Ferenc Fehér

From Red to Green

The most important systematic analysis of social movements to date has been Touraines The Voice and the Eye. Here, one can almost paraphrase Marxs famous dictum: for the French sociologist, the history of all societies is a history of movements. In identifying movements with social classes, Touraine negotiates a radical turn from system theories to a strong version of action theory and breaks with the Procrustean framework of an Althusserian-Poulantzasian structuralism in which everything is accounted for once the economically based class equivalent has been found. For Touraine, movements emerge and diversify in the process of their challenging “historicity” — a key concept derived from Castoriadis’ central category, the imaginary institution.

Crisis and Reform in Eastern Europe

Communism in Eastern Europe is in crisis. Its dimensions are social and economic; its manifestation is political. This volume, a collection of essays by leading authorities, describes the symptoms of the crisis, diagnoses the causes of the malady, and offers alternative scenarios for therapy. A unique dimension of this collection is its avoidance of one-dimensional explanations. The contributors approach the subject from very different angles, and start from very distinct sociopolitical premises. The volume includes original accounts of unexplored aspects of East European communism as well as classic interpretations of the economic crisis and social stagnation that characterize the area. Contributions not only examine the sociopolitical behavior of the ruling apparatus, but also analyze its strategies, political culture, and the opposition. Both the professional and the general reader seeking more information about Eastern Europe will find this volume an extensive, in-depth portrait of the current situation in what many observers predict may develop into the major area of tension in post-World War II Europe.

The Dictatorship Over Needs

To understand the structure of East European societies as systems of dictatorships over needs, it is important to see them as anti-capitalist formations. They are the result of anti-capitalist revolutions or of the military-political expansion of once victorious revolutions, and they represent a response and challenge to capitalism. Thus, they cannot be described in terms of present capitalist societies and, as such, they can be regarded as socialist experiments. Analyses such as the Trotskyist mythology of a “Thermidor,” concerning the advent of a new bourgeoisie, would only confuse the issues and prevent an understanding of the new type of alienation these societies have generated.

Redemptive and Democratic Paradigms in Radical Politics

Two methodological remarks are needed at the outset. First, while I am going to treat the redemptive paradigm in full, I will — for obvious reasons of length — analyze the democratic paradigm only insofar as it is related to the alternative under discussion. Second, under the heading of “redemptive paradigm in radical politics,” I will address both left and right political theories. It is, however, only to the degree that conservatives embrace the redemptive paradigm that I speak of “conservative political radicalism.” Redemptive politics was born at the end of the 18th century. It entered the theater mundi in the person of the hero whom Hegel appropriately called Weltgeist zu Pferde and on whom Weber modeled his principle of “charismatic legitimation.”

The Pariah and the Citizen (On Arendt's Political Theory):

When The Origins of Totalitarianism’ was published, in an atmosphere of general acclaim critics failed to observe the truly astonishing structure of the work. Instead of commencing her analysis with the usual sweeping generalisations, Arendt consumed the first quarter of the book with a painstakingly detailed chronicle of Jewish emancipation, and that of the unfolding of political ~.r~tls~ 3tls~ a~ anut~~~. And yet, this idiosyncratic structure allows a deep insight into her most profound intentions. The story of totalitarianism starts with the story o/’~e’pan~, and th~ref®r ~ ~ith th~ ~ 6~~c~ptl~r~99, ~alth they ‘p®lltl~~lly ~~®r~al~~,~s~ ~ ~hl~h herefo e w the &dquo;exce ion&dquo;, wit the &dquo;politica anomalous&dquo; w ic is then used to explain the rest of society, rather than the other way round. In this book elsewhere in ~rerldt§s work, the extension of the concept bsp~r~~h99 covers the Jew as the paradigmatic case, further the colonial native, the endless millions of °6st~t~l~ss persons&dquo; who provide a better clue for understanding the true nature of the nation state than the latter’s solemn declarations of citizen rights, the slaves of the pre-Civil War period and their socially unemancipated progenies of the post-Civil War period in the United States. Arendt even argued that had the lunacies of certain Allied politicians with regard to a defeated Germany

L'Utopie Meurtriere

It is unusual that a rank and file survivor of a genocide, an ordinary victim of extraordinary atrocities, is able to provide an exhaustive and all-embracing account of events of frightening dimensions both in terms of casualties and the cruelty involved. Yet, this is the case with Pin Yathay and the chronicle of his sufferings. First, however, let us state the facts. Yathay repeatedly cites the figure of approximately 3 million people who perished both through coercively imposed famine as well as a result of mass executions. This is generally confirmed by newspapers reports and other summaries compiled on the only available basis: interviews with survivors, indirect estimates and the like.

Forms of Equality

A spectre haunts the industrialized world—the spectre of egalitarianism. Demands to equalize the First and Third Worlds or to reduce needs to bring about social equality are articulated by movements and theories which keep “social equality” on the agenda. But, as we will try to show, a consistently implemented egalitarianism is a myth. All attempts to realize it as a general principle of social organization in a context of even minimal industrialization lead to a decline of wealth. Yet, recurring egalitarian tendencies constitute an indispensable social monitoring system. They always point to concrete inequalities that threaten to become permanent and therefore must be opposed.

Notes on Lukacs' Ontology

I. When we decided to publish the commentaries written for our friend and teacher Georg Lukács after reading the last version of his book, On the Ontology of Social Reality, and we reread our “Notes on Lukács Ontology,” it became immediately clear that for various reasons, we would have to write a collective introduction to the text. First—not necessarily in order of importance—to provide a few sketchy comments concerning the works genesis, which is frequently discussed but scarcely known in its entirety. At the end of 1961 or the beginning of 1962, i.e., soon after the German manuscript of Volume I of the enormous book, Die Eigenart der Aesthetischen, was finished, Georg Lukács began a project he had cherished in his young years—his ethics.

Hermeneutic As Europe's Mainstream Political Tradition

The nunc stans of today’s Europeans is the feeling that the &dquo;European project&dquo; or tradition has increasingly become problematic. At the same time, it is gradually dawning upon us that hermeneutic, which for a long time transpired as an innocent Romantic innovation within the sanctuary of the Academia, has been an inherent and permanent constituent of the European project. We now begin to see that it has not just been

The Antinomies of Peace

The new peace movements present a number of dilemmas. On the one hand, there are some accumulated experience and principles which can still serve as standards to criticize not the illusions but the (often-deliberate) self-delusions of peace movements. On the other hand, these movements have obviously raised a number of questions which had not been part of Left theoretical discourse and political strategy, and which have to be confronted in order to formulate new answers. Normally, movements do not take off with rational argumentation, but rather, with gesture They start with protest, disobedience, rebellion. They express and indicate needs and desires rather than interpret them.