Biopolitics After TruthKnowledge, Power and Democratic Life
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About this book
- Argues for a positive role of truth-telling in the democratisation of biopolitical governance
- Undertakes a genealogical investigation of the origins of the contemporary post-truth regime in early post-communist politics
- Puts forward an innovative theory of the speech act of truth-telling in democratic biopolitics
- Draws on familiar examples from contemporary politics such as Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Greta Thunberg and Brexit
What makes post-truth politics so difficult to resist is its apparently democratic character that claims to challenge bureaucratic depoliticisation, the rule of experts and the disappearance of alternatives to the hegemonic policy. Sergei Prozorov refutes this interpretation, arguing that the post-truth ideology leads to the degradation of the public sphere that is essential to democratic governance. Rather than enable resistance to expertise-based biopolitical governmentalities, truth denialism dissolves the only framework where their contestation and transformation could take place. In contrast, Biopolitics after Truth argues for a positive role of truth-telling in the democratisation of biopolitical governance.
Reviews
Rarely does a book of political philosophy manage to triangulate three themes of public interest as effectively as Sergei Prozorov's Biopolitics After Truth. The book weaves together continental philosophy, contemporary political theories of post-truth, and a study of post-Soviet politics with clarity and concision to diagnose the emergence of post-truth authoritarianism. In doing so the book engages debates in international political theory, security studies, continental philosophy, and studies of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, and will be of interest to scholars of these topics.
Rarely does a book of political philosophy manage to triangulate three themes of public interest as effectively as Sergei Prozorov’s Biopolitics After Truth: Knowledge, Power, and Democratic Life. The book weaves together continental philosophy, contemporary political theories of post-truth, and a study of post-Soviet politics with clarity and concision to diagnose the emergence of post-truth authoritarianism. In doing so the book engages debates in international political theory, security studies, continental philosophy, and studies of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, and will be of interest to scholars of these topics.
In this highly original book, Sergei Prozorov breaks new ground by offering a penetrating critique of a notorious contemporary phenomenon, post-truth politics, through the lenses of affirmative biopolitics. Biopolitics after truth is no longer about bringing a politically neutral or incontestable notion of truth back into politics but about pursuing politics as a performative act of truth-telling. A much needed contribution to a theory of democratic biopolitics, this is engaged political philosophy at its best.
Table of contents
Introduction: The Word of the YearAgrippina: Post-Truth Avant la LettreOutline of the Argument
1. The Regime of Equivalence
Diagnosis: There Are Only Bodies and LanguagesDefinition: Post-Proof, Post-Shame, Post-ConsensusRegime: Equivalence Vs EqualityContrast: Post-Truth Politics or Truth Politics?Paradigm: the Spread2. Subject to Truth
Foucault: Why Is There Truth?Truth As a Procedure of Subjectivation: Foucault and BadiouAgamben: from Oaths to Tweets3. The Russification of the West
Vladimir Zhirinovsky: the Rise of Postcommunist TrollingPara-Soviet Practices in the Post-Soviet EraWhere Meaning Runs DeepThe Epistemology of ConspiracismWhy So Serious?Globalising Post-Truth: How to Wash It All Away in the WestPussy Riot: How to Speak in a Non-Equivalent Manner4. The Truth Won’t Tell Itself
Parrhesia: Disobedient DiscourseThe (Bio)Power of the PowerlessTruth As ForceGreta Thunberg: How to Follow the ScienceEquality, Equivalence and Democratic LifeCoda: On Error