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NAZISM AND US
- Fordham University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Chapter 7 argues that our contemporary political language is haunted not, as some would have it, by Soviet communism in the wake of the Cold War, but by Nazism. Whereas Soviet communism belongs to modern the political lexicon, Nazism invents an entirely new conceptual language, and operates entirely outside of the parameters of the previous lexicon. The language of Nazism is located decidedly after modernity, and thus is part of our experience as postmoderns. Whereas the conceptual lexicon of communism may be worn out, never before has bíos, if not zoé, been the point of intersection for all political, social, economic, and technological practices. From mass migrations, biotechnology, psychopharmacology, and ecological crises, to the reopening of concentration camps throughout the world and preventative wars, the twenty-first century continues to be shaped by questions of life, death, and politics that Nazism brought to the fore.