The Neighbor: Three Inquiries In Political Theology (religion And Postmodernism)
by Eric L. Santner /
2006 / English / PDF
656.5 KB Download
In
InCivilization and Its Discontents
Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud made abundantly
clear what he thought about the biblical injunction, first
articulated in Leviticus 19:18 and then elaborated in Christian
teachings, to love one's neighbor as oneself. "Let us adopt a
naive attitude towards it," he proposed, "as though we were
hearing it for the first time; we shall be unable then to
suppress a feeling of surprise and bewilderment." After the
horrors of World War II, the Holocaust, Stalinism, and
Yugoslavia, Leviticus 19:18 seems even less conceivable—but all
the more urgent now—than Freud imagined.
, Freud made abundantly
clear what he thought about the biblical injunction, first
articulated in Leviticus 19:18 and then elaborated in Christian
teachings, to love one's neighbor as oneself. "Let us adopt a
naive attitude towards it," he proposed, "as though we were
hearing it for the first time; we shall be unable then to
suppress a feeling of surprise and bewilderment." After the
horrors of World War II, the Holocaust, Stalinism, and
Yugoslavia, Leviticus 19:18 seems even less conceivable—but all
the more urgent now—than Freud imagined.
In
InThe Neighbor
The Neighbor, three of the most significant
intellectuals working in psychoanalysis and critical theory
collaborate to show how this problem of neighbor-love opens
questions that are fundamental to ethical inquiry and that
suggest a new theological configuration of political theory.
Their three extended essays explore today's central historical
problem: the persistence of the theological in the political. In
"Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor," Kenneth Reinhard
supplements Carl Schmitt's political theology of the enemy and
friend with a political theology of the neighbor based in
psychoanalysis. In "Miracles Happen," Eric L. Santner extends the
book's exploration of neighbor-love through a bracing
reassessment of Benjamin and Rosenzweig. And in an impassioned
plea for ethical violence, Slavoj Žižek's "Neighbors and Other
Monsters" reconsiders the idea of excess to rehabilitate a
positive sense of the inhuman and challenge the influence of
Levinas on contemporary ethical thought.
, three of the most significant
intellectuals working in psychoanalysis and critical theory
collaborate to show how this problem of neighbor-love opens
questions that are fundamental to ethical inquiry and that
suggest a new theological configuration of political theory.
Their three extended essays explore today's central historical
problem: the persistence of the theological in the political. In
"Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor," Kenneth Reinhard
supplements Carl Schmitt's political theology of the enemy and
friend with a political theology of the neighbor based in
psychoanalysis. In "Miracles Happen," Eric L. Santner extends the
book's exploration of neighbor-love through a bracing
reassessment of Benjamin and Rosenzweig. And in an impassioned
plea for ethical violence, Slavoj Žižek's "Neighbors and Other
Monsters" reconsiders the idea of excess to rehabilitate a
positive sense of the inhuman and challenge the influence of
Levinas on contemporary ethical thought.
A rich and suggestive account of the interplay between love and
hate, self and other, personal and political,
A rich and suggestive account of the interplay between love and
hate, self and other, personal and political,The Neighbor
The Neighbor
will prove to be a touchstone across the humanities and a crucial
text for understanding the persistence of political theology in
secular modernity.
will prove to be a touchstone across the humanities and a crucial
text for understanding the persistence of political theology in
secular modernity.