In this wide-ranging interdisciplinary work, Paul W. Kahn argues
that political order is founded not on contract but on sacrifice.
Because liberalism is blind to sacrifice, it is unable to explain
how the modern state has brought us to both the rule of law and the
edge of nuclear annihilation. We can understand this modern
condition only by recognizing that any political community, even a
liberal one, is bound together by faith, love, and identity.
"Putting Liberalism in Its Place" draws on philosophy, cultural
theory, American constitutional law, religious and literary
studies, and political psychology to advance political theory. It
makes original contributions in all these fields. Not since Charles
Taylor's "The Sources of the Self" has there been such an ambitious
and sweeping examination of the deep structure of the modern
conception of the self.
Kahn shows that only when we move beyond liberalism's categories
of reason and interest to a Judeo-Christian concept of love can we
comprehend the modern self. Love is the foundation of a world of
objective meaning, one form of which is the political community.
Arguing from these insights, Kahn offers a new reading of the
liberalism/communitarian debate, a genealogy of American
liberalism, an exploration of the romantic and the pornographic, a
new theory of the will, and a refoundation of political theory on
the possibility of sacrifice.
Approaching politics from the perspective of sacrifice allows us
to understand the character of twentieth-century politics, which
combined progress in the rule of law with massive slaughter for the
state. Equally important, this work speaks to the most important
political conflicts in the world today. It explains why American
response to September 11 has taken the form of war, and why, for
the most part, Europeans have been reluctant to follow the
Americans in their pursuit of a violent, sacrificial politics. Kahn
shows us that the United States has maintained a vibrant politics
of modernity, while Europe is moving into a postmodern form of the
political that has turned away from the idea of sacrifice. Together
with its companion volume, "Out of Eden, Putting Liberalism in Its
Place" finally answers Clifford Geertz's call for a political
theology of modernity.
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