Common Ground - Jeremy Gilbert

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Résumé :
Under neoliberalism the cult of individualism reigns supreme, forced upon us through culture, media and politics, it fatally limits our capacity to escape the current crisis of democratic politics. In Common Ground, Jeremy Gilbert asks us to reimagine the philosophical relationship between individuality, collectivity, affect and agency, proposing a radically non-individualist mode of imagining social life. The book considers how opponents of neoliberal hegemony, and of the individualist tradition in Western thought, might protect collective creativity and democratic possibility. Examination of the historical roots of individualism's 'Leviathan logic' and fresh readings of theorists such as Hobbes, Lazzarato, Simondon, Lyotard, Laclau and Deleuze and Guattari, force us to confront longstanding assumptions about the nature of the individual and of collectivity. Exploration of this fundamental faultline in contemporary politics is accompanied by analysis of the different ideas and practices of collectivity, from conservative notions of hierarchical and patriarchal communities to the politics of 'horizontality' and 'the commons' which lie at the heart of radical movements today. Through an understanding of the philosophy shaping contemporary relations and disrupting hegemonic values, we can re-imagine the present moment....

Biographie:
Jeremy Gilbert is Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London and editor of the journal New Formations. He is the co-author of Discographies (Routledge, 2002, Anti-capitalism and Culture (Berg, 2008) and Common Ground (Pluto Press, 2013).

Sommaire:
Preface 1 Postmodernity and the Crisis of Democracy 2 A War of All Against All: Neoliberal Hegemony and Competitive Individualism 3 Leviathan Logics: Group Psychology from Hobbes to Laclau 4 The State of Community Opened: Multitude and Multiplicity 5 The Non-Fascist Crowd: Individuation and Infinite Relationality 6 Feeling Together: Affect, Identity and the Politics of the Common 7 On the Impossibility of Making Decisions: Affect, Agency and the Democratic Sublime Conclusions Notes Index

A serious and courageous engagement with the deepest issue of our time. Humanity cannot go on as we are, but how do we change course? Gilbert starts to build a strategy from the wreckage. -- Anthony Barnett, founder of openDemocracy We live in an interregnum. The old is not yet dead and the new is yet to be born. No one understand this moment better than Jeremy Gilbert. -- Neal Lawson, Chair for Compass The questions that this book sets out to answer couldn't be more pressing. What are the roots of the endemic individualism that dominates contemporary culture? How can we overcome this psychic privatisation and revive - and ultimately radicalise - democracy? Gilbert offers fresh readings of theorists such as Hobbes, Lazzarato, Deleuze and Guattari. Common Ground should be required reading for anyone interested in the current crisis of democracy. -- Mark Fisher, Goldsmiths