The Dark Side of American Liberalism and Felony Disenfranchisement

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 1035-1054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Fainsod Katzenstein ◽  
Leila Mohsen Ibrahim ◽  
Katherine D. Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
American Liberalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
Felony Disenfranchisement

What can the disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies tell us about the character of American liberalism? Felony disenfranchisement reveals a dark face of American liberal democracy that is distinct from two more familiar narratives: the Tocquevillean story of a triumphal and inclusionary liberalism and the “multiple traditions” account proposed by Rogers Smith that sees liberalism battling with racial and other exclusionary ideologies. The history of felony exclusion points to a third perspective: a hyphenate American liberalism (liberal-ascription; liberal-republicanism) in which an exclusionary politics is embedded within liberalism itself. We develop this argument with specific reference to the ways in which liberalism as an abstraction is reflected in concrete advocacy debates over reform, in court decisions, and in the legislative domain. We identify three strands of liberal argumentation—the conceptualization of discrimination that relies on intentionality; the paradigmatic liberal belief in the social contract; and the liberal-republican adherence to norms of individual responsibility. The three strands show how the purportedly universal and impartial liberal embrace of individuality, contract, and responsibility, that ostensibly transcends the ascriptive barriers of birth has nevertheless fostered laws and policies that buttress the boundaries of an exclusionary American citizenship.

The End of Apocalypticism: from Burton Mack’s Jesus to North American Liberalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
James Crossley
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Social History ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Liberalism ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Myth ◽  
The Right

Abstract This article takes a different look at the work of Burton Mack on apocalypticism and the post-historical Jesus crystallisation of the Christian ‘myth of innocence’ in terms of the social history of scholarship. After a critical assessment of previous receptions of Mack’s work from the era of the ‘Jesus wars’, there is a discussion of Mack’s place in broader cross-disciplinary tendencies in the study of apocalypticism with reference to the influence of liberal and Marxist approaches generally and those of Norman Cohn and Eric Hobsbawm specifically. Mack’s approach to apocalypticism should be seen as a thoroughgoing updating of Cold War liberal constructions of apocalypticism for an era of American ‘culture wars’, from Reagan to Trump. Part of this updating has also meant that, while much of his work against the apocalyptic Christian myth of innocence has been explicitly aimed at the de-legitimising the Right, it also continues the old Cold War intellectual battles by implicitly de-legitimising anything deemed excessively Marxist.

The History of Unreason

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Samuel Teague ◽  
Peter Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
History Of

This chapter reflects on the importance of the historical narrative of mental illness, arguing that Western countries have sought new ways to confine the mentally ill in the post-asylum era, namely through the effects of stigma and medicalization. The walls are invisible, when once they were physical. The chapter outlines how health and illness can be understood as socially constructed illustrating how mental health has been constructed uniquely across cultures and over time. To understand this process more fully, it is necessary to consider the history of madness, a story of numerous social flashpoints. The trajectories of two primary mental health narratives are charted in this chapter. The authors argue that these narratives have played, and continue to play, an important role in the social construction of mental illness. These narratives are “confinement” and “individual responsibility.” Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Roy Porter, the authors describe how Western culture has come to consider the mentally ill as a distinct, abnormal other.

Chaucer and Contemporary Courts of Law and Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Matthew Giancarlo
Keyword(s):  
Legal Consciousness ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Medieval England

Appreciating the significance of courts in Chaucer’s day requires understanding the connections among noble households, courts of law, and the practices of social interaction and play in late medieval culture. This chapter briefly summarizes important aspects of medieval court cultures. It summarizes Chaucer’s biographical history of legal and court connections. It explains the connections between legal courts and the social environments of noble households, and their relation to political events such as the Uprising of 1381. With specific reference to several stories and tales (The Summoner’s Tale, The Friar’s Tale, and the Second Nun’s Tale), this chapter explains how the worlds of aristocratic courtliness and the growing legal consciousness of late medieval England are examined and often criticized by Chaucer’s narratives. Chaucer’s life and work were richly informed by court contexts and understanding them helps the modern reader to better appreciate the direct impact that court cultures had on his literary practice.

scholarly journals Habit, the Criminal Body and the Body Politic in England, c. 1700–1800

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 83-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Martin Dodsworth
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Social Circumstance

This article explores the role that ‘habit’ played in discourses on crime in the 18th century, a subject which forms an important part of the history of ‘the social’. It seeks to bridge the division between ‘liberal’ positions which see crime as a product of social circumstance, and the conservative position which stresses the role of will and individual responsibility, by drawing attention to the role habit played in uniting these conceptions in the 18th century. It argues that the Lockean idea that the mind was a tabula rasa, and that the character was thereby formed through impression and habit, was used as a device to explain the ways in which certain individuals rather than others happened to fall into a life of crime, a temptation to which all were susceptible. This allowed commentators to define individuals as responsible for their actions, while accepting the significance of environmental factors in their transgressions. Further, the notion that the character was formed through habit enabled reformers to promote the idea that crime could be combated through mechanisms of prevention and reformation, which both targeted the individual criminal and sought more generally to reduce the likelihood of crime.

