Troublemakers

In fluent and energetic style, Dieter Thom offers a compelling response to the current threats facing our economic, social, and political order. This timely and important book will be of great interest to anyone who is struggling to understand what is going on in the world today. Joachim Whaley, University of Cambridge For some years now, Dieter Thom has been writing extraordinarily original, elegantly conceived and executed books about topics as varied as parents, fathers, and Americans in effect, he has been re-defining the proper topics of philosophical reflection. His new book on the puer robustus, a notion introduced by Hobbes about the troublemakers in society, is a masterpiece of this genre, the literate philosophical essay. The scholarship is astonishing, ranging over Hobbes, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Hugo, Marx, Freud, and others, the insights acute and important, and the pleasure of reading it constant. Robert Pippin, University of Chicago With an admirable combination of historical serendipity, hermeneutical sensitivity, and philosophical farsightedness, Dieter Thom manages in this fascinating book to reanimate a political figure always present in the imaginary of democratic societies but never fully disclosed or theorized: the puer robustus, the troublemaker, who since the times of Hobbes has again and again haunted the fantasy of political philosophers as someone either undermining or rejuvenating the democratic order of modern societies. It is the path-breaking thesis of this masterful study that, without revealing the exact role of these troublemakers, we are not capable of understanding both the risks and the potentials for renewal, the dangers and the vitality of democratic regimes. A must read for everyone interested in political theory and philosophy. Axel Honneth, University of Frankfurt As the philosopher Dieter Thom shows in this brilliant study, the puer robustus is a central element of societies marked by division and uncertainty. His book could not be more timely. NZZ am Sonntag Dieter Thom tells a captivating adventure story of the troublemakers who have disrupted social order. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Endlessly lively tremendous entertainment Catholic Herald

Dieter Thom is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Gallen

Acknowledgements Introduction I. The puer robustus as an evil man: Thomas Hobbes 1. The threshold creature caught between power, morality and history 2. Self-interest and reason 3. Hobbess egocentric troublemakers: Fools, epileptics, madmen, the poor and the rich 4. Author-actor-audience theory: The eccentric troublemaker in the belly of the Leviathan 5. The puer robustus of Horace a model for Hobbes? II. The puer robustus as a good man: Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1. The power and morality of the savage 2. The transformation of the puer robustus into a citizen 3. What does Rousseaus puer robustus do after his victory? Democracy and disturbance of the peace III. Rameaus nephew as a puer robustus: Denis Diderot 1. Hobbess sublime definition 2. The puer robustus as a social problem or ambivalent character: Diderot beyond Helvtius, Hobbes and Rousseau 3. Life on the threshold: Rameaus Nephew 4. Hegels and Foucaults nephew IV. Unloving child, wicked son, strong savior: Friedrich Schiller 1. The puer robustus as a freedman of creation 2. Franz and Karl Moor: All power for me or a different power for all? 3. Wilhelm Tells journey from loner to league founder V. The puer robustus as victim and hero: Victor Hugo 1. Quasimodo as a monkey gone wrong 2. The birth of wickedness from humiliation 3. Moral emancipation 4. The street urchin as a puer robustus 5. The relatives of the street urchin: Balzacs real man and Baudelaires little savage VI. Siegfried, foolish boy: Richard Wagner 1. The contract as a crime against nature 2. External salvation 3. The hero as child and dullard: Siegfrieds recipe for success VII. The puer robustus between Europe and America: Alexis de Tocqueville 1. The birth of the puer robustus under the yoke of despotism: Tocquevilles first insight 2. Praise for America and a warning against the Wild West 3. The birth of the puer robustus from the spirit of capitalism: Tocquevilles second insight 4. Life as a revolution and experiment: Tocqueville, Mill, Nietzsche VIII. The puer robustus as a revolutionary: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 1. The people is by far the most dangerous 2. The fight against dependence and separation 3. The lumpenproletariat as the spoilsport of the revolution 4. The revolutionary subject as a species-being or community-being IX. The puer robustus as Oedipus: Sigmund Freud 1. The little savage 2. Democracy and dictatorship 3. Politics after Freud: A debate between Walter Lippmann, Paul Federn, Hans Blher, Thomas Mann and Hans Kelsen X. Anarchists, adventurers, young rowdies and little savages: Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, Helmut Schelsky and Max Horkheimer 1. Blossoming in dark times: Hobbes da capo 2. Carl Schmitt on the total state and its enemies 3. Leo Strauss on the closed society and adventurers 4. Helmut Schelsky on power and young rowdies 5. Max Horkheimer on the authoritarian state and little savages XI. Good spirits and poisonous weeds: The puer robustus in Italy in 1949 and China in 1957 1. Togliattis New Years message to his comrades 2. Mao Zedong and Tan Tianrong on fragrant flowers and poisonous weeds 3. From China back to Europe: We can forget Alain Badiou XII. The puer robustus today 1. No end to history 2. The egocentric troublemaker and the financial crisis 3. The eccentric and nomocentric troublemaker and the democratic paradox 4. The massive troublemaker and fundamentalism 5. The little savage and the populism of Donald Trump 6. On the threshold Notes List of abbreviations Literature Index