- Paperback: 72 pages
- Publisher: Fordham University Press; Third Edition edition (Jun 26 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 082323245X
- ISBN-13: 978-0823232451
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 15.7 x 0.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 91 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #237,820 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
In a formulation that is perhaps as original as it is disconcerting, The Truth of Democracy concludes that 'democracy is first and foremost a metaphysics and only afterwards a politics'.-Ian James
These short essays are packed tight with the sort of incisive reflection that Jean-Luc Nancy always brings to bear on his subject. The subject of democracy brings out the most generous and exhilarating dimensions of his thought. This collection is a very welcome provocation to raise the level of understanding of what it is we desire from democracy.-Peggy Kamuf
Nancy answers the reductive rewriting of history concerning May '68 with a resounding philosophical salvo, both salutary and exhortatory: think again, he urges, think through the current political impasses--of the Left in crisis, of the unimpeachable logic of economics, of globalized markets, andso on--not just to uncover the necessarily disruptive aspirations of an always perfectible democracy, but to reconceive politics as the incalculability of _being in common_.-David Wills
Product Description
The initial provocation for The Truth of Democracy was the fortieth anniversary of May '68 and the recent criticism (some by French President Nicolas Sarkozy himself) leveled against the ideals and actors at the center of this important but still misunderstood moment in French history. Nancy here defends what he calls simply 68 without apology or equivocation, calling it an essential stage in the search for the truth of democracy. Less a period within time than a critical moment or interruption of time, 68 needs to be understood, Nancy argues, as an event that provided a glimpse into the very spirit of democracy, a spirit that is linked not to some common vision, idea, or desire (such as the nation, the republic, the people, or humanity) but to an incommensurability (the infinity of man or man's exceeding of himself) at the origin of democracy. Written in a direct and accessible, almost manifesto-like style, The Truth of Democracy presents a forceful plea that we rethink democracy not as one political regime or form among others but as that which opens up the very experience of being in common. By rearticulating many of the themes and terms he has developed elsewhere (from community and being in common to the singular plural) in relationship to an original analysis of what was and still is at stake in May '68, The Truth of Democracy is at once an eloquent summary of much of Nancy's work and a significant development of it. It is as if, forty years after being first scrawled across university walls and storefronts in France, one of the most famous slogans of May '68 has received in The Truth of Democracy its most eloquent and poignant theoretical elaboration: "Be realistic, demand the impossible!"
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Vérité de la démocratie, Jun 22 2010
By Pen Name? "fluxus" - Published on Amazon.com
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This review is from: The Truth of Democracy (Paperback)
This is a translation of Nancy's 2008 text Vérité de la démocratie, which is a meditation of sorts on the spirit of "68" (the May 1968 events in France). Nancy sees 68 as a spirit of interruption in time and politics, rather than as a dated event, it is more a spirit of openness and democracy which Nancy defends against the attacks from the likes of Sarkozy, who would rather do away with any remnants of a spirit which might reject their management of life and our being-together.The text offers a rather more pointed elaboration of some of Nancy's most poignant themes regarding the experience of freedom and the sense of the world.
The text also features 2 essays on democracy (one from 1999, the other from 2000) each of which was previously available in the book "The Politics of Deconstruction" (Pluto Press, 2007).
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