Political Philosophy

The vast majority of theft, extortion, intimidation, harassment, assault, and even murder - in other words, the vast majority of man's inhumanity to man - comes not from the greed, hatred and intolerance that lurks in our hearts. Rather, it comes from one pernicious and almost universal assumption, one unquestioned belief, one irrational, self-contradictory superstition: the belief in "authority".

Man sieht sich gedrungen wünschen zu wollen und sagen zu können, dass nach der akustischen Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsches "Unzeitgemäßen Betrachtungen" jeder ein Stück klüger wird als er war – doch leider belehren uns Vergangenheit und Gegenwart eines besseren und lassen diesen unausgesprochenen frommen Wunsch wie eine Seifenblase im Orkan im Entstehungs-Ansatz zerplatzen. Je konkreter und klarer Gedanken formuliert werden, desto schwieriger sind sie zu verstehen.

Man sieht sich gedrungen wünschen zu wollen und sagen zu können, dass nach der akustischen Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsches "Unzeitgemäßen Betrachtungen" jeder ein Stück klüger wird als er war – doch leider belehren uns Vergangenheit und Gegenwart eines besseren und lassen diesen unausgesprochenen frommen Wunsch wie eine Seifenblase im Orkan im Entstehungs-Ansatz zerplatzen. Je konkreter und klarer Gedanken formuliert werden, desto schwieriger sind sie zu verstehen.

When Chelsea Manning was arrested in May 2010 for leaking massive amounts of classified Army and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, she was almost immediately profiled by the mainstream press as a troubled person. Insurgent Truth argues for seeing Manning's example differently: as an act of what the book terms "outsider truth-telling." Bringing Manning's truth-telling into conversation with democratic, feminist, and queer theory, the book argues that outsider truth-tellers such as Manning tell or enact unsettling truths from a position of social illegibility.

Americans have never been more divided, and we're ripe for a breakup. The bitter partisan animosities, the legislative gridlock, the growing acceptance of violence in the name of political virtue - it all invites us to think that we'd be happier were we two different countries. There's another reason why secession beckons, says F. H. Buckley: we're too big. In population and area, the United States is one of the biggest countries in the world, and American Secession provides data showing that smaller countries are happier and less corrupt.

Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist - or increase - even when sexist gender roles are waning? This book is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics by the moral philosopher Kate Manne. It argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it's primarily about controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling the "bad" women.

Imagine a world in which you own nothing and rent everything. Most of the protein in your diet comes from bugs. You are not allowed to have more than one child, and your financial and medical data are instantly transferred to a centralized government database via a subdermal microchip. Controligarchs warns that this will be our existence if the supranational elites of the World Economic Forum get their way.

Myth is our wild way of telling the truth, of sharing stories that have our living earth speaking through them. There is an old insistence that we each have a twin we know nothing about. A wild, curious twin that was thrown out the window the night we were born, taking much of our energy with them. This story is a quest to find and court our wild twin, for they have something important to tell us. If there was something we were here to do in our few, brief years, we can be sure that the wild twin is holding the key.

As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century.

In the book that he was born to write, provocateur and best-selling author Christopher Hitchens inspires future generations of radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, angry young (wo)men, and dissidents. Who better to speak to that person who finds him or herself in a contrarian position than Hitchens, who has made a career of disagreeing in profound and entertaining ways.

The lifeblood of any free society is persuasion: changing other people’s minds in order to change things. But America is suffering a crisis of faith in persuasion that is putting its democracy and the planet itself at risk. Anand Giridharadas takes us inside these movements and battles, seeking out the dissenters who continue to champion persuasion in an age of polarization. As the book’s subjects grapple with how to call out injustices while calling in those who don’t agree with them but just might one day, they point a way to healing, and changing, a fracturing country.

These works are considered Weil's primary essays and letters. In addition, Simone Weil's niece has contributed an introductory article entitled, 'Simone Weil and the Rabbi's: Compassion and Tsedekah,' which puts Weil's relationship with Jewish thought into perspective. She includes source material from the Rabbis that put Weil (however reluctantly) in line with rabbinical thought throughout her major themes. The book is the ideal English introduction to the works and thought of Simone Weil.

Who is psychologist, professor, best-selling author, and YouTube personality Dr. Peterson? What does he believe in? Who are his followers? And why is he so controversial? These are among the many questions raised in this compelling, exhaustively researched account of his life - from Peterson’s early days as a religious-school student in small-town Canada to his tenure at Harvard to his headline-making persona of the present day.

On Anarchism provides the reasoning behind Noam Chomsky's fearless lifelong questioning of the legitimacy of entrenched power. In these essays, Chomsky redeems one of the most maligned ideologies, anarchism, and places it at the foundation of his political thinking. Chomsky's anarchism is distinctly optimistic and egalitarian. Moreover, it is a living, evolving tradition that is situated in a historical lineage; Chomsky's anarchism emphasizes the power of collective, rather than individualist, action.

The title Politics literally means ‘the things concerning the city’. Here, Aristotle considers the important role that politics plays in the life of the community and its contribution to harmonious and virtuous existence. It is divided into eight books and was a cornerstone in political philosophy for centuries despite certain features - including attitudes towards slaves and women - clearly placing its conclusions and advice within the confines of Athenian society of the fourth century BCE. 

Of the three dominant ideologies of the 20th century - fascism, communism, and liberalism - only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism's proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions.

Former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can--except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it.

Do you refuse to laugh at offensive jokes? Have you ever been accused of ruining dinner by pointing out your companion’s sexist comment? Are you often told to stop being so “woke”? If so, you might be a feminist killjoy—and this handbook is for you. In this book, feminist theorist Sara Ahmed shows how killing joy can be a radical world-making project. Presenting sharp analysis of literature, film, and influential feminist works, and drawing on her own experiences as a queer feminist scholar-activist of color, Ahmed reveals the invaluable lessons of the feminist killjoy.

In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people”, who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.

Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.