While I expect that the author of this wonderful book may not entirely appreciate the comment which follows, I think it important to remember, as the author does, that Gramsci was a Marxist and that Marx was a Hegelian.  I would add that Hegel was a Christian and that Christ called on believers to remember the lilies of the field, to study them, and remember that God cares for how they grow. So it follows to ask, as the author does:"What is the dialectic between discipline and freedom? What kind of person do we want to be--or is it even a question of being rather than making such a person? But the "making" of people sounds so authoritarian.  How do we resolve the tensions that exist between the militarization of the soul required to vie for power (rather than just talking about power, or the endless talking of postions) and the openings for self-determination that are possible only after taking it? If our position is that culture is conditioned in advance by material conditions, then precisely how are they connected? Why should we not be looking for changes in culture first (and perhaps forever) rather than bothering with the state?  What is the relationship of ethics to politics?"  The danger is, as the author so persuasively argues, that we will reject the need to organize, spout ambivalent niceties, and, fall into the trap of simply mouthing neoliberal platitudes only differently clothed.  The enemy is not in the final instance the state (as both the neoliberals and anarchists would have us believe), but our failure to articulate a politics which delivers the destitute to their rightful place on the earth.  In short, biopower means nothing if it does not nourish the hungry.

Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of Left and Right PDF

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