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Love and Politics: Re-Interpreting Hegel

Love and Politics: Re-Interpreting Hegel. By Alice Ormiston. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 164p. $40.00 With this book, Alice Ormiston presents a compelling interpretation of Hegel's philosophy that speaks to the needs of our time. Her central argument is that love is “the continuous foundation at play in Hegel's understanding of the modern self” and the “experiential basis” of his philosophy (pp. 5–6). Hegelian love is an expansive notion that has historical grounding in early Christian mysticism. No longer readily felt in widely shared religious or civic practices, love has been all but eclipsed in the modern world. But love's knowledge is not lost. Reappearing as a moment of grace in situations of moral and political conflict, love helps us heed our conscience. Hegel's political philosophy is, we learn, a call to conscience. If we do not know what conscience requires, we become vulnerable to “the problems of our time”: alienation and social atomism—seen in poverty, weakened commitments to family and local politics, and selfish disregard for the welfare of others—and a collective inability to distinguish right and wrong that contributes to evil (pp. 115–24).