Showing papers in "Telos in 1978"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present La Volonté de Savoir, the methodological introduction of a projected five-volume history of sexuality, which seems to have a special fascination for Foucault: the gradual emergence of medicine as an institution, the birth of political economy, demography and linguistics as human sciences, the invention of incarceration and confinement for the control of the "other" in society (the mad, the libertine, the criminal) and that special violence that lurks beneath the power to control discourse.
Abstract: This writer who has warned us of the “ideological” function of both the oeuvre and the author as unquestioned forms of discursive organization has gone quite far in constituting for both these “fictitious unities” the name (with all the problems of such a designation) Michel Foucault. One text under review, La Volonté de Savoir, is the methodological introduction of a projected five-volume history of sexuality. It will apparently circle back over that material which seems to have a special fascination for Foucault: the gradual emergence of medicine as an institution, the birth of political economy, demography and linguistics as “human sciences,” the invention of incarceration and confinement for the control of the “other” in society (the mad, the libertine, the criminal) and that special violence that lurks beneath the power to control discourse.
15,794 citations
TL;DR: In the administrative view, the task of which, looking down from on high, is to assemble, distribute, evaluate and organize, culture itself is scarcely older than Kant and its beloved adversary, civilization did not establish itself until the nineteenth century; it was then elevated to the level of a slogan by Spengler.
Abstract: Whoever speaks of culture speaks about administration as well, whether this is his intention or not. The combination of so many things lacking a common denominator—such as philosophy and religion, science and art, forms of conduct and mores—and Finally the inclusion of the objective spirit of an age in the single word “culture” betrays from the outset the administrative view, the task of which, looking down from on high, is to assemble, distribute, evaluate and organize. The word culture itself, in its specific use, is scarcely older than Kant and its beloved adversary, civilization, did not establish itself—at least in Germany—until the nineteenth century; it was then elevated to the level of a slogan by Spengler.
95 citations
TL;DR: The role of music in the social process is exclusively that of a commodity; its value is that determined by the market as mentioned in this paper, and music no longer serves direct needs nor benefits from direct application, but rather adjusts to the pressures of the exchange of abstract units.
Abstract: No matter where music is heard today, it sketches in the clearest possible lines the contradictions and flaws which cut through present-day society; at the same time, music is separated from this same society by the deepest of all flaws produced by this society itself. And yet, society is unable to absorb more of this music than its ruins and external remains. The role of music in the social process is exclusively that of a commodity; its value is that determined by the market. Music no longer serves direct needs nor benefits from direct application, but rather adjusts to the pressures of the exchange of abstract units.
58 citations
TL;DR: The Making of the English Working Class (1963) as mentioned in this paper is a ground-breaking study that continues to generate exciting insights and argues with the dominant tendency of New Left Review, which, under the leadership of Tom Nairn and Perry Anderson, was looking for (and unfortunately, often finding) truly revolutionary traditions and critiques outside of Britain, which was contemptuously dismissed as lacking in any radical traditions worthy of the name.
Abstract: Thompson wrote the 1955 version of William Morris as a member of the communist Party. Shortly thereafter he left the party, was instrumental in forming the New Left Review, and began to write about British history in extremely interesting ways. The Making of the English Working Class (1963), despite its problems, is a ground-breaking study that continues to generate exciting insights. In the mid-1960s, Thompson argued with the dominant tendency of New Left Review, which, under the leadership of Tom Nairn and Perry Anderson, was looking for (and, unfortunately, often finding) truly revolutionary traditions and critiques outside of Britain, which was contemptuously dismissed as lacking in any radical traditions worthy of the name.
48 citations
TL;DR: When the one-dimensionality thesis was fully enunciated in the early 1960s, it was already historically obsolete, not because of the student activism and anti-war militancy that exploded in the following years, but because it described a phase of capitalist development already in the process of being superseded.
Abstract: When the one-dimensionality thesis was fully enunciated in the early 1960s, it was already historically obsolete, not because of the student activism and anti-war militancy that exploded in the following years, but because it described a phase of capitalist development already in the process of being superseded. Furthermore, the critical theory that had formulated such a thesis from 1940 on, turned out to be structurally unable to anticipate and explain the new social process. This failure was the result of key theoretical commitments made in the 1930s to explain those social developments which orthodox Marxism seemed unable to grasp, while retaining unchanged most fundamental Marxist assumptions.
