Robert Tobin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199641567
- eISBN:
- 9780191738418
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641567.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter focuses on Butler's writings after the Second World War and his efforts to confront the impact of totalitarian thought on Western society. It offers close readings of some of his most ...
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This chapter focuses on Butler's writings after the Second World War and his efforts to confront the impact of totalitarian thought on Western society. It offers close readings of some of his most prominent post‐war writings, and in the process, introduces his preoccupation with exposing the compulsory conversion campaign waged against Orthodox Serbs in Croatia during the war. It accounts for how this concern led to the most traumatic experience of his public life, the so‐called ‘Papal Nuncio Incident’ of 1952. It explores his concern with the creeping anonymity of modern life, exploited by totalitarian regimes before and during the war but also evident after the war in the capitalist West. His travels in China in the fifties, as well as in Europe and the USA in the sixties, confirmed for him this assessment.Less
This chapter focuses on Butler's writings after the Second World War and his efforts to confront the impact of totalitarian thought on Western society. It offers close readings of some of his most prominent post‐war writings, and in the process, introduces his preoccupation with exposing the compulsory conversion campaign waged against Orthodox Serbs in Croatia during the war. It accounts for how this concern led to the most traumatic experience of his public life, the so‐called ‘Papal Nuncio Incident’ of 1952. It explores his concern with the creeping anonymity of modern life, exploited by totalitarian regimes before and during the war but also evident after the war in the capitalist West. His travels in China in the fifties, as well as in Europe and the USA in the sixties, confirmed for him this assessment.
Eli Zaretsky
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172448
- eISBN:
- 9780231540148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172448.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This chapter examines the radical African American and Afro-Caribbean intellectuals who drew on the Freudian critique of the father complex, in the form of the master-slave relationship, in order to ...
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This chapter examines the radical African American and Afro-Caribbean intellectuals who drew on the Freudian critique of the father complex, in the form of the master-slave relationship, in order to build a collective memory in the Black community. Psychoanalytic thought was central to three great episodes of African American and Afro-Caribbean radicalism that preceded the civil rights movement: the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, the Popular Front of the 1930s, and the existentialist-inflected anticolonial and postcolonial paradigm that emerged after World War II. In each case, political Freudianism aimed less at a theory of racism than at uncovering the memory of the slave experience and its aftermath. In each case an African American or Afro-Caribbean intellectual was drawing on Freud not just to probe the damage to the inner world left behind by slavery and colonialism but to turn that reconstructed memory toward politics.Less
This chapter examines the radical African American and Afro-Caribbean intellectuals who drew on the Freudian critique of the father complex, in the form of the master-slave relationship, in order to build a collective memory in the Black community. Psychoanalytic thought was central to three great episodes of African American and Afro-Caribbean radicalism that preceded the civil rights movement: the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, the Popular Front of the 1930s, and the existentialist-inflected anticolonial and postcolonial paradigm that emerged after World War II. In each case, political Freudianism aimed less at a theory of racism than at uncovering the memory of the slave experience and its aftermath. In each case an African American or Afro-Caribbean intellectual was drawing on Freud not just to probe the damage to the inner world left behind by slavery and colonialism but to turn that reconstructed memory toward politics.
Eli Zaretsky
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172448
- eISBN:
- 9780231540148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172448.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
The third chapter, on Freud’s Moses and Monotheism (1938), interrogatesan idea crucial to the Freudian approach to history, the idea of regression. Against the standard approach, which contrasts ...
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The third chapter, on Freud’s Moses and Monotheism (1938), interrogatesan idea crucial to the Freudian approach to history, the idea of regression. Against the standard approach, which contrasts progress with decline or decadence, political Freudians posited that history unfolds at different levels and at different timescales, that there are points in the past to which we regress, predispositions, stages, or conflicts to which we “return.” Written on the eve of World War II, and in the shadow of the Nazi terror, Moses and Monotheism used the idea that there are unconscious processes in history to analyze the founding of monotheism in ancient Egypt, the accompanying creation of the Jewish people, and the subsequent rise of anti-Semitism. It was the question of progress or, more starkly, survival that animated Freud’s interest in Jewish identity. Moses and Monotheism is at bottom a reflection on the history of psychoanalysis centered on Freud’s preconscious identification of psychoanalysis with Judaism. Less
The third chapter, on Freud’s Moses and Monotheism (1938), interrogatesan idea crucial to the Freudian approach to history, the idea of regression. Against the standard approach, which contrasts progress with decline or decadence, political Freudians posited that history unfolds at different levels and at different timescales, that there are points in the past to which we regress, predispositions, stages, or conflicts to which we “return.” Written on the eve of World War II, and in the shadow of the Nazi terror, Moses and Monotheism used the idea that there are unconscious processes in history to analyze the founding of monotheism in ancient Egypt, the accompanying creation of the Jewish people, and the subsequent rise of anti-Semitism. It was the question of progress or, more starkly, survival that animated Freud’s interest in Jewish identity. Moses and Monotheism is at bottom a reflection on the history of psychoanalysis centered on Freud’s preconscious identification of psychoanalysis with Judaism.
