Commensuration, Pain, and the Politics of Number

Like the rest of us on the AAA panel for which these remarks were originally prepared, I experienced the months since 7 October 2023 as a reminder of the horrific realities of this hellish world, in which we inhabit a time not only of utter depravity, of dispossession, of abandonment, and of brutal destruction, but also of indifference and mass cruelty. The third chapter of Formations of the Secular reflects directly on the themes of cruelty …