Civil Society and Fanaticism: Conjoined HistoriesStanford University Press, 1997 - 480 pages Luther and Calvin applied the term fanatic to those who sought to destroy civil society in order to establish the Kingdom of God, the false prophets and their followers who, early on in the Reformation, began smashing images in churches and rebelling against princes. Civil Society and Fanaticism is organized around this seminal moment of religious and political iconoclasm, an outburst of hatred against mediations and representation. The author shows that civil society and fanaticism have been consistently present as conjoined notions in Western political thought since the sixteenth century, underlining the link between two principles that are constitutive of that thought: dualism between the City of God and the earthly city, between civil society and the state and the validity of representation. In what is both a study of the evolution of the two interrelated concepts and a critique of critiques of representation, the author draws upon an impressive range of works, including texts by Aristotle and Baudelaire, the medieval theology of Giles of Rome and the humanist thought of the Reformer Philipp Melanchthon, the political philosophies of Spinoza, Leibniz, and Rousseau, Kant's reflections on the sublime, and Marx s critique of Hegel. At the same time, he discusses a varied group of fanatics or people stigmatized as such: the first Anabaptists, the Shiite sect of the Assassins, the French Protestant Camisards, the Bolsheviks. An original analysis of Lenin s political theory and practice sheds new light on the antagonism between totalitarianism and the law-governed state identified with civil society. The author's approach is multidisciplinary, proceeding at different moments from lexicographical, sociological, psychoanalytic, and philosophical methods and analysis. The book also makes vivid use of iconology by reproducing and interpreting a series of works by Albrecht Dürer, whose art and theory of representation, it is argued, were opposed to the destruction not only of images but of civil society. |
Contents
The Fanatics Truth I | 1 |
Conjoined Histories | 8 |
Civil Society and the City of God | 42 |
Fanaticism | 88 |
Sword Against Flail 99 66 | 99 |
The Painter of the Two Cities | 155 |
The Mouth of God | 182 |
The Voice of the Prophets | 203 |
The Citizen as Bourgeois | 263 |
of the Fakirs Nose and the Cabbage Head | 278 |
Civil Society and Civil War | 289 |
or Bourgeois Society? 297 The History of Civil Society | 306 |
Civil Society and the LawGoverned State | 332 |
Significant Occurrences of Civil | 359 |
Bibliography | 427 |
459 | |
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Common terms and phrases
according affirmed Albrecht Dürer Anabaptists Aristotle Augustine authority Bossuet bourgeois bürgerliche Gesellschaft called Calvin Camisards century Cévennes chap Christ Christian citizens City of God civil society communist conception Critique denounced divine doctrine Earthly City economy enemies Engels English Ethics example existence fact fanatic fanaticism Fénelon France freedom French Revolution German Giles of Rome God's Hegel Hegelian Holy human Ibid iconoclasts images individual institutions Kant king kingdom Latin law-governed legitimacy legitimate Leibniz Lenin Leonardo Bruni logic Luther Marx Marx's Marxism means Melanchthon modern Müntzer nation nature Nicomachean Ethics organized painting Paris peasants person Philosophy polis political politique pope princes principle prophets Protestant radical Reformation regime rejection relation religion religious role Roman Saint social societas civilis société civile sovereign Soviet Spinoza spiritual sword temporal term theory things Thomas Müntzer tion totalitarian Trans translation underlined whereas word