The ideology of tyranny : the use of neo-gnostic myth in American politics

"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 Cover 1 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Acknowledgments 12 Preface 14 1 Introductory: A Genealogy of Postmodernism 22 2 The Great Goddess and Dionysus 32 3 Gnostic Fragments 44 4 The Marquis de Sade: A Liberal Father to Them All 50 5 Bataille 56 Mystique 56 The Monstrous Archons 63 Eroticism 70 Expenditure 80 Power 87 6 Foucault and the Social Science-Fiction of Neo-Gnosticism 102 7 The "Mocking Varlets" of the Postmodern Left: Political Correctness, Education, and Empire 130 Political Correctness and Education 133 Empire 146 8 The Tomb Raiders of the Postmodern Right: J眉nger's Anarch, the Neocon, and the Bogus Hermeneutics of Leo Strauss 156 J眉nger's Anarch 160 Martin the Obscure 175 Koj猫ve: The Pierre Menard of Postmodernism 179 Leo the Squalid 182 Neocon 191 9 True Power: The End of Dissent, Iran/Iraq, and the War on Terror 200 Veblen's Testament and the End of Dissent 203 Mr. Foucault Goes to Teheran 213 Gulf One: The Grand Illusion 219 The War on Terror 227 Summary and Conclusions 234 Notes 238 Select Bibliography 268 Index 276 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.