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SUMMARY:Suffering\, Progress\, and Precarity in the West   - Professor Mic
 hael Barnett\, George Washington University
DTSTART:20230403T120000Z
DTEND:20230403T140000Z
UID:TALK198358@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Ayse Zarakol
DESCRIPTION:This talk presents yet another theory of the rise and possible
  decline of the West.  The West’s sense of itself is linked to a belief 
 in progress that is intimately tied to the recognition of and response to 
 suffering. Not just run-of-the-mill suffering but suffering that makes the
  West question its own humanity.  The West attempts to reconcile its faith
  in progress and these episodes of evil and inhumanity through a process o
 f moral repair – to be the community it pretends to be.  Part of moral r
 epair includes building sacralized global institutions that symbolize its 
 humanity.  These institutions are built in the hope that they can prevent 
 and reduce suffering.  But these are institutions built not by angels but 
 by flesh-and-blood humans\, and\, consequently\, the sacred is integrated 
 with the profane.  This scene repeats itself from the beginning of a West 
 that becomes conscience of itself until the present.  The West has answere
 d moments of inhumanity with pledges to become more human. Cycles of moral
  repair help to explain how the West has been able to save itself from the
  evil it commits and why it believes that it can continue to build higher 
 and higher.  But how long can this go on?  Is there a moment when the West
 ’s ability to renew itself becomes exhausted?  The West is now at that m
 oment.  Like the Tower of Babel\, the West’s attempt to build heaven on 
 earth and create what Kant called an internationalism with cosmopolitan in
 tent is collapsing on itself\, with disillusionment with the idea of progr
 ess and the shrinking of the moral community from the “West” to the na
 tion. 
LOCATION:Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road (Sidgwick Site)\, Room S1
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