The Fragility of Things

The Fragility of Things PDF Author: William E. Connolly
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822377160
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
In The Fragility of Things, eminent theorist William E. Connolly focuses on several self-organizing ecologies that help to constitute our world. These interacting geological, biological, and climate systems, some of which harbor creative capacities, are depreciated by that brand of neoliberalism that confines self-organization to economic markets and equates the latter with impersonal rationality. Neoliberal practice thus fails to address the fragilities it exacerbates. Engaging a diverse range of thinkers, from Friedrich Hayek, Michel Foucault, Hesiod, and Immanuel Kant to Voltaire, Terrence Deacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Alfred North Whitehead, Connolly brings the sense of fragility alive as he rethinks the idea of freedom. Urging the Left not to abandon the state but to reclaim it, he also explores scales of politics below and beyond the state. The contemporary response to fragility requires a militant pluralist assemblage composed of those sharing affinities of spirituality across differences of creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity.

The Fragility of Things

The Fragility of Things PDF Author: William E. Connolly
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822377160
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Get Book Here

Book Description
In The Fragility of Things, eminent theorist William E. Connolly focuses on several self-organizing ecologies that help to constitute our world. These interacting geological, biological, and climate systems, some of which harbor creative capacities, are depreciated by that brand of neoliberalism that confines self-organization to economic markets and equates the latter with impersonal rationality. Neoliberal practice thus fails to address the fragilities it exacerbates. Engaging a diverse range of thinkers, from Friedrich Hayek, Michel Foucault, Hesiod, and Immanuel Kant to Voltaire, Terrence Deacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Alfred North Whitehead, Connolly brings the sense of fragility alive as he rethinks the idea of freedom. Urging the Left not to abandon the state but to reclaim it, he also explores scales of politics below and beyond the state. The contemporary response to fragility requires a militant pluralist assemblage composed of those sharing affinities of spirituality across differences of creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity.

A World of Becoming

A World of Becoming PDF Author: William E. Connolly
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822348799
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The prominent political theorist William E. Connolly outlines a political philosophy for the contemporary world: a world whose powers of creative evolution include and exceed the human estate.

Facing the Planetary

Facing the Planetary PDF Author: William E. Connolly
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822373254
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
In Facing the Planetary William E. Connolly expands his influential work on the politics of pluralization, capitalism, fragility, and secularism to address the complexities of climate change and to complicate notions of the Anthropocene. Focusing on planetary processes—including the ocean conveyor, glacier flows, tectonic plates, and species evolution—he combines a critical understanding of capitalism with an appreciation of how such nonhuman systems periodically change on their own. Drawing upon scientists and intellectuals such as Lynn Margulis, Michael Benton, Alfred North Whitehead, Anna Tsing, Mahatma Gandhi, Wangari Maathai, Pope Francis, Bruno Latour, and Naomi Klein, Connolly focuses on the gap between those regions creating the most climate change and those suffering most from it. He addresses the creative potential of a "politics of swarming" by which people in different regions and social positions coalesce to reshape dominant priorities. He also explores how those displaying spiritual affinities across differences in creed can energize a militant assemblage that is already underway.

White Fragility

White Fragility PDF Author: Dr. Robin DiAngelo
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807047422
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

The Augustinian Imperative

The Augustinian Imperative PDF Author: William E. Connolly
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742521476
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
An entirely new interpretation of one of the most seminal and widely read figures in the history of political thought, The Augustinian Imperative is also 'an archaeological investigation into the intellectual foundation of liberal societies.' Drawing support from Nietzsche and Foucault, Connolly argues that the Augustinian Imperative contains unethical implications: its carriers too often convert living signs that threaten their ontological self-confidence into modes of otherness to be condemned, punished, or converted in order to restore that confidence. With a lucidity and rhetorical power that makes it readily accessible, The Augustinian Imperative examines Augustine's enactment of the Imperative, explores alternative ethico-political orientations, and subsequently reveals much about the politics of morality in the modern age.

Identity, Difference

Identity, Difference PDF Author: William E. Connolly
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9781452906041
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description


The Fragility of Freedom

The Fragility of Freedom PDF Author: Joshua Mitchell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226532097
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
In this fresh interpretation of Tocqueville's thought, Joshua Mitchell explores the dynamic interplay between religion and politics in American democracy. Focusing on Democracy in America, The Fragility of Freedom examines Tocqueville's key works and argues that his analysis of democracy is ultimately rooted in an Augustinian view of human psychology. As much a work of political philosophy as of religion, The Fragility of Freedom argues for the importance of a political theology that recognizes moderation. "An intelligent and sharply drawn portrait of a conservative Toqueville."—Anne C. Rose, Journal of American History "I recommend this book as one of a very few to approach seriously the sources of Tocqueville's intellectual and moral greatness."—Peter Augustine Lawler, Journal of Politics "Mitchell ably places Democracy in America in the long conversation of Western political and theological thought."—Wilfred M. McClay, First Things "Learned and thought-provoking."—Peter Berkowitz, New Republic

Consuming Life

Consuming Life PDF Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745655823
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
With the advent of liquid modernity, the society of producers is transformed into a society of consumers. In this new consumer society, individuals become simultaneously the promoters of commodities and the commodities they promote. They are, at one and the same time, the merchandise and the marketer, the goods and the travelling salespeople. They all inhabit the same social space that is customarily described by the term the market. The test they need to pass in order to acquire the social prizes they covet requires them to recast themselves as products capable of drawing attention to themselves. This subtle and pervasive transformation of consumers into commodities is the most important feature of the society of consumers. It is the hidden truth, the deepest and most closely guarded secret, of the consumer society in which we now live. In this new book Zygmunt Bauman examines the impact of consumerist attitudes and patterns of conduct on various apparently unconnected aspects of social life politics and democracy, social divisions and stratification, communities and partnerships, identity building, the production and use of knowledge, and value preferences. The invasion and colonization of the web of human relations by the worldviews and behavioural patterns inspired and shaped by commodity markets, and the sources of resentment, dissent and occasional resistance to the occupying forces, are the central themes of this brilliant new book by one of the worlds most original and insightful social thinkers.

Antifragile

Antifragile PDF Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812979680
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call “efficient” not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. Praise for Antifragile “Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining.”—The Economist “A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives.”—Newsweek

Neuropolitics

Neuropolitics PDF Author: William E. Connolly
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452905894
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Why would a political theorist venture into the nexus between neuroscience and film? According to William Connolly -- whose new book is itself an eloquent answer -- the combination exposes the ubiquitous role that technique plays in thinking, ethics, and politics. By taking up recent research in neuroscience to explore the way brain activity is influenced by cultural conditions and stimuli such as film technique, Connolly is able to fashion a new perspective on our attempts to negotiate -- and thrive -- within a deeply pluralized society whose culture and economy continue to quicken. In Neuropolitics Connolly draws upon recent brain/body research to explore the creative potential of thinking, the layered character of culture, the cultivation of ethical sensibilities, and the critical role of technique in all three. He then shows how a series of films -- including Vertigo, Five Easy Pieces, and Citizen Kane -- enhances our appreciation of technique and contests the linear image of time now prevalent in cultural theory. Connolly deftly brings these themes together to support an ethos of deep pluralism within the democratic state and a politics of citizen activism across states. His book is an original and rigorous study that attends to the creative possibilities of thinking in identity, culture, and ethics.