The Ideology of Tyranny : Bataille, Foucault, and the Postmodern Corruption of Political Dissent

The book ascribes the late state of paralysis affecting dissent in America to the adoption of a peculiar gospel of divisiveness, which was promoted in the Eighties by importing from France the "theories" of philosopher Michel Foucault. "The Ideology of Tyranny traces the contemporary jargon of political correctness and the so-called 'politics of diversity' so prevalent in the academic and administrative discourse of the United States to the fantastic sociology of an obscure French pornographer, Georges Bataille (1897-1962). The celebration of violence sung in his works, re-elaborated in abstract form by the late followers of Bataille, has led to the creation of a peculiar talk emphasizing difference, antagonism, intellectual despair, and a profound political conservatism. As the so-called Left has lately come to adopt this troubling gospel of divisiveness, the consequence for a wholesome culture of dissent in our society have been a disastrous paralysis of its critical and moral faculties in the face of a new dawn of never-ending wars."-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xix Introductory: A Genealogy of Postmodernism....Pages 1-10 The Great Goddess and Dionysus....Pages 11-21 Gnostic Fragments....Pages 23-27 The Marquis de Sade: A Liberal Father to Them All....Pages 29-34 Bataille....Pages 35-79 Foucault and the Social Science-Fiction of Neo-Gnosticism....Pages 81-107 The “Mocking Varlets” of the Postmodern Left: Political Correctness, Education, and Empire ....Pages 109-134 The Tomb Raiders of the Postmodern Right: Jünger’s Anarch, the Neocon, and the Bogus Hermeneutics of Leo Strauss....Pages 135-177 True Power: The End of Dissent, Iran/Iraq, and the War on Terror....Pages 179-212 Summary and Conclusions....Pages 213-216 Back Matter....Pages 217-257 The contemporary jargon of political correctness and the so-called "politics of diversity" so prevalent in the academic and administrative discourse of the United States can be traced to the fantastic sociology of an obscure French pornographer, Georges Bataille (1897-1962). The celebration of violence sung in his works, re-elaborated in abstract form by the late followers of Bataille, has led to the creation of a peculiar talk emphasizing difference, antagonism, intellectual despair, and a profound political conservatism. This book ascribes the late state of paralysis affecting dissent in Ame