The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism

by William E. Connolly

In The Fragility of Things , eminent theorist William E. Connolly focuses on several self-organizing ecologies that help to constitute our world. These interacting geological, biological, and climate systems, some of which harbor creative capacities, are depreciated by that brand of neoliberalism that confines self-organization to economic markets and equates the latter with impersonal rationality. Neoliberal practice thus fails to address the fragilities it exacerbates. Engaging a diverse range of thinkers, from Friedrich Hayek, Michel Foucault, Hesiod, and Immanuel Kant to Voltaire, Terrence Deacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Alfred North Whitehead, Connolly brings the sense of fragility alive as he rethinks the idea of freedom. Urging the Left not to abandon the state but to reclaim it, he also explores scales of politics below and beyond the state. The contemporary response to fragility requires a militant pluralist assemblage composed of those sharing affinities of spirituality across differences of creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Criticism, Theory, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

William E. Connolly is a political theorist known for his work on democracy and pluralism. He is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His 1974 work The Terms of Political Discourse won the 1999 Benjamin Lippincott Award
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Reviews

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The outside is multiple, active and real; it is merely not to us divine, we also construe transcendence as would that which is coming into being rather than a being beyond being." 141

"If we are minor participants in a larger cosmos composed of multiple, interacting force fields that periodically morph, part of our experience of attachment to the world may be tied to the experience of vitality and to those small and larger moments of real creativity to which it is connected. The idea is to cultivate subliminal experiences of vitality further, even as we work to diminish the risks that accompany acting recklessly on those fruits." 146

[Daniel Barrows · Rating 2 out of 5]

This weak ontology reads like political theology, full of dense academic vocabulary and featuring extended engagement with a host of famous Western philosophers, yet simultaneously poetic and devoid of empirical concerns or any effort to consider contrary perspectives and interpretations. This is political philosophy, not political science. Though it does present a dizzying array of facts from the natural sciences as a rhetorical strategy, it does so without actually using the concepts from these scientific fields for any serious analytical purpose. This book may motivate and inspire those who already agree with its political and philosophical inclinations, but isn't designed either to persuade or to rationally analyze. Admittedly, I am doubtful that this book will inspire much activism either, and will more likely make a few ivory-tower academics sympathetic and supportive of activists, and build a deep emotional aversion to abstract concepts like "neoliberalism" and "capitalism" without changing economic behavior or systems in the least.

Other reviews:
* Baxter, Katherine Dickson (19 March 2015). "William E. Connolly, The Fragility of Things". Canadian Journal of Sociology. 40 (1): 115–118. doi: 10.29173/cjs24329 . JSTOR canajsocicahican.40.1.115. doi:10.2307/canajsocicahican.40.1.115.
* Chin, Clayton (2015). "Book Review: Political Theory: The Fragility of Things". Political Studies Review. 13 (1): 86–87. doi:10.1111/1478-9302.12073_8. ISSN 1478-9299.
* Giovine, Allegra (17 March 2015). "William Connolly's The Fragility of Things". Somatosphere. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
* Keller, Catherine. (2015). Omnipotence and The Fragility of Things: The cosmopolitics of William Connolly. Theory & Event 18(3), Project MUSE 586151 ProQuest 1698277898 EBSCOhost 108467566
* Kelz, Rosine (December 2015). "William E. Connolly, The Fragility of Things". Philosophy in Review. 35 (6): 284–286.
* Loeb, Zachary (18 February 2015). "Cultivating reform and revolution". The b2 Review. Retrieved 12 June 2025.
* McCurdy, Jennifer (14 June 2017). "The Fragility of Things By William E.Connolly". Religious Studies Review. 43 (2): 150–151. doi:10.1111/rsr.12918. ISSN 0319-485X.
* Pottenger, John Robert (2014). "The fragility of things". Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries. Vol. 51, no. 10. p. 1886. ISSN 0009-4978. ProQuest 1535070394.
* Smith, Daniel W. (2015). On the fragility of things. Theory & Event, 18(3). Project MUSE 586155 ProQuest 1698279158 EBSCOhost 108467567
* Stout, Margaret. (2014). [Review of A World of Becoming; The Fragility of Things, by W. E. Connolly]. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 36(4), 545–554. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43859518
* Yee, Aubrey. (2015). The fragility of things and capacities of the micro-political experiment. Theory & Event, 18(3). Project MUSE 586158 ProQuest 1698278031 EBSCOhost 108467573

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing, engaging story, and characters I didn’t want to leave. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a compelling read.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important work worth reading. Coming from many of the same starting concerns I have and working through issues with often surprisingly evocative prose I had high hopes. Some of them were dashed however as my engagement with speculative materialism has only heightened my desire to fully break from Kantian idealism and monotheistic artifacts whenever possible...and my explorations into emergency policy during ecological crisis has if anything re-iterated the need to stay as far away from milquetoast social democrat homilies as possible and rather seek out something more akin to a situationally adjusted vanguard party.

In such a fragile world as Connolly rightly describes, I must admit my skepticism at universal grassroots democracy to be a major force when the environmental catastrophes start to hit. Diamond's examination of the ruthless and decisive actions of the Tokugawa Shogunate seem much more apt.

Still, the more works out there to de-throne anthropocentrism than the better.

[Haktan DÖĞEN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Connolly, modern dünyanın krizlerini yalnızca ekonomik değil; ekolojik, kozmopolitik ve etik düzeyde ele alarak disiplinlerarası bir uyanışa çağrı yapıyor. “Hayatın kırılganlığı” kavramıyla kastettiği şey, insan-merkezli düzenlerin dışındaki güçlerin (doğa, teknoloji, sermaye) karmaşık etkileşimlerinin bizim güvenlik algılarımızı yerle bir edebilme potansiyeli. Bu bağlamda neoliberalizmi yalnızca bir ekonomik model değil, aynı zamanda bir "inanç sistemi" olarak okuyor.

Post-seküler bir etik inşa etme iddiası güçlü olsa da, seküler-modern yapıların eleştirisi bazen “normsuzluk” gibi bir boşluğa evrilebiliyor. “Felsefi şiirsellik” ile “politika üretme” arasındaki çizginin bulanıklaştığı anlar, kitaptaki derinlikli bazı fikirlerin gündelik siyaset düzleminde karşılık bulmasını güçleştiriyor.