Eli Zaretsky
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172448
- eISBN:
- 9780231540148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172448.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This chapter examines political Freudian thinking concerning war during World War I, World War II, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Freud believed that aggression was a normal and healthy part of ...
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This chapter examines political Freudian thinking concerning war during World War I, World War II, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Freud believed that aggression was a normal and healthy part of civilization, but only insofar as its roots in vulnerability, dependence, and in the continued presence of infantile states in the adult mind were recognized. The century’s earliest approach to war rested on the warrior ethic associated with such ideals as glory, honor, and self-sacrifice. The shell shock incident of World War I led Freud to formulate his theory of the ego, which challenged those ideals. Hence the political Freudian tradition reflects a shift from the classical Cartesian or Kantian view of the rational, independent, “bounded” ego to the view that the ego is formed through recognition, object relations, and language. While this shift deepened the Freudian interrogation of vulnerability, it also threatened to lose the focus on ego autonomy that gave psychoanalysis its critical force.Less
This chapter examines political Freudian thinking concerning war during World War I, World War II, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Freud believed that aggression was a normal and healthy part of civilization, but only insofar as its roots in vulnerability, dependence, and in the continued presence of infantile states in the adult mind were recognized. The century’s earliest approach to war rested on the warrior ethic associated with such ideals as glory, honor, and self-sacrifice. The shell shock incident of World War I led Freud to formulate his theory of the ego, which challenged those ideals. Hence the political Freudian tradition reflects a shift from the classical Cartesian or Kantian view of the rational, independent, “bounded” ego to the view that the ego is formed through recognition, object relations, and language. While this shift deepened the Freudian interrogation of vulnerability, it also threatened to lose the focus on ego autonomy that gave psychoanalysis its critical force.
Eli Zaretsky
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172448
- eISBN:
- 9780231540148
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172448.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
Written on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Freud’s birth, the afterword asks whether psychoanalytic thought is relevant in today’s world or is merely of historical interest. In its heyday, ...
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Written on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Freud’s birth, the afterword asks whether psychoanalytic thought is relevant in today’s world or is merely of historical interest. In its heyday, it argues, Freudianism was a synthesis, combining a theory of the mind, a new paradigm for interpreting culture, and an ethical commitment to self-reflection. During the 1970s, with the waning of the traditional, family-centered culture of restraint, the three currents came apart. The theory of the mind gave way to neuroscience. The approach to culture found a home in the university, especially in cultural studies, women’s studies, queer theory, postcolonial theory, and film studies. But the fate of the ethical commitment to self-reflection, like the fate of political Freudianism as such, remains in doubt.Less
Written on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Freud’s birth, the afterword asks whether psychoanalytic thought is relevant in today’s world or is merely of historical interest. In its heyday, it argues, Freudianism was a synthesis, combining a theory of the mind, a new paradigm for interpreting culture, and an ethical commitment to self-reflection. During the 1970s, with the waning of the traditional, family-centered culture of restraint, the three currents came apart. The theory of the mind gave way to neuroscience. The approach to culture found a home in the university, especially in cultural studies, women’s studies, queer theory, postcolonial theory, and film studies. But the fate of the ethical commitment to self-reflection, like the fate of political Freudianism as such, remains in doubt.
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231170789
- eISBN:
- 9780231540377
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231170789.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter provides an analytical discussion of some of the salient elements of the contemporary religious discourse of anti-relativism, focusing in particular on the use made of five key terms: ...
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This chapter provides an analytical discussion of some of the salient elements of the contemporary religious discourse of anti-relativism, focusing in particular on the use made of five key terms: relativism, truth, authority, freedom and totalitarianism.Less
This chapter provides an analytical discussion of some of the salient elements of the contemporary religious discourse of anti-relativism, focusing in particular on the use made of five key terms: relativism, truth, authority, freedom and totalitarianism.
