Hegel's Political Theology by Andrew Shanks - 9780521088060

Hegel's Political TheologyAuthor(s): Andrew Shanks\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521088060, 978-0521088060\nSynopsis\nThis study begins with an examination of Milan Kundera's concept of 'kitsch', which is defined and investigated in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The author here describes this concept as 'the clich which bonds the crowd together - the means by which the thought control of the hierarchy or peer group is dressed up, internalised, and rendered seductive'. Dr Shanks relates kitsch and its dangers to the thought of Hegel, whom he regards as a religious reformer wrestling with the issue at the deepest level. What, he asks, is required to rescue the Christian gospel from its pervasive corruption, which takes the form either of ecclesiastical authoritarianism, or else a privatized, 'atomistic' spirituality? The author shows Hegel's answer to be twofold. It involve.