THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER: In Strange Communion with Leszek KolakowskiMichnik, Adam
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-086
This memorial to Leszek Ko akowski by perhaps his most famous student—a cofounder of the Solidarity movement—treats Ko akowski's life story only in passing. Not a conventional eulogy, the essay runs extensively through several of the arguments Ko akowski made over the years that taught the Polish "Generation of `68" how best to undo oppression and why they should do so. Emphasis falls on the difficulty, unpredictability, and unclassifiable features of Ko akowski's writings—features that, paradoxically, did not stand in the way of his becoming not only the "prince of philosophers," but also the best known and even the most popular thinker in Poland of the half-century following World War II.
THE IDEA OF EUROPEGossman, Lionel
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-087
Even if its constituent members still define particular positions and pursue at times somewhat independent policies, the EU acts increasingly in important areas as the unified federal state many have long wanted it to be. It may have come into being in response to practical problems, and pragmatic considerations are likely to ensure its continued consolidation, but its most committed champions have also presented it as the realization of an idea, as a longstanding project finally fulfilled. What is the idea that a federal European state can claim to embody or represent or be animated by? How well do the various versions of the idea that have been articulated so far fit the current and emerging reality of the EU? Attention in the article focuses especially on the pan-European movement that emerged after the unprecedented destruction of World War I.
"Decorate the Dungeon": A Dialogue in Place of an IntroductionPerl, Jeffrey M.; Richmond, Colin; Sachedina, Abdulaziz; Arsic, Branka; Envoi, Anonymous
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-088
In the place of an introduction to part 5 of the Common Knowledge symposium on forms of quietism, the journal's editor and one of its longtime columnists discuss, in dialogue format, the case of Thomas More. Could he have evaded martyrdom at the hands of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell? One discussant argues that More could not have done so without contemptibly abandoning his principles and surrendering fully to despotism. The other discussant disagrees, suggesting that More had to abandon some of his principles one way or the other—in resisting despotism, however quietly, More did serious harm to his wife and daughter, to the European humanist movement, and to the cause of English Catholics.
PRUDENTIAL CONCEALMENT IN SHI`ITE ISLAM: A Strategy of Survival or a Principle?Sachedina, Abdulaziz
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-089
The paper undertakes to investigate the Sh ` practice of prudential concealment ( taq ya ) as a source of both quietism and political activism. The practice functioned as a strategy of survival for the Sh ` minority living under hostile Sunni regimes. Although Sunni ulema criticized the practice as dissimulation and, hence, morally wrong, ironically they too adopted the strategy when encountering autocratic and oppressive Sunni regimes that suffocated the right of the people to voice their demand for just treatment. The article demonstrates that the strategy created a specific sphere of existence for the Sh `ites, known as the "abode of prudential concealment," which incrementally allowed Muslim opposition to engage in underground activity for regime change and for a political transformation of the public order that accorded with Islamic ideals. In light of Muslim political theology providing doctrinal resources for Muslim societies to work toward the common good in the public sphere, this latter space functions as a means of critical evaluation of the existing autocratic governments in the Muslim world, prompting political action, however underground. The major conclusion of the paper is that although the practice was developed by the Sh ` minority living under intolerable political conditions, at different times under unbearable political conditions and the absence of democratic processes, it has provided Muslims a strategy to regroup and engage in political transformation.
MARY ROWLANDSON AND THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF PATIENT SUFFERINGArsic, Branka
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-090
This article is a contribution to the fifth part of the Common Knowledge symposium on forms of quietism. Responding to a sense that prior installments of the symposium had overlooked the phenomenology of quietism, of patient suffering, the essay details the daily life of Mary Rowlandson's captivity during King Philip's War in the 17th century and, in particular, her strategies for surviving the breakdown of every basic taxonomy that had until then structured her life in Puritan New England. Refusing either suicide or rebellion and thus reduced to maintaining "bare life," Rowlandson demonstrated by her resilience that quietist strategies can result in kinds of triumph.
QUIETISM NOW?Envoi, Anonymous
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-091
This essay explores the possibilities of quietism in our time. It begins by examining briefly versions of quietism, Eastern and Western, then turns to particular works of Rilke, Kafka, and Beckett to review exigent images of quietism, variously relevant to the modern condition. Subsequently, it touches on some contradictions of quietism and politics, which Zadie Smith also considers in her essay, "Speaking in Tongues." Finally, the essay dwells on David Malouf's novel, An Imaginary Life , as a fully achieved parable of quietism, applicable to all places and ages. Throughout, the essay argues for a new, kenotic simplicity, a quietism grounded not in transcendence but in pragmatic virtues of self-dispossession.
