Hope: The Politics of Optimism

Description

A colourful map of the current conflict between pessimism and optimism in Western politics and theory, Hope attempts to reveal both the deep history and contemporary necessity of political hopefulness. Starting in the 17th century with Spinoza, Wortham tells the story of the various fallacies and insights of pessimism and optimism through the 18th century with the help of Kant and Voltaire through to the famously nihilistic writings of Nietzsche and the 20th century works of thinkers such as Benjamin, Arendt, Kristeva and Fanon (to name but a few). He explores the contemporary significance of ideas such as affirmation, sovereignty, violence, therapy, existentialism and, of course, the oft maligned notion of ‘hopefulness’ to create a politics of optimism which avoids the pitfalls of uncritical acceptance of the status quo or the newest political idea. Short chapters written in an engaging narrative manner enable the reader to follow the story of political optimism over the last 4 centuries inspiring a new way of thinking about the transformative uses of hopefulness. Cover Contents Acknowledgements Hope against hope Twenty Two Short Essays on the Politics of Optimism 1 Immanuel Kant: Choosing what is best 2 Voltaire: Bien (tout est) 3 Arthur Schopenhauer: Eating the other 4 Benedict de Spinoza: Hope, faith and judgement 5 Friedrich Nietzsche: Imperfect nihilism 6 Maurice Blanchot: Hope and poetry 7 Jacques Derrida: Yes, yes 8 Emmanuel Levinas: Sociality and solitude 9 Sigmund Freud: ‘A time-consuming business’ 10 Melanie Klein: ‘Therapeutic pessimism’ in Kristeva’s view 11 Julia Kristeva: ‘Psychoanalysis – a counterdepressant’ 12 Walter Benjamin: ‘Pessimism all along the line’ 13 Theodor Adorno: ‘Hurrah-optimism’ 14 Hannah Arendt: ‘The right to expect miracles’ 15 Slavoj Žižek: Hopeless courage (with Hegel and Badiou) 16 Franz Kafka: ‘Plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope – but not for us’ (re-reading Walter Benjamin) 17 Jacques Derrida: Hegel, Bataille, negativity and affirmation 18 Frantz Fanon: Recognition and conflict 19 Hannah Arendt: Violence and power 20 Étienne Balibar: Politics and psychoanalysis 21 Hans Kelsen: Politics and the ‘impolitical’ 22 Sigmund Freud: Super-ego politics Notes Index