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Author Castoriadis, Cornelius, 1922-1997

Title A society adrift : interviews and debates, 1974-1997 / Cornelius Castoriadis ; edited by Enrique Escobar, Myrto Gondicas, and Pascal Vernay ; translated by Helen Arnold
Edition 1st ed
Published New York : Fordham University Press, 2010

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 259 pages)
Contents The project of autonomy is not a utopia (1992) -- Why I am no longer a Marxist (1974) -- Imaginary significations (1982) -- Response to Richard Rorty (1995) -- On wars in Europe (1992) -- On the possibility of creating g new form of society (1977) -- What political parties cannot do (1979) -- Present issues for democracy (1986) -- These are bad times (1986) -- Do vanguards exist? (1987) -- What revolution is (1987) -- Neither a historical necessity nor simply an "ethical" exigency: a political and human exigency (1988) -- When the east swings to the west (1989) -- The market, capitalism, and democracy (1990) -- "Democracy" without citizens' participation (1991) -- The Gulf War: setting things straight (1991) -- Gorbachev: neither reform no backtracking (1991) -- On war, religion, and politics (1991) -- Communism, fascism, and emancipation (1991) -- Ecology against the merchants (1992) -- The revolutionary potency of ecology (1992) -- A society adrift (1993) -- On political judgment (1995) -- Neither resignation nor archaism (1995) -- A rising tide of significany? (1996) -- A singular trajectory (1992)
Summary Annotation This posthumous collection of interviews and occasional papers given by Castoriadis between 1974 and 1997 is a lively, direct introduction to the thinking of a writer who never abandoned his radically critical stance. It provides a clear, handy rsum of his political ideas, in advance of their times and profoundly relevant to today's world.For this political thinker and longtime militant (co-founder with Claude Lefort of the revolutionary group Socialisme ou Barbarie), economist, psychoanalyst, and philosopher, two endless interrogations-how to understand the world and life in society-were intertwined with his own life and combats.An important chapter discusses the history of Socialisme ou Barbarie(1949-1967); in it, Castoriadis presents the views he defended, in that group, on a number of subjects: a critique of Marxism and of the Soviet Union, the bureaucratization of society and of the workers' movement, and the primacy of individual and collective autonomy. Another chapter presents the concept, central to his thinking, of imaginary significationsas what make a society cohere.Castoriadis constantly returns to the question of democracy as the never-finished, deliberate creation by the people of societal institutions, analyzing its past and its future in the Western world. He scathingly criticizes representativedemocracy and develops a conception of direct democracy extending to all spheres of social life. He wonders about the chances of achieving freedom and autonomy-those requisites of true democracy-in a world of endless, meaningless accumulation of material goods, where the mechanisms for governing society have disintegrated, the relationship with nature is reduced to one of destructive domination, and, above all, the population has withdrawn from the public sphere: a world dominated by hobbies and lobbies-a society adrift
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Notes Print version record
Subject Castoriadis, Cornelius, 1922-1997 -- Interviews
SUBJECT Castoriadis, Cornelius, 1922-1997 fast
Subject Political science -- Philosophy.
Social sciences.
World politics -- 1985-1995.
Economic history -- 1971-
social sciences.
PHILOSOPHY -- Political.
HISTORY -- Europe -- General.
Economic history
Political science -- Philosophy
Social sciences
World politics
Genre/Form Interviews
Form Electronic book
Author Escobar, Enrique
Gondicas, Myrto
Vernay, Pascal
ISBN 9781441637376
1441637370
9780823275144
0823275140
Other Titles Société à la dérive. English