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The Abuse of Evil: The Corruption of Politics and Religion since 9/11 (Themes for the 21st Century), by Richard J. Bernstein
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Since 9/11 politicians, preachers, conservatives and the media are all speaking about evil. In the past the dicourse about evil in our religious, philosophic and literary traditions has provoked thinking, questioning and inquiry. But today the appeal to evil is being used as a political tool to obscure compex issues, block serious thinking and stifle public discussion and debate.
We are now confronting a clash of mentalities, not a clash of civilisations. One mentality is drawn to absolutes, moral certainties, and simplistic dichotomies of good and evil. The other seriously questions an appeal to absolutes in politics and criticizes the simplistic division of the world into the forces of evil and the forces of good.
In The Abuse of Evil Bernstein challenges the claim that without an appeal to absolutes, we lack the grounds for acting decisively in fighting our enemies. The post 9/11 abuse of evil corrupts both democratic politics and religion. The stakes are high in this clash of mentalities in shaping how we think and act in the world today - and in the future.
- Sales Rank: #6744058 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Polity
- Published on: 2006-01-23
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.70" h x .60" w x 5.50" l, .41 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 144 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
"A dazzling demonstration of philosophy’s public relevance."
Nancy Fraser, New School for Social Research
“Building on the conceptual framework advanced in his last book, Radical Evil, Bernstein argues that what defines the post 9-11 world is an abuse of evil. In the face of the pernicious moral absolutism of neo-conservatism and the religious right, Bernstein advances a pragmatic fallibilism that is consistent with both the fragility and tenacity of democracy. It is the great merit of this book to show that such a fallibilism is not only continuous with a religious world-view, but is its enabling condition. If philosophy, as Hegel insists, is its time comprehended in thought, then Bernstein gives his readers a philosophical wake-up call to think about evil in the face of so much unthinking moralism.”
Simon Critchley, New School for Social Research
From the Back Cover
Since 9/11 politicians, preachers, conservatives and the media are all speaking about evil. In the past the dicourse about evil in our religious, philosophic and literary traditions has provoked thinking, questioning and inquiry. But today the appeal to evil is being used as a political tool to obscure compex issues, block serious thinking and stifle public discussion and debate.
We are now confronting a clash of mentalities, not a clash of civilisations. One mentality is drawn to absolutes, moral certainties, and simplistic dichotomies of good and evil. The other seriously questions an appeal to absolutes in politics and criticizes the simplistic division of the world into the forces of evil and the forces of good.
In The Abuse of Evil Bernstein challenges the claim that without an appeal to absolutes, we lack the grounds for acting decisively in fighting our enemies. The post 9/11 abuse of evil corrupts both democratic politics and religion. The stakes are high in this clash of mentalities in shaping how we think and act in the world today - and in the future.
About the Author
Richard J. Bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research, New York.
Most helpful customer reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
Manichaean Manipulators Unmasked
By Panopticonman
Taking as his subject the danger political and religious absolutism poses to democracy, Richard J. Bernstein, a professor at Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, seeks to show in THE ABUSE OF EVIL: The Corruption of Politics and Relgion Since 911 (Polity, 2005) how the Bush administration has used what he calls the absolutist mentality to choke off public discussion and criticism of the Iraqi invasion (and for that matter, everything else, too). Those who wish to understand how members of this and previous administrations have deployed the absolutist mentality against American democracy, and who wish to understand how they might counter its perniciousness will find this book extremely useful.
Bernstein begins his discussion with an explanation of a pair of related framing assumptions he calls the "grand Either/Or" and "the Cartesian Anxiety." This terminology may sound fairly esoteric, but the concepts are straightforward. They go a long way toward demystifying and elucidating how the Bush administration's strategy for stifling dissent works. The grand Either/Or grows out of "what [the philosopher Descartes] took to be the grand Either/Or that we confront: Either solid foundations and indubitable knowledge Or a swamp of unfounded and ungrounded opinion." (page 27). The Cartesian Anxiety is, according to Bernstein the "quest for some fixed ground, some stable rock upon which we can secure our lives against the vicissitudes that constantly threaten us." (page 27) He goes on to say "...that those today who claim religious or moral certainty for dividing the world into the forces of good and the forces of evil are shaped by this Cartesian Anxiety." (page 28).
