Lordon

Summary

Dominique Pagani regards Frédéric Lordon as a comrade in struggle. He praises his courage on the left, his defence of sovereignty and republican values, his positions against the European treaty and his programme for rebuilding the social sciences1. Yet he reproaches him with a "schizophrenia": his political choices rest on the anti-dialectical and naturalist ways of thinking most opposed to them2. His neo-Spinozism neglects the historical dimension of the affects and denies freedom. He appeals to a Spinoza cut off from the liberation of the sage, or quoted in truncated form34. His theory of the affects is presented as new, whereas philosophy has never stopped thinking about desire5. Pagani dwells above all on his reading of Clouscard, to which he devotes the afterword "Must We Save Soldier Lordon?". In it, Lordon is said to turn Clouscard into a puritanical critic of consumption, attached to working-class purity. Pagani sees this as a founding misreading, taken from the post-1968 vulgate, which echoes the FN's reception6.

1. 1K for Karl25 Dec 2014 · 2:33
2. 2K for Karl25 Dec 2014 · 3:59
3. 3Q for Quality31 Dec 2014 · 6:31
4. 4#2.7 Between crisis and war: philosophising?1 Aug 2017 · 58:00
5. 5D for Desire17 Dec 2014 · 2:04
6. 6Neo-fascism and the ideology of desire: is Michel Clouscard still relevant?23 May 2026 · 49:04

Summary produced automatically from 32 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.