From Plato through the nineteenth century, the West could draw on
comprehensive political visions to guide government and society. Now,
for the first time in more than two thousand years, Tracy B. Strong
contends, we have lost our foundational supports. In the words of Hannah
Arendt, the state of political thought in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries has left us effectively "thinking without a banister."
Politics without Vision takes up the thought of seven influential
thinkers, each of whom attempted to construct a political solution to
this problem: Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Lenin, Schmitt, Heidegger, and
Arendt. None of these theorists were liberals nor, excepting possibly
Arendt, were they democrats--and some might even be said to have served
as handmaidens to totalitarianism. And all to a greater or lesser extent
shared the common conviction that the institutions and practices of
liberalism are inadequate to the demands and stresses of the present
times. In examining their thought, Strong acknowledges the political
evil that some of their ideas served to foster but argues that these
were not necessarily the only paths their explorations could have taken.
By uncovering the turning points in their thought--and the paths not
taken--Strong strives to develop a political theory that can avoid, and
perhaps help explain, the mistakes of the past while furthering the
democratic impulse. Confronting the widespread belief that political
thought is on the decline, Strong puts forth a brilliant and provocative
counterargument that in fact it has endured--without the benefit of
outside support. A compelling rendering of contemporary political
theory, Politics without Vision is sure to provoke discussion among
scholars in many fields.
