scholarly journals The Tone of Prime Unity

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-217
Author(s):  
Will Schrimshaw
Keyword(s):  
Self Determination ◽  
Marshall Mcluhan ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Acoustic Community ◽  
Participatory Intervention

In The Soundscape, R. Murray Schafer describes a tone of ‘prime unity’, a tonal centre conditioning an international sonic unconscious. Diverging from the bucolic image of nature readily associated with Schafer’s ethics and aesthetics, this tone is found in the ubiquitous hum of electrical infrastructure and appliances. A utopian potential is ascribed to this tone in Schafer’s writing whereby it constitutes the conditions for a unified international acoustic community of listening subjects.This article outlines Schafer’s anomalous concept of the tone of prime unity and interrogates the contradictions it introduces into Schafer’s project of utopian soundscape design. Discussion of the correspondence between Schafer and Marshall McLuhan contextualises and identifies the source of Schafer’s concept of the tone of prime unity. Of particular interest is the processes of unconscious auditory influence this concept entails and its problematic relation to the politics of sonic warfare. Through discussion of contemporary artistic practices that engage with these problems, it is argued that the tone of prime unity nonetheless presents an opportunity to shift the focus of Schafer’s project from a telos of divine harmony towards collective self-determination through participatory intervention in the world around us.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Lucia M. Rafanelli
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Real World ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Nonstate Actors ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Concern ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The World

This chapter proposes that we need a new political theory of global politics to guide us in a world increasingly marked by global interconnection, transnational activism on the part of nonstate actors, and political actors that utilize many different means (besides force and coercion) to exert influence on the world stage. The book develops such a theory by examining how justice-promoting intervention (reform intervention) implicates the values of toleration, legitimacy, and collective self-determination. The book then examines how this theory could be put into practice in the real world. Ultimately, the book argues that some reform interventions are morally permissible and may even be morally required. Moreover, we are sometimes morally required to open our own societies to reform intervention. The book presents a vision of conscientious global political contestation in which the achievement of justice everywhere can be the legitimate political concern of people anywhere.

Solidarity

2020 ◽  
pp. 253-274
Author(s):  
Gary Wilder
Keyword(s):  
Self Determination ◽  
Political Subject ◽  
Universal History ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Problem

Identifies one thread running through Balibar’s career: the question of how, in the absence of the certainties provided by universal history, mechanical materialism, class essentialism, ethnic unity, natural nations, or territorial fixity, a political subject and social collectivity manages to emerge, hang together, and act in the world, whether during or after struggles for emancipation and collective self-determination. “Citizenship” is one name that Balibar assigns to this political problem and phenomenon. But one might also locate the question of citizenship within the more general problematic of ‘solidarity’ (and vice versa).

What does self-determination mean today? The resurgence of nationalism and European integration in question

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard Delanty
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Past ◽  
World Today ◽  
The People ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status

The paradox of nationalism today in Europe is that while there is ever more demand and opportunities for nationalism it has become more divisive than ever before. Nationalism now divides the nation rather than uniting it. For this reason, its capacity to offer an alternative to the status quo is severely limited. In the past collective self-determination was predicated on the presumption of a defined people who were resisting external domination and sought to bring about a new polity. The world today, especially in Europe, has made this more difficult, if not impossible. There is now an entirely new context for nationalism and the appeal to self-determination in the name of 'the people' is no longer able to achieve the same results. The politics of self-determination, as reflected in separatist movements, runs up against the problems of democracy and cultural pluralism, which tend to frustrate the capacity of nationalism to achieve its aims. The argument given in this paper is that the rise of nationalism is de-stabilising for Europeanisation but does not endanger it.