44 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a survey of alternative approaches in political and social theory is presented, focusing mainly on the work of Alfred Schutz and barely beginning to approach the subject of modeling.
Abstract: How one evaluates Richard Bernstein's study of recent alternative approaches in political and social theory depends in part on the expectations one brings to it. It is easy to find fault with the book. Simply in terms of content, Bernstein has perhaps underestimated the literacy of his potential audience. His discussion of mainstream empirical approaches, even though it is far more even-handed than is usually the case, scarcely seems aware that in some quarters—such as those theoreticians engaged in simulation or modeling approaches—the hypothetico-deductive model has had its day. His survey of the “phenomenological alternative” is concerned primarily with Alfred Schutz and barely begins to approach the subject.
34 citations
TL;DR: Norbert Elias as discussed by the authors was the first recipient of the Adorno Prize, which was given in 1977, on the occasion of his 80th birthday. He had known Adorno in the early 1930s, when both were young professors at Frankfurt's Johann-Wolfgang Goethe-Universität.
Abstract: Norbert Elias received the first “Adorno Prize,” awarded in Frankfurt in 1977, on the occasion of his 80th birthday. He had known Adorno in the early 1930s, when both were young professors at Frankfurt's Johann-Wolfgang Goethe-Universität. Adorno was in the philosophy faculty, teaching Walter Benjamin's Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels. Elias was Karl Mannheim's “junior partner” in sociology, and had his office in the same building as the Institut für Sozialforschung, the director of which Adorno's close friend Max Horkheimer became in 1931. Elias recalled meeting Adorno “occasionally,” but hearing “indirectly much…and he perhaps also about me” through the intellectual grapevine of the university and the city cafes.
30 citations
TL;DR: Tar as mentioned in this paper argued that the Critical Theory or Theory of Society is neither Marxism nor sociology, but rather an existential philosophy, and that the Frankfurt School represents "a Marxist orientation in sociology" (p. 2).
Abstract: Tar's thesis is simple: the “Critical Theory” or “Theory of Society” is neither Marxism nor sociology but rather an existential philosophy. With it he hopes to enlighten all those who have been duped into believing that the Frankfurt School represents “a Marxist orientation in sociology” (p. 2). Tar wishes to exercise this spectre of a radical sociology that he sees as haunting sociology. The book is, therefore, explicitly political in its value-committment to a “scientific sociology” that is compatible with establishment thinking; it sees radicalism and radical sociologies as merely infantile disorders of those headed for an establishment maturity (pp. 4, 12).
25 citations
TL;DR: The attempt to discuss Husserl's pure phenomenology in a dialectical spirit is particularly open to a suspicion of arbitrariness as mentioned in this paper, since the dialectic, as conceived by Hegel and subsequently turned against him, is qualitatively different from the positive philosophies among which Hegel, as a system maker, is included.
Abstract: The attempt to discuss Husserl's pure phenomenology in a dialectical spirit is particularly open to a suspicion of arbitrariness. Husserl's program aims at an “ontic sphere of absolute origins,” fully in view of that “organized spirit of contradiction” (organisierten Widerspruchsgeist), which Hegel once characterized as his procedure in a conversation with Goethe. The dialectic, as conceived by Hegel and subsequently turned against him, despite any similarities, is qualitatively different from the positive philosophies among which Hegel, as a system maker, is included. Even if Hegelian logic, like Kantian logic, may be “tied” to a transcendental subject, even if it may be an absolute idealism, it nevertheless points beyond itself as, according to Goethe's dialectical dictum, everything absolute (alles Vollkommene) does.
23 citations
TL;DR: The transition to full monopoly capitalism in the United States during the Great Depression is now complete as mentioned in this paper, and the one-dimensional logic of the transition emerged full-blown only with the advent of the New Deal.
Abstract: The thesis of “artificial negativity,” as it has been tenatively outlined so far, asserts that the transition to full monopoly capitalism—that began seriously in the United States during the Great Depression—is now complete. After being briefly tested by the Progressives as they coped with the final crises of entrepreneurial capitalism after the 1890s, the one-dimensional logic of the transition emerged full-blown only with the advent of the New Deal. At this historical juncture, monopoly capital sought “to organize the entire society in its interest and image,” through new business marketing strategies and governmental regulations. Thus, the forms of labor, education, entertainment, health care, housing, leisure, transportation, and social welfare were increasingly “rationalized.”
