Synopses & Reviews
Common Ground explores the philosophical relationship between collectivity, individuality, affect and agency in the neoliberal era. Jeremy Gilbert argues that individualism is forced upon us by neoliberal culture, fatally limiting our capacity to escape the current crisis of democratic politics.
The book asks how forces and ideas opposed to neoliberal hegemony, and to the individualist tradition in Western thought, might serve to protect some form of communality, and how far we must accept assumptions about the nature of individuality and collectivity which are the legacy of an elitist tradition. Along the way it examines different ideas and practices of collectivity, from conservative notions of hierarchical and patriarchal communities to the politics of ‘horizontality and ‘the commons which are at the heart of radical movements today.
Exploring this fundamental faultline in contemporary political struggle, Common Ground proposes a radically non-individualist mode of imagining social life, collective creativity and democratic possibility.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
The book explores what characterises a â€good life’ and how this idea has been affected by globalisation and neoliberalism.
About the Author
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: Dance, Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound (2002) and the author of Anti-capitalism and Culture: Radical Theory and Popular Politics (2008).
Table of Contents
1. Postmodernity and the crisis of Democracy
2. A War of All Against All: The Hegemony of Competitive Individualism
3. The State of Community Opened: Horizontal Sociality in Theory and Practice
4. On the Impossibility of Making Decisions: Consensus, Dissensus, Democracy and Differance
5. What Does Democracy Feel Like? Sensation and Participation in the Fields of Culture and Politics
6. A Common Treasury for All: the Ecology of the Multitude
7. The New International: Infinite Relationality in the Global Sphere