Troublemakers

Dieter Thomä is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Gallen

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionI. The puer robustus as an evil man: Thomas Hobbes1. The threshold creature caught between power, morality and history 2. Self-interest and reason 3. Hobbes’s egocentric troublemakers: Fools, epileptics, madmen, the poor and the rich 4. Author-actor-audience theory: The eccentric troublemaker in the belly of the Leviathan 5. The puer robustus of Horace – a model for Hobbes?II. The puer robustus as a good man: Jean-Jacques Rousseau1. The power and morality of the savage 2. The transformation of the puer robustus into a citizen 3. What does Rousseau’s puer robustus do after his victory? Democracy and disturbance of the peaceIII. Rameau’s nephew as a puer robustus: Denis Diderot1. Hobbes’s sublime definition 2. The puer robustus as a social problem or ambivalent character: Diderot beyond Helvétius, Hobbes and Rousseau 3. Life on the threshold: Rameau’s Nephew 4. Hegel’s and Foucault’s nephewIV. Unloving child, wicked son, strong savior: Friedrich Schiller1. The puer robustus as a “freedman of creation” 2. Franz and Karl Moor: All power for me – or a different power for all? 3. Wilhelm Tell’s journey from loner to league founderV. The puer robustus as victim and hero: Victor Hugo1. Quasimodo as a monkey gone wrong 2. The birth of wickedness from humiliation 3. Moral emancipation 4. The street urchin as a puer robustus 5. The relatives of the street urchin: Balzac’s real man and Baudelaire’s little savageVI. Siegfried, foolish boy: Richard Wagner1. The contract as a crime against nature 2. External salvation 3. The hero as child and dullard: Siegfried’s recipe for successVII. The puer robustus between Europe and America: Alexis de Tocqueville1. The birth of the puer robustus under the yoke of despotism: Tocqueville’s first insight  2. Praise for America and a warning against the Wild West 3. The birth of the puer robustus from the spirit of capitalism: Tocqueville’s second insight 4. Life as a revolution and experiment: Tocqueville, Mill, NietzscheVIII. The puer robustus as a revolutionary: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels1. The people is by far the most dangerous 2. The fight against dependence and separation 3. The lumpenproletariat as the spoilsport of the revolution 4. The revolutionary subject as a species-being or community-beingIX. The puer robustus as Oedipus: Sigmund Freud1. The little savage 2. Democracy and dictatorship 3. Politics after Freud: A debate between Walter Lippmann, Paul Federn, Hans Blüher, Thomas Mann and Hans KelsenX. Anarchists, adventurers, young rowdies and little savages:Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, Helmut Schelsky and Max Horkheimer1. Blossoming in dark times: Hobbes da capo 2. Carl Schmitt on the total state and its enemies 3. Leo Strauss on the closed society and adventurers 4. Helmut Schelsky on power and young rowdies 5. Max Horkheimer on the authoritarian state and little savagesXI. Good spirits and poisonous weeds: The puer robustus in Italy in 1949 and China in 19571. Togliatti’s New Year’s message to his comrades 2. Mao Zedong and Tan Tianrong on fragrant flowers and poisonous weeds 3. From China back to Europe: We can forget Alain BadiouXII. The puer robustus today1. No end to history 2. The egocentric troublemaker and the financial crisis 3. The eccentric and nomocentric troublemaker – and the democratic paradox 4. The massive troublemaker and fundamentalism 5. The little savage and the populism of Donald Trump 6. On the thresholdNotesList of abbreviationsLiteratureIndex

“In fluent and energetic style, Dieter Thomä offers a compelling response to the current threats facing our economic, social, and political order. This timely and important book will be of great interest to anyone who is struggling to understand what is going on in the world today.”Joachim Whaley, University of Cambridge“For some years now, Dieter Thomä has been writing extraordinarily original, elegantly conceived and executed books about topics as varied as parents, fathers, and Americans – in effect, he has been re-defining the proper topics of philosophical reflection. His new book on the puer robustus, a notion introduced by Hobbes about the ‘troublemakers’ in society, is a masterpiece of this genre, the literate philosophical essay. The scholarship is astonishing, ranging over Hobbes, Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Hugo, Marx, Freud, and others, the insights acute and important, and the pleasure of reading it constant.”Robert Pippin, University of Chicago“With an admirable combination of historical serendipity, hermeneutical sensitivity, and philosophical farsightedness, Dieter Thomä manages in this fascinating book to reanimate a political figure always present in the imaginary of democratic societies but never fully disclosed or theorized: the puer robustus, the troublemaker, who since the times of Hobbes has again and again haunted the fantasy of political philosophers as someone either undermining or rejuvenating the democratic order of modern societies. It is the path-breaking thesis of this masterful study that, without revealing the exact role of these troublemakers, we are not capable of understanding both the risks and the potentials for renewal, the dangers and the vitality of democratic regimes.  A must read for everyone interested in political theory and philosophy.”Axel Honneth, University of Frankfurt“As the philosopher Dieter Thomä shows in this brilliant study, the puer robustus is a central element of societies marked by division and uncertainty. His book could not be more timely.”NZZ am Sonntag “Dieter Thomä tells a captivating adventure story of the troublemakers who have disrupted social order.”Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“Endlessly lively… tremendous entertainment”Catholic Herald