Libraries Of, By, and For the People: Reimagining Strategies to Enhance Democratic Culture within LIS Spaces and Programming

Monkey Business: Imitation, Authenticity, and Identity from Pithekoussai to Plautus

Classical Antiquity ◽

10.1525/ca.2004.23.2.179 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 179-207 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Catherine Connors

Keyword(s):

Democratic Culture ◽

Greek Culture ◽

Greek Comedy ◽

The People

Abstract This essay explores references to monkeys as a way of talking about imitation, authenticity, and identity in Greek stories about the ““Monkey Island”” Pithekoussai (modern Ischia) and in Athenian insults, and in Plautus' comedy. In early Greek contexts, monkey business defines what it means to be aristocratic and authoritative. Classical Athenians use monkeys to think about what it means to be authentically Athenian: monkey business is a figure for behavior which threatens democratic culture——sycophancy or other deceptions of the people. Plautus' monkey imagery across the corpus of his plays moves beyond the Athenian use of ““monkey”” as a term of abuse and uses the ““imitative”” relation of monkeys to men as a metapoetic figure for invention and play-making. For Plautus, imitator——and distorter——of Greek plays, monkeys' distorted imitations of men are mapped not onto the relations between inauthentic and authentic citizens, as in Athens, but onto the relation of Roman to Greek comedy and culture at large. Monkey business in Plautus is part of the insistence on difference which was always crucial in Roman encounters with Greek culture.

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Remaking the People

10.1093/oso/9780198848608.003.0013 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 263-290

Author(s):

Debasish Roy Chowdhury ◽

John Keane

Keyword(s):

State Power ◽

Power Monitoring ◽

Democratic Culture ◽

Social Foundations ◽

Political Propaganda ◽

Nationalist Party ◽

The People ◽

The Government ◽

Verbal Insults ◽

Governing Institutions

This chapter explains how a democracy weakened by damaged social foundations and corrupted governing institutions breeds despotism. The governing party machine, in the hands of a big boss leader, stirs up talk of ‘democracy’ and ‘the people’. It neuters the courts and other power-monitoring institutions and turns them into empty shells. Demagogic talk of ‘democracy’ and the need for firm rule backed by ‘the people’ grows louder, and more militant. Elections become rowdy plebiscites. Rumours, exaggerations, and bullshit are spread by its loyal media organs. The signature tactic is stirring up trouble about who counts as ‘the people’. Elections are turned upside down, they become an exercise in electing an alternative people, a ‘true’ and ‘pure’ people rid of misfits and miscreants. The government votes in the people. India is pushing in a similar direction, with the country’s 200 million Muslim citizens as the ‘non-people’ that strongman Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party seeks to disempower. They are the prime targets of verbal insults, institutional discrimination, police inaction, political propaganda, and street-level thuggery. But the country’s intrinsic plurality and a well-entrenched democratic culture remain a powerful bulwark against centralized state power.

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Factors Responsible for Weak Democratic Culture among the Political Parties of the Pakistan

NICE Research Journal ◽

10.51239/nrjss.v0i0.28 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 252-273

Author(s):

Syed Ali Shah Et al.,

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Political Parties ◽

Third World ◽

The Political ◽

Democratic Process ◽

Democratic Culture ◽

The People

Democracy, as defined by Lincoln, is “government of the people by the people, and for the people” (1). Political parties around the globe function under the same ideology. On the contrary, the true democratic process is not fully observed within these parties. Though this observation is applicable globally to nearly all political parties in one way or another, in Pakistan, similar to other third world countries, the political parties have growing scarcity of the democratic culture. If party elections and voting are held to some extent, it is taken merely as a ritual or legal binding only. As a practice, one finds an authoritarian approach, hegemony, oligarchy and limited freedom of decision-making provided to members of parties.

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BUDAYA DEMOKRASI DI SULAWESI SELATAN: PERSPEKTIF STRUKTURASI

Jurnal Ilmu Pemerintahan Nakhoda ◽

10.35967/jipn.v15i1.3852 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 32

Author(s):

Muchid Albintani

Keyword(s):

Political Culture ◽

Local Community ◽

Political Reform ◽

Cultural Relations ◽

Cultural Interaction ◽

Democratic Culture ◽

The People ◽

Form Of Government ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

This paper was presented as an attempt to understand the relationship of culture anddemocracy in the contemporary era [political reform] in perspective Structuration in SulawesiSelatan. Cultural relations and democracy as a political system becomes an important era ofreforms ongoing regime. In this context, political culture can be a pattern for rebuilding ademocratic political behavior, especially that coming, raised and developed from the values ofthe local community, such as in Sulawesi Selatan. From this culture can be the foundation tobuild democracy ‘patterned’ local. Based on this argument paper is aimed at, [i] Identify andanalyze the interaction of the instruments ‘culture of democracy’ in the contemporary SulawesiSelatan. [i]. Formulating a contemporary democratic culture in South Sulawesi.To help explain and answer relationship with the democratic culture used the theory ofDemocracy, Political Culture and Structuration. The review of this paper shows that [i] Instrumentsand cultural interaction of democracy that exists in Sulawesi Selatan, Wajo Eclectic is aform of government, a special selection mechanism that leaders and representatives tiered,based on the relationship of the people and leaders of law as well as agreements made together.Furthermore, the interaction between these instruments indicate if the form of government,election mechanism as well as representatives and leaders of government’s relationshipwith its people have significance to the structure [political institution], not the actor or elitewith ties to the past. [ii] Based on these conditions, the formulation of political culture in theera of political reform [contemporary era] in Sulawesi Selatan is characterized by [a] Thestrong primordial and paternalism and, [b] Culture conflictual still strong, do not show thecultural values inherited from the previous., Based on this argument appears that the structureremain more influential actor who should have the value of integrity and independence.

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A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire

ICL Journal ◽

10.1515/icl-2017-0002 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 43-97

Author(s):

Yilu Zuo

Keyword(s):

Free Speech ◽

Mass Movement ◽

Democratic Culture ◽

Conventional View ◽

The People ◽

Human Flesh ◽

First Time ◽

Prairie Fire

Abstract This article examines the human flesh search (Ren Rou Sou Suo), which may be the most salient and controversial phenomenon in the Chinese cyberspace. Unlike the conventional view that treats the human flesh search as illegal or trivial, this article argues that: first, the human flesh search may indeed have some ‘bad’ aspects (eg libel and privacy infringement), but the laws we have so far are sufficient in regulating these ‘bad’ aspects without scapegoating the entire human flesh search; second, and more importantly, every human flesh search is an online free speech mass movement. It gives millions of ordinary Chinese citizens a chance to express themselves in various forms and on wide-ranging topics, and allows them to create a new and more democratic culture. For the first time, activating the long dormant Article 47 of the Chinese Constitution and creating a culture ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’ may become possible in China.

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Review Essay

Journal of Digital Social Research ◽

10.33621/jdsr.v3i3.102 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

pp. 137-147

Author(s):

Nick Couldry

Keyword(s):

New Media ◽

Review Essay ◽

Data Extraction ◽

Discourse Representation ◽

Modern Democracy ◽

Democratic Culture ◽

The People ◽

Late Modern

This review of two recent books, with further discussion of a third, addresses questions of the direction of democracy and the impacts of media circulation and data extraction on democratic culture. The reviewed books are Selena Nemorin (2018). Biosurveillance in New Media Marketing: World, Discourse, Representation, and Dipankar Sinha (2018). The Information Game in Democracy, with discussion also of Peter Csigo (2016). The Neopopular Bubble: Speculating on “the People” in Late Modern Democracy.

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