Fred Siegel’s talk, “Liberalism and Socialism: The Twisted Path to Reconciliation,” was delivered at the 2011 Telos Conference, held in New York City on January 15–16, 2011.
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Telos 155 (Summer 2011) is now available for purchase here.  Since its inception in 1968, Telos has remained an intellectual innovator by providing provocative and prescient discussions of political, social, and cultural changes. Forty-three years later, Telos remains as essential as ever. Dianna Taylor ‘s “Countering Modernity: Foucault and Arendt on Race and Racism” appears in Telos 154 (Spring 2011). Read the full version at TELOS Online website. Alice Ormiston’s “A Tragic Desire: Rousseau and the Modern Democratic Project” appears in Telos 154 (Spring 2011). Read the full version at TELOS Online website. Marcelo Hoffman’s “Containments of the Unpredictable in Arendt and Foucault” appears in Telos 154 (Spring 2011). Read the full version at TELOS Online website. |
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In the autumn of 1962, the philosopher Theodor Adorno, whose work is the topic of this special issue, wrote bluntly: “It would be advisable . . . to think of progress in the crudest, most basic terms: that no one should go hungry anymore, that there should be no more torture, no more Auschwitz. Only then will the idea of progress be free from lies. It is not a progress of consciousness.” The invitation to crudeness may seem surprising, coming from Adorno, still misrepresented as the pessimistic aesthete, consistently hostile to engaged activism, mass culture, and representational art. Such are the standard stereotypes. Yet here that same Adorno tries to reclaim a radical understanding of progress, the fulfillment of material needs and an empirical alleviation of suffering. Progress diminishes bodily pain; it is not—his rejection of Hegelian idealism is explicit—”a progress of consciousness.” 
This article explores what the works of Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt reveal about ways in which harm manifests itself within the context of modern societies, and about how the terrain of modernity might be negotiated such that harm is minimized and the practice of freedom is promoted. Focusing on the specific harm of racism, the article examines how Arendt’s account of the rise and function of Nazism in The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem reflects a concern with key aspects of the modern form of power that Foucault refers to as biopower. Two important points are derived from this analysis: First, Foucault and Arendt see racism, specifically as reflected in Nazism, as paradigmatic of the destructive potential of modernity. Second, Foucault’s and Arendt’s analyses of Nazi racism as a paradigmatic modern harm reflect a critical “counter-attitude” toward modernity. This counter-attitude provides valuable insight into the workings of and harms produced by modern power and thereby facilitates productive negotiation of the modern landscape. 
