beings bring clarity and fresh insight to these matters. A deeper understanding of humanity awaits the reader of The Unconscious in Political and Social Life. (shrink)

Suicide attack is the most virulent and horrifying form of terrorism in the world today. The mere rumor of an impending suicide attack can throw thousands of people into panic. This occurred during a Shi‘a procession in Iraq in late August 2005, causing hundreds of deaths. Although suicide attacks account for a minority of all terrorist acts, they are responsible for a majority of all terrorism-related casualties, and the rate of attacks is rising rapidly across the globe. During (...) 2000–2004, there were 472 suicide attacks in 22 countries, killing more than 7,000 and wounding tens of thousands. Most have been carried out by Islamist groups claiming religious motivation, also known as jihadis. Rand Corp. vice president and terrorism analyst Bruce Hoffman has found that 80 percent of suicide attacks since 1968 occurred after the September 11 attacks, with jihadis representing 31 of the 35 responsible groups. More suicide attacks occurred in 2004 than in any previous year, and 2005 has proven even more deadly, with attacks in Iraq alone averaging more than one per day, according to data gathered by the U.S. military. The July 2005 London and Sinai bombings, a second round of bombings at tourist destinations in Bali in October, coordinated hotel bombings in Jordan in November, the arrival of suicide bombings in Bangladesh in December, a record year of attacks in Afghanistan, and daily bombings in Iraq have spurred renewed interest in suicide terrorism, with recent analyses stressing the strategic logic, organizational structure, and rational calculation involved. Whereas they once primarily consisted of organized campaigns by militarily weak forces aiming to end the perceived occupation of their homeland, as argued by University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape in Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, suicide attacks today serve as banner actions for a thoroughly modern, global diaspora inspired by religion and claiming the role of vanguard for a massive, media-driven transnational political awakening. Living mostly in the diaspora and undeterred by the threat of retaliation against original home populations, jihadis, who are frequently middle-class, secularly well educated, but often “born-again” radical Islamists, including converts from Christianity, embrace apocalyptic visions for humanity's violent salvation. In Muslim countries and across western Europe, bright and idealistic Muslim youth, even more than the marginalized and dispossessed, internalize the jihadi story, illustrated on satellite television and the Internet with the ubiquitous images of social injustice and political repression with which much of the Muslim world's bulging immigrant and youth populations intimately identifies. From the suburbs of Paris to the jungles of Indonesia, I have interviewed culturally uprooted and politically restless youth who echo a stunningly simplified and decontextualized message of martyrdom for the sake of global jihad as life's noblest cause. They are increasingly as willing and even eager to die as they are to kill. The policy implications of this change in the motivation, organization, and calculation of suicide terrorism may be as novel as hitherto neglected. Many analysts continue to claim that jihadism caters to the destitute and depraved, the craven and criminal, or those who “hate freedom.” Politicians and pundits have asserted that jihadism is nihilistic and immoral, with no real program or humanity. Yet, jihadism is none of these things. Do we really understand the causes of today's suicide terrorism? Do suicide attacks stem mainly from a political cause, such as military occupation? Do they need a strong organization, such as Al Qaeda? What else could be done to turn the rising tide of martyrdom? (shrink)

Jurisprudence is the prudence of jus, law's consciousness and conscience. Throughout history, when thinkers wanted to contemplate the organisation of society or the relationship between authority and the subject, they turned to law. All great philosophers, from Plato to Hobbes, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Weber had either studied the law or had a deep understanding of legal operations. But jurisprudence is also the conscience of law, the exploration of law's justice and of an ideal law or equity at the (...) bar of which state law is always judged. Jurisprudence brings together 'is' and 'ought', the positive and the normative, law and justice. But after a long process of decay, legal theory is today characterised by cognitive and moral poverty. Jurisprudence has become restricted and academically peripheral, a guidebook to technocratic legalism and a legitimation of the existent. Critical jurisprudence returns to the classical tradition of a general philosophy of law and adopts a much wider concept of legality. It is concerned both with posited law and with the law of the law. All legal aspects of the economic, political, emotional and physical modes of production and reproduction of society are part of critical jurisprudence. This widening of scope allows a radical rethinking of the nature of rights, justice, sovereignty and judgement. A political philosophy of justice today must examine the political economy of law; transitions from Empire to nation; ideological and imaginary constructions through which we understand ourselves and relate to others; ways in which gender, race or sexuality create forms of identity that both discipline bodies and offer sites of resistance. Law's complicity with political oppression, violence and racism has to be faced before it is possible to speak of a new beginning for legal thought, which in turn is the necessary precondition for a theory of justice. Critical Jurisprudence offers an ethics of law against the nihilism of power and an aesthetics of existence for the melancholic lawyer. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben’s work on the power of sovereignty has been greatly influential in recent political thought. However, it has also overshadowed the independently original contributions of his two primary theoretical sources, Carl Schmitt and Walter Benjamin. In this article, I argue that Agamben’s political defeatism can be traced back to a double misconception in his reception of these two authors: first a formalistic reduction of Schmitt, and second a Schmittian reduction of Benjamin. Through this reduction to juridical formalism, the radicality (...) of Benjamin’s historical materialist critique is replaced by a messianic nihilism, leading to the colonization of society by the logic of the concentration camp. Though Agamben’s theory of sovereignty and its implications for a positive political project have been contested, this origin of the decline of radical philosophy has not previously undergone a systematic critique. (shrink)

The authors argue that the 'war on terror' marks the ultimate convergence of war with politics, and the virtual collapse of any meaningful distinction between them. Not only does it signify the breakdown of international relations norms but also the militarization of internal life and political discourse. They explore the 'genealogy' of this situation firstly through the notion of the 'state of exception'—in which sovereign violence becomes indistinct from the law that is supposed to curtail it—and secondly through Foucault's (...) idea that politics is essentially a form of warfare. They suggest that these two ways of approaching the question of violence can only be understood through a racist dimension, which forms the hidden underside of the 'war on terrorism'. In other words, our contemporary situation is characterized by the mobilization not only of fundamentalist and conservative ideologies, but, increasingly, racial antagonisms and prejudices directed towards the Muslim other. (shrink)

The authors argue that the 'war on terror' marks the ultimate convergence of war with politics, and the virtual collapse of any meaningful distinction between them. Not only does it signify the breakdown of international relations norms but also the militarization of internal life and political discourse. They explore the 'genealogy' of this situation firstly through the notion of the 'state of exception'—in which sovereign violence becomes indistinct from the law that is supposed to curtail it—and secondly through Foucault's (...) idea that politics is essentially a form of warfare. They suggest that these two ways of approaching the question of violence can only be understood through a racist dimension, which forms the hidden underside of the 'war on terrorism'. In other words, our contemporary situation is characterized by the mobilization not only of fundamentalist and conservative ideologies, but, increasingly, racial antagonisms and prejudices directed towards the Muslim other. (shrink)

