We see the modern State as the most rational form of governing yet devised, and one which properly recognises our inherent individual rights. However, as the histories of colonialism and imprisonment reveal, it is also an intruder into the lives of generally unwilling individuals, constraining rights.
This book looks beneath the contradiction to see an entity willingly sustained by all individuals and for which we forgo our responsibility to and for ourselves. We place ourselves in the hands of those interests that promise to deal with our fears and desires the best.
Probing the work of political thinkers from Hobbes to Rawls, the book discovers a State that is a real, mythological entity, spreading across social and geographic space and concerned first with satisfying our two passions. Understanding this mythology may allow reason to emerge from its service to fear and desire, so that the modern State could become truly modern.
This book will be of interest to scholars in Sociology, Politics, Philosophy, and Law.
- ISBN10 0203891988
- ISBN13 9780203891988
- Publish Date 15 July 2008
- Publish Status Transferred
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Routledge
- Format eBook
- Language English