Age of Anger

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Age of Anger Page 35

by Pankaj Mishra


  7. Epilogue

  Eric Voegelin wrote about Bakunin in his From Enlightenment to Revolution (Durham, NC, 1975). Václav Havel’s writings on the ‘free world’ in Living in Truth (London, 1986) are still incandescent. Søren Kierkegaard’s views on journalism and vanity are contained in his The Present Age, trans. Alexander Dru (New York, 1962). Laurence Scott, The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World (London, 2015), is the most interesting among recent books on the reshaping of the human self by digital media. On the new illusions of the age, see Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don’t Exist (London, 2013). The new modes of exclusion are described in Saskia Sassen, Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy (Cambridge, 2014). See also Arjun Appadurai, Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger (Durham, NC, 2006). The Pope’s encyclical about climate change is arguably the most important piece of intellectual criticism in our time. See Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home (London, 2015). For an example of fresh thinking, see David Kennedy, The World of Struggle: How Power, Law, and Expertise Shape Global Political Economy (Princeton, 2016).

  Acknowledgements

  Most of the books that guided me in the journey from eighteenth-century Europe to twenty-first-century India are mentioned above. But there are just too many political contexts, intellectual idioms and mentalities in this book for any reader to master adequately on his own, and I am very grateful to those who read Age of Anger, partially or fully, in manuscript, offered advice and encouragement, and demanded clarification: Manan Ahmed, Ian Almond, Negar Azimi, Fatima Bhutto, Isaac Chotiner, Siddhartha Deb, Faisal Devji, Paul Elie, Masoud Golsorkhi, Kia Golsorkhi-Ainslie, John Gray, Suzy Hansen, Hussein Omar Hussein, Shruti Kapila, Tabish Khair, Rebecca Liao, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Ferdinand Mount, Alok Rai, Joe Sacco, Kamila Shamsie, Adam Shatz, Ajay Skaria and Jeffrey Wasserstrom. I was very fortunate to have in Eric Chinski, Chiki Sarkar and Simon Winder a splendid trio of editors; their suggestions greatly improved the text. In addition, it was a pleasure to work with Richard Mason, a wonderfully alert and responsive copy-editor. Over many years some wonderfully generous and skilful editors enabled me to explore and refine many of the ideas in this book: Lisa Allardice, Leo Carey, Barbara Epstein, Jason Epstein, Sheila Glazer, Nisid Hajari, Paul Laity, Jonathan Shainin, David Shipley, Robert Silvers, Jennifer Szalai, Katharine Viner and Mary-Kay Wilmers. I am also grateful to Francesco Pelizzi, Gini Alhadeff, Enver and Onur Altayli, Nalin Patel and the Sharmas in Mashobra for their generous hospitality during the writing of this book. As always, I counted on Mary’s vast reserves of forbearance, and I should apologize to Maya for writing so much but not nearly as well as Jacqueline Wilson.

  Index

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  9/11 terrorist attacks

  Abduh, Muhammad

  Achebe, Chinua, Things Fall Apart (1958)

  al-Adnani, Abu Mohammed

  al-Afghani, Jamal al-din

  Afghanistan

  Africa

  impact of Western materialism

  and modernity

  rise of nation state in

  spiralling wars in

  traditional beliefs in

  Voltaire on

  Western colonialism in

  see also individual countries

  African-Americans

  al-e-Ahmad, Jalal

  Westoxification (1962)

  Ajami, Fouad

  Aksakov, Konstantin Sergeyevich

  d’Alembert, Jean

  Aleppo, Syria

  Alexander II, Tsar, assassination of (1881)

  Alexandria, Egypt

  Alfonso XIII, King of Spain

  Algeria

  Ambani, Mukesh

  Ambedkar, B. R.

  America First (right-wing think tank)

  American Revolution

  anarchism

  fin de siècle

  fin de siècle terrorism

  fin de siècle terrorism in literary fiction

  see also Bakunin, Mikhail

  ancien régimes

  Anglo-American liberalism see democracy, liberal; liberalism, classical; neo-liberalism

  D’Annunzio, Gabriele

  anti-Semitism

  in Austria-Hungary

  in France

  in Germany

  in late nineteenth century

  of Wagner

  Appiah, Kwame Anthony

  Arab world

  ‘Arab Spring’

  see also individual countries

  Arendt, Hannah

  negative solidarity concept

  The Origins of Totalitarianism

  Argentina

  Arminius

  Arndt, Ernst Moritz

  Aron, Raymond

  Arts and Crafts movement

  Asia

  financial crisis (1997)

  impact of Western materialism

  and modernity

  pan-Asianism

  rise of nation state in

  spiralling wars in

  traditional beliefs in

  Western colonialism in

  see also individual countries

  Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal

  Hitler’s reverence for

  Atta, Mohammed

  Austria

  Austria-Hungary

  al-Awlaki, Anwar

  Baader-Meinhof group

  Bagehot, Walter

  Bajrangi, Babu

  Bakunin, Mikhail

  and idea of individual freedom

  influence in Italy

  and Nechaev affair

  and Wagner

  Balkan conflict (1990s)

