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The horsemen of the Apocalypse: messianism and terror

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Abstract

I draw a phenomenological approach to religious violence by using as an example the terror apparatus called Daesh (or ISIS). After a brief reminder of my method (the egoanalysis), I analyze the schemas that underlie this apparatus, especially the schemas of the messiah and the Apocalypse, and the affects that the apparatus manages to capture. I show that messianic hope can be associated with hate through the figure of the anti-messiah—Christian Antichrist, the Dajjal of Muslims—which allows messianism to be tied to the schema of the “evil conspiracy.” I finally suggest that it is possible to understand messianism differently by dissociating it from these other schemas.

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Notes

  1. See Rogozinski (2010).

  2. Merleau-Ponty (1964, Preface).

  3. An elaborate analysis of these phenomena can be found in Rogozinski (2015).

  4. Cf. Lefort (1986, especially "The Logic of Totalitarianism," p. 273–291 and "The Image of the Body and Totalitarianism," p. 292–306).

  5. [Translator’s note: the term dispositif, that the author borrows from Foucault is translated herein as “apparatus.”]

  6. This is an issue addressed more specifically in Rogozinski (2017).

  7. Cf. Husserl (1991, §36–39, for example p. 145).

  8. Ibid., §41, p. 159.

  9. Quoted by Thomson (2014, p. 58).

  10. Camus (1987, p. 49).

  11. Cf. Bernard Lewis (1968).

  12. Ibid.

  13. Cf. Scholem (1941).

  14. Cf. Lewis, op. cit.

  15. See Weber (2011).

  16. Cf. Shariati (2019).

  17. These texts by Knox are cited by Michael Walzer (1965, pp. 100–104).

  18. Adso of Montier-en-Der (1979, pp. 89–96).

  19. Quoted by Filiu (2012, p. 17).

  20. Ibid. (p. 86–87).

  21. Arendt (2011, chap. 11 and 12).

  22. See http://haniramadan.blog.tdg.ch/apps/m/archive/2009/08/26/la-civilisation-du-dajjal-l-antechrist.html.

  23. For the French original version see: https://genius.com/Zirko-sks-crew-1789-remix-abdallah-1435-lyrics.

  24. See Sanhedrin 89.

  25. Levinas (Levinas 1997, p. 89).

  26. See for example Derrida (2006).

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  1. Strasbourg Faculty of Philosophy, Strasbourg, France

    Jacob Rogozinski

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Rogozinski, J. The horsemen of the Apocalypse: messianism and terror. Cont Philos Rev 53, 303–320 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-020-09492-y

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