Items related to The Terms of Order
Synopsis
Do we live in basically orderly societies that occasionally erupt into violent conflict, or do we fail to perceive the constancy of violence and disorder in our societies?
Cedric J. Robinson contends that our perception of political order is an illusion, maintained in part by Western political and social theorists who share a dependence on the concept of leadership as a basis for describing and prescribing social order.
Robinson uses a variety of critical approaches in his analysis: he synthesizes elements of psychoanalysis, structuralism, Marxism, classical and neoclassical political philosophy, and sociology to support his case for considering Western thought on leadership to be mythological rather than rational. He then presents examples of historically developed “stateless” societies with social organizations that suggest conceptual alternatives to the ways political order has been conceived in the West.
As an American Black political theorist, Robinson examines Western thought from the vantage point of a people only marginally integrated into Western institutions and intellectual traditions. His perspective on the conceptualization that structures Western thinking on the most basic levels contributes to the questioning on how our conduct, values, and even perceptions may be shaped by our symbolization.
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About the Author
Cedric J. Robinson is Director of the Center for Black Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Review
Cedric Robinson is an original thinker whose work challenges disciplinary and epistemological boundaries by painstakingly revealing the substance of such limits. But more, this book serves not simply to expose the weaknesses of certain explanatory forms, but more usefully to propose alternative approaches to the problem of understanding both past and present. His prose—sharp, considered, lyrical, funny—compels us to think again about what we think we already know about knowledge, power, social order, and social change.--Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California
Cedric Robinson is an intellectual treasure, a world-historical theorist whose influence is already great and will only increase as time passes.--Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Cruz
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherState Univ of New York Pr
- Publication date1980
- ISBN 10 087395453X
- ISBN 13 9780873954532
- BindingPaperback
- LanguageEnglish
- Number of pages283
- Rating
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