Michael Dutton most recently taught at Beijing Capital Normal University and Goldsmiths, University of London, and is the author of
If chapter 4 began with two events that divided the world, chapter 5 circles around two figures who did the same, but in a different way. One was the 9/11 suicide bomber, the other, the 1989 Tian’anmen “tank man.” In the West, these are antithetical figures, yet they meet around one question, namely, under what conditions does one consider the possibility of giving one’s own life willingly as sacrifice? For the fateful few who are drawn to this question we have a name: political Dasein. They become the personification of political intensity and stand in contrast to that other figure that Peter Sloterdijk has called the bored Dasein. We meet this other figure in Göttingen.
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