Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima

Darrell J. Fasching is Professor of Religious Studies and Associate Dean for Faculty Development of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Florida, Tampa.

• Preface Acknowledgments Prologue: The Challenge of Babel—From Alienation to Ethics After Auschwitz and Hiroshima Part I: The Promise of Utopia and the Threat of Apocalypse 1. Technology and the Dialectics of Apocalypse and Utopia The Coming of the MillenniumLanguage, Technique, and the Utopianism of the BodyThe Technological City as Utopian Horizon of the Body-SelfThe Apocalyptic Deformation of Utopianism: Procrustean and Protean DistortionsDoubt and Utopian TranscendenceThe Dialectics of Apocalypse and Utopia 2. The Narrative Ambivalence of a Technological Civilization: Apocalypse or Utopia? Technopolis: The Secular City as UtopianAuschwitz: The Secular City as ApocalypticTechnopolis: The Sacralization of the Secular CityFrom Auschwitz to Hiroshima: Technopolis and the Abyss of the Demonic 3. From Auschwitz to Hiroshima: The Apocalyptic Dark Night Doubling and the Demonic Narrative of Auschwitz: Killing in Order to HealFrom Auschwitz to Hiroshima: The Demonic Inversion of the Narrative Traditions of the Holy—East and WestFrom Trinity to the Bhagavad Gita: Wounding in Order to Heal, Slaying to Make AliveThe Apocalyptic Dark Night and the MAD-ness of Planetary Suicide Part II: After Auschwitz and Hiroshima: Utopian Ethics for an Apocalyptic Age 4. The Ethical Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima to Technological Utopianism Ethics: From Sacred Narratives to Utopian CritiqueTheology of Culture as the Utopian Critique of Technical CivilizationThe Dialectics of the Critique of Culture: From the Sacred and Profane to the Holy and SecularThe Challenge of Auschwitz and Hiroshima: From Sacred Morality to Alienation and Ethics 5. Utopian Ethics: From Human Dignity to Human Rights and Human Liberation The Utopianism of Job: From the Ethics of Obedience to the Ethics of AudacitySecular Holiness in Defense of Human Dignity: The Commanding Voice from Auschwitz and the UN Declaration of Human RightsThe Convergence of Utopian Narratives: From Abraham and Siddhartha to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. 6. Beyond Technopolis: The Utopian Promise of Babel The Linguistic and Narrative Poverty of SecularismWelcoming the Stranger as the Utopian Norm of Secular ReasonTechnobureaucratic Rationality and the "Myth" of Human RightsFrom Narrative Diversity to the Utopian Promise of Babel 7. A Utopian Vision: Narrative Ethics in a MAD World Beyond the Naked Public SquareThe Utopian Quest in an Age of Apocalyptic DarknessUtopian Technopoesis and the Limits of Political RealismFrom Apocalyptic MAD-ness to Utopian Madness: Public Policy Ethics as Critique of the Narrative Imagination Epilogue: The Secular University, Religious Studies, and Theological Ethics After Auschwitz and Hiroshima Appendix: The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Notes Index