Régis Debray’s major new work is an exploration of the foundations and limits of political discourse and action. Focusing, with his familiar verve and fluency, on the mechanism through which ideologies mobilize historical subjects, Debray argues that there is a common pattern in all great political or religious movements. Each possesses an apparatus that releases affective charges of belonging and closure; each is tended by bodies of functionaries who maintain its continuity and transmit its doctrines. The great mobilizing ideologies—Christianity, Islam, Marxism—deploy corps of priests, teachers, cadres. The real foundation of “political reason”, for Debray, lies in the human need to participate in closed groups, denying or mitigating the harshness of the external world and the fact of death.
- ISBN10 0860917630
- ISBN13 9780860917632
- Publish Date 1 May 1983 (first published 1 January 1983)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Verso
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 384
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780860917632