The global financial crisis has shattered the illusion that all was well with capitalism and forced us to confront the great challenges we face today with a new sense of urgency. Few are better placed to do this than Zygmunt Bauman, a social thinker whose writings on liquid modernity have pioneered a new way of seeing the world in which we live at the dawn of the 21st Century. Our liquid modern world is characterized by the transition from a (...) society of producers to a society of consumers, the natural extension of which is the society of perpetual debtors. The ruling idea of the society of consumers is to prevent needs from being satisfied and to create demand; its natural extension is to enable consumers to consume more by borrowing. Debt was transformed into a crucial profit-earning asset of capitalism in liquid modern times. The present-day 'credit crunch' is not the outcome of the banks' failure but rather the fruit of their success in transforming the majority of men and women, young and old, into a race of debtors. They got what they were looking for: a society of debtors whose condition of being in debt was made self-perpetuating, with more debts being offered, and more undertaken, as the only way of escaping from the debts already incurred. Starting from this reflection on the current global financial crisis and prompted by the probing questions of his interlocutor, Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo, Bauman examines in an historical perspective some of the most pressing moral and political issues of our time, from international terrorism and the rise of religious and secular fundamentalism to the decline of the nation-state and the threats posed by global warming, issues whose seriousness and urgency attest to the fact that we are living today not only on borrowed money but also on borrowed time. (shrink)

One of the consequences of Al-Qaeda’s terrorism has been its blurring of the distinction between national and international politics, both of which have lost a great deal of their former autonomy by serving as hosts for a set of new global concerns and practices. The Global War on Terror can be seen as an effort to externalize Al-Qaeda’s global threat by internationalizing it in a conventional war, and thus reinforcing both the autonomy of international politics and (...) its separation from that of a national variety. More than a conservative move to protect the international order, however, the War on Terror was also an ambitious attempt to remake global politics in the wake of the Cold War. But despite the transformations it has wrought, the War on Terror failed to create either a new global order or even a new global politics. (shrink)

