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Synopsis
This work examines community as an idea that has dominated modern thought and traces its relation to concepts of experience, discourse and the individual. Contrary to popular Western notions of community, the author shows that it is neither a project of fusion nor production. Rather, he argues, community can be defined through the political nature of its resistance against immanent power.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This text by Jean-Luc Nancy is amongst his most important, not only because it patently sets the tone for what will follow in such works as 'Being Singular Plural' but also because it arguably marks his most original philosophical contribution. Nancy is attempting here to think the idea of community without essence and a politics divested of its interminable struggle to realize such an essence. An essentialist paradigm has undoubtedly cast a shadow over almost all attempts to think the nature of community and our `being-in-common', whether in terms of race and blood, the native soil and the nation, the human, the demos or even class. Rather than a quaint negotiation of the platitudes so often advocated by the guardians of the liberal consensus and the more recent valorization of identity politics, Nancy seeks to explode the static and reified categories propagated by the partisans of these (a)political filiations in order to conceive our interpersonal relations and interactions, our being-with, in an at times dazzling and innovative way. The less sympathetic reviewer calls `The Inoperative Community' nonsense and yet offers no reasons to substantiate such an ill-informed opinion. I grant that the text can at times be demanding and assumes that one is at the least vaguely familiar with the Western philosophical canon from Plato through to Derrida and the disparate issues raised by thinkers as varied as Kant, Hegel, Heidegger and Bataille. But even if one is not immersed in the issues of philosophical discussion and debate on a daily basis that should by no means dissuade the determined reader who will assuredly gain much from such an encounter. In fact much of the book is very lucidly written and intelligible so I am slightly bemused by the previous reviewer's lapidary remarks. Finally, the book incorporates a foreword by Christopher Fynsk which serves as a very helpful introduction to Nancy and the philosophical milieu from whence he came. A great text that should really be read with or alongside Agamben's `The Coming Community' and Blanchot's `The Unavowable Community'.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Contrary to the previous reviewer, this collection of essays is well worth reading. Of course one can disagree with points made here or there, but if you take the time to actually read the thing I don't see how one can leave the book without having experienced a huge degree of mental stimulation. Yes, it's written in a meandering style, but following the thoughts is the whole point. So--if you like thinking, that is--I say this book is of 4-star calliber!
1 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a heap of arrant nonsense.
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