Overcoming Nihilism Via a Vocation of Knowledge as Theory, Research, Learning, Teaching and an Avocation of Politics as the Responsible, Passionate, and Pragmatic Pursuit of Human Flourishing
Bearing Our Inner Burdens and Fears with Help from Foiles’s Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room and Brown’s Nihilistic Times
By Michael A. Dover
Version 12, 6/5/25.
The Afterwards coverage of Brown is now complete. I’ve moved any extraneous commentary from the body of the main sections to Appendix B, following my Personal Reflextive Statement of Appendix A. I will now proceed to write the Conclusion, where I will draw conclusions based strictly on reponses to what Foiles, Brown and those on which they draw have said, and where I will seek to answer some of the questions they posed.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Review Essay (I, pp. 2-9)
The Nature of Nihilism Per Jonathan Foiles’s Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room (II, pp. 10-16)
Thinking this through with Durkheim in Mind (III, 17-20)
Bringing Polanyi to the Table (IV, pp. 20-22)
The Nature of the Times in which Weber Wrote (V, pp. 22-24)
Nihilism Per Weber’s Science as a Vocation Lecture (VI. pp. 24-31)
Nihilism Per Weber’s Politics as a Vocation Lecture (VII. pp. 31-36)
The Two Martin and Merton (VIII, pp. 36-40)
The Nature of Nihilism per Wendy Brown’s in the Ruins of Neoliberalism
The Nature of Nihilism Per Wendy Brown’s Nihilistic Times
Introduction to Brown’s Nihilistic Times Sections
Appendix A: Personal Reflexive Statement
Appendix B: Discussion of Personal Reflexive Statement
From the Personal Reflective Statement: I would like to begin with a quotation I read as a first-term social work student of Prof. Philip Coltoff at Adelphi University’s still existing urban ANSWER BSW program: “We must ask ourselves who are in a better position and more called upon to act collectively, politically and responsibly for the goals of welfare than those who have made welfare their profession, that is, the dominant occupation of their lives” (Pusić, 1972). This work is now 39,600 words and I have chosen at this time to remove the earlier draft here, but turn this into an accessible Note to my subcribers and invite them to contact me to request the latest draft. Just as a teaser, however, I will provide the latest list of references. After all, I have just finished another work in which I note that one of the ways I, myself, have coped with these nihilistic times is to read these two books since fall 2024 and to take a deep, hopefully openminded dive into my own intellectual and personal, professional and political history, with the goal of a major re-examination.
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