Cosmopolitan Justice, Democracy, and the World State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Lu
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
First Century ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World State ◽  
Proper Functioning ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter argues that being a good democrat in the twenty-first century requires, rather than precludes, engaging in both domestic and international political reform and struggle that will culminate in the establishment of a world state, or a global political authority that can command and enforce duties of cosmopolitan justice. Cosmopolitan justice constitutes the background essential supporting conditions for the proper functioning and legitimacy of domestic, regional, and global political orders. Under contemporary global circumstances, the effective realization of cosmopolitan justice requires institutional cosmopolitanism in the form of an impartial global political authority that can adjudicate and enforce the rights and duties of states so that they are consistent with their cosmopolitan duties. Only with the realization of institutional cosmopolitanism in the form of a cosmopolitan world state can the principles and values of collective self-determination and social justice championed by democratic theorists be based on a morally acceptable foundation.

Individuelle und kollektive Selbstbestimmung jenseits des Nationalstaats: das kosmopolitisch-demokratische Narrativ der europäischen Integration

IG ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 251-265
Author(s):  
Manuel Müller
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Eu

Purpose narratives play an important role in the legitimization of the European Union (EU). Three goals attributed to the EU have been especially prominent: inner peace, prosperity and self-assertion on the world stage. However, all three can only inadequately justify the supranational character of European integration. A stronger justification is offered by the cosmopolitan-democratic narrative, according to which the purpose of the EU is the individual and collective self-determination of citizens beyond national borders. The cosmopolitan-democratic narrative is historically more recent and has mostly been less salient in the public debate than the other three, but nevertheless has had an important political impact on the development of the EU. Like the other narratives, however, it is not undisputed and has been the focus of various controversial debates since the 1990s.

Anxious Breath

Screen Bodies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Lara Bochmann ◽  
Erin Hampson
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Affective States ◽  
The World ◽  
In Trans ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Everyday Task

This article is a theoretical, audiovisual, and personal exploration of being a trans and non-binary person and the challenges this position produces at the moment of entering the outside world. Getting ready to enter public space is a seemingly mundane everyday task. However, in the context of a world that continuously fails or refuses to recognize trans and non-binary people, the literal act of stepping outside can mean to move from a figurative state of self-determination to one of imposition. We produced a short film project called Step Out to delve into issues of vulnerability and recognition that surface throughout experiences of crossing the threshold into public space. It explores the acts performed as preparation to face the world, and invokes the emotions this can conquer in trans and non-binary people. Breathing is the leading metaphor in the film, indicating existence and resistance simultaneously. The article concludes with a discussion of affective states and considers them, along with failed recognition, through the lens of Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism.”

Territorial Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Stilz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
Core Values ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Political Units ◽  
Territorial States

This book offers a qualified defense of a territorial states system. It argues that three core values—occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination—are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all of the sovereignty rights states currently claim and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states’ sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people’s preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and facilitates its people’s collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought.

scholarly journals ARKTISKE FOLK SOM STATISTER OG AKTØRER PÅ DEN GLOBALE SCENE

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Sejersen
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Extreme Pressure ◽  
Political Work ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
Arctic Communities ◽  
The Right

Frank Sejersen: Arctic people as by-standers and actors at the global stage For centuries, the indigenous peoples of the Arctic have been perceived as isolated from the rest of the world. The article argues that secluded Arctic communities do not exist and that Arctic peoples are integrated into numerous political, cultural and economic relations of a global extent. The pre-colonial inter-continental trade between Siberia and Alaska and the increased militarization the whole circumpolar region are but two examples. Throughout history, indigenous peoples of the Arctic have been players on the global stage. Today, this position has been strengthened because political work on this stage is imperative in order to secure the welfare and possibilities of local Arctic communities. To mention an example, Arctic peoples’ hunting activities have been under extreme pressure from the anti-harvesting movement. The anti-harvesting organizations run campaigns to ban hunting and stop the trade with products from whales, seals and furbearing animals. Thus, political and cultural processes far from the homeland of Arctic peoples, have consequences for the daily life of many Arctic families. The global stage has become an important comerstone in indigenous peoples’ strive to gain more control over their own future. The right to trade, development and self-determination are some of the rights they claim.

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