Changes That Don't Improve Matters

1971 ◽  
Vol 4 (02) ◽  
pp. 129-131
Author(s):  
Harvey C. Mansfield

Most of what Professors Hawkinson and Rosenblum have written on behalf of the proposed new Constitution for the Association—about membership qualifications, about purpose and about taking positions on current public issues—appears to me to argue equally in favor of the Constitution we already have. On these matters the two documents are not far apart. Since I find their arguments for the status quo well stated and persuasive, I shall confine my comments to some major points of difference between the documents, and to changes proposed that would, as I think, be for the worse.1. The draft is loaded with unnecessary and impractical detail. To be sure, Hawkinson and Rosenblum make a virtue out of relieving the membership of the power to pass on the dues structure by way of constitutional amendment. I will not dispute that view myself, but I can sympathize with those who feel that a referendum on dues is not merely “pointless and wasteful.” On the other hand, what is gained by specifying that the President shall (Art. VII, Sec. 2(f)) “be responsible for the preparation of the budget…” and that the Executive Director shall (Art. IX, Sec. 4 (b)) “assist the President in preparing the annual budget”? Who else, when the natural office for that responsibility, an elected Treasurer, is to be abolished?

Author(s):  
Sabahi Borzu

This chapter discusses ten important findings included in this book. One finding is the dual origin of the modern rules on State responsibility and reparation in both private law notions and public international law, resulting in the objective of reparation of putting the aggrieved party in the ‘hypothetical position’, that would have existed if the unlawful act had not occurred. This objective is mirrored in the modern Chorz ów Factory formula. Restitution, which seeks to re-establish the status quo ante, may need to be accompanied by additional compensation to fully reach the hypothetical position. The amount of compensation, on the other hand, based on the recent jurisprudence, may vary depending on whether the acts complained of were lawful or unlawful. Other important points arising from this study concerning the principles of reparation and compensation are also highlighted in the chapter.


1990 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-153
Author(s):  
Brian Langille

It is not transparently obvious why legal theorists are increasingly attracted to the ideas and methods of Ludwig Wittgenstein. After all, Wittgenstein’s writings are notoriously difficult and he said almost nothing, and certainly nothing sustained, about law. And why would self-proclaimed legal theorists be attracted to someone who was quite explicitly hostile to “theory”, who viewed philosophy as a sort of therapy, and who said, famously, “philosophy leaves everything as it is”? But a still more interesting question is, why has Wittgenstein received such curious and conflicting treatment at the hands of the critical legal theorists? On the one hand critical legal theory celebrates Wittgenstein’s work as a key to the dismantling of traditional jurisprudence, but on the other hand critical scholars bemoan his alleged debilitating endorsement of the status quo. It is this last question upon which this essay is focussed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 237-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Morton

In 135b.c., unable to endure the treatment of their master Damophilus, a group of slaves, urged on by the wonder-worker Eunus, captured the city of Enna in Eastern Sicily in a night-time raid. The subsequent war, according to our sources the largest of its kind in antiquity, raged for three years, destroying the armies of Roman praetors, and engaging three consecutive consuls in its eventual suppression. The success of the rebels in holding out for years against a progression of Roman armies indicates the importance of the event, and the capabilities of their leaders. One expects the man capable of leading such a revolt to have been exceptional, and in this respect the ancient accounts do not disappoint: in a narrative replete with larger-than-life characters, ranging from the depraved slave-owner Damophilus (Diod. Sic. 34/5.2.10, 35–8) to the restrained Roman consul Calpurnius Piso (Val. Max. 4.3.10), one figure stands out in Diodorus Siculus' depiction: the leader of the slaves. This man, Eunus, whom Diodorus describes as the leader of the event he calls the (first) Sicilian Slave War, has been variously interpreted in modern scholarship. Analyses have fallen into two (not mutually exclusive) categories. On the one hand, the hostile and outlandish account of Diodorus is accepted uncritically, with the details of Eunus' character understood as faithful, historical representations. On the other hand, the negative facets of Eunus' character are reinterpreted in a positive historical context, thereby outlining his suitability and capability to lead such a large and successful insurgency against Rome. Indeed, Urbainczyk recently argued that despite the difficulties in saying anything definite about the leaders of the so-called Sicilian Slave Wars ‘[Diodorus] attributed to [Eunus] all the powers, abilities, wisdom, and cunning that challenges to the status quo had to have in order to succeed’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 282-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
JON X. EGUIA ◽  
FRANCESCO GIOVANNONI

We provide an instrumental theory of extreme campaign platforms. By adopting an extreme platform, a previously mainstream party with a relatively small probability of winning further reduces its chances. On the other hand, the party builds credibility as the one most capable of delivering an alternative to mainstream policies. The party gambles that if down the road voters become dissatisfied with the status quo and seek something different, the party will be there ready with a credible alternative. In essence, the party sacrifices the most immediate election to invest in greater future success. We call this phenomenon tactical extremism. We show under which conditions we expect tactical extremism to arise and we discuss its welfare implications.