Richard Rorty was one of the most controversial and influential philosophers of the late twentieth century. Known primarily for his attacks on truth and the idea that knowledge is a ‘mirror of nature’, his contribution as a humanist and a great moralist has been overlooked by recent scholarship. McClean re-evaluates Rorty’s work in the light of his liberal cosmopolitan outlook, showing how it can be applied to a range of social and political issues, including international terrorism, religious (...) class='Hi'>fundamentalism, neo-liberalism, sexual politics and business culture. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 29–35. Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "Politieke Poëzie: Enige aantekeningen, Poëtica bij N30 (versie 2006)." In Weerstandbeleid: Nieuwe kritiek . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. L’égalité veut d’autres lois . —Eugène Pottier The modern poem does not have form but consistency (that is sensed), no content but a problem (that is developed). Consistency + problem = composition. The problem of modern poetry is capitalism. Capitalism—which has no (...) image: the unrepresentable Idea of “everything.” The problem is that a poem cannot be justified. There is no excuse for it. Political poetry— pure poetry—has to be problematic, though not in a mannerist way. Yes, its problem is first its own problem—poetry’s existence in the same world as the newspaper—but therefore also always everybody’s problem (the problem of any world at all). The cult of the sublime points at a suspect desire for transcendence, nostalgia for paradise lost (the womb?). Melancholia of the post-. But a problem neither sorrows nor mourns, it is alive, and the fact that it is alive is the problem—the problem for death (rigidity, the status quo). Our symbols and ideologies do not hide any god: symbolic = state; imaginary = human; real = money. Problem: the possibility of communal speech (poetry) in the absence of a “we.” Or: what is a “we” that is not a collective subject (or in any case is not a volonté générale )? What is a universal history that is not a History? This work was started in the shade of the anti-globalization protests at the end of November 1999. I considered N30 to be the closure of the nineties, of my adolescence, and of the a seemingly total extinction of social desire. From the beginning I was skeptical about the alterglobalization movement as the avant-garde of a new politics, but something was happening . Maybe this event did not show that, as the slogan would have it, “another world” is possible, but for me it indicated that such possibility was at least still possible. That naked possibility is carrying forward. And if the fundamental tone of this work sounds more desperate than utopian, this is not caused by the catastrophic sequence that since 1999 has plunged us ever deeper into the right-wing nightmare—a nightmare that this work also gives an account for—but because my hope as yet remains empty. Composition . Composition is no design, but the production of an autonomous block of affects (i.e. a POEM), rhythmically subtracted from the language of a community. A poem does something. Is something. New Sentence . Choosing the non sequitur as compositional unit has the advantage that an abstract composition is subjected to the stress of concrete, social references. Where there is a sentence, there is always a world. (This does not hold necessarily for words on their own.) And where sentences collide, something akin to a textual civil war takes place. It is not about “undermining” whatever, or de-scribing the raging global civil war, but about writing social (or even: ontological) antagonism -- including all its catastrophic and utopian possibilities. Minor resistance. Why would poetry be the no protest zone par excellence? It is nothing but protest, not simply qua “content,” but in its most fundamental essence: rhythm. Rhythm is resistance against language, time, and space, and the basis of (what we will continue to call) autonomy. Rhythm starts with the anti-rhythmic caesura as Hölderlin remarked about Sophocles, a disruption of the quotidian drone. The destruction of everything that is dead inside of us. The noise of the avant-garde has never been the representation of the noise of (post)modernity (from the television or shopping mall), but the sober noise of the systematic exchange of an unbearable worldview. The poet does not describe, but looks for a way out: There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find Nor can his Watch Fiends find it, tis translucent & has many Angles But he who finds it will find Oothoons palace, for within Opening into Beulah every angle is a lovely heaven William Blake was not mad. And there has always been only one poetry: the poetry of paradise. The principle is that there is something in art (the essentially creative element) that is disgusted by that which, unlike art, does not aim for the supreme. Wonder is not supreme, tranquility is not supreme, beauty is not supreme. Even amusement is not supreme! The supreme is supremely open, “das Einfache,/ Das Schwer zu machen ist” 1 : paradise. That is abstract. Literally. For me it is not about a concrete imagination, an idyll or utopia. There is no doubt a need for that, but it is not so much the supposed lack of imagination or ideals (human rights are ideals), but a fundamental lack of desire (human rights are no desires) that we suffer from, and from which we do not need to remove Nietzsche’s label of “nihilism.” “We.” George Oppen: “ Of Being Numerous asks the question whether or not we can deal with humanity as something which actually exists.” What is less actual than humanity? Nowadays it appears as a lifeless ideology of cynical power politics. Or as what makes one think. It is a shame to be human. The event is the caesura that defines rhythm. Writing toward the event is not the description of the event, but marking an abstract and intense space in which the event may unfold and keep itself. It is a task. “Remember that thou blesseth the day on which I seized thee, because such is thy obligation.” The event is a contraction (or a series of contractions) with its own rhythm and unique qualities. It is more than an explosion or demonstration. But at the same time less. The endless repetition of images and stories in the media points to a fear for the indeterminate and indeterminable void of the event. In the end there is nothing to see. We do not live in disaster’s shade or miracle’s light, but rather in the rhythm, which is contracted time, having little to do with omnipresent representations. For this book I did not intend a rhythm of evental representations (a narrative rhythm), but a rhythm which would be an event itself , because it draws the border between artwork and history. My desire for a direct engagement with the “extra-textual reality” has nothing to do with the representation of “rumor in the streets.” (What has less street cred than representation?) Naturally, a poem is no historical event and does not change anything. But a poem is a part of history that wants to be repeated forever, constructed in such a way that it is worthy of repetition. It is a part of desire (composition) made consistent (durable). The “historical event” flares up and burns down, and has to burn down to be effective. The leftovers are images and stories (representations), History—no event. The artwork—that is the ambition— remains event (though monumental and inefficient/inoperable). (No wonder that a historical singularity, a revolution, reminds us of a work of art; the resurrection yearns for a judgment, an affirmation; everything depends on it.) Hence the title does not summarize the book, let alone contract its “content” into a quasi-transcendental signifier. The title is juxtaposed to the book, like everything else inside the book, and in that relation it precisely forms a part of it. The ideal work is an open whole, lacking nothing but to which everything may be added. I have been interested in this “everything,” the world, or as I said above: capitalism. “Everything” is not the space for “wonder”—a code word, a shibboleth for petty bourgeois imagination (I recognize myself in the strangest things, a speaking dog, a canal, a pond standing straight—oh my god). No. The world is a social world, not YOUR world, poet. Power is number one. I will call “Dutch,” or “shitty,” whatever denies this power. That hurts, but this pain is an expression of the desire in the world to write another world, or as Blanchot says, “the other of all worlds” 2 : the world. Not as what “is there,” but rather as that which urges for an escape from what “is.” This is a testament of how radical reality has become, for me—or rather, a writing body—in a having-been-written. I am not interested in the problem of “meaning” as misunderstood by literary scholarsi: “order” in “chaos,” “symbolization.” Bullshit. What is there, hop, hope, now: the meaning of the taste in my mouth. Bullshit. I am not interested in the frustration of interpretation; I am writing for readers who do not want to interpret. I do not know how many “professional readers” will hear the music of a paragraph like: Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I hope more than I would think. There is a suggestion (or rather, an actual production) of speed and infinitive owing to the absence of plosives, i.e. articulations such as /k/, /t/, or /p/. Can you hear the slick suaveness? Driving car dark, vocal chiaroscuro of the word “sushi.” The unstressed /i/ stands in the middle of dark vowels and thus acquires its own special out of focus , like a momentary flash or brilliance—an obscure light. It is not about recognizing a story, but about avoiding any story whatsoever: the car disappears in the glow, cars and raw fish have nothing in common except their articulation in a language that brings them together, blurring them. A world appears in its disappearance. For a moment, light is a metaphor for language, though it cannot be reduced to tenor. It is not necessary to be a linguist or philosopher to hear this—a “difficult” poem all too often becomes an allegory of its own impenetrable being-language. The only demand: leave your hermeneutical fetish at home. This was no interpretation. Most shit has been stolen etcetera. That is no longer interesting. You cannot shoot the body with information and let your lawyers reclaim the bullets. So every sentence has been stolen. Also the ones “out” “of” “my” “head.” Why would I be allowed to steal from myself and not from others? Man takes what he needs to move forward. Whatever he encounters, finds in front of him, “occurs” to him. The writer as text editor, or singing pirate. Nothing new here. Important difference with for example Sybren Polet’s 4 montage technique: anti-thematicism. Most of the time ferocious citation from whatever I was reading, listening to, ended up in, and so on. I wrote chapter 12 on my laptop while watching CNN. On the air instead of en plein air . I often employed search engines to generate material. Chapter 20 offers the purest example of this. Often I stop recognizing a particular citation after some time. It is not uncommon for a stolen sentence to conform itself to the paragraph in which it finds itself. Sometimes I nearly arbitrarily replace words. Arbitrariness as a guarantee for absolute democracy. It is a poetics of the non sequitur : a conclusion that does not follow from the premises, the strange element in the discourse. A discourse of strangers. No logical, narrative, thematic unity. There is unity in speed/flight. It has to be read linearly, but not necessarily (not preferably) from beginning to end. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but this line precedes every point. The middle, the acceleration, comes first. A point occurs where two lines cross. It has been written from up close, at the level of the tension between sentences. Nothing to be seen from a distance: no form except the exchange of form, no geometrical or mythical meaning. You have to get in, “groping toward a continuous present, a using everything a beginning again and again” (Stein). 