Book Section
Alex Demirović
The Historicity of Materialism and the Critique of Politics
This chapter proposes one definition of critical materialism and a critique of politics based on several authors from Marx to Foucault. This critique occurs in several stages and unfolds as a criticism of universals such as human freedom, general interest, political rationality, or reconciled political community. The decisive materialist-historical question, then, is which of the different materialities is dominant at a certain point of time. I argue that Marx condemns politics as an illusion. He thought of ‘political reason’ as a form of ‘spiritualism’. Hence, critical materialism argues for a move away from the illusion of politics.
Title |
The Historicity of Materialism and the Critique of Politics
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Author(s) |
Alex Demirović
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Identifier | |
Description |
This chapter proposes one definition of critical materialism and a critique of politics based on several authors from Marx to Foucault. This critique occurs in several stages and unfolds as a criticism of universals such as human freedom, general interest, political rationality, or reconciled political community. The decisive materialist-historical question, then, is which of the different materialities is dominant at a certain point of time. I argue that Marx condemns politics as an illusion. He thought of ‘political reason’ as a form of ‘spiritualism’. Hence, critical materialism argues for a move away from the illusion of politics.
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Is Part Of | |
Place |
Berlin
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Publisher |
ICI Berlin Press
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Date |
March 2, 2021
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Subject |
historical materialism
historical block
material practices
political illusion
materialism (philosophy)
critical materialism
political science
Foucault, Michel
Althusser, Louis
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Rights |
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Harvested |
yes
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Language |
en-GB
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short title |
Historicity and Critique
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page start |
313
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page end |
326
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Source |
Materialism and Politics, ed. by Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, and Ayşe Yuva, Cultural Inquiry, 20 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021), pp. 313–26
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