The History of Unreason

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Samuel Teague ◽  
Peter Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Illness ◽  
History Of

This chapter reflects on the importance of the historical narrative of mental illness, arguing that Western countries have sought new ways to confine the mentally ill in the post-asylum era, namely through the effects of stigma and medicalization. The walls are invisible, when once they were physical. The chapter outlines how health and illness can be understood as socially constructed illustrating how mental health has been constructed uniquely across cultures and over time. To understand this process more fully, it is necessary to consider the history of madness, a story of numerous social flashpoints. The trajectories of two primary mental health narratives are charted in this chapter. The authors argue that these narratives have played, and continue to play, an important role in the social construction of mental illness. These narratives are “confinement” and “individual responsibility.” Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Roy Porter, the authors describe how Western culture has come to consider the mentally ill as a distinct, abnormal other.

scholarly journals Flattening the curve is flattening the complexity of covid-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel Boumans
Keyword(s):  
Political Leaders ◽  
Susceptible Population ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Epidemic Curve ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Empirical Curve ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
Sociopolitical Influences

AbstractSince the February 2020 publication of the article ‘Flattening the curve’ in The Economist, political leaders worldwide have used this expression to legitimize the introduction of social distancing measures in fighting Covid-19. In fact, this expression represents a complex combination of three components: the shape of the epidemic curve, the social distancing measures and the reproduction number $$ \mathscr{R}_{0}$$ R 0 . Each component has its own history, each with a different history of control. Presenting the control of the epidemic as flattening the curve is in fact flattening the underlying natural-social complexity. The curve that needs to be flattened is presented as a bell-shaped curve, implicitly suggesting that the pathogen’s spread is subject only to natural laws. The $$ \mathscr{R}$$ R value, however, is, fundamentally, a metric of how a pathogen behaves within a social context, namely its numerical value is affected by sociopolitical influences. The jagged and erratic empirical curve of Covid-19 illustrates this. Although the virus has most likely infected only a small portion of the total susceptible population, it is clear its shape has changed drastically. This changing shape is largely due to sociopolitical factors. These include shifting formal laws and policies, shifting individual behaviors as well as shifting various other social norms and practices. This makes the course of Covid-19 curve both erratic and unpredictable.

scholarly journals Asilos de Velhos: passado e presente

1999 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Groisman
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Saint Louis ◽  
Homes For The Elderly ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Images ◽  
History Of Old Age

Resumo: Neste artigo é abordada a “história da velhice”, assunto muito pouco estudado no Brasil. Privilegiando uma questão específica, o surgimento do asilo de velhos na cidade do Rio de Janeiro no início do século, esta pesquisa recai sobre o desenvolvimento de uma instituição singular, o Asilo São Luiz para a Velhice Desamparada. O surgimento do Asilo São Luiz foi motivo para uma série de reportagens nos jornais da época. Acompanhando esse movimento, é possível vislumbrar o surgimento de uma série de imagens e estereótipos da velhice. Lidando com essas representações, mostramos como o asilo se tornou uma peça importante no processo de construção social da velhice. Palavras-chave: Asilos. Velhos. Abstract: This paper deals with the “history of old age”, issue that has been very scantily studied in Brazil. The focus of our research is the appearance of homes for the elderly in Rio de Janeiro in the begining of the century, with specific reference to the development of an unique institution - the Asilo São Luiz para a Velhice Desamparada (Saint Louis Home for the Old and Lonely). The appearance of the Asilo São Luiz gave rise to a series of newspaper reports at the time. In studying this public facet of the institutionalization of old age, an attempt is made to perceive a series of accompanying social images. In dealing with these images, it is shown how the old-age home became an important part of the process of the social construction of old age. Keywords: Homes for the Elderly.

The Social Origins and Provenance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.

Individual differences, social attention, and the history of the social motivation hypotheses of autism

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Mundy
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Social Attention ◽  
Social Emotional Development ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Precise Understanding ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Abstract The stereotype of people with autism as unresponsive or uninterested in other people was prominent in the 1980s. However, this view of autism has steadily given way to recognition of important individual differences in the social-emotional development of affected people and a more precise understanding of the possible role social motivation has in their early development.

The problem of periodization of the history of religion

1997 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Borys Lobovyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

An important problem of religious studies, the history of religion as a branch of knowledge is the periodization process of the development of religious phenomenon. It is precisely here, as in focus, that the question of the essence and meaning of the religious development of the human being of the world, the origin of beliefs and cult, the reasons for the changes in them, the place and role of religion in the social and spiritual process, etc., are converging.

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