Nietzsche and the Will to Politics

1998 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Abbey ◽  
Fredrick Appel

This article moves on two fronts. It continues the challenge to the belief that politics is not central to the concerns of Friedrich Nietzsche but questions attempts to transvalue Nietzsche into a democrat. With their illiberal and inegalitarian political views, Nietzsche's writings best serve democratic political theory in an antidotal way. The article discusses Nietzsche's aesthetic approach to political action and architectonic conception of politics. It also explores some of the qualities he believes future rulers would need and the mechanisms they could use to exercise and legitimate their power. Just as Nietzsche thinks of political action in aesthetic terms, so his own art has a political purpose for he envisages the formation of a social, cultural and political élite and hopes, through his writings, to galvanize this élite.

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-170
Author(s):  
Felipe G. A. Moreira

AbstractThis essay presupposes that Friedrich Nietzsche and Rudolf Carnap champion contrasting reactions to the fact that, throughout history, persons have been engaged in metaphysical disputes. Nietzsche embraces a libertarian reaction that is in agreement with his anti-democratic aristocratic political views, whereas Carnap endorses an egalitarian reaction aligned with his democratic and socialist political views. After characterizing these reactions, the essay argues for two claims. The first claim is that the stated contrasting reactions are to be considered, not only by the few scholars who are interested both in Nietzsche’s and Carnap’s writings, but by a far larger group that includes those who have addressed the continental-analytic gap; those who are concerned with the development of contemporary philosophy; and/or those who are interested in the writings of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, David Lewis and/or Peter van Inwagen. The second claim is that we have to entertain a synthesis of Nietzsche’s libertarian and Carnap’s egalitarian reaction in order to overcome the continental-analytic gap.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Offe

The “will of the (national) people” is the ubiquitously invoked reference unit of populist politics. The essay tries to demystify the notion that such will can be conceived of as a unique and unified substance deriving from collective ethnic identity. Arguably, all political theory is concerned with arguing for ways by which citizens can make e pluribus unum—for example, by coming to agree on procedures and institutions by which conflicts of interest and ideas can be settled according to standards of fairness. It is argued that populists in their political rhetoric and practice typically try to circumvent the burden of such argument and proof. Instead, they appeal to the notion of some preexisting existential unity of the people’s will, which they can redeem only through practices of repression and exclusion.


The issue of political pluralism in our societies is considered one of the critical issues in contemporary political construction, and it has influential implications in the political arena, and its study in the legal policy has become important to control Islamic political action. The results came to confirm that pluralism in Islamic thought has its roots since the first century of the state in Islam And it has two views: The first: Pluralism in political views, which is an award and even a duty within the parameters of enjoining good and forbidding evil and advice. The second: Pluralism in the formation of Islamic political parties, as the principle is that there is no permissibility, and it is resorted to only in the interest of a general and achieved reality that leads to achieving peaceful coexistence and political stability. Keywords: Legitimate politics - political pluralism - Islamic parties - Islamic political thought - political opinions - political systems _________________________________________________ تعد قضية التعددية السياسية في مجتمعاتنا من القضايا المفصلية في البناء السياسي المعاصر ولها تداعيات مؤثرة في الساحة السياسية ، ودراستها في ضوء السياسة الشرعية بات مهما لضبط العمل السياسي الاسلامي . وجاءت النتائج لتؤكد ان للتعددية في الفكر الاسلامي جذورها منذ القرن الاول للدولة في الاسلام ولها صورتان : الاولى : تعددية في الاراء السياسية وهي جائزة بل واجبة ضمن ضوابط الامر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر والنصيحة. والثانية : التعددية في تشكيل الاحزاب السياسية الاسلامية فالاصل فيها عدم الجواز ولا يلجأ اليها الا لمصلحة حقيقة عامة متحققة تؤدي الى تحقيق التعايش السلمي والاستقرار السياسي. الكلمات المفتاحية: السياسة الشرعية- التعددية السياسية- الاحزاب الاسلامية - الفكر السياسي الاسلامي- الاراء السياسية- النظم السياسية.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174165902110224
Author(s):  
Mthokozisi Phathisani Ndhlovu ◽  
Phillip Santos

Even though corruption by politicians and in politics is widespread worldwide, it is more pronounced in developing countries, such as Zimbabwe, where members of the political elite overtly abuse power for personal accumulation of wealth. Ideally, the news media, as watchdogs, are expected to investigate and report such abuses of power. However, previous studies in Zimbabwe highlight the news media’s polarised and normative inefficacies. Informed by the theoretical notion of deliberative democracy developed via Habermas and Dahlgren’s work and Hall’s Encoding, Decoding Model, this article uses qualitative content analysis to examine how online readers of Zimbabwe’s two leading daily publications, The Herald and NewsDay, interpreted and evaluated allegations of corruption leveled against ministers and deputy ministers during the height of factionalism in the ruling party (ZANU PF). The article argues that interaction between mainstream media and their audiences online shows the latter’s resourcefulness and, at least, discursive agency in their engagement with narratives about political corruption, itself an imperative premise for future political action.


