{"title":"Oaths that (un)Bind: Recovering the Furies’ Political Voice in Aeschylus’s <i>Oresteia</i>","authors":"Agatha A. Slupek","doi":"10.1086/727960","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/727960","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46912,"journal":{"name":"Polity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134901297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay investigates Herbert Marcuse’s concept of play: a collective, worldly form of solidarity. To do so, I propose that we take Marcuse’s 1955 Eros and Civilization as an occasion to rethink the affective commitments of critical theory by tracing the problem-space of his encounter with play and the critique of opposition that he consequently develops. This text on the social psychology of postwar liberal democracy repeatedly turns to play as a category of collective agency, distinct from the categories of contradiction that have animated critical theory and Marxist political theory more generally. For Marcuse, the historical circumstances of capitalist culture in the postwar period makes it difficult to see the “paralysis of criticism” and a “society without opposition” as anything but two symptoms of the same pathological commitment to negativity over solidarity. By examining Marcuse’s concept of play through his critique of opposition, this article reconstructs an alternative vision of critical theory and practice. Rather than refer to a revolutionary overturning of reality, or the wholesale “transformation of labor,” Marcuse doubles down on play’s character as work and consequently enables us to understand that solidarity is neither totally orderable nor totally spontaneous, and never quite conforms to the logic of opposition. It only ever emerges out of play’s suspension and supposition of reality. In short, when Marcuse wonders if there doesn’t exist such a thing as play, he is wondering if there doesn’t exist such a thing as democracy.
{"title":"Play, Work, and Marcuse’s Critique of Opposition","authors":"Alexander Diones","doi":"10.1086/727842","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/727842","url":null,"abstract":"This essay investigates Herbert Marcuse’s concept of play: a collective, worldly form of solidarity. To do so, I propose that we take Marcuse’s 1955 Eros and Civilization as an occasion to rethink the affective commitments of critical theory by tracing the problem-space of his encounter with play and the critique of opposition that he consequently develops. This text on the social psychology of postwar liberal democracy repeatedly turns to play as a category of collective agency, distinct from the categories of contradiction that have animated critical theory and Marxist political theory more generally. For Marcuse, the historical circumstances of capitalist culture in the postwar period makes it difficult to see the “paralysis of criticism” and a “society without opposition” as anything but two symptoms of the same pathological commitment to negativity over solidarity. By examining Marcuse’s concept of play through his critique of opposition, this article reconstructs an alternative vision of critical theory and practice. Rather than refer to a revolutionary overturning of reality, or the wholesale “transformation of labor,” Marcuse doubles down on play’s character as work and consequently enables us to understand that solidarity is neither totally orderable nor totally spontaneous, and never quite conforms to the logic of opposition. It only ever emerges out of play’s suspension and supposition of reality. In short, when Marcuse wonders if there doesn’t exist such a thing as play, he is wondering if there doesn’t exist such a thing as democracy.","PeriodicalId":46912,"journal":{"name":"Polity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134901320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Thank You to Our Reviewers","authors":"","doi":"10.1086/726439","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726439","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46912,"journal":{"name":"Polity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135367501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Police abolitionists in the United States understand police power to be a key domestic instrument of state power. Abolitionists examine police use of violence, and argue that it too often extends far past any legitimate use. Examining policies and practices, they advocate profound reforms that would shift social control away from the exercise of repressive violence and toward constructive interventions in the lives of troubled citizens. Here I argue that to take the full measure of police power in the U.S. requires a deeper assessment of the police’s role in the organizing of political order than abolitionists contemplate. I suggest that the police constitute a crucial linchpin between social order and sovereign power that cannot be eliminated without eliminating the state itself. To develop this argument, I employ the work of Michel Foucault on the origins of the police and Jonathan Obert in his study of the role of violence in the creation of the U.S. of political order in the nineteenth century. I fit Foucault’s understanding of the function of the police in the development of disciplinary society to the circumstances of the American case. I then provide an assessment of the current state of the extent and depth of police power in the United States. I conclude that attempts to abolish the police will be thwarted unless and until abolitionists better understand how police power operates as a constitutive instrument of neoliberal governance. Consequentially, the appropriate orientation for abolitionists is not to focus on defunding or reducing police department budgets, and/or shifting funds to mental health and social worker interventions, butmore explicitly to promote greater equality in American economy and society, and more radically, to advocate for new forms of democratic governance. Given current political circumstances in the United States,
{"title":"The Police Abolitionist Movement and the Neoliberal Paradox","authors":"Thomas L. Dumm","doi":"10.1086/726441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726441","url":null,"abstract":"Police abolitionists in the United States understand police power to be a key domestic instrument of state power. Abolitionists examine police use of violence, and argue that it too often extends far past any legitimate use. Examining policies and practices, they advocate profound reforms that would shift social control away from the exercise of repressive violence and toward constructive interventions in the lives of troubled citizens. Here I argue that to take the full measure of police power in the U.S. requires a deeper assessment of the police’s role in the organizing of political order than abolitionists contemplate. I suggest that the police constitute a crucial linchpin between social order and sovereign power that cannot be eliminated without eliminating the state itself. To develop this argument, I employ the work of Michel Foucault on the origins of the police and Jonathan Obert in his study of the role of violence in the creation of the U.S. of political order in the nineteenth century. I fit Foucault’s understanding of the function of the police in the development of disciplinary society to the circumstances of the American case. I then provide an assessment of the current state of the extent and depth of police power in the United States. I conclude that attempts to abolish the police will be thwarted unless and until abolitionists better understand how police power operates as a constitutive instrument of neoliberal governance. Consequentially, the appropriate orientation for abolitionists is not to focus on defunding or reducing police department budgets, and/or shifting funds to mental health and social worker interventions, butmore explicitly to promote greater equality in American economy and society, and more radically, to advocate for new forms of democratic governance. Given current political circumstances in the United States,","PeriodicalId":46912,"journal":{"name":"Polity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49225925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Danielle Allen is one of our most profound and inspiring democratic theorists. Although difficult to place in any one tradition of democratic thought or tie to a model of democracy, the centerpiece of her work has always been the citizen. The challenges and responsibilities of democratic citizenship furnish the lens through which she has written about democracy—from how to repair racial divides to build an effective pandemic response—as well as how she has organized for democracy, and finally run for office in a democracy. Institutions, elites, classes, social movements, experts, and policy play a role in her work on democracy. But she always comes back to the fundamental need for citizens to embrace and ethically commit to constitutional democracy and a shared public good. For Allen, no race of devils (to invoke Kant’s famous dictum) can sustain the solidarity and common purpose needed to keep democracy afloat. In times of crisis, we need to redouble our efforts to repair a collective sense that we are all in this thing together. Allen has an uplifting and positive view of citizen potential, but it is not utopian. She does not expect ordinary citizens to reach extraordinary levels of civic virtue and knowledge. But she does think—and I follow her here—that ordinary citizens (mostly) can move beyond toxic factionalism and senseless and destructive policy preferences. In this she pushes back against what I see as a growing and alarming trend in democratic studies—particularly the empirical study of American politics. This trend is spearheaded by what I call the new Schumpeterians who are doubling down on the old citizen competency trope in an age of digital misinformation and hyper polarization. Questioning whether citizens are epistemically and ethically up to the job of governing themselves is as old as democracy itself. But modern science, especially experimental neuro, social, and political psychology,
{"title":"Citizenship in Times of Crisis: A Comment on Danielle Allen’s Democratic Theory","authors":"S. Chambers","doi":"10.1086/726482","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726482","url":null,"abstract":"Danielle Allen is one of our most profound and inspiring democratic theorists. Although difficult to place in any one tradition of democratic thought or tie to a model of democracy, the centerpiece of her work has always been the citizen. The challenges and responsibilities of democratic citizenship furnish the lens through which she has written about democracy—from how to repair racial divides to build an effective pandemic response—as well as how she has organized for democracy, and finally run for office in a democracy. Institutions, elites, classes, social movements, experts, and policy play a role in her work on democracy. But she always comes back to the fundamental need for citizens to embrace and ethically commit to constitutional democracy and a shared public good. For Allen, no race of devils (to invoke Kant’s famous dictum) can sustain the solidarity and common purpose needed to keep democracy afloat. In times of crisis, we need to redouble our efforts to repair a collective sense that we are all in this thing together. Allen has an uplifting and positive view of citizen potential, but it is not utopian. She does not expect ordinary citizens to reach extraordinary levels of civic virtue and knowledge. But she does think—and I follow her here—that ordinary citizens (mostly) can move beyond toxic factionalism and senseless and destructive policy preferences. In this she pushes back against what I see as a