23 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors see the structure of East European societies as a system of dictatorships over needs, and see them as anti-capitalist formations, which represent a response and challenge to capitalism and cannot be described in terms of present capitalist societies and, as such, can be regarded as socialist experiments.
Abstract: To understand the structure of East European societies as systems of dictatorships over needs, it is important to see them as anti-capitalist formations. They are the result of anti-capitalist revolutions or of the military-political expansion of once victorious revolutions, and they represent a response and challenge to capitalism. Thus, they cannot be described in terms of present capitalist societies and, as such, they can be regarded as socialist experiments. Analyses such as the Trotskyist mythology of a “Thermidor,” concerning the advent of a new bourgeoisie, would only confuse the issues and prevent an understanding of the new type of alienation these societies have generated.
TL;DR: Doing Good as mentioned in this paper is the result of a unique symposium-like collaboration between social policy experts and humanists, which brought to the concern with policy something that it has sadly lacked: literary elegance.
Abstract: This is a timely, relevant and a remarkably well-written book. That is as it should be. Billed as the result of a unique symposium-like collaboration between social policy experts and humanists. Doing Good certainly must have satisfied its sponsor, the New York Council for the Humanities, by bringing to the concern with policy something that it has sadly lacked: literary elegance. This is no small matter. A virtual revolution could be wrought in the social sciences if their practitioners could learn to pose problems in much the following manner: “…we recognized that a claim once considered to be of the most virtuous sort, the claim to be acting benevolently, had now become—to understate the point—suspect; if the last refuge of the scoundrel was once patriotism, it now apeared to be the activity of ‘doing good’ for others, acting in the best interests of someone else….
TL;DR: Kula's An Economic Theory of the Feudal System analyzes the non-monetarized natural economy of precapitalist Poland and Vilar's A History of Gold and Money 1450-1920 discusses the role of precious metals and money in the developing market relations of nascent European capitalism as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Kula's An Economic Theory of the Feudal System analyzes the non-monetarized natural economy of precapitalist Poland. On the other hand, Vilar's A History of Gold and Money 1450-1920 discusses the role of precious metals and money in the developing market relations of nascent European capitalism. Despite the obvious differences in subject matter, the works are complementary. They both address the issues of economic rationalization and “development,” and reflect the mutual influences of Marxism (although less in the case of Vilar) and the Annales school of economic and social history—so much so that they must be discussed in reference to it in order to be understood properly.
TL;DR: An unemployed black man entered a Rolls Royce showroom, chose the automobile he desired, and handed the salesman his life savings of two hundred dollars, when refused the keys, the man became vociferous and demanding as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: An unemployed black man entered a Rolls Royce showroom, chose the automobile he desired, and handed the salesman his life savings of two hundred dollars. “I want that one.” When refused the keys, the man became vociferous and demanding. The police were called. He was taken to a nearby hospital and diagnosed as schizophrenic. This man assumed that he deserved a Rolls Royce as much as anyone else, and protested loudly when denied what he felt he deserved. In other words, his “madness\" resided in his unwillingness to accept the assumptions underlying the distribution of privileges and possessions in this society.
TL;DR: For example, this article pointed out that three times more labor is squeezed out of the worker in the same nine to ten hour workday; all the worker's strength is unmercifully roused, every bit of nervous and muscle energy is drained from the slave laborer at three times the speed; and advances in technology and science in capitalist society are but advances in the art of extortion of sweat.
Abstract: Prior to the October Revolution, the socialist parties of Europe opposed Taylorism as the most modern and ruthless form of capitalist exploitation. In 1913 and 1914, Lenin devoted two articles to this “scientific method of extortion of sweat,” which carried the “enslavement of humankind to the machine” to an extreme. “As a result of this method three times more labor is squeezed out of the worker in the same nine to ten hour workday; all the worker's strength is unmercifully roused, everybit of nervous and muscle energy is drained from the slave laborer at three times the speed…. Advances in the spheres of technology and science in capitalist society are but advances in the art of extortion of sweat.”
