scholarly journals Tischner as a metapolitician

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-360
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Wieczorek

AbstractJózef Tischner, a Polish philosopher and a seasoned commentator on the political transformations associated with the decline of communism and the building of a new democratic order in the final decades of the twentieth century, was, and still is, a controversial figure. Some see him as a profound philosopher, others as a moral authority, while others see him as a political opponent. I discuss the question concerning where Józef Tischner drew the line between political engagement sensu stricto and metapolitics, which is philosophically and programmatically grounded and neutral to the differences in world views. I inquire whether it is legitimate to attribute to Tischner political views and sympathies sometimes referred to as left-wing Christian liberalism and whether these views influenced the structure and the main theses of Tischner’s metapolitical thought. I attempt a reconstruction of Tischner’s position and indicate its basis in the assumptions of Christian personalism, the philosophy of dialogue, and the ethics of solidarity.

Author(s):  
Phyllis Lassner

Espionage and Exile demonstrates that from the 1930s through the Cold War, British Writers Eric Ambler, Helen MacInnes, Ann Bridge, Pamela Frankau, John le Carré and filmmaker Leslie Howard combined propaganda and popular entertainment to call for resistance to political oppression. Instead of constituting context, the political engagement of these spy fictions bring the historical crises of Fascist and Communist domination to the forefront of twentieth century literary history. They deploy themes of deception and betrayal to warn audiences of the consequences of Nazi Germany's conquests and later, the fusion of Fascist and Communist oppression. Featuring protagonists who are stateless and threatened refugees, abandoned and betrayed secret agents, and politically engaged or entrapped amateurs, all in states of precarious exile, these fictions engage their historical subjects to complicate extant literary meanings of transnational, diaspora and performativity. Unsettling distinctions between villain and victim as well as exile and belonging dramatizes relationships between the ethics of espionage and responses to international crises. With politically charged suspense and narrative experiments, these writers also challenge distinctions between literary, middlebrow, and popular culture.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
Antonio Bellisario ◽  
Leslie Prock

The article examines Chilean muralism, looking at its role in articulating political struggles in urban public space through a visual political culture perspective that emphasizes its sociological and ideological context. The analysis characterizes the main themes and functions of left-wing brigade muralism and outlines four subpolitical phases: (i) Chilean mural painting’s beginnings in 1940–1950, especially following the influence of Mexican muralism, (ii) the development of brigade muralism for political persuasion under the context of revolutionary sociopolitical upheaval during the 1960s and in the socialist government of Allende from 1970 to 1973, (iii) the characteristics of muralism during the Pinochet dictatorship in the 1980s as a form of popular protest, and (iv) muralism to express broader social discontent during the return to democracy in the 1990s. How did the progressive popular culture movement represent, through murals, the political hopes during Allende’s government and then the political violence suffered under the military dictatorship? Several online repositories of photographs of left-wing brigade murals provide data for the analysis, which suggests that brigade muralism used murals mostly for political expression and for popular education. Visual art’s inherent political dimension is enmeshed in a field of power constituted by hegemony and confrontation. The muralist brigades executed murals to express their political views and offer them to all spectators because the street wall was within everyone's reach. These murals also suggested ideas that went beyond pictorial representation; thus, muralism was a process of education that invited the audience to decipher its polysemic elements.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Régis Ebeling ◽  
Carlos Córdova Sáenz ◽  
Jeferson Campos Nobre ◽  
Karin Becker

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has struck people’s lives overnight. With an alarming contagious rate and no effective treatments or vaccines, it has evoked all sorts of reactions. In this paper, we propose a framework to analyze how political polarization affects groups’ behavior with opposed stances, using the Brazilian COVID polarized scenario as a case study. Two Twitter groups represent the pro/against social isolation stances referred to as Chloroquiners and Quarenteners. The framework encompasses: a) techniques to automatically infer from users political orientation, b) topic modeling to discover the homogeneity of concerns expressed by each group; c) network analysis and community detection to characterize their behavior as a social network group and d) analysis of linguistic characteristics to identify psychological aspects. Our main findings confirm that Cloroquiners are right-wing partisans, whereas Quarenteners are more related to the left-wing. The political polarization of Chloroquiners and Quarenteners influence the arguments of economy and life, and support/opposition to the president. As a group, the network of Chloroquiners is more closed and connected, and Quarenteners have a more diverse political engagement. In terms of psychological aspects, polarized groups come together on cognitive issues and negative emotions.


Author(s):  
Eric Ross

In the second of two chapters investigating the role of Homeric epic in fabricating golden ages, Ross proposes the current golden age of superhero movies as an effective lens for viewing the modern idealization of the Spartan king Leonidas as portrayed in 300 (2006). He cites several criteria: the superhero’s origin story; the threats posed by a tyrannical enemy and by civic bureaucracy; and the superhero’s tragic alienation from loved ones and society he protects. Leonidas’ superhero status resonates with Herodotus’ fifth-century BCE account of the Battle of Thermopylae, a “golden” moment in Western historiography, when Leonidas led his 300 Spartan warriors into Homeric “doomed combat” by standing their ground against the massive invasion of the Greek mainland by the army of Xerxes, Great King of Persia. Herodotus’ account has long been recognized as assimilating the Spartan warriors, especially Leonidas, to Homer’s depiction of mythical heroes, who were themselves the bases for twentieth-century superheroes. Ross demonstrates the political ramifications of the film’s use of storytelling to mobilize nostalgia for this golden age into contemporary re-enactment – despite director Zack Snyder’s (in)famous denials of political engagement.


