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Przewrotny realizm polityczny Machiavellego

100%

Piekarski R.

Pieniądze i Więź

2012

vol. 15

issue 2(55)

19-35

The subject of this article is political realism and misanthropic image of a man created by Machiavelli. Without denying the relevance of many observations of the famous Florentine, I put here resistance to the widespread interpretations of his thoughts, interpretations, which usually serve as a convenient (though, in my opinion, questionable) justification of violence, rape and fraud, especially in politics. In most academic and popular interpretation of Machiavelli's thought, we find variations of Machiavellianism that pretends to be a realistic description and the supposedly scientific or common-sense attitude. Meanwhile, in my opinion, Machiavelli not only describes the success of cynical tricks, but, what is more, provides immoral advice, encourages the circumvention, and even violation of the norms and principles, not only in case of an emergency, but almost without limits. The world in which we live is not a paradise, and other people often have little in common with the angels. But whether this can be concluded, as Machiavelli and his followers do, that most people are hostile and alien to us, and lurk for our property? When we look at our politicians, big business people, it may seem tempting to notion that Machiavelli is right. However, in this paper I try to show that this vision of the human world is too misanthropic, and also that in the world of politics there is a place for fair competition and a genuine desire for the common good.

Bajki dla dialektyków. Kafka i Benjamin między mitem a wyzwoleniem.

41%

Nikodem J.

Nowa Krytyka

2016

issue 37

209-226

In this paper my goal is to examine and re-read these places in works of Kafka, in which Walter Benjamin finds hope and utopian promise of emancipation. I try to determine whether those places can possibly be able to provide individual or universal emancipation; whether they are just false promises or simply ineffective personal tactics – or, on the contrary, they can be comprehended as conditions of possibility for revolutionary politics of the oppressed. In order to do this I supplement Benjamin’s discourse with concepts and ideas of Adorno, Horkheimer and Brecht. My conclusion is that Benjamin’s reading of Kafka is too optimistic in finding hope and fight against oppression in such works as The Trial, The Castle, The America, and in short stories like The Silence of the Sirens or The Great Wall of China. Benjamin finds the source of hope and victory over the mythical fate in solely humane attributes of cunning and audacity, represented – according to him – in protagonists of fairy-tales (Benjamin describes Kafka’s stories as ‘fairy tales for dialecticians’). But he undervalues power of fate, which lies in its own cunning, not only in its physical strength. If we comprehend mythical fate in much more dialectical way – as our capitalist, alienating modernity – we can find that its powers lie in its own conatus, self-preservation aimed to conserve the reality of oppression. In this sense Kafka’s work – if we read it as a diagnose of modernity and some kind of prophecy of a near future – evinces a dual cunning, which mechanism is as follows: the more a protagonist tries to outsmart the system, the more the system outsmarts him and thereby enslaves him.

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1 Nowa Krytyka

1 Pieniądze i Więź

1 Nikodem J.

1 Piekarski R.

1 2016

1 2012

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Przewrotny realizm polityczny Machiavellego

Bajki dla dialektyków. Kafka i Benjamin między mitem a wyzwoleniem.