growing and alarming trend in democratic studies—particularly the empirical study of American politics. This trend is spearheaded by what I call the new Schumpeterians who are doubling down on the old citizen competency trope in an age of digital misinformation and hyper polarization. Questioning whether citizens are epistemically and ethically up to the job of governing themselves is as old as democracy itself. But modern science, especially experimental neuro, social, and political psychology,","PeriodicalId":46912,"journal":{"name":"Polity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47348943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Danielle Allen begins her 2010 book,Why Plato Wrote, with a seemingly simple question: Why did Plato, that most famous of ancient philosophers, write things down? The question seems simple, but it evokes complex possibilities. Allen’s question reminds us that being a philosopher—being a person who loves wisdom—can, as a practicalmatter, entailmultiplemodes of action.A love ofwisdom can be expressed in thinking, in speaking, in writing, in teaching, in being a student, in questioning, in listening, in observing, in creating, and in doing all sorts of other human activities. It can entail engaging with other people or retreating from them. It can involve participation in formal academic institutions or the avoidance of them. As a philosopher, Plato had choices among all these and other possibilities, choices about how to pursue his love of wisdom in theworld. Furthermore, evenwithin the act of writing Plato had many choices. He had choices about how to write, choices about what to write, choices about to whom he would write, and choices about how much time to spend writing. Plato had, in short, lots of choices about how to practice theorizing. By reminding us that Plato had choices about how to practice theorizing, Allen’s question does two important things. First, it blurs the conventional line between theory and practice. And it invites reflection, especially among those of us who have been credentialed by the academy as “philosophers” or “theorists,” about the extent to which our professional norms and identities can be limiting, so much so that they point us away from wisdom (or the good life) rather than toward it. That Allen pushes her inquiry of Plato in these directions should be no surprise. From the very beginning of her adult life, Allen has questioned—sometimes implicitly
{"title":"Why Allen Ran","authors":"Susan McWilliams Barndt","doi":"10.1086/726436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726436","url":null,"abstract":"Danielle Allen begins her 2010 book,Why Plato Wrote, with a seemingly simple question: Why did Plato, that most famous of ancient philosophers, write things down? The question seems simple, but it evokes complex possibilities. Allen’s question reminds us that being a philosopher—being a person who loves wisdom—can, as a practicalmatter, entailmultiplemodes of action.A love ofwisdom can be expressed in thinking, in speaking, in writing, in teaching, in being a student, in questioning, in listening, in observing, in creating, and in doing all sorts of other human activities. It can entail engaging with other people or retreating from them. It can involve participation in formal academic institutions or the avoidance of them. As a philosopher, Plato had choices among all these and other possibilities, choices about how to pursue his love of wisdom in theworld. Furthermore, evenwithin the act of writing Plato had many choices. He had choices about how to write, choices about what to write, choices about to whom he would write, and choices about how much time to spend writing. Plato had, in short, lots of choices about how to practice theorizing. By reminding us that Plato had choices about how to practice theorizing, Allen’s question does two important things. First, it blurs the conventional line between theory and practice. And it invites reflection, especially among those of us who have been credentialed by the academy as “philosophers” or “theorists,” about the extent to which our professional norms and identities can be limiting, so much so that they point us away from wisdom (or the good life) rather than toward it. That Allen pushes her inquiry of Plato in these directions should be no surprise. From the very beginning of her adult life, Allen has questioned—sometimes implicitly","PeriodicalId":46912,"journal":{"name":"Polity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45170098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Danielle Allen is known for refashioning diverse traditions, texts, and histories in the service of improving American political life. From ancient Greek to American to Black to contemporary thought, from social science to educational policy, even to public health, Allen has developed an oeuvre greater than the sum of its parts. Allen’s touchstone is democracy—its justice, along with its practical advantages as a regime. This focus on democracy is timely, immediately, because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an irredentist, Eurasianist assault on the liberal democratic international order, but also, more broadly, because of democracy’s retreat across the globe. Is democracy the best regime for addressing crises such as COVID-19 or climate change, or should we turn to strongmen and authoritarians? Political scientists have recently been tempted to raise this question, just as they were once tempted, in the 1930s, to wonder whether American democracy could improve its efficiency and discipline via fascist Germany’s example. Danielle Allen leads our efforts to explain why this temptation is a delusion, why, at its best, democracy is both prudentially and morally superior to hierarchical, nondemocratic regimes. Allen’s work contributes to American democracy by newly articulating the regime’s highest ambitions, capacities, and promise.
