The Concept Politics and Law in Hunter S. Thompson’s Gonzo Texts

Abstract

As social phenomena, law and politics are both dual manifestations of a single entity (perception of a single ontology) and their separate existence is only the result of a human dualism or a pluralistic conception of the world. In addition, the distinction between law and politics is unrealistic from a deeper ontological point of view. For this reason, in the field of political and legal theory and philosophy, conclusions have been drawn about the partial or complete overlap of law and politics, and even in some cases, the equivalence of the two, have created the issue of how these two attitudes should be defined. In this conflict, lawyers, as the main bearers of the law, have played a role and position in line with the owners of economic power. The important point of this stage was, first of all, the orderly and purposeful nature of rights (rule of law) dominated by the German approach, and secondly, the separation of rights from ideology. In fact, the classical legal thinking considered the balance between the public and private spheres in the market and the family. Following the universal legal system, international economic law centered on free trade and private international law was formed and money was depoliticized. In this article we establish the importance of Gonzo Journalism phenomenon as a cultural, historical, political, linguistic, literary and journalistic unique style of writing. The relevance of the topic is in the connection between Gonzo Journalism and the Post Truth Era we are living now. In this work we pay attention to the most significant concept in all of H. Thompson’s (the founder of the style) media texts that is politics. Using biographical, historical literary, intentional stylistic, typological methods of analysis we come to the conclusion the notion of American Politics has influenced the Gonzo vision and helped form an extraordinary media language with its own rules and exceptions, rich and emotive vocabulary that can easily attract readers’ attention, the subjective language that can be a strong political tool with a long-lasting effect. We can observe that gonzo text has a great multidisciplinary potential that must be fully explored.