George Rupp
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231174282
- eISBN:
- 9780231539869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231174282.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
To address the dimension of the resistance to individualism that is warranted, its values can and should be integrated into an affirmation of community.
To address the dimension of the resistance to individualism that is warranted, its values can and should be integrated into an affirmation of community.
Richard Landes
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199753598
- eISBN:
- 9780199897445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199753598.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter traces how the dynamics of apocalyptic disappointment, led millennial ideologues (Bakùnin, Lenin, and Trotsky) to turn the politique du pire into coercive purity, setting the stage for a ...
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This chapter traces how the dynamics of apocalyptic disappointment, led millennial ideologues (Bakùnin, Lenin, and Trotsky) to turn the politique du pire into coercive purity, setting the stage for a shift from the revolution occurring in the industrial West to the agrarian East. Totalitarianism, in this context, arises from the unintended consequence of an apocalyptic movement that took power, and, with the failure of its expectations of a spontaneous millennium, carved out the “perfect” society from the body politic. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Hannah Arendt's analysis of totalitarianism, the phenomenon of “fellow travelers” as a (post-)apocalyptic phenomenon, and the contribution of apocalyptic paranoia to the spread of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, setting the stage for Hitler's emergence after WWI.Less
This chapter traces how the dynamics of apocalyptic disappointment, led millennial ideologues (Bakùnin, Lenin, and Trotsky) to turn the politique du pire into coercive purity, setting the stage for a shift from the revolution occurring in the industrial West to the agrarian East. Totalitarianism, in this context, arises from the unintended consequence of an apocalyptic movement that took power, and, with the failure of its expectations of a spontaneous millennium, carved out the “perfect” society from the body politic. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Hannah Arendt's analysis of totalitarianism, the phenomenon of “fellow travelers” as a (post-)apocalyptic phenomenon, and the contribution of apocalyptic paranoia to the spread of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, setting the stage for Hitler's emergence after WWI.
Seth Bernstein
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501709883
- eISBN:
- 9781501709388
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501709883.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
Communist Upbringing under Stalin: Young Communists and War in a Socialist Society, 1929-1945 examines Stalinist mass youth culture in the period of the Great Terror and World War II. For the ...
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Communist Upbringing under Stalin: Young Communists and War in a Socialist Society, 1929-1945 examines Stalinist mass youth culture in the period of the Great Terror and World War II. For the Bolsheviks, youth were the “new people” who would someday build communism. Despite Stalinist assertions that the country was marching inexorably toward communism, though, there was no blueprint for raising a socialist generation. “Communist upbringing”—the program of moral socialization of the Young Communist League (Komsomol)—absorbed the violent atmosphere of the 1930s and 1940s. Even as it surrounded them with violence, Stalin’s regime provided young people with opportunities, shaping socialist youth culture and socialism more broadly through the threat and experience of war.Less
Communist Upbringing under Stalin: Young Communists and War in a Socialist Society, 1929-1945 examines Stalinist mass youth culture in the period of the Great Terror and World War II. For the Bolsheviks, youth were the “new people” who would someday build communism. Despite Stalinist assertions that the country was marching inexorably toward communism, though, there was no blueprint for raising a socialist generation. “Communist upbringing”—the program of moral socialization of the Young Communist League (Komsomol)—absorbed the violent atmosphere of the 1930s and 1940s. Even as it surrounded them with violence, Stalin’s regime provided young people with opportunities, shaping socialist youth culture and socialism more broadly through the threat and experience of war.
Eli Zaretsky
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231172448
- eISBN:
- 9780231540148
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172448.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
Eli Zaretsky reveals the power of Freudian thought to illuminate the great political conflicts of the twentieth century. Developing an original concept of “political Freudianism,” he shows how ...