Those who have read Shadia Drury's account of right wing political theorist Leo Strauss, LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT will recognize this preference for the absolute in the anti-democratic analysis and program of the Straussians. Based on their exoteric/esoteric readings of Plato's Republic and other classical political texts, Straussians imagine themselves as an intellectual pastorate who must defend society against the depredations of Liberalism -- that socially disruptive idea which insists on equality of opportunity and justice. The grand Either/Or they posit based on their readings is between a beneficent plutocracy and anarchy. They see themselves as members of the plutocracy, of course. Not surprisingly, many members of and advisers to the Bush regime find congenial Strauss' anti-democratic theories.
Those who have read George Lakoff's MORAL POLITICS, will recognize the grand Either/Or as the "Strict Father" narrative which reinforces a right-wing program of top-down ideologically reinforced hierarchy -- a disciplinary program where punishment is more important than reward -- a program which believers are told flows out of the natural moral order established by God. The "Or" in the right's formulation in this case could be called the Weak Mother / Feminized Father, who, "liberal" to a fault, is characterized as ineffective, vacillating, a coddler of the undeserving, unable to make tough decisions and stick to them.
Bernstein believes that the best counter to absolutism is "pragmatic fallibilism," or as it is more commonly known, pragmatism, as espoused by Dewey, Peirce, James, Holmes and others. Quoting Louis Menand's THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB at some length, he agrees with Menand's premise that "these thinkers were reacting against the entrenched opposition [in the years before and during the Civil War], the absolute certainty by the opposing forces of the righteousness of their cause, the sheer intolerance toward those who held opposing convictions...." (page 22). Further, Bernstein says "Menand's thesis is that the pragmatic thinkers understook to develop a more flexible, open, experimental and fallible way of thinking that would avoid all forms of stark binary oppositions, and violent extremism." (Page 23)
Bernstein's readings of Hannah Arendt works in this context are particularly useful and illuminating. Arendt's view is that a democratic politics takes real personal and social commitment and is based on continuous engagement, discussion and disagreement, similar to the beliefs of the pragmatists, especially Dewey. Arendt's insights into the nature of totalitarian evil, which were based on her experience of resistance in Nazi Germany and her later reportage and thinking about the "banality of evil" as prompted by Eichmann's trial, is fruitfully contrasted against Carl Schmitt's anti-liberal theory of politics.
Schmitt, a German political theorist and enthusiastic supporter of Hitler believed, in Bernstein's words, that "Debate, deliberation, and persuasion obscure what is essential for politics -- firm sovereign decisions for dealing with political enemies" (page 91). Grounded on the familiar conservative judgment that man is evil, that enmity is the basic existential condition of mankind from which it follow that a strong sovereign must be in place to staunch chaos and enforce order, Schmitt, according to Bernstein, contends that "Sovereigns may pretend that they are making decisions in the name of some 'higher principle' or that they are following proper legal and political procedures, but this should not disguise the fact that such decisions are ungrounded; they are solely the sovereign's decision." (page 91).
Overall, Bernstein succinctly explains, examines, defends and endorses pragmatism, America's great contribution to world philosophy. Pragmatism, he shows, served the US well as the favored problem-solving approach to governance during the high tide of American liberalism in the first half of the 20th century. Bernstein shows why it is now the appropriate counter to the political and religious and political absolutism that the US has been subject to beginning with Cold War through to the latest "war" -- the so-called War on Terror. These absolutist wars and their Either/Or demagoguery have eroded the democratic spirit in America, he believes. Yet he also sees signs that Americans are beginning to reject the "my way or the highway," "love it or leave it" absolutist mentality, and instead are embracing resistance and dissent in the name of the revolutionary spirit of democracy.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Richard Bernstein on Evil in the Post 9/11 World
By Samuel C. Coale
This is a very necessary book. It upends the simplistic desire to polarize everything: us vs. them, good vs, evil, the "coalition of the willing" vs. the "axis of evil." And in doing so creates a much more complex awareness of evil in all its radical "otherness." I liked this short book so much that I went on to read Bernstein's Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation (2002) where he deals with issues more in depth with critical chapters on Freud, Nietzsche, Arendt. Schelling, Levinas, Kant, etc. I particularly liked his lines: "Interrogating evil is an ongoing, open-ended process"; "Evil is an excess that resists total comprehension"; "Evil resists all attempts to justify it; it resists theodicy"; and "The power of evil and the human propensity to commit evil deeds must not be underestimated."
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Bernstein does an excellent job on a subject few are willing to consider
By Mark Twain
Dr. Bernstein does an excellent job on a subject few are willing to consider.
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