Weinstein's Vital Agony: A Socio-political Theory of Multiple Realities

Abstract

Michael Weinstein's oeuvre illuminates a complicated system of realities that reflects the lived experience of his vitalist ontology. By connecting the sketches of our being to referential virtue and agonic contradiction he shows that man lives in an ever-changing unique presentation of reality narratives in perpetual tension. Weinstein's reality reflects the infinite nature of the many worlds interpretation, but in the vein of Pratchett's L-space. For Weinstein, being is not merely a division between three planes of existence (material, social, and ontological), but also between past, present, future and their myriad interpretations and revisions. Complex reality is compelling and can not only be traced back to Stirner, Simmel, and Sartre but also can be shown to influence current thinkers such as Zizek and Prozorov.

Keywords: weinstein, vitalism, existentialism, social string theory, phenomenology, agonism