TL;DR: Dickstein this article tries to write a history of the culture of the sixties that will win back the trust of his intellectual fathers, using their revered concept, modernism, to elevate the literature and, by the way of loose association, the ''frustrated, Edenic impulse'' and the ''magic politics'' up to the level of academic texts.
Abstract: Now that the 1960s are over by all accounts, one does not have to defend or deny the past: political stagnation mitigates the need for and makes absurd an heroic history of the sixties. Still, an apologist history remains unwarranted. Disguised apology is the difficulty with Gates of Eden. Dickstein tries to write a history of the culture of the sixties that will win back the trust of his intellectual fathers. These men, the so-called New York Intellectuals, had disparaged the times. Dickstein uses their revered concept, modernism, to elevate the literature and, by the way of loose association, the \"frustrated, Edenic impulse” and the “magic politics” of the sixties up to the level of academic texts.
TL;DR: The anti-festschrift was compiled for Herbert's 70th birthday nine years ago, with his supporters and critics as discussed by the authors, in a much more political context than the one today.
Abstract: HABERMAS: Herbert, for your 70th birthday nine years ago, we compiled a small anti-Festschrift, with your supporters and your critics. That was in a much more political context than the one today. For that reason there were also sharp tones as in every political debate. I think, in general, that today's context is regrettable in comparison with the one back then. But for the purpose of our conversation it's not all that unpleasant: we can relax in the summer weather, take a step back, and… MARCUSE: I'd like to protest there. HABERMAS: Good, good. MARCUSE: I think we shouldn't talk ourselves into thinking we can ignore politics today or put politics on ice until we're in the mood again or happen to find time for a political discussion.
TL;DR: In an essay published a few years ago, I presented a few considerations on the much bemoaned non-existence or inadequacy of a Marxist political science, understood as the "lack of a theory of the socialist state or socialist democracy as an alternative to the theory, or theories, of the bourgeois state and bourgeois democracy" as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In an essay published a few years ago, I presented a few considerations on the much bemoaned non-existence or inadequacy of a Marxist political science, understood as the “lack of a theory of the socialist state or socialist democracy as an alternative to the theory, or theories, of the bourgeois state and bourgeois democracy.” Apparently, things have not changed much if recently Colletti must decry “the weakness and the sparse development of political theory in Marxism” and conclude that “Marxism lacks a true political theory.” In my initial essay I presented two arguments which were meant to explain the underdevelopment of Marxist political theory: 1) since the theorists of socialism have been so concerned with the problem of gaining power, they have tended to emphasize the role of the party rather than that of the state; and 2) since these theorists also believe that, once power has been attained, the state will become a “transitional entity,” i.e., it would sooner or later disappear, it follows that the form of government particularly appropriate for its transitory nature would be a dictatorship (i.e., an extraordinary government for extraordinary times and events).
TL;DR: To present the Russian regime as "socialist" or as a "workers' state, as do both the "left" and the "right" in an almost universal complicity, or even to discuss its nature in reference to socialism to determine at what points and to what degree it deviates from it, represents one of the most horrendous enterprises of mystification known in history.
Abstract: 1. That Russian society is a divided one, subject to the domination of a particular social group, and with widespread exploitation and oppression, is directly evidenced by the most elementary and best known facts. To present the Russian regime as “socialist” or as a “workers' state,” as do both the “left” and the “right” in an almost universal complicity, or even to discuss its nature in reference to socialism to determine at what points and to what degree it deviates from it, represents one of the most horrendous enterprises of mystification known in history. The persistent success of this enterprise obviously poses a crucial question concerning the function and importance of ideology in the contemporary world.
TL;DR: However, good solutions are rare for those who do not want to give up any of the fundamental institutions that distinguish a democratic state from those that are not as mentioned in this paper, explaining why the temptation to take shortcuts sometimes becomes irresistable.
Abstract: The problems of politics—understood as the total organization of a complex society—have become more and more complicated. Consequently, satisfactory solutions have become rarer, explaining why the temptation to take shortcuts sometimes becomes irresistable. Clearly, good solutions are rare for those who do not want to give up any of the fundamental institutions that distinguish a democratic state from those that are not. However much it is reiterated that “democracy” is a term with many meanings (like all other terms in the language of politics), which one can interpret in his own fashion, it does have one predominant meaning—a meaning fully accepted by all those who invoke democracy and who are concerned with realizing socialism through it so that, once realized, socialism governs democratically.