5 In Dutch, experimental poetry has been mainly dense: a small rectangular form filled with a maximum amount of poetic possibility. But at the moment the poem starts to relax, the anecdotical content seems to increase. This is what is called “epic”: long, narrative. I believe that an epic is more than that, in fact something completely different. An epic is “a poem including history,” 6 a long poem tied up with the life of community, that as a whole does not need to be narrative. The American poets of the twentieth century (Pound, Williams, Zukofsky, Oppen, Olson, Silliman) have put the epic back on the map by interpreting the poem itself as a map, and writing it as navigation. They have invented the experimental epic, a genre that has generated little original following in “our” poetry. N30 is the middle part—“always start in the middle”—of a trilogy, the contours of which remain as of yet unclear, although each episode investigates one of the three “ecstasies of time”—past, present, future—concerning society X. N30 concerns itself with the PRESENT: not with the description of actual facts but of the rhythm and the intense depth in which facts appear to us. Where are we? We are camping in the desert. Sometimes we are looking at the stars. As opposed to maximum density and minimal tension (a characteristic of most (post-)experimental lyricism), I have sought a minimal density and maximum tension in this book, considered as a long non-narrative prose poem. On the one hand, the minimal density is obtained by the inherent formlessness of prose, on the other hand by the conscious refusal of any active (formal, non-rhythmic) synthesis: the poem tells nothing, shows nothing, has no theme. I did not seek maximum tension either by loading the quotidian with epiphanic radioactivity (“wonder,” confirmation from above), or by means of the intensity of the linguistic structure. I want an abstract tension, but social in its abstraction, in other words, not neutralized by and subjected to Form. Instead of form (transcendent): composition (immanent). The concept is series. Ideal: every unit is necessary for the efficacy of the others and the whole, their relation is purely linear, i.e. non-hierarchic, non-syllogistic, non-discursive, non-narrative. Sentence related to sentence like paragraph to paragraph and chapter to chapter; the whole means nothing and represents nothing. Inside the sentence: syntax (Chomsky’s tree, a type of parallel circuit), outside: parataxis (coordination, an asyntactic line through language and world). I consider duration—the energy of duration (rhythm)—to be the fundament of a poem, the temporal inclination to delimit a “space.” Being as consistency, its consistency. A spatial part of time is not merely a metaphor for an inevitable trajectory, an inescapable time, something like “our time.” Not merely—because rhythm comes from language and is not projected onto it; the poem derives from the world like a scent and a color and a life from a flower. A series, a sequence: nothing potential, but truly infinite—the movement of an infinitude. The infinite series = everything minus totality. That means that there is no container—no Form, no Self, no Image, no Structure, not even a Fragment—just “the prose of the world.” No representation, but also no staging of the impossibility of representation (the postmodern sublime). These are no fragments, no image of a fragmented world or personality, no cautious incantations around the Void. It does not exist. It is a movement. Buying bread, a flock of birds, a bomb falling—they do not depict or represent anything, not literally, not metaphorically. There is an Idea, which is however nothing more than a rhythm, in the same way that capitalism is nothing more than a pure function. Parataxis: the white space between two sentences stresses, which is nevertheless always there, also between words, even between letters: the out of focus of idle talk, the gutter, the irreducible Mallarméan mist which renders even the seemingly most transparent text legible. The white space suggests a neutral medium for free signification, a substance of language. A non sequitur is an element from a foreign discourse, which stresses the white space as space, and problematizes freedom for supra-sentential signification. I start by withdrawing material, leaving the initiative to the sentences. In general a word presupposes less often a discourse than a sentence. What discourse is presupposed by “dog”? We could think of several, but why would we? It is more probable that, when faced with the naked word, we think of its naked (dictionary) meaning, of its denotative signified. By means of two simple interventions we may also write the word as sentence: Dog. In no way this suggests the discourse from which this sentence originates, but in any case we’re presupposing one. This is shown by questions like: “Whose dog? Who’s a dog? What kind of dog?” Etc. (Sentences are question marks.) A sentence implies/is a microcosm—a subject, a verb, an object, and so on. Even an incomplete or ungrammatical sentence does so. My main fascination while writing this book is the worldly and social aspect of language, an aspect that often becomes invisible, or rather, transparent in narrativity—the stretching of sentences into stories. Narrativity organizes a new discourse and a new world, and places a sometimes all too dispersing relation of transparence in between. The conventional novel is the brothel of being. I do not intend to prohibit brothels, and I have certainly not intended to write an anti-novel (THIS IS A POEM), but I do consider narrativity (in general, in poetry, in the news, in daily life) to be ontologically secondary with regard to an immediate being in the world through sentences, also if the latter have been withdrawn from a narrative or otherwise externally structured discourse (which in that case would therefore be chronologically primary ). Naturally, two or more sentences are always in danger of telling stories or arguing, just like the world is always in danger of becoming an objective representation, facing us, strangers. That is why need to wage war—against representation and against the interface, against interaction. AGAINST THE “READER.” To the extent that a sentence is worldly, writing is a condensed global war, and in so far as there is ultimately only one world and one open continuum of languages, it is a global civil war. Nice subject for an epic. The elaboration of a singular problem—prose as the outside of poetry, the form of the novel as purely prosodic composition scheme—“expresses” the universal problem: capitalism as Idea of the world vs. poetry as language of an (im)possible community. The paragraphs are blocks of rhythmically contracted social material. By choosing the sentence as the basic compositional component, an abstract whole may contain social sounds, without telling a story or showing an image. Composition is subrepresentative —a rhythmic, passive synthesis, or rather: a synthesis of syntheses. I never write large blocks of prose in one sitting, because there is no obvious organizational vector —plot, theme, conscience—outside the inherent qualities of the material itself. Usually I write down one sentence, sometimes two, but rarely more than three. Those sentences are usually placed in the text which I am editing at the time. In fact, there is no original composition, new chapters split off from chapters which became too long during the editing process. (Revision mainly consists of adding and inserting, displacing and dividing; only during the last phase, when the text has gained enough consistency, there may be subtraction to tighten the composition; each chapter requires a season of daily revision). This constant revision, accompanied by a continuous influx of collective background noise (to speak with Van Bastelaere), 7 makes every chapter a block condensed (“historical” and “personal”) time. The block itself is a-personal and a-historic; it is ontologically autonomous. If there is such a thing as a spirit of the times, I do not try to offer an image of it, but rather to cancel something of it by erecting a monument of its own excrement within its own boundaries. Tuning and dis-tuning , “in de taal der neerslachtigen een eigen geluid doen klinken,” 8 in other words, desiring in an Elysian way. In this sense I have intended to be able to write a political poetry. The ultimate political poem is the epic, “the tale of the tribe.” I consider N30 to be a prolegomenon to a future epic (of which it in the end will form a part a structural moment, as introduction-in-the-middle), an extended pile on top of an epic as narrative, a question of the tribe and question of its history. I was burdened by too much satire, too much bullshit. But: satire willy-nilly = the only justifiable satire. Against the abstract universalism of the market (“globalism”): concrete disgust, a positive way of saying “No.” Moreover, disgust is a specifically total attitude, which ultimately concerns the world as a whole. I hate this or that, but I am disgusted by EVERYTHING (when I am disgusted), and so it appears that satire is in fact related to the epic, in so far as it concerns society, the cosmos, history. Maybe it is no coincidence that the Dutch literary canon knows no great poet of disgust; what could be more fearful to us than society, the cosmos, and history? The T-tendency (T from Tollens 9 ) clearly points into the direction of the small, friendly, ironic, melancholic, acquiescent, wondrous, and so on. The anti-political, anti-cosmic, anti-historical. (Why am I so philosophical? To scare away the Dutchies.) And most of all: the “poetical” (the pseudo-mysticism from the backyard). Yes, the N in N30 also stands for the Netherlands (just like 30 indicates the number of chapters). I was not in Seattle, I do not live in Iraq. But is not the whole world bleeding to death on Dutch paving stones? Let’s hope that we mowed away something with this total satire, also “in myself.” The arrogant stupidity that definitely thinks to know the essence of freedom (the free development of esthetic needs inside the void), that cannot take anything serious, only believes in the disciplined bestiality of the individual (“norms and values”) and the mere functioning of a social factory which finds no justification whatsoever outside its functioning (“get to work”)… Who knows. A certain aimed destruction leaves grooves and craters, mapping out a next adventure. Pound’s periplum : sailing while mapping the coasts. Immanent orientation. The terrain changes with the map, history changes with the poem. Maps never merely organize the chaos, transcendent schemes imposed on a formless Ding-an-sich . They organize from within, surfing. But they are most of all routes back into the chaos or forward to paradise (final identity of chaos and paradise; Schlegel: “ Nur diejenige Verworrenheit ist ein Chaos aus der eine Welt entspringen kann ”10). A poem is not only a piece of history, it is also a flight from history. Maps give chaos to the form of reality , open escape routes, break through representations, make us shivery and dazed. Paradise is immanent to a fleeting desire. History is the history of labor—this is Adam’s curse—and the poet works too: For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, school masters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world 11 But: the poet works in paradise. The paradox of the artwork, the work that is no work, the piece of history that cannot be reduced to History—this is explained by The Space of Literature , a virtual space, an autonomous rhythm, not outside, but in the midst of the noise, a piece of paradise in hell, a postcard from the vale of tears addressed to paradise, to X. Political poetry means: a poetry that dares to think about itself, about its language and about its world and about the problematic relation between both, which is this relation as problem. A poetry that thinks at all, articulates its problem. It has nothing to do with journalism or morality or debate, let alone the law or the state. It has nothing to do with “criticism” if this means the replacement of incorrect representations by other, more correct representations. It has something to do with ethics in the sense of learning to live. It has something to do with the community and the language of the community (whichever that may be) and the role of the poet regarding the community. It concerns justice without judgement or measure. In the end the just word is just a word , to paraphrase Godard: it is from a future that is unimaginable. It Is no rational engagement, but an aversion against everything that obstructs life, and love for everything what is worthy of having been loved. The world is engaged with me, not the other way round. First Exodus, then Sinai. A desire does not start with an agenda. To answer the question whether I am really so naive as to want to change the world: “We only want the world.” Justice is the world appealing to us to liberate it from all possible chains, from each organization and inequality, to be it, smooth, equal, under a clear sky—a desert and a people in a desert. That moment between Egypt and the Law. It is not a revolution, but the sky above the revolution. Poetry = the science of escape. There is no art that we already know. The weakness of modernistic epic poetry seems to me to be the unwillingness to completely abandon narrative as a structural principle, in favor of a composition “around” or from an event. The China Cantos and Adams Cantos are the low point, and the Pisan Cantos the high point of Pound’s poetry. Two types of research: archival representation of the past vs. ontology of the present (which virtually presupposes the entire history). Presupposing an event means that it is impossible for the poet to stage his own absence, but in no way makes the work personal. An event is the unknown, the new invading into the business as usual, so also the personal. The question heading this research is not: “Who am I?” but “What is happening?” The book is as little illegible as Mondrian’s work is invisible. Form is of interest only to the extent that it empowers liberation. Ron Silliman So no formalism, but what it means to live in this world and to have a future in it. I want something that holds together that’s not smooth. Bruce Andrews The past above, the future below and the present pouring down: the roar, the roar of the present, a speech— William Carlos Williams If my confreres wanted to write a work with all history in its maw, I wished, from the beginning to start all over again, attempting to know nothing but a will to create, and matter at hand. Ronald Johnson NOTES 1) “The easy thing/ that is difficult to make.” Bertold Brecht, Lob des Kommunismus . (All footnotes are the translator’s) 2) Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature , trans. Ann Smock. Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press (1989), 75. 3) Mettes uses the word “Neerlandicus,” which refers to scholars of Dutch language and literature. 4) Dutch poet. 5) Gertrude Stein. “Composition as Explanation.” A Stein Reader . Ed. Ulla E. Dydo. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (1993), 495-503. 6) Ezra Pound. 7) Flemish poet. 8) “Resounding an original sound in the language of the despondent.” A. Roland Holst, De afspraak . 9) Dutch poet. 10) “Only such a confusion is a chaos which can give rise to a world.” 11) W.B. Yeats, “Adam’s Curse.&rdquo. (shrink)

