Modernism, Ethics and the Political Imagination

"Ware's sketches of an endangered ethical landscape are urgent and timely reminders of the importance of ethical reasoning as much for politics as for personal conduct but above all for the difficult terrain that lies between them." (Howard Caygill, Kingston University London, UK) "Ethics is a much abused and over-used word at the moment. Modernism, Ethics and the Political Imagination restores to ethics its political dimension as a challenge to the damaged lives we live under capitalism. In a series of admirably elegant readings, ranging across literature and philosophy, from Kierkegaard to Marx, Henry James to Samuel Beckett, Ben Ware reveals the ethical moment of negativity: the possibility of thinking the collective dimension of life. Resisting the narcissism of our times, this book powerfully restates the necessity of critique as a means to repair our damaged language and so to start to repair our damaged world." (Benjamin Noys, Professor of Critical Theory at the University of Chichester)

In this groundbreaking new study, Ben Ware carries out a bold reassessment of the relationship between modernism and ethics, arguing that modernist literature and philosophy offer more than simply a snapshot of the moral conflicts of the past: they provide a crucial point of reference for today’s emancipatory struggles.In this groundbreaking new study, Ben Ware carries out a bold reassessment of the relationship between modernism and ethics, arguing that modernist literature and philosophy offer more than simply a snapshot of the moral conflicts of the past: they provide a crucial point of reference for today’s emancipatory struggles. Modernism in this assessment is characterized not only by a concern with language and aesthetic creativity, but also by a preoccupation with the question of how to live. Investigating ethical ideas in Wittgenstein, Beckett, Kierkegaard, Kant, Cavell, Marx, Henry James and Lacan, Ware demonstrates how these thinkers can bring us to a new understanding of a constellation of issues which contemporary radical thought must re-visit: utopia, repetition, perfectionism, subtraction, negativity, critique, absence, duty, revolution and political love. The result is a timely and provocative intervention, which re-draws the boundaries for future debates on the ethics and politics of modernism.