Baudrillard's unsettling coda: previously unpublished texts written just before the visionary theorist's death in 2007. History that repeats itself turns to farce. But a farce that repeats itself ends up making a history.—from The Agony of Power In these previously unpublished manuscripts written just before his death in 2007, Jean Baudrillard takes a last crack at the bewildering situation currently facing us as we exit the system of “domination” and enter a world of generalized “hegemony” in which everyone becomes (...) both hostage and accomplice of the global market. But in the free-form market of political and sexual liberation, as the possibility of revolution dissipates, Baudrillard sees the hegemonic process as only beginning. Once expelled, negativity returns from within ourselves as an antagonistic force—most vividly in the phenomenon of terrorism, but also as irony, mockery, and the symbolic liquidation of all human values. This is the dimension of hegemony marked by an unbridled circulation—of capital, goods, information, or manufactured history—that is bringing the very concept of exchange to an end and pushing capital beyond its limits: to the point at which it destroys the conditions of its own existence. In the system of hegemony, the alienated, the oppressed, and the colonized find themselves on the side of the system that holds them hostage. In this paradoxical moment in which history has turned to farce, domination itself may appear to have been a lesser evil.This book gathers together three essays—“From Domination to Hegemony,” "The White Terror of World Order," and "Where Good Grows"—and a 2005 interview with Baudrillard by Sylvère Lotringer. Semiotext launched Baudrillard into English back in the early 1980s; now, as our media and information infested “ultra-reality” finally catches up with his theory, Semiotext offers The Agony of Power, Baudrillard's unsettling coda. (shrink)

Au terme d’un parcours éprouvant ponctué par des humiliations et un viol, Mouchette se suicide. Sa vie se clôture en parfaite tonalité avec l’univers dans laquelle elle a vécu. Étant donné cet acte rédhibitoire qui catalyse son existence – une vie marquée par la misère, le mensonge, l’alcoolisme, l’absence de tendresse – nous pourrions douter du salut de l’héroïne. En effet tous ces signes laissent penser que Mouchette est damnée tant nous la voyons se débattre dans cet univers clos, d’une (...) étonnante noirceur, et dans lequel les vertus théologales et de l’esprit des Béatitudes n’arrivent pas à s’imposer. Satan serait le prince de ce monde. Malgré cela, nous démontrerons que la grâce surgit au terme de cette vie, et que Mouchette, enfant humiliée, avant de se suicider a vécu dans son dernier geste, d’une tonalité baptismale, l’expérience de l’agonie qui la configure au Christ. (shrink)

Kuhlman exposes the dangers of excessive reliance on technical efficiency and avoidance of pain in the individual struggle to become educated and calls for renewed recognition of the importance of effort and agony in human accomplishment.

History that repeats itself turns to farce. But a farce that repeats itself ends up making a history.--from The Agony of PowerIn these previously unpublished manuscripts written just before his death in 2007, Jean Baudrillard takes a last crack at the bewildering situation currently facing us as we exit the system of "domination" and enter a world of generalized "hegemony" in which everyone becomes both hostage and accomplice of the global market. But in the free-form market of political and (...) sexual liberation, as the possibility of revolution dissipates, Baudrillard sees the hegemonic process as only beginning. Once expelled, negativity returns from within ourselves as an antagonistic force--most vividly in the phenomenon of terrorism, but also as irony, mockery, and the symbolic liquidation of all human values. This is the dimension of hegemony marked by an unbridled circulation--of capital, goods, information, or manufactured history--that is bringing the very concept of exchange to an end and pushing capital beyond its limits: to the point at which it destroys the conditions of its own existence. In the system of hegemony, the alienated, the oppressed, and the colonized find themselves on the side of the system that holds them hostage. In this paradoxical moment in which history has turned to farce, domination itself may appear to have been a lesser evil.This book gathers together two essays--"The Agony of Power" and "From Domination to Hegemony"--and a related interview with Baudrillard from 2005, "The Roots of Evil." Semiotext launched Baudrillard into English back in the early 1980s; now, as our media and information infested "ultra-reality" finally catches up with his theory, Semiotext offers The Agony of Power, Baudrillard's unsettling coda. (shrink)

Gasping respiration in the dying patient is the last respiratory pattern prior to terminal apnoea. The duration of the gasping respiration phase varies; it may be as brief as one or two breaths to a prolonged period of gasping lasting minutes or even hours. Gasping respiration is very abnormal, easy to recognise and distinguish from other respiratory patterns and, in the dying patient who has elected to not be resuscitated, will always result in terminal apnoea.Gasping respiration is also referred to (...) as agonal respiration and the name is appropriate because the gasping breaths appear uncomfortable and raise concern that the patient is suffering and in agony. Enough uncertainty exists about the influence of gasping respiration on patient wellbeing, that it is appropriate to assume that the gasping breaths are burdensome to patients. Therefore, gasping respiration at the end of life should be treated.We propose that there is an ethical basis, in rare circumstances, for the use of neuromuscular blockade to suppress prolonged episodes of agonal respiration in the well-sedated patient in order to allow a peaceful and comfortable death. (shrink)

Longtime Radical legislator and former president of Aerolíneas Argentinas decries the corruption that results from the proliferation of pressure groups, all of whom are trying to influence a powerful interventionist State"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.

