A Global Community of Self-Defense

Abstract

Wittgenstein writes: "We can easily imagine people amusing themselves in a field by playing with a ball so as to start various existing games, but playing many without finishing them and in between throwing the ball aimlessly into the air, chasing one another with the ball and bombarding one another for a joke and so on. And now someone says: The whole time they are playing a ball-game and following definite rules at every throw. And is there not also the case where we play and make up the rules as we go along? And there is even one where we alter them – as we go along.“ In this book, the author is tackling one of the most salient problems in our current debate about globality: How a global community is possible. She is asking: How do we make the rules of our games? Where does the normativity of our moral laws, statutory provisions and table manners come from? How do we strive to keep naked violence at bay by allowing power to be vested with the right of correction? Can humanity as a whole become a global community of self-defense? Marta Bucholc seeks answers to these questions in the writings of Norbert Elias, while watching the players in the field go on.