  Balzac, The Country Doctor (1833)

  Banerjea, Surendranath

  Bangladesh

  Barcelona

  Barres, Maurice

  Baudelaire, Charles

  Bayly, Christopher, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (2004)

  Beethoven, Ludwig van

  Belinsky, Vissarion

  Ben-Gurion, David

  Benjamin, Walter

  Benn, Gottfried

  Bentham, Jeremy

  Berdyaev, Nikolai

  Bergson, Henri

  Berlin, Isaiah

  Besant, Annie

  Beyoncé

  Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

  Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali

  bin Laden, Osama

  Bismarck, Otto von

  Blavatsky, Madame

  Bloom, Allan

  Boer War (1899–1902)

  Bolívar, Simón

  Bollywood films

  de Bonald, Vicomte

  Boo, Katherine, Behind the Beautiful Forevers (2012)

  Borneo

  Boulanger, Georges

  bourgeois society

  1848 victory of

  loathing of in nineteenth century

  see also commercial society

  Braun, Lily

  Brazil

  Breivik, Anders Behring

  Britain

  Brexit (2016)

  commercial class in

  English nationalism

  Gandhi and Savarkar in

  Glorious Revolution

  Great Exhibition (1851); see also Crystal Palace

  industrial revolution in

  jingoism in

  and neo-liberal revolution

  Rousseau on England

  and Second World War

  Voltaire in England

  British Empire

  conquest of Palestine (1917)

  Hindu supremacist terrorism (1909)

  nineteenth-century revolts against

  Bruce-Gardyne, Jock

  Brussels attack (March 2016)

  Buber,
Martin

  Buddhism

  Buffon, Comte de, Natural History (1749)

  Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

  Bush, George W.

  Byron, Lord

  Camus, Albert

  Canovas, Antonio, assassination of (1897)

  capitalism

  and class antagonisms

  and ‘negative solidarity’

  nineteenth- /early twentieth-century crises

  nineteenth-century rise of

  social and working conditions

  see also commercial society; free market ideology; globalization; growth, economic; neo-liberalism

  Carducci, Giosue

  Carpenter, Edward

  Catalonia

  Catherine of Russia

  imperialism in Poland and Turkey

  and the philosophes

  Catholic Church

  see also Christianity

  Cavour, Camillo

  Chaadaev, Pyotr, Philosophical Letter (1836)

  Chamberlain, Houston Stewart

  Chamran, Mostafa

  Charlie Hebdo

  Chateaubriand, The Genius of Christianity (1802)

  Chattopadhyay, Bankim Chandra

  Chaudhuri, Nirad C.

  Chechnya

  Chernyshevsky, Nikolai

  What is to be Done (1863)

  Chesterton, G. K.

  China

  anti-Western cinema and literature

  Boxer Rising (1900)

  economic liberalization in

  European imperialism in

  great leaps forward

  impact of Western materialism

  and individualism

  Japanese invasion of (1930s)

  Li Shizeng’s anarchists

  Liang Qichao and Mazzini

  Lu Xun’s ‘New Life’ campaign

  modernization

  nationalism

  shift eastwards of economic power

  Young China

  Chraïbi, Driss

  Christianity

  challenge of science

  and the Enlightenment

  German Protestantism

  idea of resurrection

  and Mickiewicz

  in modern USA

  and Nietzsche

  and nineteenth-century shift to the secular

  and the philosophes

  in post-Soviet Russia

  Reformation

  revival in nineteenth-century Germany

  and revolutionary thought

  and Rousseau

  Cioran, Emil

  civil society

  clash of civilizations thesis

  climate change

  Clinton, Hillary

  Clough, Arthur Hugh, Amours de Voyage

  Code Napoléon

  Cold War

  end of

  overthrow of left wing regimes in Third World

  colonialism, Western see imperialism, Western

  commercial society

  Adam Smith’s theories

  as atomised

  in Britain

  and class antagonisms

  and creeping despotism

  dog-eat-dog politics and economy

  elites as not politically vulnerability

  frustrated aspiration

  growth as end-all of political life

  and mimetic desire

  moneyed elite and the rest

  Rousseau’s condemnation of

  and Schiller

  see also bourgeois society

  communications and transport

  Communism

  Bolshevism

  brutal suppression of in Third World

  The Communist Manifesto (Marx/Engels, 1848)

