In The Book of Politics, Michael Dutton offers an affective theorization of the political and a political theorization of affect. Drawing on Western and Chinese social theory and practice, Dutton rethinks Carl Schmitt’s insistence that the political can be thought of only within the antagonistic pairing of friend and enemy. Dutton shows how the power of the friend/enemy binary must be understood by conceptualizing the political as the channeling, harnessing, and transforming of affective energy flows in relation to that binary. Given this affective nature of politics, Dutton contends that to rethink the political means moving away from a political science toward an art of the political. Such an art highlights fluidity and pulls away from Eurocentric political theory, requiring a conceptualization of the political as global. He juxtaposes ancient Chinese cosmology, medicine, and Maoism against the monuments of early capitalist modernity such as the Crystal Palace and the Eiffel Tower to highlight the differences in political investments and intensities. From the Chinese revolution to the global rise of right-wing movements, Dutton rethinks politics in the contemporary world.
- Cover
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Context
- Part 1. Beginnings
- 1. Almost Aphoristic
- 2. Numismatics
- 3. Callings
- Part 2. Contagions
- 4. 911
- 5. Heroics?
- 6. Monumental Hiccup in Göttingen: From Living Dangerously to a Barer Life
- Part 3. Reconstructions
- 7. Channeling Intensity: A Design Process
- 8. Anren: Friend and Enemy in Peace and Benevolence?
- 9. From Hiccup to Habit: From Cultural Revolution to Culture Industry
- Part 4. Becoming Modern
- 10. From the Crystal Palace to the Eiffel Tower
- 11. Eiffel Tower–Ante: The Ferris Wheel
- 12. Eiffel Tower–Anti: Tatlin’s Tower
- Part 5. Becoming Political
- 13. Becoming Maoist
- 14. Becoming Maoist II: Language, Economy, Security
- Part 6. Strokes, Not Words
- 15. Calligraphy
- 16. Spilling Off the Page
- Afterwords
- Glossary A: Terms and Concepts
- Glossary B: Chinese Terms, Names, Titles, Words, and Phrases
- Bibliography
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Y
- Z
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