This dissertation offers an original interpretation of the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche's enterprise, it is claimed, was anti-political. His aim was to describe the means of achieving greatness in an age of nihilism. This was primarily a philosophic, aesthetic, even religious project. The goal was to live heroically, and Nietzsche defined modern heroism as the realization of individuality. Concern for and engagement in political matters was considered unworthy of and detrimental to this prescribed life. ;The author argues, nonetheless, (...) the Nietzsche did not so much abandon politics as internalize it. Nietzsche is shown to have developed a spiritual politics, a politics within a multipartite self whose agonistic interaction is evoked. Nietzsche's concern was to propagate this strife-filled politics of the soul, and he offered his as a model of such a heroically styled life of continuous self-overcoming. ;The dissertation examines the incarnations Nietzsche proposed for the heroic individual: the philosopher, the artist, and the saint, their incorporation in the educator and the solitary, and their apotheosis in the overman. Nietzsche's higher man is shown to be he who has actualized his underlying potential for a heroic life, which, in the end, is marked by his love of fate and his acceptance of the eternal recurrence. ;The dissertation surveys the entirety of Nietzsche's writings, including his notes and correspondence. An attempt is made to demonstrate the continuity of his project. The author argues that heroic individualism and its politics of the soul are the predominant themes of Nietzsche's work, accounting for the development of Nietzsche's thought and its paradoxes. (shrink)

