From national security and social security to homeland and
cyber-security, "security" has become one of the most overused
words in culture and politics today. Yet it also remains one of the
most undefined. What exactly "are" we talking about when we talk
about security? In this original and timely book, John Hamilton
examines the discursive versatility and semantic vagueness of
security both in current and historical usage. Adopting a
philological approach, he explores the fundamental ambiguity of
this word, which denotes the removal of "concern" or "care" and
therefore implies a condition that is either carefree or careless.
Spanning texts from ancient Greek poetry to Roman Stoicism, from
Augustine and Luther to Machiavelli and Hobbes, from Kant and
Nietzsche to Heidegger and Carl Schmitt, Hamilton analyzes
formulations of security that involve both safety and negligence,
confidence and complacency, certitude and ignorance. Does security
instill more fear than it assuages? Is a security purchased with
freedom or human rights morally viable? How do security projects
inform our expectations, desires, and anxieties? And how does the
will to security relate to human finitude? Although the book makes
clear that security has always been a major preoccupation of
humanity, it also suggests that contemporary panics about security
and the related desire to achieve perfect safety carry their own
very significant risks.
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