"Political Romanticism" and "Aesthetic Politics": Content, Comparison, Criticism

Relevance. In Western political philosophy and political theory, the judgment that modern democracy does not have a satisfactory general ("synoptic") theory, has the status of (almost) universal significance ‒ the philosophical interpretation of this "situation" is an urgent research task for modern political philosophy.

Purpose. The representation of the political in the "concept of the political" and the "economic paradigm of the political" reveals identical characteristic features; the configuration of their unity and the assessment attributed to them differ ‒ the goal is to understand the different meanings attributed to the same "phenomena" and "processes" of modernity in conceptual frameworks defined by opposite paradigms.

Objectives. The method of determining the actual policy in the horizon of "metaphysical principles" is demonstrated. The fundamentals of the paradigmatic representation of the political and the principles of constructing the narrative of modern liberal democracy are revealed. The procedure of giving credibility to theoretical judgments about the political is analyzed.  

Methodology. The paradigmatic representation of the political can be understood, and only as a result explained; understanding refers to the real concept, explanation – to reality; the combination of the "real" and "real" distinguished in the tradition of Western philosophy takes place in a philosophical concept; the formation of the concept presupposes philosophical interest; philosophical hermeneutics and deduction provide tools suitable for understanding the political in unity: from "metaphysical foundations" to practical politics. 

Results. The statement about the romantic nature of the modern representation of the political in the liberal economic paradigm looks reliable. It is proved that historical and aesthetic representation, more than «mimetic», fulfills the imperatives attributed to the modern form of political – Western representative democracy. The evidence of the necessary replacement of the «center of political ontology» from the sovereign to an «empty place» is demonstrated.

Conclusions. Representative democracy, romantic and postmodern, is a necessary and legitimate form of the modern liberal way of representing the political. The main task of aesthetic politics is supposed to ensure security: "keep to the middle and avoid extremes", exclude an event, normalize the political, that is, to banalize politics.

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