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Eli Zaretsky reveals the power of Freudian thought to illuminate the great political conflicts of the twentieth century. Developing an original concept of “political Freudianism,” he shows how twentieth-century radicals, activists, and intellectuals used psychoanalytic ideas to probe consumer capitalism, racial violence, anti-Semitism, and patriarchy. He also underscores the continuing influence and critical potential of those ideas in the transformed landscape of the present. Zaretsky’s conception of political Freudianism unites the two overarching themes of the last century—totalitarianism and consumerism—in a single framework. He finds that theories of mass psychology and the unconscious were central to the study of fascism and the Holocaust; to African American radical thought, particularly the struggle to overcome the legacy of slavery; to the rebellions of the 1960s; and to the feminism and gay liberation movements of the 1970s. Nor did the influence of political Freud end when the era of Freud bashing began. Rather, Zaretsky proves that political Freudianism is alive today in cultural studies, the study of memory, theories of trauma, postcolonial thought, film, media and computer studies, evolutionary theory and even economics.Less
Eli Zaretsky reveals the power of Freudian thought to illuminate the great political conflicts of the twentieth century. Developing an original concept of “political Freudianism,” he shows how twentieth-century radicals, activists, and intellectuals used psychoanalytic ideas to probe consumer capitalism, racial violence, anti-Semitism, and patriarchy. He also underscores the continuing influence and critical potential of those ideas in the transformed landscape of the present. Zaretsky’s conception of political Freudianism unites the two overarching themes of the last century—totalitarianism and consumerism—in a single framework. He finds that theories of mass psychology and the unconscious were central to the study of fascism and the Holocaust; to African American radical thought, particularly the struggle to overcome the legacy of slavery; to the rebellions of the 1960s; and to the feminism and gay liberation movements of the 1970s. Nor did the influence of political Freud end when the era of Freud bashing began. Rather, Zaretsky proves that political Freudianism is alive today in cultural studies, the study of memory, theories of trauma, postcolonial thought, film, media and computer studies, evolutionary theory and even economics.
Roberto Esposito
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823242641
- eISBN:
- 9780823242689
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823242641.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
One of contemporary Italy's most prolific and engaging political theorists, Roberto Esposito has coined a number of critical concepts in current debates about the past, present, and future of ...
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One of contemporary Italy's most prolific and engaging political theorists, Roberto Esposito has coined a number of critical concepts in current debates about the past, present, and future of biopolitics – from his work on the implications of the etymological and philosophical kinship of community (communitas) and immunity (immunitas) to his theorizations of the impolitical and the impersonal. Terms of Politics: Community, Immunity, and Biopolitics presents a decade of Esposito's thought on the origins and possibilities of political theory. With interlocutors from throughout the western philosophical tradition, from Aristotle and Augustine to Weil and Arendt, Nancy, Foucault, and Agamben, Esposito announces the eclipse of a modern political lexicon–freedom, democracy, sovereignty, and law–that, in its attempt to protect human life, has so often produced its opposite (violence, melancholy, death). Terms of Politics calls for the opening of political thought toward a resignification of these and other operative terms such as community, immunity, biopolitics, and the impersonal in ways that are life affirming rather than life negating. An invaluable introduction to the breadth and rigor of Esposito's thought, the book will also welcome readers already familiar with Esposito's characteristic skill in overturning and breaking open the language of politics.Less
One of contemporary Italy's most prolific and engaging political theorists, Roberto Esposito has coined a number of critical concepts in current debates about the past, present, and future of biopolitics – from his work on the implications of the etymological and philosophical kinship of community (communitas) and immunity (immunitas) to his theorizations of the impolitical and the impersonal. Terms of Politics: Community, Immunity, and Biopolitics presents a decade of Esposito's thought on the origins and possibilities of political theory. With interlocutors from throughout the western philosophical tradition, from Aristotle and Augustine to Weil and Arendt, Nancy, Foucault, and Agamben, Esposito announces the eclipse of a modern political lexicon–freedom, democracy, sovereignty, and law–that, in its attempt to protect human life, has so often produced its opposite (violence, melancholy, death). Terms of Politics calls for the opening of political thought toward a resignification of these and other operative terms such as community, immunity, biopolitics, and the impersonal in ways that are life affirming rather than life negating. An invaluable introduction to the breadth and rigor of Esposito's thought, the book will also welcome readers already familiar with Esposito's characteristic skill in overturning and breaking open the language of politics.
Alison Staudinger
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781496831798
- eISBN:
- 9781496831842
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496831798.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Recognizing O’Connor’s relevance as a political thinker, Political Scientist Alison Staudinger puts O’Connor in dialogue with Hannah Arendt in order to explore O’Connor’s approach to fascism, a ...