Politics ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Williams

International relations and political theory are generally seen as two distinct disciplines with their afferent methodologies and clusters of problems. This division of labour has in some respects proved useful but may now be too extreme. Political theory and international relations have a common subject matter in political action and state behaviour. The advantages for political theory and international relations in crossing the dividing lines between the disciplines are explored. A case is made for a political theory which is focussed on international relations and an international relations which exploits the approaches and methods of political theory.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Mathias Daven

If we wish to understand a totalitarian system as a whole, we need first to understand the central role of the concentration camp as a laboratorium to experiment in total domination. Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism in the twentieth century shows how a totalitarian regime cannot survive without terror; and terror will not be effective without concentration camps. Experiments in concentration camps had as their purpose, apart from wiping out any freedom or spontaneity, the abolishing of space between human beings, abolishing space for politics. Thus, totalitarianism did not mirror only the politics of extinction, but also the extinction of politics. As a way forward, Arendt analyses political theory that forces the reader to understand power no longer under the rubric of domination or violence – although this avenue is open – but rather under the rubric of freedom. Arendt is convinced that the life of a destroyed nation can be restored by mutual forgiveness and mutual promises, two abilities rooted in action. Political action, as with other acts, is identical with the ability to commence something new. Keywords: Totalitarisme, antisemitisme, imperialisme, dominasi, teror, kebebasan, kedaulatan, kamp konsentrasi, politik, ideologi, tindakan


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Tito Handoko ◽  
Mega Hidayati ◽  
Muhammad Azhar ◽  
Abdul Munir Mulkan ◽  
M . Rafi ◽  
...  

This article aims to analyze the relationship between the teacher and the congregation of the Naqsabandiyah in local political action and their relationship with local political elites. This study uses a qualitative approach that aims to interpret a case that will be carefully examined and analyzed using periodic descriptive analysis methods. The results of this study indicate that the pattern of relations between teachers and congregation of the Naqsabandiyah groups in local political action in Rokan Hulu Regency tends to be more accommodating to the authorities, where the political orientation of this group has undergone a transition from traditional to rational action with its own political choices. Then, the relationship between the group and local political elites in socio-religious practices has confirmed the existence of a very strong religious and political relationship, where the Naqsabandiyah sees Achmad (local political elite) as a group representation traced from the existence of kinship ties.


Sapere Aude ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 173-193
Author(s):  
Marcone Costa Cerqueira

The aims that animates this research is to demonstrate how the theoretical construction of the aspects of the foundations of the will, perceived in a final configuration in Kantian thought, requires by way of searching for an autonomous instance of desire, disengaged of the heteronomy of the contingent, which appears first in the Christian Middle Ages construction, establishing the predominance of the formal aspect of the action over its material aspect in the ethical-political field in the West. The theoretical basis of our hypothesis is guided by the relationship between the formal (intentionality – want) and concrete (materiality – act) of political action. Such a configuration will be demonstrated from the construction of a theory of the will, which has arisen within the medieval Christianity, expanded and refined by several western authors, and your more formatting done in modern thought, in which the rational construction of formalism is your complete maturation in Kantian construct.


Author(s):  
Nicholas Tampio

In the 1980s and 1990s, a central debate in academic political theory was between liberals and communitarians, Kantians and Hegelians, Rawls and his critics. Bonnie Honig’s Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (1993) disrupted this debate and argued that surface disagreements conceal an underlying consensus that the purpose of political theory is to answer, once and for all, the fundamental political questions. Drawing upon and transforming the work of Hannah Arendt and Friedrich Nietzsche, Honig argues that democracy requires attentiveness to the remainders of politics and a proclivity to contestation. To show the continuing relevance of Honig’s conception of agonistic democracy, I criticize Cass Sunstein’s account of the regulatory state for its displacement of politics, focusing on how his advocacy of fuel economy regulations occludes the political question of rethinking public transportation.


Author(s):  
Pradeep K. Chhibber ◽  
Rahul Verma

Ideology is transmitted to citizens through multiple pathways, each of which provide heuristic cues to ordinary voters. Citizens form their political views through the efforts of political parties and the political elite; their socialization, especially the kind of education they receive; the media; and through their activities in the social organization including religious associations. In India, those who are more religiously active, get their news from local and vernacular media, and do not speak English language are less likely to support either an active role for the state in transforming social norms or making special provision for some groups. Indians who are members of civil society, consume English-language media, and speak English are more likely to favor statism and recognition.


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