The Politics of Moralizing

Through postcolonial studies, indigenous perspectives are finally being heard, challenging various Western views of the world. However, these challenges are often made in the same moralizing voice as the original conlonizations were justified. In keeping with the moralizing-resistant perspectives of Foucault, Benjamin and Derrida "The Politics of Moralizing" issues a warning about the risks of speaking, writing and thinking in a manner too confident about you own judgments. Can a clear line be drawn between dogmatism and simple certainty and indignation? This collection starts by questioning what has become a popular, even pervasive, cultural narrative told by both the left and the right-the story of the West's moral decline, degeneration or confusion. Beyond declaiming the perils of this approach, each essay goes on to experiment with strategies for warding off moralistic tendencies and effects within our own texts and actions. Contributors even explore the dynamics and dilemmas of moralizing by advocates of liberal causes, including patriotism, environmental protection and women's rights. "The Politics" "of Moralizing" argues that taking the so-called moral high ground gives free license to self-aggrandizement, cruelty, vengeance and punitiveness and a generalized resistance to or abjection of diversity.

The Politics of Moralizing issues a stern warning about the risks of speaking, writing, and thinking in a manner too confident about one's own judgments and asks, "Can a clear line be drawn between dogmatism and simple certainty and indignation?" Bennett and Shapiro enter the debate by questioning what has become a popular, even pervasive, cultural narrative told by both the left and the right: the story of the West's moral decline, degeneration, or confusion. Contributors explore the dynamics and dilemmas of moralizing by advocates of patriotism, environmental protection, and women's rights while arguing that the current discourse gives free license to self-aggrandizement, cruelty, vengeance and punitiveness and a generalized resistance to or abjection of diversity.

Introduction, Jane Bennett and Michael J. Shapiro
The Moraline Drift, Jane Bennett
Generating a Virtuous Circle: Democratic Identity, Moralism, and the Languages of Political Responsibility, Alan Keenan
Political not Patriotic: Democracy, Civic space, and the American Memorial/Monument Complex, Steven Johnston
Autobiography and Cultivating the Arts of the Female Self, Ann Curthoys
The Tragedy of the Ethical Commons: Demoralizing Environmentalism, William Chaloupka
Out for a Walk, Helen Liggett
Just the facts, Please: Why Civil Society Does Not Need Moral Truths, Jill Locke
The challenge of Polytheism: Moses, Spinoza and Freud, John Docker
Affirming the Political: Tragic Affirmations vs. Gothic Displacements, Michael J. Shapiro
Contributors

Michael Shapiro is Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii. Jane Bennett is Professor of Political Science at Goucher College.