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Recognizing O’Connor’s relevance as a political thinker, Political Scientist Alison Staudinger puts O’Connor in dialogue with Hannah Arendt in order to explore O’Connor’s approach to fascism, a pressing subject in the author’s Cold War context, as well as in our contemporary political moment. By engaging Arendt, Staudinger examines O’Connor’s relationship with fascism on three levels—as the practice of the artist, as the worldview of some fictional characters, and as an approach to her personal friendships. Staudinger argues that while O’Connor sees the temptations of fascism, she finally rejects it as a totalizing denial of human plurality. Staudinger suggests that O’Connor falls short of depicting an earthly community that could accept this plurality, especially regarding racial equality; at the same time she points out that O’Connor’s fiction demonstrates how it is the country’s deep-seated racial hierarchy that makes it vulnerable to fascism.Less
Recognizing O’Connor’s relevance as a political thinker, Political Scientist Alison Staudinger puts O’Connor in dialogue with Hannah Arendt in order to explore O’Connor’s approach to fascism, a pressing subject in the author’s Cold War context, as well as in our contemporary political moment. By engaging Arendt, Staudinger examines O’Connor’s relationship with fascism on three levels—as the practice of the artist, as the worldview of some fictional characters, and as an approach to her personal friendships. Staudinger argues that while O’Connor sees the temptations of fascism, she finally rejects it as a totalizing denial of human plurality. Staudinger suggests that O’Connor falls short of depicting an earthly community that could accept this plurality, especially regarding racial equality; at the same time she points out that O’Connor’s fiction demonstrates how it is the country’s deep-seated racial hierarchy that makes it vulnerable to fascism.
Rachel Watson
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781496831798
- eISBN:
- 9781496831842
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496831798.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Rachel Watson takes up O’Connor’s role as a political thinker and writer by examining issues of racial hierarchy in O’Connor’s fiction and putting her work in conversation with that of Richard ...
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Rachel Watson takes up O’Connor’s role as a political thinker and writer by examining issues of racial hierarchy in O’Connor’s fiction and putting her work in conversation with that of Richard Wright. Watson notes that although O’Connor invokes the “manners” of the Jim Crow South, she does not offer a sentimental or abject form of pity for her characters, regardless of their race. It is in this pity, so often connected with Cold War totalitarianism, that Watson finds a connection between the work of Flannery O’Connor and Richard Wright. This chapter shows the commonality between two authors whose work had previously seemed disparate, as Watson highlights their mutual fear of a racial and economic hegemony. Less
Rachel Watson takes up O’Connor’s role as a political thinker and writer by examining issues of racial hierarchy in O’Connor’s fiction and putting her work in conversation with that of Richard Wright. Watson notes that although O’Connor invokes the “manners” of the Jim Crow South, she does not offer a sentimental or abject form of pity for her characters, regardless of their race. It is in this pity, so often connected with Cold War totalitarianism, that Watson finds a connection between the work of Flannery O’Connor and Richard Wright. This chapter shows the commonality between two authors whose work had previously seemed disparate, as Watson highlights their mutual fear of a racial and economic hegemony.
Andrew Gamble
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781529217049
- eISBN:
- 9781529217087
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529217049.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
This essay explores Oakeshott’s view of totalitarianism through some of his earlier writings including an early essay which was published posthumously, ‘The Politics of Faith and the Politics of ...
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This essay explores Oakeshott’s view of totalitarianism through some of his earlier writings including an early essay which was published posthumously, ‘The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism’. Oakeshott saw the roots of totalitarianism as lying not in the fascist and communist movements of the twentieth century but much further back, in a disposition towards politics which he called the politics of faith. It arose in the early modern era, associated with thinkers such as Francis Bacon. The counter disposition was the politics of scepticism. Oakeshott favoured the politics of scepticism as an antidote to the politics of faith, but he recognised that without the politics of faith the modern world as we experience it could not have come about.Less
This essay explores Oakeshott’s view of totalitarianism through some of his earlier writings including an early essay which was published posthumously, ‘The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism’. Oakeshott saw the roots of totalitarianism as lying not in the fascist and communist movements of the twentieth century but much further back, in a disposition towards politics which he called the politics of faith. It arose in the early modern era, associated with thinkers such as Francis Bacon. The counter disposition was the politics of scepticism. Oakeshott favoured the politics of scepticism as an antidote to the politics of faith, but he recognised that without the politics of faith the modern world as we experience it could not have come about.
Gemma Moss
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781474429900
- eISBN:
- 9781399501965
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474429900.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Chapter 3 argues that changes in Pound’s approach to music track changes in his politics. The early Pound is interested in music’s ability to communicate emotions, but as his allegiance to fascism, ...
