Телеграм канал «Политическая теория и философия (Political theory and philosophy)»

Yi-Ling Liu - The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet

In the late 1990s, as the world was waking up to the power and emancipatory promise of the internet, Chinese authorities began constructing a system of online surveillance and censorship now known as the Great Firewall. But far from being a barren landscape, the digital world that sprouted up behind the firewall brimmed with new subcultures and tech innovations, offering many Chinese citizens previously unimaginable connection and opportunity.

Today, as the country’s leadership intensifies its control of public discourse and Western headlines reduce the Chinese public to a faceless monolith, journalist Yi-Ling Liu presents an intimate portrait of China’s online ecosystem and a crucial lens into the on-the-ground reality of life there. Tracing the last three decades of the Chinese internet’s evolution from its lexicon to its memes to the precise nature of its censorship she equips readers with a critical tool to assess the past, present, and future of a global power.

Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, The Wall Dancers weaves together the stories of individuals navigating China’s transformation into both the world’s largest online user base and one of its most populous authoritarian states. As these entrepreneurs, activists, artists, and dreamers experience the internet’s power as a tool for both control and liberation, they grapple with universal questions of success and authenticity, love and solidarity, faith and resilience. The Wall Dancers is at once an unforgettable work of human storytelling and a vital exploration of what it means to live with dignity and hope within the technological systems that now shape all our lives.

Benjamin Kunkel - The New National Question

As globalization stalls, what possibilities might national-economic policy open up for the left? Benjamin Kunkel weighs the claims of its Marxist, Polanyian and psychoanalytic interpreters, asking whether the re-politicization of the economy might be joined to a renewed internationalism, adequate to ecological crisis.

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii160/articles/benjamin-kunkel-the-new-national-question

Jordi Maiso - From Damaged Life: The Critical Theory of Theodor W. Adorno

This certainty that the conditions governing existence in contemporary societies generate irretrievably damaged lives lies at the heart of Theodor W. Adorno's critical theory. Emerging from the historical experience of fascism, Auschwitz, and the consolidation of advanced capitalism, Adorno's thought articulates critique from within a damaged reality. Under the coercion of overwhelming social powers, individual character is constituted as a “system of scars”. This notion of “damaged life” stands at the center of this book, which frames critique as emerging from a reality scarred by systemic coercion. It reconstructs Adorno's critical theory as an analysis of the new state of unfreedom linked to total socialization, the anthropological reshaping of subjectivity under advanced capitalism, and the very possibility of critique.

Jordi Maiso's analysis spans key themes: the constellation of fascism and advanced capitalism, the culture industry's role in shaping consciousness, and the persistence of authoritarian potential in everyday life. Revisiting Adorno's conception of critique as a “science of mourning” and his insistence on determinate negation, the book shows how critical thought confronts a historical moment in which emancipatory horizons appear blocked yet remain necessary. Both historical and urgent, From Damaged Life: The Critical Theory of Theodor W. Adorno interrogates the persistence of fear, heteronomy, and avoidable suffering. It asks whether, under conditions marked by authoritarian regression and damaged subjectivity, critical theory can still resist resignation and keep the possibility of transformation alive.

Philip Jenkins - Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America

Why did the youthful optimism and openness of the sixties give way to Ronald Reagan and the spirit of conservative reaction a spirit that remains ascendant today? Drawing on a wide array of sources including tabloid journalism, popular fiction, movies, and television shows Philip Jenkins argues that a remarkable confluence of panics, scares, and a few genuine threats created a climate of fear that led to the conservative reaction. He identifies 1975 to 1986 as the watershed years. During this time, he says, there was a sharp increase in perceived threats to our security at home and abroad. At home, America seemed to be threatened by monstrous criminals serial killers, child abusers, Satanic cults, and predatory drug dealers, to name just a few. On the international scene, we were confronted by the Soviet Union and its evil empire, by OPEC with its stranglehold on global oil, by the Ayatollahs who made hostages of our diplomats in Iran. Increasingly, these dangers began to be described in terms of moral evil. Rejecting the radicalism of the '60s, which many saw as the source of the crisis, Americans adopted a more pessimistic interpretation of human behavior, which harked back to much older themes in American culture. This simpler but darker vision ultimately brought us Ronald Reagan and the ascendancy of the political Right, which more than two decades later shows no sign of loosening its grip. Writing in his usual crisp and witty prose, Jenkins offers a truly original and persuasive account of a period that continues to fascinate the American public. It is bound to captivate anyone who lived through this period, as well as all those who want to understand the forces that transformed and continue to define the American political landscape.