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MUP FINAL PROOF – <STAGE>, 07/18/2013, SPi 6 Universalism Internationalism was sustained by ideas about civilisation, international relations and society. It was, however, also a cultural phenomenon in which politics, science and visions of modernity intersected. This aspect is illustrated by two figures who have featured at various parts of this study and whose joint efforts warrant detailed examination: Henri La Fontaine and Paul Otlet. The basic outline of their activism is well known, yet any account of internationalism in Belgium needs to consider their
How do we think about radical politics today, in the wake of the collapse of Marxist-Leninism and the triumph of neo-liberal capitalism? How should radical political theory respond to new challenges posed by globalisation, postmodernity, the ‘war on terror’ and the rise of religious fundamentalism? How are we to take account of the new social movements and political struggles appearing on the global horizon? In addressing these questions, this book explores the theme of universality and its place in radical political theory. It argues that both Marxist politics of class struggle and the postmodern politics of difference have reached their historical and political limits, and that what is needed is a new approach to universality, a new way of thinking about collective politics. By exploring various themes and ideas within poststructuralist and post-Marxist theory, the book develops a new approach to universality — one that has implications for politics today, particularly on questions of power, subjectivity, ethics and democracy. In so doing, it engages in debates with thinkers such as Laclau, Žižek, Badiou and Rancière over the future of radical politics. The book also applies theoretical insights to contemporary events such as the emergence of the anti-globalisation movement, the ‘war on terrorism’, the rise of anti-immigrant racism and the nihilistic violence that lurks at the margins of the political.
2 •• How to be universal Andrew Ginger The U-word Universal was, for a time, a dirty word in many quarters of cultural study. Michel Foucault foretold that nineteenth-century Europe’s notion of universal humanity – its face of man – would be wiped from the sands of time.1 Homi Bhabha criticized even the claim that Europe projected a universalizing, homogenizing modernity: this was, in some respects, a self-serving, self-deceiving myth.2 The universal is suspect: it may be a cover story for local interests, a projected self-image of those who hold power, a
9780719082542_C04.qxd 8/9/11 15:51 Page 86 4 Worldviews and universalisms: the doctrine of ‘religion’ in Islam and the idea of ‘rights’ in the West Hisham A. Hellyer Humans are responsible for the evil they do, regardless of why they do it. They are accountable before humanity and God … Pointing to the banality of goodness does not diminish it in any way. An act is good when it is caring, when it protects the life and rights of others, no matter who does it, or where, or why. (David R. Blumenthal) Even the will of an omnipotent being cannot change or
1 Local, global, universal? The Dragon’s Trilogy Québec is multiple, it is in the global village, and not just in the francophonie. It has to be part of the world! My nationalist act is to make theatre here and abroad, with my roots and my languages, my history. (qtd in Lévesque ‘Archange’)i Robert Lepage made this statement in 1992, less than a decade after his international reputation was launched with the touring success of the epic group production La Trilogie des dragons/The Dragon’s Trilogy and the solo show Vinci. While affirming the central place of
It has been widely asserted that nationhood is inseparable from narration. This vague claim may be clarified by understanding that nationalism is bound up with the universal prototypical narrative structures of heroic, romantic, and sacrificial tragi-comedy. This essay considers an historically important case of the emplotment of nationalism - the sacrificial organization of German nationalism between the two world wars. It examines one exemplary instance of this emplotment, F. W. Murnau‘s Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (1922). However unintentionally, Nosferatu represents the vampire in a way that is cognitively continuous with Nazi representations of Jews. The films sacrificial emplotment of vampirism is, in turn, continuous with Nazi policies. That continuity places the film in a larger discourse that helped to make Nazi policies possible.
133 6 The indigenous redemption of liberal universalism Tim Rowse A critical historiography of liberalism shows its contingent availability to specific political projects. Bhikhu Parekh has demonstrated, for example, how the work of John Locke and John Stuart Mill was available to colonising authority. Locke judged American Indians according to the extent to which their laws and institutions realised the capacity for reason that was humanity’s common heritage. In their application of reason to the use of the natural resources that God had endowed and to the
11 Geoffrey Parker’s Universal Soldier revisited: European military history and human universals Gregory Hanlon Geoffrey Parker’s exploration of the common soldiery in the seventeenth century deepened our understanding of the social profile of men fighting in the various armies, who had a great deal in common. The original narratives expressed in letters and chronicles by people who were ignorant of the outcome of the struggle were later repurposed by Dutch and Spanish scholars who distorted and polarized the complexities of warmaking along largely tribal lines
. Britain was at war with France. Philanthropy in the aftermath of Howard’s death proclaimed a love of all humankind. But for the ensuing twenty-five years, except for a brief break with the treaty of Amiens in 1802–03, war captured public attention. Philanthropy was in tension if not in conflict with patriotism. Philanthropists could be depicted as unpatriotic. ‘Universal benevolence’ or ‘universal philanthropy’ seemed unrealistic, naive and potentially dangerous to the interests of the nation. Prison reform, the field in which through Howard philanthropy had come to
6 Jean-Claude Barbier The underclass and international comparison, variety and universalism That national traditions exist in sociology is an empirical fact, not even disputed by those who contend that sociology is, in principle, universal. Bourdieu, who is one of those, wrote his famous paper about the ‘international circulation of ideas’ in 2002. In it he only gave scarce empirical and mostly anecdotal evidence, mainly drawn from his own experience as a dominant scholar in the international sociology ‘field’; on the other hand, he stated unequivocally the