The article takes into account the exceptionality of Étienne de La Boétie’s Discourse on Voluntary Servitude within its historical context, when compared to other anti-tyrannical essays published in Sixteenth-Century France. The Discourse can be read as a sort of anachronistic criticism of the modern theory of sovereignty, since it connects the birth of a monarchical power with the presence in every man of a desire to be identified with “the name of the One”. However, this process of hallucinatory identification with a “master”, to whom the individual sacrifices his own singularity, can be fought by the capacity of human language to build a net of co-operation among men, which overthrows any close and static identity between individuals and power. Thus freedom appears to be not a natural and stable possess, but rather an uninterrupted and risky process of collective emancipation.
Étienne de La Boétie: il linguaggio della libertà
visentin stefano
2018
Abstract
The article takes into account the exceptionality of Étienne de La Boétie’s Discourse on Voluntary Servitude within its historical context, when compared to other anti-tyrannical essays published in Sixteenth-Century France. The Discourse can be read as a sort of anachronistic criticism of the modern theory of sovereignty, since it connects the birth of a monarchical power with the presence in every man of a desire to be identified with “the name of the One”. However, this process of hallucinatory identification with a “master”, to whom the individual sacrifices his own singularity, can be fought by the capacity of human language to build a net of co-operation among men, which overthrows any close and static identity between individuals and power. Thus freedom appears to be not a natural and stable possess, but rather an uninterrupted and risky process of collective emancipation.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
