Monday, June 14, 2010
Europe and its intellectual property posted by Richard Seymour
“The peculiar tenor of current ideological campaigns against fanaticism derives from the smug conviction that ‘we’ are indeed enlightened, and the concomitant notion that the Enlightenment is something to be preserved rather than enacted, furthered or repeated. Especially prevalent is the idea that Enlightenment is something like a cultural patrimony (a ‘value’, precisely) which defines our civilization. It would perhaps be otiose to point out the many ways in which contemporary, rationalist visions originating in the French Lumière or German Aufklärung are systematically denied in the contemporary political panorama. If we can indeed speak of it as a project, much of the Enlightenment is not merely unfinished: it has been ignored, buried or traduced.”
| — | Alberto Toscano, Fanaticism: The Uses of An Idea, Verso, 2010, p. 99 (review forthcoming) |
Labels: 'war on terror', alberto toscano, capitalism, enlightenment, europe, fanaticism, imperialism, native fanaticism, the liberal defence of murder
9:19:00 pm |
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