Description: This book aims to challenge the validity of a pervasive conception of political action and decision-making that grounds both on the so-called “public use of reason”. The latter, underpinned by a notion of “pure” reason inherited from the Enlightenment and largely sustained by liberal theory, not only promotes a reductionist view of human rationality, but also implicitly leads us to disregard a critical aspect in contemporary politics: the political role of the emotions.The opportunity to exploit the emotions in order to pervert the democratic process is what directly follows from that disregard. Reading it in light of Schmitt and Agamben’s ideas on the state of exception, the pervasiveness of emotional dynamics in contemporary western politics is examined, illuminating phenomena such as democratic propaganda, the ongoing “war on terror”, and the persistent threat of global economic collapse. At the end of the day, it is that rationalistic hubris of the politics of (limited) rationality which opens the door for irrational politics, and ultimately enables the creation of a permanent state of exception through the manipulation of misguided emotional inclinations – a danger regarding which none of us can afford to remain oblivious.


Indice:
Introduction - 11

Chapter I - Political Rationalism - 17
1. Liberalism and Rationality - 18
2. Criticisms - 29
3. Reframing the Critique - 33

Chapter II - Rationality and Emotion - 37
1. Emotion and Cognition - 38
2. Emotion and Decision-making - 46
3. Emotion and Action - 56

Chapter III - Crowds, Publics, and Propaganda - 71
1. Group Dynamics and the Crowd - 74
2. Mediatised society and the rise of public opinion - 87
3. Democracy, propaganda and emotion - 95 Chapter

IV - Rationalism, Emotion, and the Exception - 115
1. The Decision on the Exception - 117
2. Norms and Exceptions - 122
3. The Exception as Norm - 133
4. Exceptional Emotions141

Chapter V - Political Virtue and Liberal Education - 147
1. Liberalism and Liberal Education - 150
2. The Limitations of Liberal Education - 161
3. The Problem of Virtue - 169
4. Phronesis and Emotion - 74

Chapter VI - The Political Education of Emotion - 179
1. The Theory of Emotional Intelligence - 180
2. Emotions: From Theory to Practice - 189
3. Emotional Education and Emulation - 198
4. Emotional Virtue in Practice - 208 Conclusion - 213 Bibliography - 217

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