  ‘Internationals’

  see also Marxism

  Comte, Auguste

  Condillac, Treatise on Systems (1749)

  de Condorcet, Nicolas

  Conrad, Joseph

  Constant, Benjamin

  Corradini, Enrico

  Crimean War

  Crystal Palace

  Cuba

  Czaykowski, Michal

  Dalai Lama

  Darnton, Robert

  Darrawi, Ahmed

  Darwin, Charles

  DeLillo, Don

  demagoguery

  democracy, liberal

  attempts to impose by force

  belief in worldwide spread of

  and Cold War

  and creeping despotism

  in early nineteenth century

  and First World War

  and French Revolution

  Fukuyama’s end-of-history hypothesis

  as game rigged by the powerful

  and Nietzsche

  nineteenth-century failings of

  present-day crisis of

  and rise of totalitarianism

  and Tocqueville

  triumphalist history

  Denmark

  Descartes, René

  developing and emerging economies

  see also post-colonial states

  development

  origins in Germany

  Western inspired national emulation

  Dickens, Charles, Little Dorrit (1857)

  Diderot, Denis

  and Catherine of Russia

  Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville (1772)

  digital communications

  internet

  ISIS use of

  IT revolution

  and rise of ressentiment

  social media

  Dobroliubov, Nikolay

  Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

  and Nechaev affair

  and nihilism

  and Western materialist culture

  Crime and Punishment (1866)

  Demons (1872)

  Notes from Underground (1864)

  Dreyfus, Albert

  Dubai

  Duterte, Rodrigo

  Dumas, Alexandre

  Durkheim, Émile, Suicide (1897)

  dynamite

  Eastwood, Clint

  The Economist

  Egypt

  Eliot, T. S.

  elites, political

  absolutist

  commercial society rigged in favour of

  contempt for

  junking of social democracy by

  Lenin’s vanguard

  and national emulation

  and nationalism

  as not politically vulnerable in present day

  and the philosophes

  in postcolonial world

  present-day bewilderment/loss of nerve

  and present-day ultra-nationalism

  seen as deceptive and arrogant

  totalitarian

  traditionalist in non-West

  transnational/global

  Elizabeth of Austria, assassination of (1898)

  Ellis, Havelock

  emerging and developing economies

  see also post-colonial states

  Encyclopedia Britannica

  Encyclopédie

  Engels, Friedrich

  Enlightenment

  and commercial society

  concept of human agency

  egalitarian spirit

  see also equality

  and end of ancien régimes

  enlightened despotism

  meritocratic society

  Paris salons

  and religious faith

  Rousseau’s alienation

  and Russia’s Westernization

  and sense of time

  tradition seen as unproblematic norm

  West’s dirty war against

  see also modernity; philosophes; progress, Enlightenment/modern notions of; Western society (the West)

  equality

  and French Revolution

  gender and

  as Islamic ideal

  modern promise of

  and neo-liberalism

  and Rousseau

  and Tocqueville

  see
also inequality

  Erdogan, Recep Tayyip

  Escobar, Arturo

  ETA

  Ethiopia

  ethnic cleansing

  ethnic minorities

  see also immigrants

  eugenics

  European Union (EU)

  and Brexit

  Falconet, Étienne-Maurice

  Fardid, Ahmad

  Farini, Luigi Carlo

  Farook, Syed

  Fascism

  al-Fatah

  Fellowship of the New Life

  feminism

  Fénelon, François, The Adventures of Telemachus (1699)

  Ferdinand, Archduke Francis, assassination of (1914)

  Ferguson, Niall

  Ferrer, Francisco

  Fichte, Johann Gottlieb

  financial crisis (2008)

  financial system

  Finland

  First World War

  Fiume (Adriatic town)

  Flaubert, Gustave

  Forster, Georg

  Foucault, Michel

  Fourier, Charles

  France

  assassination of Carnot

  cult of the nation

  Dreyfus affair

  failings of bourgeois society

  German Romantics’ ressentiment

  imperialism

  July Revolution (1830)

  late nineteenth-century terrorism

  literature

  massacre of Italian immigrants (1893)

  Nazi occupation of

  Paris Commune (1871)

  Paris massacres (November 2015)

  present-day nationalism in

  rapid growth in eighteenth century

  right-wing extremism in

  see also French Revolution; philosophes

  Francis, Pope

  Franco-Prussian war (1871)

  Frankfurt School

  Frederick II, King of Prussia

  free market ideology

  attempts to impose by force

  promised universal civilization

  resurrection of fundamentalist variant (1980s)

  see also neo-liberalism

  triumphalism at end of Cold War

  war of all against all

  see also liberalism, classical

  freedom, individual

  and Bakunin

  Byronic notions of

  failure to materialize

  fin de siècle

 

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