Politics as a Confession

Confronting the Enemy Within

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7094534
AutoresM Dean (0000-0002-5213-2115, Copenhagen Business School, autor de correspondencia), Daniel Zamora (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Año2022
Volumen24
Número1
Páginas82-97
Fecha de publicación2022-08-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPolitical Theology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1462-317X • E-ISSN: 1743-1719
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1462317x.2022.2105280
OpenAlexW4289518006
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas10

In this article, we claim, firstly, that the turn to an “ethical” politics focused on subjectivity and its transformation, announced by post-structuralist theorists in the 1970s, can be found today in forms of progressive politics, illustrated by struggles against racism and their articulation by consultants and educators. Secondly, this turn entails targeting the “enemy within,” whether it be the inner fascist (Guattari, Foucault) or white privilege (Di Angelo, Kendi). Rather than an extension of Lasch’s therapeutic “culture of narcissism,” it is a turn to practices reminiscent of public rituals of expiation of guilt and acts of purification (exomologesis) characterizing what Weber referred to as “sects.” Pace Foucault, the “main danger” lies not in the “subjectifying” practices of the human sciences descended from auricular confession and the Christian pastorate, but rather the displacement of formal politics and attendant “civil religion” (Bellah) by conflicts between charismatic sects claiming exemplary subjectivity and virtuosity

Articulation (sociology · Confession (law · Epistemology · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Privilege (computing · Racism · Sociology · Subjectivity · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy