In the shadow of Mount Sinai : a footnote on the origins and changing forms of total membership / Peter Sloterdijk ; translated by Wieland Hoban.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sloterdijk, Peter, 1947- author.

Standardized Title:

Im Schatten des Sinai. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Religious fundamentalism--Political aspects.

Religious fundamentalism.

Religious fundamentalism--Social aspects.

Anger--Religious aspects.

Anger.

Philosophical anthropology.

Social aspects.

Physical Description:

v, 71 pages ; 20 cm

Edition:

English edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, [2016]

Language Note:

Translated from the German.

Summary:

In this short book, Peter Sloterdijk clarifies his views or its role in pre-modern and modern societies. He begins by returning to the Mount Sinai episode in the Book of Exodus. At the core of monotheism is the logic of belonging to a community of confession, of being a true believer-this is what Sloterdijk calls the 'Sinai Schema'. To be a member of a people means that you submit to the beliefs of the community just as you submit to its language. Monotheism is predicated on the logic of one God who demands your utmost loyalty. Hence at the core of monotheism is also the fear of apotheosis, of heresy, of heterodoxy. So monotheism is associate first and foremost with a certain kind of internal violence - namely, a violence against those who violate their membership through a break in loyalty and trust. On the basis of this analysis of the inner logic of monotheism, Sloterdijk retraces its historical legacy and shows how this account enables us to understand Why we react so nervously today to all forms of fundamentalism - whether that of radical Islamists, the Catholic Pius Brotherhood or evangelical sects in the USA. Book jacket.

Contents:

Narrowing the battle zone

On the Genesis of peoples in general

The Sinai schema : integral swearing-in

Phobocracy : on the proliferation of the principle of total membership

Metamorphoses of membership.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780745699233

0745699235

9780745699240

0745699243

OCLC:

931813642