A review by drbjjcarpenter
Gefährdetes Leben. Politische Essays by Judith Butler

5.0

Butler provides some deep insights into the nature of grief within the public sphere before then proceeding to analyse the relationship between executive (governmental) and judicial power with regards to Guantanamo bay. Both of these sections discuss the nature of the human, who we can consider human and who is excluded from this, and what kinds of lives can be grieved or considered worthy of such a response. This is picked up in the final section, in which she discusses Levinas' concept of the face and the precarious nature of the lives of others, something which, through our coming to know, we come to realise our own precarity. The four section is a wonderfully concise yet apt division of "Jewish" and "Israeli" through which she expresses her dislike for the concept of any critique of Israeli policy to be in some sense anti-semitic. Butler continues to be a shrewd and precise critic and rhetorician.