The Sacralization of Time

In this book, João Nunes de Almeida rethinks the relationship between crisis and fascism in today's liberal democratic societies. Arguing that fascism has adapted to a post-modern idea of endless crisis, Almeida challenges one of the strongest liberal myths in western politics, namely that fascism and liberal democracy have different roots. Fascism, in Almeida's view, is at the center of the very production of social relations in western capitalist societies, and is the result of the very desire to be saved from crisis underlying liberal democracy. It draws on stormy examples from Portugal's contemporary history, with a particular focus on its fascist past and revolution, to explore affinities between crisis and fascism in other spatial and historical contexts. João Nunes de Almeida concludes that refusing to be saved from crisis becomes the refusal of any form of fascism in a more global context.

Autorentext

João Nunes de Almeida studied at Lisbon University, Nova University of Lisbon and Lancaster University, UK. He was awarded his PhD in Sociology from Lancaster University, where he regularly teaches Criminology in the Law School.

Inhalt

Introduction

- Book Outline

- Researching on Crisis: Challenges, Paradoxes and Ambulant Realities

- Crisis and Fascism in Contemporary Portugal

Chapter 1: Theology of Crisis

- Introduction

- Debt, Angels and Violence

- Spinozan God as Capital

Chapter 2: Politics of Crisis

- Introduction

- Politics as Freedom, Civil War and the Micro-Politics of Desire

- Deterring the Suicidal State: Fascism and Logistics

- The Liberal Sacred Spaces of Politics

Chapter 3: Language of Crisis - Introduction

- The Fascist Temporality of Crisis: Salvation and Restrain of Disorders

- Rationalities of Crisis and the Metonymical Performativity of the Corporate Body

Chapter 4: Experience of Crisis

- Introduction

- The In-Between Temporality of Crisis

- People, Population and the Exhausted

Chapter 5: Refusal of Crisis

- Introduction

- The Refusal of Chronos - Praxis and Ontology of Crisis Refusal

- Community without Utopia

Conclusion