States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity

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Whether in characterizing Catherine MacKinnon's theory of gender as itself pornographic or in identifying liberalism as unable to make good on its promises, this text pursues a central question: how does a sense of woundedness become the basis for a sense of identity Brown argues that efforts to outlaw hate speech and pornography powerfully legitimize the state: such apparently well-intentioned attempts harm victims further by portraying them as so helpless as to be in continuing need of governmental protection. "Whether one is dealing with the state, the Mafia, parents, pimps, police, or husbands," writes Brown, "the heavy price of institutionalized protection is always a measure of dependence and agreement to abide by the protector's rules." True democracy, she insists, requires sharing power, not regulation by it; freedom, not protection. Refusing any facile identification with one political position or another, Brown applies her argument to a panoply of topics, from the basis of litigiousness in political life to the appearance on the academic Left of themes of revenge and a thwarted will to power.These and other provocations in contemporary political thought and political li

Reviews

"Wendy Brown undertakes a critical analysis of late modern state power to reveal how identity politics translated into rights claims. . . . [This study] significantly advances our understanding of aspects of politics where particular identities and universal rights are currently in conflict." * American Political Science Review *

Author Bio

Wendy Brown is the UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study. Her books include Nihilistic Times, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism, and Undoing the Demos.