Living with hate in American politics and religion : how popular culture can defuse intractable differences / Jeffrey Israel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Israel, Jeffrey, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion and politics--United States.

Religion and politics.

Emotions--Political aspects.

Emotions.

United States.

Popular culture--United States.

Popular culture.

Political psychology.

Political science--Philosophy.

Political science.

Physical Description:

xxv, 363 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, 2019.

Summary:

In the United States, people are deeply divided along lines of race, class, political party, gender, sexuality, and religion. Many believe that historical grievances must eventually be left behind in the interest of progress toward a more just and unified society. But too much in American history is unforgivable and cannot be forgotten. How then can we imagine a way to live together that does not expect people to let go of their entrenched resentments? Living with Hate in American Politics and Religion offers an innovative argument for the power of playfulness in popular culture to make our capacity for coexistence imaginable. Jeffrey Israel explores how people from different backgrounds can pursue justice together, even as they play with their divisive grudges, prejudices, and desires in their cultural lives. Israel calls on us to distinguish between what belongs in a raucous "domain of play" and what belongs in the domain of the political. He builds on the thought of John Rawls and Martha Nussbaum to defend the liberal tradition against challenges posed by Frantz Fanon from the left and Leo Strauss from the right. In provocative readings of Lenny Bruce's stand-up comedy, Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, and Norman Lear's All in the Family, Israel argues that postwar Jewish American popular culture offers potent and fruitful examples of playing with fraught emotions. Living with Hate in American Politics and Religion is a powerful vision of what it means to live with others without forgiving or forgetting.

Contents:

Loving and hating America since the 1990s

Jewishness, race, and political emotions

The fact of fraught societies I: the problem of remainders

The fact of fraught societies II: the problem of reproduction and the missing link problem

The capability of play

Playing in fraught societies

Lenny Bruce and the intimacy of play

Philip Roth tells the greatest Jewish joke ever told

All in the Family in the moral history of America

Losing our religion in the domain of play.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780231190169

0231190166

OCLC:

1063765505