How can we conceive of freedom and responsibility when our power is limited and we are subject to the forces of society? The author of this text asks what it means to live responsibly amid historical harm and wrongdoing, in the wake of slavery and genocide, or in the face of severe resource asymmetries. By connecting resistance to evil with reflections on the nature of power and political action, Orlie seeks to reveal the daily ways people commonly exercise power, inflict harm and show themselves capable of actions which transform both selves and the world. Viewed in this context, truly ethical political action may appear miraculous but could happen at any time.

"When social power is conceived in Foucauldian terms, it is notoriously difficult to grapple with what it means to think affirmatively about ethical-political action. Drawing upon the unlikely combination of Hannah Arendt and the early 17th-century Quaker movement, Orlie articulates a fascinating approach to this problem. Without forgetting for a moment our enmeshment in power, she nevertheless shows how better appreciating our spiritual capacity for 'natality' can engender a distinctive sense of responsibility and freedom." Stephen K. White, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"A thoughtful and erudite meditation on our ethical and political possibilities in the time after Truth." Wendy Brown, University of California, Santa Cruz"Living Ethically, Acting Politically confronts our ordinary complicities in the operations of social power with the possibility of doing otherwise. Refusing the legislative imaginary of sovereignty, Melissa A. Orlie draws innovatively on Arendt, Foucault, and early modern Quakers to rescue the 'can' from the jaws of the 'ought' not to escape obligations but to recollect their generation in the contingencies and equivocalities of social practices. At once evocative and provoking, this work opens new terrain at the borderlines of politics and ethics." Kirstie M. McClure, author of Judging Rights: Lockean Politics and the Limits of Consent"