liberalism

“You Only Live Twice” (Nancy Sinatra)

You must “pay the price” of “love” (as the Everly Brothers also insisted).   But here we can also read this doctrine in a political register: the figure of the “stranger” disappears as soon as you “think of the danger.”  Corey Robin reminds us that “fear” lies at the origin of liberal polity (Hobbes, Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Arendt), though with “only” two lives to give for one’s country (which you can hear in the double-tracked vocal of the 45 version), you’d hope that one might be offered in tending to the disappearance of the other.

 

Read more "“You Only Live Twice” (Nancy Sinatra)"

“Message From a Black Man” (The Temptations)

Plea for white self-reflection on color question vacillates between advocacy of colorblindness and Black pride (there-is-no-difference versus get-out-of-my-way). Given this uncertainty, overly optimistic assessment of the struggle’s endpoint: “The laws of society were made for both you and me.” Correction: the laws are designed to designate you and me, citizen and subject. Always, in liberalism, a foundational distinction, remaining.

 

Read more "“Message From a Black Man” (The Temptations)"