This article revisits the controversy over the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s sympathetic, yet critical and provocative, views on Islam and fundamentalist terrorism as developed in his ‘A Glance on the Archives of Islam.’ Žižek, I argue, offers an original reading of the universality of Islam and its political potentiality, by reactualizing the originary impulse in Hegel’s dialectical analysis of Islam as endogenous to the series of monotheistic religions, without falling into the trap of either Hegel’s racist Orientalist, Eurocentric, and (...) Islamophobic views about Islam or their antithetical Islamocentric views. First, I show that Žižek rejects Hegel’s emphasis on both Islam’s temporal incongruity and the Islamic unique conception of an abstract and transcendent God. Instead, Žižek reloads Hegel’s dialectical views and manages to resolve the deadlock in Hegel’s approach to Islam that could not account for the universality of Islam. Second, I draw out the political aspect of Žižek’s philosophical analysis of Islam, by examining his claim that Islam is the most politicized religion today. Grounding the emergence of political Islam in the encroachment of modernization project on the Islamicate world, he notes the ambiguity about sacrifice (martyrdom and terrorism) in Islam and attributes the rise of Islamic extremism (violence) to the contradictions and impasses of the global capitalist system. (shrink)

The global financial crisis has shattered the illusion that all was well with capitalism and forced us to confront the great challenges we face today with a new sense of urgency. Few are better placed to do this than Zygmunt Bauman, a social thinker whose writings on liquid modernity have pioneered a new way of seeing the world in which we live at the dawn of the 21st Century. Our liquid modern world is characterized by the transition from a (...) society of producers to a society of consumers, the natural extension of which is the society of perpetual debtors. The ruling idea of the society of consumers is to prevent needs from being satisfied and to create demand; its natural extension is to enable consumers to consume more by borrowing. Debt was transformed into a crucial profit-earning asset of capitalism in liquid modern times. The present-day ‘credit crunch' is not the outcome of the banks' failure but rather the fruit of their success in transforming the majority of men and women, young and old, into a race of debtors. They got what they were looking for: a society of debtors whose condition of being in debt was made self-perpetuating, with more debts being offered, and more undertaken, as the only way of escaping from the debts already incurred. Starting from this reflection on the current global financial crisis and prompted by the probing questions of his interlocutor, Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo, Bauman examines in an historical perspective some of the most pressing moral and political issues of our time, from international terrorism and the rise of religious and secular fundamentalism to the decline of the nation-state and the threats posed by global warming, issues whose seriousness and urgency attest to the fact that we are living today not only on borrowed money but also on borrowed time. (shrink)

The conditions for development of a regional system of national security in Central Asia in the post-Soviet period are reviewed in a new geopolitical context. The emergence in the region of new political actors of the first echelon - the USA, the European Union and the People's Republic of China as well as the second echelon - Turkey, the Islamic republic of Iran, India and Pakistan is emphasized. The role of the above countries in ensuring political and economic security is (...) traced. The regional integration situation is analyzed. Available regional threats, some of them of global nature, are looked into, their characteristic features described for each New Independent State. Interstate conflicts and their resolution potentiality in the current situation are investigated. The unity of the region in combatting international terrorism and extremism is pointed out. Regional threats which endanger the West are identified. Special attention is given to politicization of Islam, radical fundamentalism and their belligerent manifestations which took place in Central Asia. The membership of Central Asian countries in such security-focused interstate organizations as the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as well as relations with the UN and the NATO are laid stress on. A great military and technical dependence of the armed forces of Central Asian countries on the Russian factor is pointed out. Some facts of the geopolitical confrontation between Russia, the EU, the USA and China are referred to. Conclusions are drawn as to incapability of countries of the Central Asian region to stand up to current geopolitical challenges on their own and the lack of a regional security system. The necessity of multi-vector foreign policy as a form of guarantee against external aggression is brought into focus. (shrink)

Following Aristotle’s description of youth and brief discussion about indoctrination and parrhesia, the article historicizes Socrates’ trial as the intersection of philosophy, education and a teacher’s influence on youth. It explores the historic-political context and how contemporary Athenians might have viewed Socrates and his student’s actions, whereby his teachings were implicated in three coups led by his former students against Athenian democracy, for or which he accepted little or no responsibility. Socrates appears subversively anti-democratic. This provides grounds that challenge the (...) dominant and standard philosophical account of Socrates as one of the great teachers, perhaps the greatest in the Western tradition, and critiques the way philosophy so often presents a de-contextualized and ahistorical picture. Concerns about the influence of education, teachers and indoctrination on youth have existed since ancient times. Currently, many states, especially, but not only, democracies, are concerned about Islamic fundamentalist teachings potentially leading to terrorism. The article presents contemporary exemplars from four countries: Austria, Kenya, the UK and Saudi Arabia. The crucial question remains: to what extent is it reasonable to hold a teacher responsible for a student’s subsequent actions? (shrink)

Following Aristotle’s description of youth and brief discussion about indoctrination and parrhesia, the article historicizes Socrates’ trial as the intersection of philosophy, education and a teacher’s influence on youth. It explores the historic-political context and how contemporary Athenians might have viewed Socrates and his student’s actions, whereby his teachings were implicated in three coups led by his former students against Athenian democracy, for or which he accepted little or no responsibility. Socrates appears subversively anti-democratic. This provides grounds that challenge the (...) dominant and standard philosophical account of Socrates as one of the great teachers, perhaps the greatest in the Western tradition, and critiques the way philosophy so often presents a de-contextualized and ahistorical picture. Concerns about the influence of education, teachers and indoctrination on youth have existed since ancient times. Currently, many states, especially, but not only, democracies, are concerned about Islamic fundamentalist teachings potentially leading to terrorism. The article presents contemporary exemplars from four countries: Austria, Kenya, the UK and Saudi Arabia. The crucial question remains: to what extent is it reasonable to hold a teacher responsible for a student’s subsequent actions? (shrink)

Martin Heidegger is now widely recognized as the most influential philosopher of the Twentieth Century. Until the late 1960's, this impact derived mainly from his early magnum opus, 1927's Being and Time. Many of this century's most significant Continental thinkers---including Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Gadamer, Marcuse, Habermas, Bultmann, and Levinas---acknowledge profound conceptual debts to insights first elaborated in this text. But Being and Time was never finished, and Heidegger continued to extend, develop, and in some places revolutionize his own thinking for (...) another fifty years. This "later" Heidegger's prolific body of work has decisively influenced the next generation of Continental thinkers, shaping the concepts and concerns of important figures such as Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Blanchot, and Baudrillard. Despite this unparalleled impact, several basic aspects of Heidegger's later philosophy remain shrouded in mystery, confusion, and controversy. ;The End of Onto-Theology: Understanding Heidegger's Turn, Method, and Politics explains four central aspects of Heidegger's later thought: his controversial understanding of metaphysics as onto-theology, his famously recondite Kehre, his heretofore overlooked philosophical methodology, and his appalling misadventure with Nazism. ;Chapter I introduces the basic structure and unifying thesis of the text. Chapter II clarifies and periodizes Heidegger's mysterious Kehre or "turn," the philosophical transformation which distinguishes his "early" and "later" work. Chapter III uncovers another sense of Kehre, connecting this "turning" to Heidegger's infamous political misadventure. Chapter IV reconstructs Heidegger's famous Destruktion of the history of metaphysical foundationalism, showing how this "deconstruction" both disabused Heidegger of his own politically disastrous metaphysical ambition to recover a "fundamental ontology" and provides the necessary philosophical background for understanding Heidegger's later philosophy. Chapter V explicates Heidegger's later methodology, "ontohistorical placement through hermeneutic altercation," using the case of Nietzsche to demonstrate how Heidegger developed and deployed this method to situate other philosophers' contributions to the history of intelligibility. Chapter VI addresses the complex intersection of Heidegger's critique of Nietzsche's nihilistic legacy with his failed bid to assume philosophical leadership of the National Socialist "revolution," isolating its philosophical sources and establishing the important philosophical lessons Heidegger learned from his "great political error.". (shrink)