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Chapter 3 argues that changes in Pound’s approach to music track changes in his politics. The early Pound is interested in music’s ability to communicate emotions, but as his allegiance to fascism, hierarchies and ‘certain truth’ intensifies in the 1930s, his approach to music becomes coldly rational. This chapter builds towards a reading of the musical score in Canto LXXV – the second of the Pisan Cantos – by investigating the political implications of Pound’s shifting approach to music, and those who shaped his musical thought, including Remy de Gourmont, Florence Farr, George Antheil, and Théophile Gautier. Attending to Pound’s long study and varied uses of music – an art form so often considered a domain apart from daily life and politics – can illuminate how his politics inform his aesthetic judgements, and how his aesthetics affect his politics.Less
Chapter 3 argues that changes in Pound’s approach to music track changes in his politics. The early Pound is interested in music’s ability to communicate emotions, but as his allegiance to fascism, hierarchies and ‘certain truth’ intensifies in the 1930s, his approach to music becomes coldly rational. This chapter builds towards a reading of the musical score in Canto LXXV – the second of the Pisan Cantos – by investigating the political implications of Pound’s shifting approach to music, and those who shaped his musical thought, including Remy de Gourmont, Florence Farr, George Antheil, and Théophile Gautier. Attending to Pound’s long study and varied uses of music – an art form so often considered a domain apart from daily life and politics – can illuminate how his politics inform his aesthetic judgements, and how his aesthetics affect his politics.
Peg Birmingham
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230754
- eISBN:
- 9780823235858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823230754.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter addresses the question whether totalitarianism is a threat today. It considers one element of totalitarianism that Hannah Arendt was herself very concerned ...
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This chapter addresses the question whether totalitarianism is a threat today. It considers one element of totalitarianism that Hannah Arendt was herself very concerned about—a “lying world order.” At the outset of Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt raises the issue of political deception, considering the difference between the ancient and modern sophists and their relation to truth and reality. She argues that while the ancient sophists were satisfied with “a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth”, modern sophists want a great deal more, namely, “a lasting victory at the expense of reality itself”. Arendt claims that the characteristic that sets totalitarianism apart from tyrannical and dictatorial regimes is precisely the modern sophistic victory at the expense of reality, a victory that, she argues, institutes a lying world order. Indeed, her discussion of radical evil in the Origins of Totalitarianism cannot be understood apart from her continuing preoccupation with the problem of this particular kind of political deception.Less
This chapter addresses the question whether totalitarianism is a threat today. It considers one element of totalitarianism that Hannah Arendt was herself very concerned about—a “lying world order.” At the outset of Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt raises the issue of political deception, considering the difference between the ancient and modern sophists and their relation to truth and reality. She argues that while the ancient sophists were satisfied with “a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth”, modern sophists want a great deal more, namely, “a lasting victory at the expense of reality itself”. Arendt claims that the characteristic that sets totalitarianism apart from tyrannical and dictatorial regimes is precisely the modern sophistic victory at the expense of reality, a victory that, she argues, institutes a lying world order. Indeed, her discussion of radical evil in the Origins of Totalitarianism cannot be understood apart from her continuing preoccupation with the problem of this particular kind of political deception.
Lyndsey Stonebridge
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748642359
- eISBN:
- 9780748652150
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748642359.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Hannah Arendt later adopted Arthur Koestler's uncompromising title in her description of Europe's refugee population in The Origins of Totalitarianism. In Origins, she developed one of the most ...
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Hannah Arendt later adopted Arthur Koestler's uncompromising title in her description of Europe's refugee population in The Origins of Totalitarianism. In Origins, she developed one of the most subtle and complex critiques of how the twentieth century ruptured historical fantasies about the inalienable sanctity of rights to emerge out of the war. Arendt's irony in ‘We Refugees’ both gives vent to the rage of a ‘we’ torn brutally from its language, occupation and memory and, through a subtle ventriloquism, protests against attempts to normalise the position of the refugee. The problem of the refugee for political life, Arendt later argued in Origins, is that her very non-political existence illuminates ‘the dark background of mere givenness’: that is, a life before rights, a non-political existence – the ‘background formed by our unchangeable and unique nature’, which is governed not by law, but by difference.Less
Hannah Arendt later adopted Arthur Koestler's uncompromising title in her description of Europe's refugee population in The Origins of Totalitarianism. In Origins, she developed one of the most subtle and complex critiques of how the twentieth century ruptured historical fantasies about the inalienable sanctity of rights to emerge out of the war. Arendt's irony in ‘We Refugees’ both gives vent to the rage of a ‘we’ torn brutally from its language, occupation and memory and, through a subtle ventriloquism, protests against attempts to normalise the position of the refugee. The problem of the refugee for political life, Arendt later argued in Origins, is that her very non-political existence illuminates ‘the dark background of mere givenness’: that is, a life before rights, a non-political existence – the ‘background formed by our unchangeable and unique nature’, which is governed not by law, but by difference.
