Arendt, however, is not saying that racism or any other element of totalitarianism caused the regimes of Hitler or Stalin, but rather that those elements, which include anti-Semitism, the decline of the nation-state, expansionism for its own sake, and the alliance between capital and mob, ... More
Pierre Manent’s Les Metamorphoses de la Cité is a work that seeks to trace the identity of Western civilization through its political history. To him, the polis, and by extension, the political sphere, is unique to Western identity. He is not the first philosopher to argue for this ... More
[The] critique of secularism has become the template for recent explorations of liberalism and secularization processes in the post-colonial context, particularly those that wish to explore the inner logics of Islam. Asad’s critical analysis of secularization in the Muslim world ... More
The Social Sciences Research Council’s discussion blog, that I just hit upon today, is one of the best blogs of its kind out there that particularily addresses issues in religion and secularism. It features a discussion on Charles Taylor’s book A Secular Age among others. You can ... More
“Rome is an empire, so it was built and maintained by force.” Critics of empire, although acknowledging its benefits, also often bring up this point. Such judgement is, however, erroneous because it fails to take into account the reality of history, that people understand a situation ... More
