André Glucksmann facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
André Glucksmann
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André Glucksmann in January 2012
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| Born | 19 June 1937 Boulogne-Billancourt, France
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| Died | 10 November 2015 (aged 78) Paris, France
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| Alma mater | École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud |
| Era | 20th-/21st-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Continental philosophy Nouveaux Philosophes |
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Main interests
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Political philosophy |
André Glucksmann (French: [ɡlyksman]; 19 June 1937 – 10 November 2015) was a French philosopher, activist and writer. He was a leading figure of the new philosophers.
Glucksmann began his career as a Marxist, but went on to reject communism in the popular book La Cuisinière et le Mangeur d'Hommes (1975), and later became an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russian foreign policy. He was a strong supporter of human rights. In later years he opposed the claim that Islamic terrorism is the product of the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West.
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Early years
André Glucksmann was born in 1937 in Boulogne-Billancourt, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish parents from Austria-Hungary. His father was from Bukovina, which later became part of Romania, and his mother from Prague, which later became the capital of Czechoslovakia.
Glucksmann's father was killed in World War II, and his mother and sister were active in the French Resistance. The family "narrowly escaped deportation to the camps" during the Holocaust, which influenced Glucksmann's developing ideas of "the state as the ultimate source of barbarism".
He studied at the Lycée la Martinière in Lyon, and later enrolled at École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud. His first book, Le Discours de la Guerre, was published in 1968.
Career
Early career
In 1975 he published the anti-Marxist book La Cuisinière et le Mangeur d'Hommes - subtitled Réflexions sur l'État, le marxisme et les camps de concentration, in which he argued that Marxism leads inevitably to totalitarianism, tracing parallels between the crimes of Nazism and Communism. In his next book Les maitres penseurs, published in 1977 and translated into English as Master Thinkers (Harper & Row, 1980), he traced the intellectual justification for totalitarianism back to the ideas articulated by various German philosophers such as Fichte, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche. In the years of the Vietnam War, Glucksmann rose to national prominence after expressing his support for Vietnamese boat people. He began working with Bernard-Henri Lévy criticizing Communism. Both had formerly been well known Marxists. Shortly afterwards they became known, along with others of their generation who rejected Marxism, as New Philosophers, a term coined by Lévy.
1980s and 1990s
In 1985, Glucksmann signed a petition to President Reagan urging him to continue his support for the Contras in Nicaragua. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Glucksmann became an advocate for the use of nuclear power. In 1995 he supported the resumption of nuclear tests by Jacques Chirac. He supported the NATO intervention in Serbia in 1999. He also called for Chechnya to become independent.
Philosophy
In his book Dostoyevsky in Manhattan, Glucksmann asserts that nihilism, particularly as depicted by Dostoyevsky in his novels Demons and The Brothers Karamazov, is the 'characteristic form' of modern terrorism.
Later years
Glucksmann supported military action by the West in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was highly critical of Russian foreign policy, supporting for example Chechen independence. However, he was against the Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence from Georgia, arguing that Georgia is essential to maintaining European Union "energy independence," vis-a-vis Russia, through access to oil and gas reserves in the former Soviet republics: "If Tbilisi falls, there will be no way to get around Gazprom and guarantee autonomous access to the gas and petroleum wealth of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan".
As proof of Russia's plans to use energy blackmail, Glucksmann referenced a biting anti-Gazprom satirical song performed at the annual satirical award show "Silver Rubber Boot", which made jokes like: "If the Eurovision Song Contest denies victory to Russia again, we are going to drive to their concert and block their gas with our bodies!" Glucksmann cited this as evidence that the Russian people want to cut off gas to Ukraine and Europe.
Glucksmann supported Nicolas Sarkozy for the April–May 2007 presidential election.
In August 2008 he co-signed an open letter with Václav Havel, Desmond Tutu, and Wei Jingsheng calling upon the Chinese authorities to respect human rights both during and after the Beijing Olympic Games.
He was a signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.
Death
Glucksmann died in Paris on 10 November 2015 at the age of 78.
In reaction to his death, President François Hollande said that Glucksmann always "listened to the suffering of peoples". Former president and opposition leader Nicolas Sarkozy commented on Glucksmann's death by saying: "[Glucksmann] turned a page in French thought from the second half of the 20th Century".
Works
- Voltaire counter-attacks (Voltaire Contre-Attaque) (2014)
- A Child's Rage (Une rage d'enfant) (2006)
- The Discourse of Hate (Le Discours de la haine) (2004)
- West Versus West (Ouest contre Ouest) (2003)
- Dostoevsky in Manhattan (Dostoïevski à Manhattan) (2002)
- The Third Death of God (La Troisième Mort de Dieu) (2000)
- Silence, Killing in Process (Silence, on tue) (1986) (with Thierry Wolton)
- Stupidity (La Bêtise) (1985)
- Cynicism and Passion (Cynisme et passion) (1981/1999)
- The Force of Vertigo (La Force du vertige) (1983)
- The Master Thinkers (Les Maîtres penseurs) (1977)
Note: Many of his works were translated into German by his long-term colleague Helmut Kohlenberger.
Interviews
- "An Interview with Andre Glucksman". Telos 33 (Fall 1977). New York: Telos Press
See also
In Spanish: André Glucksmann para niños
