Contemporary politics: Crisis of infirmity

Abstract

The Western tradition of political philosophy has its "explicit beginning" in an experience of "madness". This madness presides at this beginning, presiding in such a way as to give determination to the theoretical and practical understanding of politics from Plato to Nietzsche. At the beginning of this tradition, it is the madness of the hoi polloi, the "many" , pervading the whole of the polls; at the completion of this same tradition, it is the madness of the "herd" , the "crowd". For Plato as well as for Nietzsche some 2300 years later, it is the madness of the mult i tude which, presiding, dominates. The word of Socrates, far more than being merely an indictment of his time, proves prophetic for the entire history of political reality: From Plato through Nietzsche, there is nothing sound or right in any present politics. There is nothing sound or right first and foremost because it is the politics of semblance (eidolon). The whole of the domain of the political has become, effectively, a stage performance: The semblance of politics, as the politics of semblance, dominates to such an extent that we today speak of that 'performance' which takes place on the world stage. This is more than a mere convenience of terms it is an expression of the fundamental history of the Western political experience. Contemporary political discourse, in all that it says today, be it