The Seduction of Unreason (ebook)

Argumento de The Seduction of Unreason (ebook)

"For anyone who has passed through the academic humanities in the last quarter-century and has been exposed to the dubious legacy of postmodernism, The Seduction of Unreason is an indispensable book. It is another important installment in what has become one of the major intellectual enterprises of our time: Richard Wolin's principled defense of liberalism against its most sophisticated enemies."--Adam Kirsch, New York Sun

"[A] lively, learned, and wide-ranging work. . . . Wolin's subjects have exercised a remarkable impact on certain academic and cultural fields in the U.S. in the last several decades."--Choice

"In this impressive book Wolin does for the Left what Bloom did for the Right; he makes a powerful case for a return to moral seriousness."--Daniel P. Murphy, Magill's Literary Annual 2005

"Wolin's book will provide much food for thought for the disinterested reader and a veritable feast for critical self-reflection for the post-modern thinker--especially the North American academic who hasn't done his or her genealogical homework."--Jeff Mitscherling, European Legacy

"The Seduction of Unreason is a wide-ranging yet subtle consideration of the intellectual's abiding fascination with absolutism, and as such it is a perceptive, compelling and invaluable document. His indignation at the folly and perversity of so many major European thinkers is wholly justified and peculiarly invigorating."--John Banville, The Irish Times

"Richard Wolin's superb book is urgent reading for those who would toss the Enlightenment out with Descartes. In this tour d'horizon, as deep as it iswide, Wolin refuses to be impressed by the glamour of extremity. He shines light into many dark corners where intellectual fraud, self-deception, and hauteur passed for liberty during a murderous century. Talk about genealogy! Unreason will never be the same."--Todd Gitlin, Columbia University, author of The Twilight of Common Dreams

"Richard Wolin demonstrates conclusively that contempt for liberalism and parliamentary government, whether it comes from the right or the left, whether it is anti-modern or postmodern, is very bad politics. His learned and provocative 'genealogy' of contemporary anti-Americanism should cause deep anxiety among its intellectual purveyors in Europe and here at hometoo."--Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study

"I recommend this powerful critique with great enthusiasm. It is that infrequent book that is of enduring scholarly significance while deserving of a broad readership outside the academy. It also offers American readers insights into French and German mentalities at a time of transatlantic irritations."--Jeffrey Herf, University of Maryland

"This is a wide-ranging and hard-hitting critique of postmodern thinking--especially of its political limitations and failures--based on broad reading and straight thinking. The author adds relevance to his critique of thinkers by juxtaposing those thinkers with interesting accounts of contemporary European politics."--Jerrold Seigel, New York University

"The topic of Richard Wolin's book is the nexus between postmodernism and politics. . . . Wolin's book raises the right questions at the right time. He forces us to think critically about the deepest philosophical underpinnings of our moral and political ideals. We simply cannot rest content with an unmeasured assault on reason."--Andy Wallace,Ethics

"This author's excellent study provides the reader with an informed survey of some of the more important intellectual trends of the twentieth century, employing the writings of a selection of Europe's avant-garde authors."--A. James Gregor, The Historian0Preface xi
Acknowledgments xvii
A Note on Giorgio de Chirico's "Song of Love" xx
INTRODUCTION: Answer to the Question: What Is Counter-Enlightenment? 1
PART I. THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY REVISITED
1. Zarathustra Goes to Hollywood: On the Postmodern
Reception of Nietzsche 27
2. Prometheus Unhinged: C. G. Jung and the Temptations of Aryan Religion 63
3. Fascism and Hermeneutics: Gadamer and the Ambiguities of "Inner Emigration" 89
POLITICAL EXCURSUS I: Incertitudes Allemandes: Reflections on the German New Right 129
PART II. FRENCH LESSONS
4. Left Fascism: Georges Bataille and the German Ideology 153
5. Maurice Blanchot: The Use and Abuse of Silence 187
6. Down by Law: Deconstruction and the Problem of Justice 220
POLITICAL EXCURSES II: Designer Fascism: On the Ideology of the French New Right 256
CONCLUSION: "Site of Catastrophe": The Image of America in Modern Thought 278
Notes 315
Index 369