• What Cannot Be Done

    Author(s):
    Omedi Ochieng (see profile)
    Date:
    2022
    Group(s):
    African Philosophy
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    freedom of speech, frontlash, racial capitalism, late capitalism, revolution
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/xe8w-an34
    Abstract:
    This essay argues that recent catastrophizings over freedom of speech are symptoms of a conjunctural crisis in the North Atlantic world. They index, in the main, a crisis of profitability and deindustrialization in the Global North, as seen for instance in the lumpenproletariatization of the working and professional classes; increasing domestic resistance by racially minoritized groups to police violence and murder; sustained insurgencies to imperialism abroad; the militarization of borders; and widespread crises occasioned by climate change. The writings of Hannah Arendt, I argue, offer an acute angle into how a celebrated thinker in the Global North advanced influential analytical categories for policing this conjunctural crisis. Ultimately, I argue, apocalyptic discourses about the unsayable ("cancel culture," "wokeness," "de-platforming") seek to make unthinkable ongoing and emergent radical uprisings, insurgencies, and revolution.
    Metadata:
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    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.55.1.0053
    Publisher:
    Philosophy & Rhetoric
    Pub. Date:
    2022
    Volume:
    Volume 55
    Issue:
    Number 1
    Page Range:
    53 - 59
    ISSN:
    1527-2079
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 months ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved

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