Welsh rock band the Manic Street Preachers have travelled a great distance in the years since the release of their first album Generation Terrorists in 1991. They’ve had a myriad of musical styles, huge mid-to-late-90s popularity, the still-unsolved disappearance of songwriter Richey Edwards, acclaim, and some derision, along the way. A band committed to their vision, the Manics’ work has always had an overt political and philosophical focus which has set them apart from contemporaries both in Welsh music and (...) the wider British popular scene. The band’s third album, The Holy Bible, now widely regarded as one of the best British albums of the 1990s, is an education in nihilism and alienation. (shrink)

The paper sets out to prove that Leszek Kołakowski remained under a considerable influence of Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas, which is evidenced by the way he poses and solves theoretical problems as well as his critical and often ironical detachment from the modern culture. He devoted a great deal of attention to nihilism, and searched for mythical conditioning of the thinking of the man of today; from the late 1950s, he was a follower of the philosophy of freedom and (...) opposed philosophical and historical determinism. He rejected systemic thinking and any fundamentalism in science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 555-557 [Access article in PDF] Quentin Skinner. Visions of Politics. Vol. I, Regarding Method. Pp. xvi + 209. Vol. II, Renaissance Virtues. Pp. xix + 461. Vol. III, Hobbes and Civil Science. Pp. xvii + 386. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Cloth, $180.00. Paper, $65.00. Quentin Skinner's Visions of Politics consists of three volumes of his essays, most (...) of which have been previously published. Volume I concerns the nature of historical interpretation. It contains the classic, "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas"; much of his "Reply to My Critics," from Meaning and Context (James Tully, editor [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988]);"Interpretation and the Understanding of Speech Acts"; and other notable essays. Volume II focuses on aspects of the Renaissance, especially discussions of the concept of liberty and various theories of civic republicanism. Volume III focuses on the life and thought of Thomas Hobbes, although its chapters also contain an enormous amount of information about ancient rhetoric, Renaissance humanism, and other things. As my brief description of the contents of these volumes indicates, Skinner's knowledge is [End Page 555] not just encyclopedic; it is Britannic. The range and depth of his scholarship, evident in each article written over several decades, is all the more impressive when they are gathered together. Unfortunately, he has stopped short of reprinting all of his articles in their entirety; for example, only part of "Hobbes on Sovereignty" (1965), is included.Although the Journal of the History of Philosophy does not normally review works of previously published essays, an exception is being made in this case because of the importance of Skinner's thought and because these volumes contain significant new material. Although most of the chapters are reprinted largely as they originally appeared, some chapters were extensively rewritten. Many readers will wish that he had changed less and provided more commentary on the views of his younger self.Given the number and originality of Skinner theses, every reader will disagree with some of them. In the rest of this review, I will discuss a few of these. Skinner makes the provocative claim that "our goals as historians should [not] be to recount [facts]... as objectively as possible" (I:1). This looks relativistic but he says that he is not a relativist. Shortly later, he makes the disturbing, but not unfamiliar, claim that "the concept of truth is irrelevant to the enterprise of explaining beliefs" (I:2). A major problem for this view is that anyone who makes a statement is, or purports to be, aiming at the truth. The fact that a speaker might not use the word 'true' or 'truth' does not show that the concept is not operating. Moreover, to be rational is to pursue the truth.Skinner is particularly interested in political rhetoric, and the rhetorical feature he studies most closely is paradiastole. Simplifying it, let's say that paradiastole is the technique of rejecting one description-cum-evaluation, say, "The prince is stubborn," for another, say, "The prince is resolute." Since redescriptions of things can go in either direction, many philosophers thought that the possibility of paradiastole undermined the objectivity of ethics. Rhetoricians fostered this belief by teaching students to argue for either side of an argument.Skinner thinks Hobbes "undoubtedly" provided a solution to the problem of paradiastole and that the solution "has the great merit of confronting the problem in a uniquely uncompromising way" (III:141). The solution depends on recognizing that the goodness of virtues "resides in the fact that they form 'the meanes of peaceable, sociable and comfortable living'" (III:137). So, when a dispute about morality arises, one simply asks "whether the effect of the action will or will not be conducive to the preservation of peace" (III:137). I do not see that this solves the problem. In early 2003, one side called the American invasion of Iraq a means to peace by defeating terrorism, the other side a provocation of war against Muslim nations; either side can be argued. Tending toward peace cannot be part... (shrink)

