Political returns: irony in politics and theory from Plato to the antinuclear movement
- Boulder Wetview Press 1990
- 384 p.
"How is one to write political theory for human beings living in the nuclear age and faced with the possibility of utter annihilation?" In this audacious, challenging, and sometimes dazzling book, John Seery answers that such writing must be ironic-i.e., that there must be a recognition of the gap be tween the lived actuality of everyday life and the possibility of its ultimate philosophical justification. To demonstrate the necessity of irony, Seery presents a theory of the politics. of irony in general, a theory that is tested through readings of the essential texts in political theory and through a startling analysis of the politics of the contemporary antinuclear movement. The result is a sustained argument for the thesis that the Western tradition is unified by an ironic undercurrent of moral and political discourse. Within this framework Seery offers fresh fresh interpretations of Plato, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche. Thomas Mann, and, among contemporaries, Jacques Derrida, George Kateb, Shel don Wolin, and Richard Rorty, Readers of Rorty's recent work on irony will be especially interested in Seery's treat ment. Steeped in political theory, literary criticism, classical studies, Germanic studies, and moral philosophy, Political Returns is essential reading for political and social theorists and their students as well as for a broad range of humanists. Scholars in all these fields will profit from the insight and enjoy the style of this remarkable book.