When did historians begin to put quotation marks around the wordreal? There are many examples of this habit and some of them will be set forth as evidence in what follows. But before doing so we might ask a preliminary question: What are the quotation marksthemselvessupposed to mean? Today we find them so familiar they hardly need to be written and they are more frequently consigned to the everyday repertoire of silent gesture: two fingers on either hand clutch at the (...) air as if they meant to tickle the flanks of the invisible beast between them. The popular term is “scare-quotes,” a pun on the word “scarecrow.” Its etymology is revealing: just as a mere representation of a body in a field may scare off birds, so too scare-quotes permit someone to deploy a word without sincere commitment to what it normally means. But further reflection tells us that the effects are not so similar after all: To use a term without sincerity robs it of its original meaning and holds up its lifeless corpse to ridicule. The more knowing sort of crow can settle on the shoulder of the figure on the pole precisely because it recognizes that such a sorry excuse for a man can in fact harm no one. Similarly when one putsrealityin quotation marks we are put in mind of the living concept but we are immediately alerted to the fact that, for the user at least, the new term enjoys no metaphysical prestige. How did this happen? When and why did the single most privileged word in the entire lexicon of metaphysics begin to lose its authority such that in certain spheres of intellectual sophistication its sincere use would only seem an embarrassment and a sign of naïveté? (shrink)

Why does Derek Parfit, a philosopher very much associated with the University of Oxford, use pictures of St. Petersburg on the covers of volumes of On What Matters? Perhaps it is because he regards his agony argument as like something from Russian literature. But I can envisage a response to the argument from such literature.

Functionalist identity theorists argue that if physical states of the central nervous system have the same function as pain, pains should be identified with those physical states. Many objections have been raised against this position. My aim in this paper is to defend it against opponents who argue that it leads to an absurd result: the ascription of pains to things which cannot reasonably be thought to be capable of suffering, or of having any conscious states. In doing this, I (...) will outline a version of the functionalist position which I think is plausible. It departs in several respects from versions commonly found in the literature. (shrink)

Extant discussions of subjectivism about reasons for action have concentrated on presentist versions of the theory, on which reasons for present actions are grounded in present desires. In this article, I motivate and investigate the prospects of futurist subjectivism, on which reasons for present actions are grounded in present or future desires. Futurist subjectivism promises to answer Parfit's Agony Argument, and it is motivated by natural extensions of some of the considerations that support subjectivism in general. However, it faces (...) a problem: because which desires one will have in the future can depend on what one does now, it must tell us which of one's possible future desires give one reasons to promote their satisfaction. I argue that the most natural solutions to this problem are unsatisfactory: they either fail to answer the Agony Argument or have unacceptable implications elsewhere. Then, I propose a more promising solution. Moreover, I argue that a closely analogous problem arises for an important class of idealizing subjectivist views and that this problem admits of a similar solution. (shrink)

Se reúnen en este volumen La agonía del cristianismo y una selección de los ensayos y artículos de Unamuno más directamente referidos a los temas y problemas religiosos."Más directamente" porque, en rigor, es el tema religioso el centro de la obra toda de Miguel Unamuno.

The current investigations examine how globalization signifying either identity threat or realistic threat has a differential role in mediating the effect of competitive victim-hood on Muslims’ religious fundamentalism. Study 1 revealed that identity globalization threat and not realistic globalization threat significantly mediated the effect of competitive victimhood on Muslims’ religious fundamentalism. Study 2 successfully replicated the finding in Study 1. Moreover, Study 2 also revealed that such mediating role of identity globalization threat was stronger among participants perceiving Muslims as having (...) high than low group entitativity, which refers to the extent to which Muslims as a group are considered to be a one, homogenous collective rather than an aggregation of individuals. Theoretical implications for understanding situational or social factors of Muslims’ religious fundamentalism are discussed, as are strategies to reduce competitive victimhood among members of this religious group. (shrink)

The measure of man.--What philosophy is and does.--The vocation of consciousness.--The touch of art.--The voice of the dead wife.--The kin-consciousness of art.--The poem is not a symbol.--The poem is a symbol.--Being: the act of belonging.

With 5,000 convicts, most of them lifers, working soy, corn, and cotton crops, Angola’s “penal slavery” system today eerily recalls Louisiana’s past investment in the peculiar institution. Present-day form of discipline (chain gangs and striped uniforms) also indicate that dehumanization and popular vengeance are the selling points of a new punishment order. Using “America’s worst prison” as a case study, the author charts an archeology of the penal system in the U.S. South, arguing that prison revolts, and particularly the heelslinger (...) revolution of 1951, have historically ushered in significant if short-lived improvements in the penal system, and that activists in the free world must heed them in their efforts to bring about prison reform. (shrink)

Hegel suggests that spirit, in contrast to animal nature, can encounter infinite agony in the death of what was its center, and yet, by dwelling with this loss, emerge into a new form of existence. The paradigm for this move is described toward the end of the chapter on Revealed Religion in the Phenomenology of Spirit. An analysis of the key paragraph introduces a discussion of four questions: Why is this experience triggered by the death of a mediator? What (...) characterizes the spiritual metamorphosis that results? Are such transformations restricted to revealed religion? And what does this defining characteristic tell us about the way spiritual life differs from the natural? (shrink)

Minkoff, Vullikanit, and Marshall (2024) have advanced critical dialogue about the agency of pregnant persons, highlighting serious issues about the erosion of reproductive rights and the fall of R...

With 5,000 convicts, most of them lifers, working soy, corn, and cotton crops, Angola’s “penal slavery” system today eerily recalls Louisiana’s past investment in the peculiar institution. Present-day form of discipline (chain gangs and striped uniforms) also indicate that dehumanization and popular vengeance are the selling points of a new punishment order. Using “America’s worst prison” as a case study, the author charts an archeology of the penal system in the U.S. South, arguing that prison revolts, and particularly the heelslinger (...) revolution of 1951, have historically ushered in significant if short-lived improvements in the penal system, and that activists in the free world must heed them in their efforts to bring about prison reform. (shrink)