TL;DR: Heller as mentioned in this paper clarified the importance of the year 1956 for the formation of the Solidarity movement in Eastern Europe and for the creation of the European Socialists, emphasizing that it was both the end and the beginning of something.
Abstract: Question: 1956 was a year of drastic change in the history of socialist countries, and for you and other people around Lukacs, it was a decisive year. You participated in a conference on freedom at the beginning of 1956. Block had organized it and Kolakowski read a paper. The conference had a clear political impact and provided an excellent opportunity to meet the young generation educated in countries of “realized socialism.” In reference to this and other events of that year, would you clarify the importance of 1956 for your formation and, in general, for Eastern European countries? Heller: 1956 was both the end and the beginning of something.
TL;DR: In Kafka's Trial, K. succeeds in proving to the Priest that the Doorkeeper who keeps the man from approaching the Law is no more than a simpleton as mentioned in this paper. But the Priest, however, objects.
Abstract: In Kafka's Trial, K. succeeds in proving to the Priest that the Doorkeeper who keeps the man from approaching the Law is no more than a simpleton. The Priest, however, objects. No one has the right to pass judgment on the Doorkeeper, for he serves the Law; to doubt his dignity is to doubt the Law itself. K. fights back: “I don't agree with that point of view…for if one accepts it, one must accept as true everything the Doorkeeper says. But you yourself have sufficiently proved how impossible it is to do that.” “No,” said the Priest, “it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.”
TL;DR: The failure of classical Marxist social theory is nowhere more clearly demonstrated than in the face of the bureaucratic centralist societies that use Marxism as their science of legitimation as discussed by the authors, and the project of critical social theory demands the immanent critique of all Marxist and neo-Marxist attempts to theorize this new social formation, but this is as yet an unfulfilled task.
Abstract: The failure of classical Marxist social theory is nowhere more clearly demonstrated than in the face of the bureaucratic centralist societies that use Marxism as their “science” of legitimation. The project of a critical social theory demands the immanent critique of all Marxist and neo-Marxist attempts to theorize this new social formation, but this is as yet an unfulfilled task. For now, only some hypotheses are possible regarding the failure of the whole set of approaches, and these are best organized around five fundamental components of the classical theory. 1. The concept of critique. A genuine immanent critique of Soviet Marxism, attempted most notably by Marcuse had to fail according to the basic premises of critical theory itself.
TL;DR: Breuer's point of departure is Foucault's observation (following Nietzsche) that Man is a recent invention as discussed by the authors, and the merit of Breuer's book lies primarily in his locating Revolutionstheorie within the problematic of the search for the True Subject.
Abstract: The merit of Breuer's book lies primarily in his locating Revolutionstheorie within the problematic of the search for the True Subject. Breuer's point of departure is Foucault's observation (following Nietzsche) that Man is a recent invention. Rather than assume humanity as the subject of a humanist history, we have to consider that “History might not be the history of a lost and regained origin as the ‘transcendental Narcissism’ of Western thought would have it; it may be without a center, without a goal, determined by systems, relations and combinations that unfold without being based on the functions of an original subject, and that further refuse all attempts at totalization.”
TL;DR: In this paper, it is shown that what now appears as an inadequacy is only present as the after effect of a significant shift in social integration and structure that has seen the collapse of radical working class politics and purely politicaleconomic critiques of late capitalism.
Abstract: There is no doubt that the arena of political action can no longer be held within the limits of the direct activity of labor. It is also obvious that no matter how many nuances there are in Marx's conception of a mode of production, his analysis is, in the final moment, centered around the assumption that an effective political struggle emerges only at the point of production. It would be the height of scholasticism to take this point of Marx's account as another lacuna to be neatly filled in since it is an historical rather than purely theoretical issue. The point is that what now appears as an inadequacy is only present as the after effect of a significant shift in social integration and structure that has seen the collapse of radical working class politics and purely political-economic critiques of late capitalism.
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that despite the difficulty of condensing his thought into debatable propositions, Nietzsche at least gestures toward a set of problems that raise serious doubts about Marx's original theory.