MORALITY OR MORALISM?: An Exercise in SensitizationHache, Emilie; Latour, Bruno
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-109
The field of "science studies" has often been suspected of dubious moral grounds because of its intensive concern with nonhumans; the accusation is made by those who use a roughly Kantian definition of what it is to occupy the moral high ground. By evaluating four contrasting texts (by Comte-Sponville, Kant, Serres, and Lovelock) in tandem, this article explores what an "objective morality" would look like, and it considers how to compare the Kantian axiology with the actor-network theory's possible definition of a thing-oriented morality. Especially important in this context is the moral intensity of a text, which this article defines semiotically in terms of the ability to feel responsible by responding to the "call" of more beings than the human beings so exclusively attended to in the moralist tradition.
THE CAT AND THE CAMEL: A Hesitant Response to "Morality or Moralism?"Mulhall, Stephen
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-110
This response to "Morality or Moralism?" by Émilie Hache and Bruno Latour, while accepting the plausibility and importance of their critique of moralism in the name of morality, identifies a number of questionable steps and assumptions in their development of it. Mulhall's response questions an ambiguity in their specifications of what morality and moralism are—an unexplained tendency on their part to occlude distinctively nonhuman animal life in favor of the inanimate when advocating a concern for the nonhuman, and what appears to be a misreading of Michel Serres.
HOW RELIABLE IS MORAL SENSITIVITY?Zamir, Tzachi
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-111
This response to "Morality or Moralism?" by Emilie Hache and Bruno Latour takes issue with their distinction between two kinds of morality. Hache and Latour see a difference between morality as sensitivity and morality as principled claims regarding moral considerability. They then argue for form-content contradiction/harmony between these purportedly opposing senses. In responding, Zamir argues that these operations can be construed as distinct kinds of sensitivity. Arguments that advocate bringing nonhuman animals into moral consideration can be abstract and general. But this does not mean that such arguments or those who make them are insensitive. Some kinds of sensitivity are attuned to general facts rather than to particulars. Hache and Latour thus err by reducing moral sensitivity to a response to particulars, which leads them to perceive form-content tensions where these do not exist. Zamir's response also argues against a tendency in posthumanist animal ethics—a tendency shared by Hache and Latour's article—to refuse descending to discuss the actual practical questions regarding animals that Anglo-American animal ethics explores. Zamir examines (and rejects) some possible posthumanist arguments that might support remaining philosophically uninvolved in these discussions.
ALICE--MUTTON: MUTTON--ALICETamen, Miguel
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-112
Tamen's essay is one of a group of responses to Émilie Hache and Bruno Latour's article "Morality or Moralism?" which advocates our "sensitization" to nonhuman things. Tamen examines the picture of universal reciprocation that Hache and Latour propose, according to which, when I "bow at" (acknowledge) things, some things bow back at me, and I must treat whatever bows back as if it were like me. Unlike James Lovelock, a passage from whose work they discuss, Hache and Latour understand this picture in a sense that is essentially "honorary." The picture or premise they propose sets up, they admit, "a promising misunderstanding." Tamen offers two arguments in response: one against as-if locutions and another against the very notion of setting up a misunderstanding. But it is good news, Tamen concludes, that sensitization cannot be set up. To what extent we would want a "revival of scruple" to succeed is a serious question, the answer dependent on how much scruple about which things and for what reasons. However pleasing the Hache/Latour or Lovelock picture, it is easy to imagine an intemperate degree of scruple, requiring agonies of continual debate and calculation of the minutest consequences of our acts and the most unlivable alternatives.
RESPONDING TO ANIMALSRowlands, Mark
2010 Common Knowledge
doi: 10.1215/0961754X-2009-113
Émilie Hache and Bruno Latour argue in their article "Morality or Moralism?" that contemporary moral treatments of animals exhibit a hard-won insensitivity, and a corresponding inability to respond, to the "call" of animals—to the moral claims that animals legitimately make on us. In responding, Rowlands commends aspects of this thesis but argues that Hache and Latour have improperly formulated it. Rather than being an inability to respond to the call of animals, contemporary moral treatments of the moral claims of animals exhibit a willingness to respond to their call in the only way that remains available, given the development of moral discourse during the last three hundred years. The willingness to respond to the call is admirable; but the restriction on moral discourse that makes this the only available form of moral response is, Rowlands suggests, both admirable and regrettable in almost equal measure.