Violence and Civility: And Other Essays on Political Philosophy

ISBN-13: 9780231153980 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 232 str.

Etienne Balibar; G.m. Goshgarian

Opis

In Violence and Civility, Etienne Balibar boldly confronts the insidious causes of violence, racism, nationalism, and ethnic cleansing worldwide, as well as mass poverty and dispossession. Through a novel synthesis of theory and empirical studies of contemporary violence, the acclaimed thinker pushes past the limits of political philosophy to reconceive war, revolution, sovereignty, and class.

Through the pathbreaking thought of Derrida, Balibar builds a topography of cruelty converted into extremism by ideology, juxtaposing its subjective forms (identity delusions, the desire for extermination, and the pursuit of vengeance) and its objective manifestations (capitalist exploitation and an institutional disregard for life). Engaging with Marx, Hegel, Hobbes, Clausewitz, Schmitt, and Luxemburg, Balibar introduces a new, productive understanding of politics as antiviolence and a fresh approach to achieving and sustaining civility. Rooted in the principles of transformation and empowerment, this theory brings hope to a world increasingly divided even as it draws closer together.

Recenzje

"Contemporary political thought has had little success moving from the empirical to the theoretical. This is what Etienne Balibar does so well in Violence and Civility by working with the concept of Gewalt, the conflation of power and violence." - Donald M. Reid, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

O autorze

Étienne Balibar is emeritus professor of philosophy at Paris X Nanterre and emeritus professor of comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is currently professor of modern European philosophy at Kingston University, London, and visiting professor at Columbia University. His books include Reading Capital (with Louis Althusser); Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identites (with Immanuel Wallerstein); The Philosophy of Marx; Spinoza and Politics; and Equaliberty: Political Essays