wall pediments
a society adrift interviews and debates 1974 1997
this posthumous collection of interviews and occasional papers given by castoriadis between 1974 and 1997 is a lively direct introduction to the thinking of a writer who never abandoned his radically critical stance . it provides a clear handy rsum of his political ideas in advance of their times and profoundly relevant to todays world.for this political thinker and longtime militant co founder with claude lefort of the revolutionary group socialisme ou barbarie economist psychoanalyst and philosopher two endless interrogations how to understand the world and life in society were intertwined with his own life and combats.an important chapter discusses the history of socialisme ou barbarie 1949 1967 ; in it castoriadis presents the views he defended in that group on a number of subjects a critique of marxism and of the soviet union the bureaucratization of society and of the workers movement and the primacy of individual and collective autonomy . another chapter presents the concept central to his thinking of imaginary significationsas what make a society cohere.castoriadis constantly returns to the question of democracy as the never finished deliberate creation by the people of societal institutions analyzing its past and its future in the western world . he scathingly criticizes representativedemocracy and develops a conception of direct democracy extending to all spheres of social life . he wonders about the chances of achieving freedom and autonomy those requisites of true democracy in a world of endless meaningless accumulation of material goods where the mechanisms for governing society have disintegrated the relationship with nature is reduced to one of destructive domination and above all the population has withdrawn from the public sphere a world dominated by hobbies and lobbies a society adrift .