POLI433 – Critics of Modernity 10 Janvier 2005

POLI433 – Critics of Modernity
10 Janvier 2005

Authors that we will work with :
- Eric VOEGELIN (« The New Science of Politics »)
- Leo STRAUSS (« Persecution & the Art of Writting »)
And maybe Micheal OAKSHOTT (« Rationalism in Politics »)

Get following articles :
- « Eclispe of Reality », Voegelin
- « Gospel in Culture », Ibid

Worthwhile text : « Revolt Against Modernity », McAlister

Ideology.
Struggle in field of political philosophy not unlike, or continuation of « Anciens VS. Modernes ». There is not a lot of « Anciens » left. But does that means Modernes are right?
Academics are the last resistance to modernism. Anciens are classicists and scholastics. Academics are the mainstay of Western philosophy & thinking. Anciens secluded themselves in academic circles. « last canadian ancien » : George Grant, especially what he says on death of red Toryism in Canada, 1965. Grant, « Technology & Empire ».
No or few relation B/W « old » Conservatism and actual so-called « compassionate » conservatism US-Style.

Philosophy and Ideology

Ideology coined as a term at end of 18thC, by De Tracy, « the science of Ideas » : philosophers as the product of physical pre-existing conditions

Prof. Text about Niemeyer’s « Nothingness in Paradise » : « Subordination of contempt of theory by will to dominate »
- text going back to Aristotle, Bk 6 of « Politics » (or « Ethics »?) : Contemplative theory, « to know other in otherness », « En soit » not « Pour soit ».
In itself is W/O method, the Will makes use of method, intellect in itself does not, it just pops-up.
Real in Reality, and later only real in counciousness, and later in contemplation of Reality (?)
« Reality closes down more the Real than it opens it up ».
Dominate to understand? Torture into submission in order to reveal its truth. To « have a plan » is modernism.
Ego is the instrument mediating B/W inquester and Otherness. Instrument filters the outcome.
« Modernity is deeply egotistical. Its us speaking to us. Its a monologue. Its subjective. It never transcend the subject. »
at a councious level, or subsidiary « subliminal » level, denies reality W/O being fully councious and in the know of the Truth.
People denying the Thruth. Becomes a circle. « Your denying, no I am not, yes you are, no I am not ».