One of America’s leading political theorists analyzes the nihilism degrading—and confounding—political and academic life today. Through readings of Max Weber’s Vocation Lectures, she proposes ways to counter nihilism’s devaluations of both knowledge and political responsibility.

How has politics become a playpen for vain demagogues? Why has the university become an ideological war zone? What has happened to Truth? Wendy Brown places nihilism at the center of these predicaments. Emerging from European modernity’s replacement of God and tradition with science and reason, nihilism removes the foundation on which values, including that of truth itself, stand. It hyperpoliticizes knowledge and reduces the political sphere to displays of narcissism and irresponsible power plays. It renders the profound trivial, the future unimportant, and corruption banal.

To consider remedies for this condition, Brown turns to Weber’s famous Vocation Lectures, delivered at the end of World War I. There, Weber himself decries the effects of nihilism on both scholarly and political life. He also spells out requirements for re-securing truth in the academy and integrity in politics. Famously opposing the two spheres to each other, he sought to restrict academic life to the pursuit of facts and reserve for the political realm the pursuit and legislation of values.

Without accepting Weber’s arch oppositions, Brown acknowledges the distinctions they aim to mark as she charts reparative strategies for our own times. She calls for retrieving knowledge from hyperpoliticization without expunging values from research or teaching, and reflects on ways to embed responsibility in radical political action. Above all, she challenges the left to make good on its commitment to critical thinking by submitting all values to scrutiny in the classroom and to make good on its ambition for political transformation by twinning a radical democratic vision with charismatic leadership.

A Seminary Co-op Notable Book

“What makes Brown’s book especially well worth reading is her impressive ability to show how key themes in Weber’s scholarship—including his emphasis on the defining characteristics of modernity . . . speak to our own time.” —Inside Higher Ed

“Presses us to think more carefully and imaginatively about the relationships among human freedom, human value, and something beyond purely human concerns, be it truth, God, or Gaia.” —Commonweal

“Worth reading…A timely reminder of the nihilistic air we breathe.” —Law & Liberty

“Elegantly and concisely written…this insightful, thought-provoking book illuminates some objective culture factors contributing to the social division and degradation of public life in many democracies today.” —Critical Theology

How has politics become a playpen for vain demagogues? Why has the university become an ideological war zone? What has happened to Truth? Wendy Brown places nihilism at the center of these predicaments. Emerging from the replacement of God and tradition with science and reason, nihilism removes the foundation on which values, including that of truth itself, stand. It hyperpoliticizes knowledge and renders the profound trivial, the future unimportant, and corruption banal.

To consider remedies for this condition, Brown turns to Max Weber’s Vocation Lectures. Weber decries the effects of nihilism on scholarly and political life and famously proposes to keep the two separate, restricting academic work to the pursuit of facts and the political realm to the legislation of values. Without accepting Weber’s arch oppositions, Brown acknowledges the distinctions they mark as she charts reparative strategies for our own times. She calls for retrieving knowledge from hyperpoliticization without expunging values from research or teaching, and she challenges the left to make good on its commitments to critical thinking and democratization.

A landmark work of critical theory about the Western university from the Southern Cone

Renowned Chilean philosopher Willy Thayer’s La crisis no moderna de la universidad moderna, first published in 1996 and in an updated edition in 2019, is a landmark work of critical theory from the Southern Cone. Presented in English for the first time, The Non-Modern Crisis of the Modern University rewrites the idea of the Western university while also diagnosing the ills of postdictatorship Chile through a philosophically informed dismantling of its neoliberal institutionalization of higher education. Bret Leraul’s translation advances the vital work of globalizing critical university studies by disseminating theory from the Global South. If the university helped to construct Chile’s neoliberal society, Thayer’s polemical deconstruction of both will help readers reconstruct the cultural politics of the era to better understand the global hegemony of neoliberalism today.