The servile mind : how democracy erodes the moral life / Kenneth Minogue.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Minogue, Kenneth R., 1930-2013.

Series:

Encounter broadsides

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Democracy--Moral and ethical aspects.

Democracy.

Political ethics.

Social ethics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (395 p.)

Edition:

1st American ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Encounter Books, 2010.

Summary:

One of the grim comedies of the twentieth century was that miserable victims of communist regimes would climb walls, swim rivers, dodge bullets, and find other desperate ways to achieve liberty in the West at the same time that progressive intellectuals would sentimentally proclaim that these very regimes were the wave of the future. A similar tragicomedy is playing out in our century: as the victims of despotism and backwardness from Third World nations pour into Western states, academics and intellectuals present Western life as a nightmare of inequality and oppression.In The

Contents:

Contents; Preface: How Free Can a Just State Be?; Introduction; I. DEMOCRATIC AMBIGUITIES; 1. Democracy as a Process of Continuing Change; 2. How to Analyze Democracy; 3. Some Basic Conditions of Democracy; 4. Illusion and Paradox; 5. Democracy as Process and Ideal; 6. Democracy as Collective Social Salvation; II. THE PROJECT OF EQUALIZING THE WORLD; 1. Democracy Versus the Deference World; 2. Forms of Instrumentalism in Democracy; 3. Rights and the Sources of Democratic Legitimacy; 4. Culture and the Democratic World: Women and Politics; 5. The Logic of Anti-Discrimination

a. Discrimination as a Categoryb. Who Are the "Minorities"?; c. T he Vocabulary of Anti-Discrimination; d. S entimentalism and Anti-Discrimination; e. T he Positive Entailments of Anti-Discrimination Negations; 6. The CIvilizational Significance of the Democratic Telos; 7. Democratic Discontents; III. THE MORAL LIFE AND ITS CONDITIONS; 1. Morals and Politics; 2. What Is the Moral Life?; 3. A Context of the Moral Life; 4. A Structure of the Moral Life; 5. Individualism and the Modern World; 6. Some Individualistic Legends; 7. Elements of Individualism; 8. Conflict, Balance, and the West

9. Servility and the Moral LifeIV. THE POLITICO-MORAL WORLD; 1. The Defects of Western Civilization; 2. The Politico-Moral World and Its Ethical Claims; 3. The Emergence of the Politico-Moral; 4. Aspects of the Politico-Moral; a. Fallacies of the "Social"; b. The Concept of "Representativeness"; c. The Appeasement Tendency; d. The Stick and Carrot Problem; 5. From Desire to Impulse; 6. The Politico-Moral Image of a Modern Society; 7. Is There a Theology of the Politico-Moral?; V. AMBIVALENCE AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION; 1. Mapping Politics; 2. On Perfectionisms, Piecemeal and Systematic

a. Piecemeal Perfectionismb. Overthrowing Anciens Régimes; c. Ignorance, Poverty, and War; 3. Oppressions and Liberations; 4. The Politico-Moral Form of Association; 5. Culture Versus Ideals of Transformation; 6. Perfection and teh Ambivalence World; 7. What Kind of Thing Is the Politico-Moral?; 8. The Moral Life as the Pursuit of Ideals; Endnotes; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781594036514

1594036519

OCLC:

818857139