Format:
1 online resource (262 pages)
ISBN:
9781400826315
Content:
In this wide-ranging interdisciplinary work, Paul W. Kahn argues that political order is founded not on contract but on sacrifice. Because liberalism is blind to sacrifice, it is unable to explain how the modern state has brought us to both the rule of law and the edge of nuclear annihilation. We can understand this modern condition only by recognizing that any political community, even a liberal one, is bound together by faith, love, and identity.Putting Liberalism in Its Place draws on philosophy, cultural theory, American constitutional law, religious and literary studies, and political psychology to advance political theory. It makes original contributions in all these fields. Not since Charles Taylor's The Sources of the Self has there been such an ambitious and sweeping examination of the deep structure of the modern conception of the self.Kahn shows that only when we move beyond liberalism's categories of reason and interest to a Judeo-Christian concept of love can we comprehend the modern self. Love is the foundation of a world of objective meaning, one form of which is the political community. Arguing from these insights, Kahn offers a new reading of the liberalism/communitarian debate, a genealogy of American liberalism, an exploration of the romantic and the pornographic, a new theory of the will, and a refoundation of political theory on the possibility of sacrifice.Approaching politics from the perspective of sacrifice allows us to understand the character of twentieth-century politics, which combined progress in the rule of law with massive slaughter for the state. Equally important, this work speaks to the most important political conflicts in the world today. It explains why American response to September 11 has taken the form of war, and why, for the most part, Europeans have been reluctant to follow the Americans in their
Content:
Intro -- Table of Contents -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION Putting Liberalism in Its Place -- PART I CULTURAL STUDY AND LIBERALISM -- CHAPTER 1 The Architecture of the Liberal World -- CHAPTER 2 A Brief Genealogy of American Liberalism -- CHAPTER 3 The Instabilities of Liberalism -- PART II LOVE AND POLITICS -- CHAPTER 4 The Faculties of the Soul:Beyond Reason and Interest -- CHAPTER 5 The Erotic Body -- CHAPTER 6 The Autonomy of the Political in the Modern Nation-State -- CONCLUSION The Future of the Nation-State.
Note:
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9780691136981
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe ISBN 9780691136981
Additional Edition:
Print version Putting Liberalism in Its Place
Language:
English
URL:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kxp/detail.action?docID=445501