In Beyond Tragedy and Eternal Peace, Jean-François Drolet provides a synoptic interpretation of Nietzsche's reflections on politics and international relations in the context of the late nineteenth century. Revolving around questions concerning conflict and political violence, the study examines the symbiotic relationship between Nietzsche's critique of Western metaphysics and his analyses of the political processes, institutions and dominant ideologies shaping public life in Germany and Europe during the 1870s and 1880s. This includes the Franco-Prussian War and the unification of (...) Germany under Bismarck, the advent of mass democracy and the rise and transformation of European nationalism. In the German-speaking world, these developments were also central to the emergence of what would come to be known as "Geopolitik" (geopolitics)--a distinct set of intellectual and political initiatives driven by growing anxieties over the more permanent aspects of German political geography and the destabilizing consequences of techno-scientific innovations for world order. Drolet exposes and analyses Nietzsche's account of these developments against the backdrop of Nietzsche's engagement with Kantian thought and "European nihilism"--an all-consuming crisis of meaning triggered by the dissolution of the structuring ideals which had connected the exercise of power with purpose and determined questions of human co-existence under Christianity. Through this reconstructive exegesis, he shows that Nietzsche's philosophy channels a powerful and still greatly under-appreciated account of the changing political processes and agencies that culminated in the momentous collapse of the European society of states during the first half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to think about the possibility of political philosophy, taking Leo Strauss's work as a point of departure. It examines why contemporary nihilism - in its most widespread and sometimes hidden personifications - prevents the achievement, and even the existence, of a reflection on the nature of political things. Assuming that Strauss's reflections on "natural right" are as much the key to understanding "the central problem of political philosophy" as to confronting Strauss's principal opponents, (...) this article analyzes the meaning and the plausibility of Strauss's critique of the motives that lead us to nihilism and, if these prove to be appropriate, to indicate how a "rebirth of classical political philosophy" could reconduct us to a philosophical meditation on the good life, what is good, the best society, and "how man must live".Trata-se de pensar a possibilidade da filosofia política. Para tanto, procura-se situar a questão a partir da obra de Leo Strauss, objetivando-se mostrar por que o niilismo contemporâneo - em suas mais difundidas e às vezes insuspeitas manifestações - impede a realização e mesmo a existência de uma reflexão sobre a natureza das coisas políticas. Tendo-se a retomada por parte de Strauss do "direito natural" como chave de leitura tanto para o "problema central da filosofia política" quanto para o enfrentamento de seus principais opositores, espera-se investigar o sentido e a plausibilidade das críticas aos motivos que nos conduzem ao niilismo e, caso estas se mostrem apropriadas, apontar como um proposto "renascimento do racionalismo político clássico" pode reconduzir à interrogação filosófica acerca do que é bom, da boa vida, da melhor sociedade, de "como deve o homem viver". (shrink)

Violence and Messianism looks at how some of the figures of the so-called Renaissance of "Jewish" philosophy between the two world wars - Franz Rosenzweig, Walter Benjamin and Martin Buber - grappled with problems of violence, revolution and war. At once inheriting and breaking with the great historical figures of political philosophy such as Kant and Hegel, they also exerted considerable influence on the next generation of European philosophers, like Lévinas, Derrida and others. This book aims to think through (...) the great conflicts in the past century in the context of the theory of catastrophe and the beginning of new messianic time. Firstly, it is a book about means and ends - that is, about whether good ends can be achieved through bad means. Second, it is a book about time: peace time, war time, time it takes to transfer from war to peace, etc. Is a period of peace simply a time that excludes all violence? How long does it take to establish peace? Building on this, it then discusses whether there is anything that can be called messianic acting. Can we - are we capable of, or allowed to - act violently in order to hasten the arrival of the Messiah and peace? And would we then be in messianic time? Finally, how does this notion of messianism - a name for a sudden and unpredictable event - fit in, for example, with our contemporary understanding of terrorist violence? The book attempts to understand such pressing questions by reconstructing the notions of violence and messianism as they were elaborated by 20th century Jewish political thought. Providing an important contribution to the discussion on terrorism and the relationship between religion and violence, this book will appeal to theorists of terrorism and ethics of war, as well as students and scholars of Philosophy, Jewish studies and religion studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 555-557 [Access article in PDF] Quentin Skinner. Visions of Politics. Vol. I, Regarding Method. Pp. xvi + 209. Vol. II, Renaissance Virtues. Pp. xix + 461. Vol. III, Hobbes and Civil Science. Pp. xvii + 386. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Cloth, $180.00. Paper, $65.00. Quentin Skinner's Visions of Politics consists of three volumes of his essays, most (...) of which have been previously published. Volume I concerns the nature of historical interpretation. It contains the classic, "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas"; much of his "Reply to My Critics," from Meaning and Context (James Tully, editor [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988]);"Interpretation and the Understanding of Speech Acts"; and other notable essays. Volume II focuses on aspects of the Renaissance, especially discussions of the concept of liberty and various theories of civic republicanism. Volume III focuses on the life and thought of Thomas Hobbes, although its chapters also contain an enormous amount of information about ancient rhetoric, Renaissance humanism, and other things. As my brief description of the contents of these volumes indicates, Skinner's knowledge is [End Page 555] not just encyclopedic; it is Britannic. The range and depth of his scholarship, evident in each article written over several decades, is all the more impressive when they are gathered together. Unfortunately, he has stopped short of reprinting all of his articles in their entirety; for example, only part of "Hobbes on Sovereignty" (1965), is included.Although the Journal of the History of Philosophy does not normally review works of previously published essays, an exception is being made in this case because of the importance of Skinner's thought and because these volumes contain significant new material. Although most of the chapters are reprinted largely as they originally appeared, some chapters were extensively rewritten. Many readers will wish that he had changed less and provided more commentary on the views of his younger self.Given the number and originality of Skinner theses, every reader will disagree with some of them. In the rest of this review, I will discuss a few of these. Skinner makes the provocative claim that "our goals as historians should [not] be to recount [facts]... as objectively as possible" (I:1). This looks relativistic but he says that he is not a relativist. Shortly later, he makes the disturbing, but not unfamiliar, claim that "the concept of truth is irrelevant to the enterprise of explaining beliefs" (I:2). A major problem for this view is that anyone who makes a statement is, or purports to be, aiming at the truth. The fact that a speaker might not use the word 'true' or 'truth' does not show that the concept is not operating. Moreover, to be rational is to pursue the truth.Skinner is particularly interested in political rhetoric, and the rhetorical feature he studies most closely is paradiastole. Simplifying it, let's say that paradiastole is the technique of rejecting one description-cum-evaluation, say, "The prince is stubborn," for another, say, "The prince is resolute." Since redescriptions of things can go in either direction, many philosophers thought that the possibility of paradiastole undermined the objectivity of ethics. Rhetoricians fostered this belief by teaching students to argue for either side of an argument.Skinner thinks Hobbes "undoubtedly" provided a solution to the problem of paradiastole and that the solution "has the great merit of confronting the problem in a uniquely uncompromising way" (III:141). The solution depends on recognizing that the goodness of virtues "resides in the fact that they form 'the meanes of peaceable, sociable and comfortable living'" (III:137). So, when a dispute about morality arises, one simply asks "whether the effect of the action will or will not be conducive to the preservation of peace" (III:137). I do not see that this solves the problem. In early 2003, one side called the American invasion of Iraq a means to peace by defeating terrorism, the other side a provocation of war against Muslim nations; either side can be argued. Tending toward peace cannot be part... (shrink)

Of the truly great thinkers in the western tradition, Nietzsche is the most extreme and the most dangerous.1 Nietzsche of course repeatedly professed his own dangerousness, and predicted that his n...