الامل المتطرف الاخلاف في مواجهة الدمار الثقافي

by Jonathan Lear

Shortly before his death, Plenty Coups—the last great chief of the Crow Nation—told his story; yet, he told it only up to a certain point. He "When the buffalo went away, the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After that, nothing happened." This precise point—which tells the story of a people facing the demise of a way of life they had lived for centuries—is the subject of the philosophical and ethical inquiry presented in this book. Philosopher Jonathan Lear argues that Plenty Coups’s story raises a profound ethical question that transcends its specific time and challenges us How does one face the possibility of the collapse of one’s own culture? It is a vulnerability that can affect us all—for we are all inhabitants of a civilization, and civilizations themselves are susceptible to historical forces. How can we live with this vulnerability?

224 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2023

About the author

Jonathan Lear is an American philosopher and psychoanalyst. He is the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and served as the Roman Family Director of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society from 2014 to 2022.