Abstract: Max Weber once wrote that “one can measure the honesty of a contemporary scholar, and above all, of a contemporary philosopher, in his posture toward Nietzsche and Marx.” At the risk of belaboring the obvious, I would like to use Weber's comment as an excuse for reassessing Nietzsche's implications for Marxism—for, despite the difficulty of condensing his thought into debatable propositions, Nietzsche at least gestures toward a set of problems that raise serious doubts about Marx's original theory. In raising such doubts in the present context, it is not my intention to renounce Marxism as “obsolete”—as if important ideas, like automobiles, enjoy a limited life span—nor is it my intention, on the other hand, to remedy any deficiencies of Marxism with the aid of “existentialism”—as if important ideas, like antique autos on the blink, ought to be patched up with spare parts and kept running, for how much longer and where nobody knows.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors try to put forward hypotheses or semi-causal explanations which may cast some light on at least one of these prior problems, namely the discrepancy between the last few pages of the Tractatus and all that has gone before.
Abstract: Two discrepancies haunt the philosophy of Wittgenstein. One is that between the last few pages of the Tractatus and all that has gone before. The other is the rather strange stylistic diversity between the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations. I shall try in this paper to put forward hypotheses or semi-causal explanations which may cast some light on at least one of these prior problems. To those who believe that philosophical changes are exclusively the product of logical considerations my ruminations will be both uninteresting and irrelevant. But to those who are more sympathetic to considerations of time and circumstance, who believe in an intimate relationship between the form and content of philosophy and the conditions of philosophizing, who find neither biography nor social milieu unimportant for an understanding of philosophical “meaning,” there may be something here which if not demonstrably true, may yet be moderately suggestive and worthy of attention.
TL;DR: There is a hidden history of industrial capitalism that has two related parts: one is how pre-capitalist traditions, non-rational forms of culture, play, fantasy, and imagination provided sources of resistance to exchange and formal rationality.
Abstract: There is a hidden history of industrial capitalism. It has two related parts. One is how pre-capitalist traditions, non-rational forms of culture, play, fantasy, and imagination provided sources of resistance to exchange and formal rationality. The other involves the systematic repression and elimination of these traditions and cultures. Over the past century or so, the assimilation of people with non-industrial traditions into an individualized labor market, harsh and alienating labor, the separation of work and leisure, and a reified world of quantified values and ideas, was beset with suffering, anguish, pain, and conflict. Not merely the contradictions or anarchy of the competitive market.
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TL;DR: The failure of socialism, particularly its Marxian variety, to provide a revolutionary alternative has been followed by a highly abstract form of socialist theory that stands sharply at odds with a practical revolutionary project.
Abstract: The failure of socialism, particularly its Marxian variety, to provide a revolutionary alternative has been followed by a highly abstract form of socialist theory that stands sharply at odds with a practical revolutionary project. Its retreat from the factory to the academy—an astonishing phenomenon that cannot be justified by viewing “knowledge” as a technical force in society—has denied socialism the right to a decent burial by perpetuating it as a professional ideology. To the extent that the academy itself has become increasingly disengaged from society, it has used socialist theory to indulge its worst habits. The remains of a once-insurgent movement have provided the intellectual nutrients for conceptual frameworks utterly alien to it—a level of discourse, a range of perceptions, a terminology, and a body of pretensions that mutually reinforce the reduction of ideology to socialism and of socialism to ideology.
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TL;DR: The burden on intellectuals to define and account for their social role as well as their philosophical and historical position has never been so painfully borne as in the modern age as discussed by the authors, where Europe saw its writers, artists and academics struggle to integrate their work, specifically the critique of a capitalist social order and its positivist ideology.
Abstract: The burden on intellectuals to define and account for their social role as well as their philosophical and historical position has never been so painfully borne as in the modern age. From the First World War to the advent of the Second, Europe saw its writers, artists and academics struggle to integrate their work, specifically the critique of a capitalist social order and its positivist ideology, and their own personal involvement in that society. The inter-war decades were ones of experimentation and disappointment, the result of a quest for many gods, all inevitably destined to fail. In discussing one intellectual's journey to God, a search which pervaded every aspect of Simone Weil's work and life, we gain insight into the intellectual trap of absolutism to which this generation was particularly prone.