Abstract

Loyalty to lost causes is not only a possible thing, but one of the most potent influences of human historyThe aim of this paper is to probe a critical aspect of human displacement, especially in the metaphorical sense of being thrust by disillusionment from the sustaining matrix of a hopeful cause.2 But displacement in the metaphorical sense is often tied to it in the straightforward literal sense.3 One’s place in the world is usurped because one’s home is expropriated or because one is forced into exile. But, whatever the form of physical displacement, my concern is with persons who have been exiled by disillusionment from the experiential matrix of such a cause and (at least in the initial moment of utter...