Politics of the Lesser Evil: Leadership, Democracy, and Jaruzelski`s Poland

• Foreword
• p. 9

• 1.
• On Leadership
• p. 11

• 2.
• Jaruzelski I: On the Gravity of one--of any--Political Decision
• p. 15

• Martial law

• The end of dual rule

• The parameters

• Purgatory instead of hell

• A particular type of dictatorship

• Jaruzelski as leader

• 3.
• On the Illusion of Democratic Leadership
• p. 31

• The fantasy of democracy

• Heroes and (or) managers

• Politics and policies

• Leadership as an exception to the rule

• 4.
• An Impossible Encounter--The First
• p. 41

• "But the art of policy is to create a calculation of the risks and rewards that affect the adversary's calculations."

• 5.
• On the Tendency to Ban Machiavelli to Hell
• p. 51

• The conversation in hell

• Machiavelli, the subversive man of reason

• No special moral for politics

• Politicians as scapegoats

• 6.
• On the Limits of Idealism
• p. 59

• Democracy and fundamentalism

• Stalin as a realist

• Hitler as an idealist

• American idealism

• Idealism a la Lyndon Johnson

• Kennedy: Idealism as public relations

• 7.
• Charisma
• p. 69

• 8.
• On the Attempts to Tame a Myth
• p. 71

• Is personality really everything?

• Charisma as product

• The erosion of all ethics

• Leadership as a (necessary?) illusion

• Vietnam

• 9.
• On the Skepticism Toward Too Much Democracy
• p. 81

• Constitution against tyranny

• The Fear of the majority

• Lincoln's contradictions

• Babeuf's Impatience

• Democracy from above?

• 10.
• On the Unavoidability of Lying
• p. 89

• The Galilei strategy

• Joan of Arc or a politician?

• The art of deception

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

• Dr. Strangelove

• 11.
• On the Misery of Collaboration
• p. 99

• The tragedy of the Jewish councils

• Collaboration as a lesser evil

• Philippe Petain

• The collaboration of Azdak and of Schwejk

• Collaboration is not always collaboration

• Collaboration as an attempt at political action

• 12.
• On the Presumption of Objectivity
• p. 113

• Dirty hands

• The script of world history

• The longing for categories

• All orthodoxies are alike

• 13.
• On the Ambiguity of Difference
• p. 121

• The stubbornness of Karl Kraus

• Partial fascism as a lesser evil

• Between devil and Beelzebub

• Churchill: Political capability through differentiation

• Churchill: More than Realpolitik

• Not every appeasement is alike

• 14.
• On the Amorality of Foreign Policy
• p. 131

• Wilson: Principles without strategy

• Roosevelt: Principles and strategy

• Johnson: No principles and no strategy

• Nixon: Strategy without principles

• 15.
• On the Logic of Leninism
• p. 141

• Just is the opposite of just

• Professional revolutionaries and leadership

• Lenin and Stalin as empiricists

• Absolute politics becomes non-politics

• 16.
• On the True Nature of Personal Leadership
• p. 149

• Leadership as mass murder

• Excessive leadership

• Distancing as style

• The freedom from having to learn

• The question of succession

• To chain or unchain leadership?

• 17.
• On the Necessity of Limiting Evil
• p. 161

• The category of evil

• The function of utopia

• The "lesser evil" as justification

• Franz Jagerstatter

• 18.
• On the Longing for William Tells and Robin Hoods
• p. 171

• Italy, Japan, and Switzerland as exceptions

• The invention of heroes

• Leadership as spectacle

• Real functions of monarchies

• 19.
• On the Necessity of Becoming a Parvenu
• p. 179

• The identities forced on Rosa Luxemburg

• Pariah against one's will, parvenu as a necessity

• The function of Zionism

• "Black" and "white"

• Benjamin Disraeli

• 20.
• An Impossible Encounter--The Second
• p. 189

• "What is the object of our thought? Experience! Nothing else!"

• 21.
• On the Democratic Dissolution of Politics in General
• p. 199

• Inner- or other-directed leadership

• Public versus private

• Politics as knowledge of climate

• Autopoiesis: No one rules

• The fiction of the "people"

• 22.
• On the Transformation of the People into the Marketplace
• p. 209

• The people or "one people"

• McNamara's management

• The market as anti-utopia

• Fulbright's logical contradictions

• "People" means exclusion

• The stubbornness of the woodworms

• 23.
• The Cockpit
• p. 219

• 24.
• On the Possibility of Intellectual and Moral Leadership
• p. 221

• Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

• The "guilty conscience"

• The refusal to take office as a prerequisite of leadership

• The impatience of the Bolsheviks

• Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli

• 25.
• Jaruzelski II: On the Arbitrary Nature of Historical Perception
• p. 231

• The viewpoint of the opposition

• The Soviet viewpoint

• "It is time"

• The Bishops

• A new type of transformation

• Katyn

• The Commissar's dilemma

• Hero or traitor?

• 26.
• Bibliography
• p. 247

• Index of Persons
• p. 255