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What if, however, humans exceed animals in their capacity for violence precisely because they speak? As Hegel was already well aware, there is something violent in the very symbolisation of a thing, which equals its mortification. This violence operates at multiple levels. Language simplifies the…

[...] This fact confronts us with another, less attractive, aspect of globalisation: the ‘global information village’ is the condition of the fact that something which appeared in an obscure daily in Denmark caused a violent stir in distant Muslim countries. It is as if Denmark and Syria, Pakistan,…

Those Western leftists who heroically defied anti-communist hysteria in their own countries and did so with the utmost sincerity provide other instances of the tragic produced by the Cold War. They were prepared to go to prison for their communist convictions and in defence of the Soviet Union. Isn…

[...] Another subject (and, ultimately, the subject as such) is for Lacan not something directly given, but a ‘presupposition’, something presumed, an object of belief – how can I ever be sure that what I see in front of me is another subject, not a flat biological machine lacking depth?

Th…

Today’s liberal tolerance towards others, the respect of otherness and openness towards it, is counterpointed by an obsessive fear of harassment. In short, the Other is just fine, but only insofar as his presence is not intrusive, insofar as this Other is not really other [...]

Post-political bi…