History and Spirit

We live under complete siege. On the one hand, capitalism is shooting us every day by destroying nature and every possibility of transcendence and putting our souls up for sale. On the other hand, religion, which is still thought to be the "heart of a heartless world", is coming to the fore again as a very powerful center of attraction. Our freedom, that is, our humanity, is diminishing more and more every moment, and we keep running from one domination to the lap of another. Socialism, which carries the promise of liberation in modern societies, has been subjected to economism and Cartesian rationalism and has lost its spiritual potential and, therefore, its power to mobilize people. We pay the price by living lives devoid of love, poetry, play and laughter!..
Joel Kovel offers a strong critique of both capitalism and institutionalized religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism in this book, in which he examines in detail the possibilities that the concepts of "spirit" and "spirit" offer for human liberation. The author originally designed the book as a continuation of the project of "developing the problem of spirituality in a non-religious framework", which was initiated by Hegel and continued in various forms by Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Kafka and Heidegger. He does not see spirit as an incorporeal substance; According to him, spirit is the one whose roots are in the pre-social nature of man, in the "plasma of being"; but it is a form of relationship whose manifestations are always dependent on history. The act that defines the spirit, which is based on the rejection of the given world and the critique of all kinds of domination, is "going beyond the self and recognizing the Other in all its difference." In this sense, spirituality includes much more than religious teachings. in every aspect of human existence; There are spiritual possibilities in sexuality, politics, daily activities and nature. But capitalism, which is organized around an egoic mode of existence that is incapable of recognizing the Other, dominates these possibilities by inculcating that a meaningful life is the maximization of the self.
According to the author, only a socialism project that needs to be redefined can save spirituality from this trap. This project does not have its roots in those like Stalin and Mao, who strangled freedom, which is a prerequisite for spirituality, in the name of socialism; He will find it in people like Che, who insists that the true revolutionary must have an extraordinary ability to love.
History and Spirit is not a "difficult" but a "challenging" book. We think it will give great excitement to the serious reader who wants to overcome the impasse of living either unfree or "soulless" lives in modern/postmodern societies that have moved away from the spirit and who is not afraid to think.



Number of Pages: 351

Year of Printing: 1991


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Details Publications

First Print Year: 2000

Language Turkish