Abstract: Think of the man/woman distinction in Genesis/chapter_3, the body/soul binary designed by Socrates/Plato/Aristotle, the East/West divide of Empire, the body/mind split of Descartes and the subject/object dichotomy of modern science, the bourgeoisie/proletariat opposition of Engels/Marx, and the friend/enemy distinction brought to life by Carl Schmitt via Schopenhauer-Nietzsche-Max_Weber in The Concept of the Political. A lot of people have lost their lives because of these distinctions. So, forgetting how dangerous binary oppositional thinking can be, I have decided to add a new ‘killer binary’ to the above list. The ‘individual/person’ distinction is potentially as dangerous as other famous binaries that have come before it. Indeed, it can destroy the nation-state. And yet it can serve as a time/space template for the introduction and preparation of a new way of thinking about contemporary human beings.
Keywords: Binary oppositions, binarisation, Big Data, digital human, zombie, European Union, Napoleon, imperialism, Carl Schmitt, neutralisations, depoliticisations, Africa, Asia, Middle East, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, dangerousness, anarchism, liberalism, criminals, criminality, politicians, prisons, organised crime, terror, terrorism, Hannah Arendt, Eichmann, Benito Cereno, Melville, Slavoj Žižek, Less than Nothing, Lévi-strauss, Hobbes, Spinoza, Pufendorf, Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, exoplanet, The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Snowden, spy agencies, ID, number, age, gender, race, nationality, Kepler mission, NASA, space, telescope, star gazing, Mauna Kea, Kona Keahole.
Title: Individual/person: a ‘killer binary’
Author: Fred Perez
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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