Arts ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Daniel Neofetou

Day-to-day art criticism and art theory are qualitatively distinct. Whereas the best art criticism entails a closeness to its objects which is attuned to particularity, art theory inherently makes generalized claims, whether these claims are extrapolated from the process of art criticism or not. However, this article argues that these dynamics are effectively reversed if we consider the disparity between the criticism of so-called political art and attempts over the last century to elaborate theory which accounts for the political in art qua art. Art theory has located the political force of art precisely in the way that its particularity opposes or resists the status quo. Art criticism, on the other hand, tends to treat artwork as a text to be interpreted whose particularity may as well dissolve when translated into discourse. Drawing from the work of Theodor W. Adorno, this article argues that political art theory calls for art criticism more attuned to experience if it is to elucidate art’s critical valence.


wisdom ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-11
Author(s):  
Ana Bazac

The power relations – at the time of Erasmus and Mandeville, and also in present – make the critique of the status quo to be very difficult. An answer to this situation was and is the complex of the double speech and tacit political suppositions. The paper suggests some similarities between the texts of the above-mentioned thinkers and, on the other hand, the present mainstream political jargon, by emphasising rather the differences: it is noteworthy that Mandeville and Erasmus had a strong, while indirect through their humoristic use of the double speech, critique of the state of things described by them. The conclusions developed here concern the tacit suppositions in the political discourse and how the two items are perennial within the modern culture.


2019 ◽  
pp. 151-168
Author(s):  
Seebany Datta-Barua ◽  
Jonathan S. Masur

Numerous characters in Austen’s novels have commissions in the army or militia, and several central characters enlist in the navy. There was an important distinction between these two services. Officers in the army and militia were paid wages. Sailors, on the other hand, were entitled not just to wages but also to a share in the value of any “prizes” that they captured at sea. We theorize that this prize system existed because naval officers and crew needed to be given equity shares in their endeavors in order to create incentives for aggressive action. This distinction between how soldiers and sailors were paid has a profound effect on the development of Austen’s characters. The army is a force for the status quo. The navy, on the other hand, is an avenue for true social advancement. Austen also uses the choice between services to show the character of the individuals who enlist.


Author(s):  
Kyle Fruh

Discussions of closely associated notions of practical necessity, volitional necessity, and moral incapacity have profited from a focus on cases of agential crisis to further our understanding of how features of an agent’s character might bind her. This paper turns to agents in crises in order to connect this way of being bound to the phenomenon of moral heroism. The connection is fruitful in both directions. Importing practical necessity into examinations of moral heroism can explain the special sense of bindingness moral heroes frequently express while preserving the status of heroic acts as supererogatory. It also helps explain how heroes persevere and act as so few others do. On the other hand, the context of moral heroism allows a fuller development of some features of the concept of practical necessity, shedding more illuminating light on the roots of practical necessity in character through recent findings in the psychology of moral exemplars.


Author(s):  
Edna Ullmann-Margalit

Some of the most difficult decisions in law and ordinary life are simplified by the use of some kind of presumption. Accused criminals are presumed to be innocent, and most of the time, legislative acts are presumed to be constitutional. And when people do not know what to do, they often adopt a presumption of some kind—for example, sticking with the status quo, or perhaps in favor of making a specific change. In countless domains, presumptions help people to extricate themselves from difficult situations. They can serve as a way of breaking an initial symmetrical situation by using a supposition not fully justified, yet not quite rash either—favoring one action over the other.


Author(s):  
Jenny Andersson

Alvin Toffler’s writings encapsulated many of the tensions of futurism: the way that futurology and futures studies oscillated between forms of utopianism and technocracy with global ambitions, and between new forms of activism, on the one hand, and emerging forms of consultancy and paid advice on the other. Paradoxically, in their desire to create new images of the future capable of providing exits from the status quo of the Cold War world, futurists reinvented the technologies of prediction that they had initially rejected, and put them at the basis of a new activity of futures advice. Consultancy was central to the field of futures studies from its inception. For futurists, consultancy was a form of militancy—a potentially world altering expertise that could bypass politics and also escaped the boring halls of academia.


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