{"title":"An American Political Theorist between History and Utopia","authors":"Ryan K. Balot","doi":"10.1086/726435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726435","url":null,"abstract":"Danielle Allen is known for refashioning diverse traditions, texts, and histories in the service of improving American political life. From ancient Greek to American to Black to contemporary thought, from social science to educational policy, even to public health, Allen has developed an oeuvre greater than the sum of its parts. Allen’s touchstone is democracy—its justice, along with its practical advantages as a regime. This focus on democracy is timely, immediately, because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an irredentist, Eurasianist assault on the liberal democratic international order, but also, more broadly, because of democracy’s retreat across the globe. Is democracy the best regime for addressing crises such as COVID-19 or climate change, or should we turn to strongmen and authoritarians? Political scientists have recently been tempted to raise this question, just as they were once tempted, in the 1930s, to wonder whether American democracy could improve its efficiency and discipline via fascist Germany’s example. Danielle Allen leads our efforts to explain why this temptation is a delusion, why, at its best, democracy is both prudentially and morally superior to hierarchical, nondemocratic regimes. Allen’s work contributes to American democracy by newly articulating the regime’s highest ambitions, capacities, and promise.","PeriodicalId":46912,"journal":{"name":"Polity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47536058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Reading this set of responses to my work left me feeling profoundly awed and humbled, ready to settle into a deep silence. I am awed to have been seen and understood so well. The acts of recognition performed by these five scholars are remarkable. Recall that I am someone whose intellectual life has been shaped in almost all dimensions by lessons from Ralph Ellison’s treatment of invisibility. For me, to feel visible in this way is a liberation, an affirmation that we human beings are in fact capable of seeing the other, that condition of “being at home in the world, which is called love, and which we term democracy.” But then to be seen, in the full, is also to feel exposed and therefore necessarily humbled, even chastened, with regard to the gap between aspiration and performance. Careful what you wish for! Still, to meet such extraordinary, generous acts of recognition without response would be rough ingratitude, and a violation of political and philosophical friendship. A response is called for. Themost important point is this: every scholar here has seenme accurately. To a person they have understood my aspirations. To a person, each author pinpointed problems and tensions in my work that have in fact motivated my most recent effort, Justice by Means of Democracy. Ryan Balot has traced some of the deepest intellectual challenges in my work: can there be freedom without politics? My answer to that, contra Balot, is no, and I finally tackle that question fully in the new book, a book that these respondents
{"title":"Feeling Seen","authors":"D. Allen","doi":"10.1086/726477","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/726477","url":null,"abstract":"Reading this set of responses to my work left me feeling profoundly awed and humbled, ready to settle into a deep silence. I am awed to have been seen and understood so well. The acts of recognition performed by these five scholars are remarkable. Recall that I am someone whose intellectual life has been shaped in almost all dimensions by lessons from Ralph Ellison’s treatment of invisibility. For me, to feel visible in this way is a liberation, an affirmation that we human beings are in fact capable of seeing the other, that condition of “being at home in the world, which is called love, and which we term democracy.” But then to be seen, in the full, is also to feel exposed and therefore necessarily humbled, even chastened, with regard to the gap between aspiration and performance. Careful what you wish for! Still, to meet such extraordinary, generous acts of recognition without response would be rough ingratitude, and a violation of political and philosophical friendship. A response is called for. Themost important point is this: every scholar here has seenme accurately. To a person they have understood my aspirations. To a person, each author pinpointed problems and tensions in my work that have in fact motivated my most recent effort, Justice by Means of Democracy. Ryan Balot has traced some of the deepest intellectual challenges in my work: can there be freedom without politics? My answer to that, contra Balot, is no, and I finally tackle that question fully in the new book, a book that these respondents","PeriodicalId":46912,"journal":{"name":"Polity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41536473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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