Martin Blumenthal-Barby
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801478123
- eISBN:
- 9780801467394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801478123.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter focuses on Hannah Arendt’s study of the question of “style” in historiographical narration. It analyzes Arendt’s book, Origins of Totalitarianism, and determines her own style, while ...
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This chapter focuses on Hannah Arendt’s study of the question of “style” in historiographical narration. It analyzes Arendt’s book, Origins of Totalitarianism, and determines her own style, while questioning how its efficacy relates to the problem of understanding totalitarianism. In response to political philosopher Eric Voegelin, a reviewer of Origins, Arendt elaborates on her decision to allocate more historiographical legitimacy to metaphorical thinking than to statistical science. She treats the merits of metaphorical thinking on the basis of a metaphor employed in Origins—that of the Nazi concentration camp as a place of “Hell.” Arendt feels that a heavy reliance on the explanatory power of quantitative material means prolonging the logic of Nazism or, more generally, the biopolitical logic of totalitarian politics.Less
This chapter focuses on Hannah Arendt’s study of the question of “style” in historiographical narration. It analyzes Arendt’s book, Origins of Totalitarianism, and determines her own style, while questioning how its efficacy relates to the problem of understanding totalitarianism. In response to political philosopher Eric Voegelin, a reviewer of Origins, Arendt elaborates on her decision to allocate more historiographical legitimacy to metaphorical thinking than to statistical science. She treats the merits of metaphorical thinking on the basis of a metaphor employed in Origins—that of the Nazi concentration camp as a place of “Hell.” Arendt feels that a heavy reliance on the explanatory power of quantitative material means prolonging the logic of Nazism or, more generally, the biopolitical logic of totalitarian politics.
Christopher Adair-Toteff
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474447089
- eISBN:
- 9781474465298
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474447089.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter has two parts: one on ideology and the other on totalitarianism. In the first part, it explores Aron’s adaption of the notion of ideology through Karl Mannheim and Edward Shils and ...
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This chapter has two parts: one on ideology and the other on totalitarianism. In the first part, it explores Aron’s adaption of the notion of ideology through Karl Mannheim and Edward Shils and concludes with a discussion of the “End of Ideology?” debate. In the second part, it clarifies the similarities and differences between Aron’s conception of totalitarianism and that of Hannah Arendt.Less
This chapter has two parts: one on ideology and the other on totalitarianism. In the first part, it explores Aron’s adaption of the notion of ideology through Karl Mannheim and Edward Shils and concludes with a discussion of the “End of Ideology?” debate. In the second part, it clarifies the similarities and differences between Aron’s conception of totalitarianism and that of Hannah Arendt.
John Etty
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496820525
- eISBN:
- 9781496820563
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496820525.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
This chapter offers an analysis of the Soviet media environment in which Krokodil functioned, as well as the dominant "propaganda paradigm" and totalitarian interpretations of it. It outlines two ...
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This chapter offers an analysis of the Soviet media environment in which Krokodil functioned, as well as the dominant "propaganda paradigm" and totalitarian interpretations of it. It outlines two tendencies-selectivity with material from the journal and structuralist approaches-that developed in scholarly criticism of Krokodil magazine between the 1930s and the present, and especially since 1945. These trends, as well as humor theories, have influenced interpretations and limited our understanding of Krokodil.Less
This chapter offers an analysis of the Soviet media environment in which Krokodil functioned, as well as the dominant "propaganda paradigm" and totalitarian interpretations of it. It outlines two tendencies-selectivity with material from the journal and structuralist approaches-that developed in scholarly criticism of Krokodil magazine between the 1930s and the present, and especially since 1945. These trends, as well as humor theories, have influenced interpretations and limited our understanding of Krokodil.