Against purity
Subtitle: living ethically in compromised times
By: Alexis Shotwell
Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 236
ISBN-13: 9780816698622; 9780816698646
Subjects: Purity (Philosophy); Modern Civilization; Conduct of life; Purity (Ethics)
Description: The world is in a terrible mess. It is toxic, irradiated, and full of injustice. Aiming to stand aside from the mess can produce a seemingly satisfying self-righteousness in the scant moments we achieve it, but since it is ultimately impossible, individual purity will always disappoint. Might it be better to understand complexity, and, indeed, our own complicity in much of what we think of as bad, as fundamental to our lives? 'Against Purity' argues that the only answer - if we are to have any hope of tackling the past, present and future of colonialism, disease, pollution, and climate change - is a resounding yes.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-228) and index.
Table of contents: title: Complexity and complicity : an introduction to constitutive impurity; title: Part I. Reckoning with a fraught past. Remembering for the future : reckoning with an unjust past; title: "Women don't get AIDS, they just die from it" : memory, classification, and the campaign to change the definition of AIDS; title: Part II. Living in an interdependent present. Shimmering presences : frog, toad, and toxic interdependencies; title: Consuming suffering : eating, energy, and embodied ethics; title: Part III. Shaping unforeseeable futures. Practicing freedom : disability and gender transformation; title: Worlds to come : imagining speculative disability futures; title: Conclusion : the point, however, is to change it.