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Action Without Hope

2025/3/17
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New Books in Critical Theory
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Nathan Hensley
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Nathan Hensley: 我认为“行动而不抱希望”是一种感觉，在当代社会，我们感到无力改变那些超出个人能力范围且似乎正在瓦解的系统性因素。这源于对学生和年轻人的直觉的回应，他们厌倦了对当前危机的根深蒂固性质被欺骗，而文化产业却不断向我们兜售希望和强制的积极性。我的研究试图重新思考在无法真正逃离的系统中工作意味着什么。这涉及到从腐败的境地中发展积极项目的方法，即在为自杀而设计的、建立在无处不在的掠夺原则之上的世界中。我试图重新思考“希望”和“行动”的含义。我的书研究了19世纪那些敏锐地观察到资本主义系统聚集的人们，他们以不同的词汇，思考了居住在这个被吞噬的世界中的意义。我研究了特纳、勃朗特、乔治·艾略特和克里斯蒂娜·罗塞蒂等艺术家和作家，他们对日益增长的资本主义系统进行了深刻的观察。我认为艾米莉·勃朗特的诗歌碎片是关于这个日益增长的系统的模糊文件。我研究了乔治·艾略特的《米德尔马奇》，关注的是她对次要活动和渐进式社会变革的理论。我研究了克里斯蒂娜·罗塞蒂的诗歌，探讨了在窒息的言语、智力和社会系统中生活并继续工作意味着什么。我对那些能让我们思考并使之成为可能的文化作品感兴趣，而不是简单的“好”或“坏”的评价。我认为我们对“行动”的理解受到了功利主义计算的影响，这是一种胜利的逻辑。我们可以通过团结和共同项目的互通来重新思考行动的方式和层次。我们需要以不同的方式，在不同的层次上思考行动，即通过团结和共同项目的互通，而不是个体主义的自愿主义基础。这本书是理论作为一种世界干预方式的辩护，也是对概念作为一种物质世界干预方式的辩护。我反对将个体行动简单地累加来解决气候变化等问题，因为这忽略了更深层次的概念性问题。气候变化只是更大问题的一个方面，这个问题与我们对客观世界的取向有关。我们需要改变社会的有机基础，即改变我们的价值观和思维方式。改变社会的有机基础不是通过可扩展的外部行动，而是通过从内部改变我们的价值观和思维方式。“拯救世界”的概念通常带有英雄主义色彩，而我更关注的是那些在更小的、更持久的调整和重新表达。我认为“拯救世界”发生在更小的层次上，即通过那些几乎不可见的、缓慢的、与他人对话的活动。在完全商品化的条件下，我们需要抓住机会走到一起，保护和扩大那些可以进行真实联系的空间。我们需要从历史上那些在失败的条件下找到并保持这些空间的人们那里学习。 Kim Adams: (无核心论点) Sharanik Bhashu: (无核心论点)

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Chapters
The concept of 'Action Without Hope' is introduced as a response to feelings of powerlessness in the face of societal collapse. It challenges the culture industry's marketing of compulsory happiness and explores working within inescapable systems. The discussion delves into rethinking hope and action within a "world wired for suicide."
  • Feeling of powerlessness in the face of collapsing societal systems
  • Critique of compulsory positivity marketed by the culture industry
  • Rethinking action within inescapable systems
  • Recovery of methods of imminent critique

Shownotes Transcript

In his new book, Nathan K. Hensley describes a mood or a vibe or an intuitive response to the contemporary moment when one feels powerless in the face of collapsing societal systems. Given the entrenched nature of the present crisis, with compulsory happiness being marketed by the culture industry, how does one work within systems from which no true escape is possible?

In order to uncover a prehistory of this feeling, he goes back to the nineteenth century - to artists like J.M.W. Turner and writers like Emily Bronte and Christina Rossetti who were thinking about what it means to inhabit a world omnivorously captured by capital.

Nathan K. Hensley) is the author of Forms of Empire: The Poetics of Victorian Sovereignty )(Oxford, 2016), and co-editor, with Philip Steer, of Ecological Form: System and Aesthetics in the Age of Empir)e (Fordham, 2018). With Devin Garofalo, he is currently coediting a collection of essays that's forthcoming from Northwestern UP, The Barbara Johnson Collective. His new book is Action without Hope: Victorian Literature after Climate Collapse), forthcoming from Chicago UP in April 2025. He was born in Fresno, California and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Image: J.M.W. Turner, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 1834-35. Public Domain. Original at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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