2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 1477-1484 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATARZYNA BOŃKOWSKA ◽  
SZYMON SZYMCZAK ◽  
STANISŁAW CEBRAT

We have adapted the Penna ageing model to simulate the profound changes in the age structures of populations caused by the better life style, medical care and decrease in birth rate. In Poland, after the political transformations in the last decade of the twentieth century, the increase in the expected lifespan has been accompanied by very deep decrease in birthrate, much below the minimum necessary for keeping the constant size of the population. Our microscopic model describes the changes in the age structure which have already happened and predicts the future, assuming that our attitudes in respect to life style and social relations will not change.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 85-91
Author(s):  
A. Matyukhin

This review is an analysis of the monograph of Roman Osin, candidate of philosophy, associate Professor of the Department of fundamental legal and social-humanitarian disciplines at synergy University "Left forces and spontaneous protest: history, lessons, modernity, prospects". The monograph examines the political and socio-class nature of the mass protests of 2011-2013 from the perspective of Marxist methodology and tactics of the Russian left movement in them. The monograph is of interest both from the point of view of studying the protest and left-wing movements of the early 2010s, and from the point of view of the methodology for understanding the phenomenon of "color" revolutions in General. The author analyzes the social composition of the protesters, their political views, as well as the political forces of the protest and their tactics based on the empirical material of sociological research, as well as personal experience of participating in the ongoing processes. Based on the study, R.S. Osin concludes that the protest was generally "petty-bourgeois" in nature and could not lead to fundamental changes in the basis of society. At the same time, from the author's point of view, this protest was an important milestone in the development of the politicization of Russian society and could not fail to be a useful experience for Russian citizens. Analyzing the tactics of the left forces, R.S. Osin notes as a disadvantage the political and ideological inconsistency of many left-wing organizations, which benefited the liberal protest forces or the authorities. From the point of view Of R.S. Osin, the most correct tactic was the tactics of those organizations that simultaneously opposed the liberal and state-Patriotic forces, which in practice means participating in protests with their own independent agenda. In conclusion, R.S. Osin expresses his own point of view on the need for fundamental changes in society, reveals the concept of social and political revolutions, and also States the thesis that only the organized labor movement and other layers of workers can change the system of industrial relations in the country. Despite the obvious ideological color of the work and the use of exclusively Marxist methodology as the research base, R.S. Osin's monograph is of scientific interest and can be used to study the modern protest and left-wing movement.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 002
Author(s):  
Jorge De Hoyos Puente

This paper presents the political projects variety issued from the Spanish Republican exile. Its aim is to analyse the reasons of disagreement that took place throughout forty years of Franco´s opposition. Focusing on the political cultures’ study it can be confirmed a wade range of speeches and political imaginaries that shaped Spanish left-wing groups on the twentieth century Spanish longest exile.


Author(s):  
F. A. Gayada

The article examines the political views and practices of Russian liberals in the early twentieth century. Russia’s political destiny of this period directly depended on building constructive relations between the authorities and society. Liberal ideas had a significant impact on the educated public. At the same time, the constructive cooperation between the liberals and the government was the most important condition for the possibility of application of these ideas in domestic political practice. The article examines the political experience of the two largest liberal political parties in Russia – the Cadets and the Octobrists. The author comes to the conclusion that the Russian liberal politician of the early twentieth century could not get out of the role of an idealist oppositionist. He was incapable of recognizing the existing realities and the need for political compromises, which were often perceived as a sign of impotence or immorality. The liberals perceived themselves as the only force capable of bringing Russia to the right, «civilized» path. In the opinion of the liberals, this path was inevitable, therefore, under any circumstances, the liberal movement should have retained its leading role. In the spring of 1917, the liberal opposition was able to defeat its historical enemy (autocracy), but retained power for a very short time. The slaughter of the state machine, which the liberals themselves did not intend to preserve, led them to defeat. Thus, the state was the only guarantor of the existence of a liberal movement in Russia. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 729-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuel Schiller

This article examines the politics of airline deregulation in the 1970s, and the events that led to the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. It links the antibureaucratic, antiregulatory policies of the 1970s to ideas closely connected to the New Left, the counterculture, and other left-wing subcultures that dominated high and low thought in the 1960s. By linking this source of antibureaucratic sentiment to the politics of airline deregulation, this article suggests a new direction for historians who study the American state in the last decades of the twentieth century. As they focus their attention on the rise of market-based, neoliberal regulatory policies, they should look for their origins not only in the growing strength of the intellectual and political right, but also in the political thought and practice of the 1960s left.


Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110427
Author(s):  
Maria Grasso ◽  
Marco Giugni

Particularly in the current context of rapid political change it is key to understand the political participation of young people and what underpins their political engagement patterns as well the as the inequalities that may lay beneath them. While there is a rich literature on youth participation, to date we have lacked the data to carry out detailed subgroup analyses to understand differences in the political participation between different groups of youth cross-nationally. The papers in this Special Issue all examine different aspects of youth participation in the current context. They examine key questions for participation including the inequalities, socialising influences, polarisation, online participation, radical political views, tolerance, life engagement and opportunities for social inclusion. This Special Issue thus provides a contemporary analysis of youth participation in Europe in the current historical juncture.


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