The Virtual Point of Freedom

The principal motif that runs throughout The Virtual Point of Freedom is a confrontation with the discourse of freedom, or, more specifically, the falsely transgressive ideal of a total emancipation that would know no constraints. Far from delineating a supposed subject of freedom that would allegedly overcome alienation once and for all, the seven chapters in Chiesas book seek to unfold an innovative reading of the dialectical coincidence between dis-alienation and re-alienation in politics, aesthetics, and religion, using psychoanalysis as a privileged critical tool. Topics include Pier Paolo Pasolinis attack on the visual and biological degeneration of bodies brought about by pleasure-seeking liberal consumerism, Giorgio Agambens and Slavoj ieks conflicting negotiations with the Christian tradition of poverty and inappropriatenessas potential redemption, and Alain Badious inability to develop a philosophical anthropology that could sustain a coherent politics of emancipation. The book concludes by sketching out the figure of the partisan, a subject who makes it possible toconceive of an intersection between provisional morality and radical politics.