This book addresses the current crisis of democratic politics and its phase of âinterregnumâ â in which the past finds it hard to die and the future finds it difficult to be born â by proposing a radical redefinition of the concept of the Political. Drawing on the thoughts of Antonio Gramsci and Walter Benjamin among others, it explores the meaning of the lemma auctoritas â the opposition between authority and power â and offers a comparison of the Frankfurt Schoolâs radical critique of power with Georges Batailleâs critique of political economy and consumerist productivism, demonstrating how the two ultimately converge. Based on an ontology of the present that is critical of âidentity obsessionâ and advances instead a universalism of difference, the author proposes a new understanding of politics founded not on âverticalâ domination but on a âhorizontalâ recomposition of subjectivities, allowing interaction and acting-in-common between different forms of life. This book will therefore appeal to scholars of social and political theory.
nl
en