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To Seduce or to Flirt, that is the Question

Department of Political Science, Melbourne University, donmiller{at}netspace.net.au

Can we conceive a new knowledge, politics and ethics more suited to transient time - to know and use the moment and the occasion no matter how fleeting? But something beyond a vulgar opportunism. We will need more subtle distinctions - of time and of behaviour - than we are accustomed to. But can we, the West, break away from our entrenched attraction to enduring principles? From long-term quests? From immemorial causes like the valiant struggle against evil and the endless, triumphant crusades of goodness? We love to be seduced by eternal time. But we pay a price which we commonly fail to notice. If only for the moment, let us suspend conventional judgments and contemplate an alternative. Let's flirt. Let's risk uncertainty. And our technique, just for the occasion? A series of swift raiding parties not a sustained campaign of reasoned argument.

Key Words: certainty • chance • new ethics • new politics • transcience

Time & Society, Vol. 12, No. 2-3, 281-291 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0961463X030122007


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