Resisting Ethics

Resisting Ethics is a new contribution to an ongoing debate on how the world can be improved. Starting with the notion that resistance and ethics are theoretically and practically intertwined, Schaffer develops a new socially oriented ethics based on the practical experience of resistance and ethics. Borrowing from and extending the ideas of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu, and using case studies of the Algerian Revolution and the Zapatista rebellion, Schaffer argues that existentialism can give us new insights into how we can and should act ethically in the world. Resisting Ethics is a wide-ranging work and represents a new kind of intervention into issues of social justice and resistance.

"Resisting Ethics is an eloquent reassertion of the Western tradition of radical democracy in the face of the disintegrative forces of neo-liberal modernity. Grounding his ideas on a provocative combination of social theorists, Schaffer elaborates particularly on Bourdieu's 'margin of liberty' to develop an important new model of ethical action." - Dr. Bridget Fowler, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Glasgow, Scotland

"Swimming against the stream of much recent social theory, Scott Schaffer urges a return to ethics-one informed by practices of resistance to oppression. In a series of bold moves through Sartre and Fanon to the Zapatistas, Schaffer weaves theory and history into his call for an ethics of freedom. As it should, this book will provoke debate. But this is a debate we need, and Schaffer's is a voice that deserves to be heard." - David McNally, author, Bodies of Meaning: Studies on Language, Labor and Liberation and Another World Is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism

"With Resisting Ethics, Scott Schaffer has produced a landmark study of the continued relevance of political existentialism for contemporary radical thought. Instinctively interdisciplinary in its combination of intellectual history with moral and social theory, sensitive to the theoretical struggles of the post-Seattle left, Resisting Ethics is destined to enrich the repertoire of activist thinkers seeking new resources to think about capitalist globalization, the free market and democracy." - Joel Schalit, author of Jerusalem Calling: A Homeless Conscience in a Post-Everything World

"Scott Schaffer is raising major issues, and does it with a nicely balanced attention both to relevant theorists - Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Bordieu, Gramsci, and Fanon - and to major struggles - the war for Algerian independence, and the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico. Grounding his argument for a 'resisting ethics' and an 'ethics of resistance' in Sartre's and Merleau-Ponty's existentialism, Schaffer shows not only an impressive familiarity with their ideas, but is able to employ them for important purposes. "

- Ronald Aronson, author of Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended It and Distinguished Professor of Humanities, Wayne State University

SCOTT E. SCHAFFER is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, where he does work in global social theory, resistance, and political and cultural sociology. He serves as Managing Editor of the online Journal of Mundane Behavior and is a member of the Bad Subjects Production Team.