Parasite politics

on the significance of symbiosis and assemblage in theorizing community formations

Joost van Loon

pp. 241-253

in: Chris Pierson, Simon Tormey (eds), Politics at the edge, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

What lies between the autonomy of the individual and what Nietzsche (1989, p. 242) referred to as "the mediocrity of the herd"? The community has often been suggested as a "third way" that balances out both extreme political forms. Developed against liberal pluralism and state socialism, this third way promotes a "communitarianism" of responsible citizens, who cooperate and interact in collective settings with their own forms of accountability and engagement that supplement those of the state (Etzioni, 1993). The community is seen as the breeding ground of ethics and situated morality. It is in terms of community that judgements become social and meaningful events (Rorty, 1992). It is in terms of the community that we can ethically engage politics by surrendering our individual needs and interests to those of the collective. The community allows the formation of traditions upon which we draw to interpret phenomena and events (Gadamer, 1990). The community grants us continuity with the past, a hermeneutic sensibility, a moral ground for judgement and a political form of engagement; but above all the community allows us to engage with the Other (Levinas, 1981).

Cited authors

Levinas Emmanuel

Nietzsche Friedrich

Gadamer Hans-Georg