| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper begins by noting that some forms of leftism reinforce rather than oppose the exclusion of the urban poor from the agora. It shows that neither the capacity for intellectual nor for ethical seriousness can be read off a sociological location and suggests that a humanism made, in Cesaire's terms, 'to the measure of the world', a commitment to a universal ethic, is necessary if the humanity, and therefore the prospect of political agency, on the part of all people is to be recognized. It concludes by arguing that recent debates about a return to a communist Idea need to be mindful of a history in which communism has been a form of imperialism rather than a genuinely universal ideal.
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