Political Left and Right since Antigone.

Intro -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Foreword -- Part I -- Chapter One -- Chapter Two -- Chapter Three -- Part II -- Chapter Four -- Chapter Five -- Chapter Six -- Chapter Seven -- Chapter Eight -- Chapter Nine -- Part III -- Chapter Ten -- Chapter Eleven -- Chapter Twelve -- Chapter Thirteen -- Chapter Fourteen -- Chapter Fifteen -- Chapter Sixteen -- Chapter Seventeen -- Chapter Eighteen -- Chapter Nineteen -- Chapter Twenty -- Chapter Twenty-One -- Chapter Twenty-Two -- Chapter Twenty-Three -- Appendix A -- References.

Why do we use the terms "left" and "right" to characterize political matters? Left and right in themselves have no political significance. Apparently there is something inside us that connects these bodily terms to politics. This book is the first to discover that "something".Political use of the terms "left" and "right" originated in the French Estates General on the 7th of May 1789, two days after its grandiose opening session, in a simple ad hoc measure for a short event that afternoon. However, this measure embodied the unforeseen emergence of the political left/right dichotomy. Its continual developments are discussed here, with examples not only from politics, but also from everyday life, anthropology, genetic engineering, a novel by Turgenev, ingenious experiments with volunteers, and much more. But above all, the dichotomy is enshrined in unconscious urges deep within us--as illustrated 2,400 years ago by Sophocles in his tragedy Antigone.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.