1. Creating “the Maya”

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Matthew Restall ◽  
Amara Solari
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Maya ◽  
The West ◽  
The Real ◽  
The People

“Creating ‘the Maya’” begins with the paradox that the people we call Maya never thought of themselves as such. There was no unified Maya state, empire, or language. Historically, scholars have divided ancient Maya history into three periods: Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic. The ancient Maya were repeatedly “discovered” by the West since Columbus in 1502, and despite widespread beliefs about the decline of the Maya at the end of the Classic era and the real impact on population wrought by disease and invasions, Maya communities and cultures persisted. The recent disaster film 2012 rekindled interest in the belief attributed to the Maya that the apocalypse would happen in that year.

Interest Groups and Communist Politics

1966 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Gordon Skilling
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
The West ◽  
The Real ◽  
Autonomous Behavior ◽  
The People ◽  
Ruling Party

The idea that interest groups may play a significant role in Communist politics has, until recently, not been seriously entertained either by Western political scientists or by Soviet legal specialists. The concept of “totalitarianism” that has dominated the analysis of communism in the West has seemed to preclude the possibility that interest groups could challenge or affect the single ruling party as the fount of all power. The uniqueness of a totalitarian system has been deemed to lie in the very totality of its political power, excluding, as it were by definition, any area of autonomous behavior by groups other than the state or party, and still more, preventing serious influence by them on the process of decision-making. Marxist theorists, starting from different presuppositions, have assumed that the single ruling party, the organization of the working class, best knew the “real” interests of the people as a whole, and have denied the possibility of fundamental conflicts of interest within the working class, or between it and associated friendly classes such as the peasantry. Within the ruling party itself, groups or factions opposing the leadership have not been admitted in theory or permitted in practice.

Aesthetic Dilemmas of Adaptation and the Politics of Subjectivity: Animating the Chinese ClassicJourney to the West

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengcheng You
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
The West ◽  
The Real ◽  
Quest For Meaning ◽  
National Allegory ◽  
Canonical Text ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
Monkey King

This article reviews four major Chinese animated adaptations based on the classic Journey to the West. It shows how these adaptations, spanning four historical phases of modern China, encapsulate changes in Chinese national identity. Close readings underpin a developmental narrative about how Chinese animated adaptations of this canonical text strive to negotiate the multimodal expressions of homegrown folklore traditions, technical influences of western animation, and domestic political situations across time. This process has identified aesthetic dilemmas around adaptations that oscillate between national allegory and individual destiny, verisimilitude and the fantastic quest for meaning. In particular, the subjectivisation of Monkey King on the screen, embodying the transition from primitivistic impulse, youthful idealism and mature practicality up to responsible stewardship, presents how an iconic national figure encapsulates the real historical time of China.

PEMBENAHAN TERHADAP LEMBAGA PEMASYARAKATAN DAPAT MENIADAKAN OPSI HUKUMAN MATI BAGI NARAPIDANA DI INDONESIA (THE IMPROVEMENT OF QUALITY OF PENITENTIARY CAN ELIMINATE THE DEATH PENALTY OPTIONS OF CONVICTED CRIMINALS IN INDONESIA)

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Nomensen Freddy Siahaan
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Deterrent Effect ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Psychological Burden ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Public ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
The People ◽  
Long Time

After a long time was not heard to the public area, lately death penalty toward the criminal cases that classified as extraordinary crime are appear. The author discovers electronic article about the execution of the death penalty which is the prosecutor prepares to execute death penalty toward the drugs dealer. The president of Republic of Indonesia stated that it is necessary to give a deterrent effect to the convicted  criminal and keep the morality of Indonesian teenagers. According to my opinion, the author argues that it will be better and wiser if we discuss about renovating all of the Penitentiary in Indonesia than debating whether death penalty could be done in Indonesia or not, because it will be displeasure many parties, death penalty infringed the human rights of the convicted criminals and cause psychological burden to them, families, the executor of the death penalty, and other parties. Because if we have to improve the quality of the Penitentiary, if the function of Penitentiary for fostering moralily has been optimal or properly enough to the convicted criminals, Indonesia will be no longer need the death penalty option as sanction to the convicted crimanals including for the extraordinary crime (especially for drugs trafficking in our country). Penitentiary is one of the public services which aims for fostering the people that initially have bad habits (commited to the crime), so that they will have the awareness to change their bad attitude into the be better ones, will not harm others, and positively contributed to the society. Already Penitentiary’s conditions should be designed in such a way and as good as possible, so that the inmates feels like at their own home (like having a second home after his own home), and feel humaner to spend their days in the Penitentiary. The author believes that if the Penitentiary has been improved and optimized its function well, then the real purpose of Penitentiary will definitely achieved. As stated in Law Number 12 Year 1995 regarding to Penitentiary Article 2 which states "sanction system are organized in order to fostering the convicted criminals in order to be the real man, aware of their fault, improve themselves, and not to repeat the criminal act so that they can be friendly received by the community, can actively participated in the development of our country, and can socialize themselves as good citizen."Article 3 on this regulation also intensifies the function of Penitentiary "the function of Penitentiary is to prepare convicted criminals to be able to properly integrated to the society, so they can be accepted again as members of the public who are free and responsible ones." 

In our society, the proportion of youth is higher than any other society. They are important in this regard. But the real question is whether his views, trends and likes and dislikes are different from other generations of society in political terms. What

Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 680-686
Author(s):  
Azad Pratap Singh
Keyword(s):  
The Elderly ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
The West ◽  
Green Party ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Third ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Education And Employment ◽  
Political Understanding ◽  
Separate Class

In our society, the proportion of youth is higher than any other society. They are important in this regard. But the real question is whether his views, trends and likes and dislikes are different from other generations of society in political terms. What is the reason for the tendency to see youth as a separate class. That we borrow the principles of politics from the West, where the distinction of generations is more important factor in politics than the distinction of community or class. At one time, parties like the Labor Party and the Green Party have been standing mainly on the vote of the youth for some time. The second reason is that the image of the youth is based on the English-speaking youths living somewhere in the metros. We often consider him to be a symbol of youth. While in reality they are a very small part of our youth. And the third reason is that the part of change, revolution and the politics of change that had set the hopes of the youth are still there in our political understanding. The fact is that the youth class is not very different from the elderly or any other generation in terms of participation in politics, if different then it means that its participation is less than the other class because it is more concerned about education and employment. There is no fundamental difference between the vote of the youth and other generations in terms of voting or political choice. If there is a difference, then only in the sense that the parties who have come in the last 25-30 years have heard more about the youth, hence their choice is more. Older parties usually get little support from the youth. However, it is not related to its youth, because the information about that party is limited to certain people.

Growing Coconut Palms in the Pacific Islands: Colliding Knowledge and Values

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith A. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Coconut Oil ◽  
Tropical Pacific ◽  
Experiential Knowledge ◽  
The West ◽  
Passive Resistance ◽  
The People ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Tropical Pacific

Coconuts provided commodities for the West in the form of coconut oil and copra. Once colonial governments established control of the tropical Pacific Islands, they needed revenue so urged European settlers to establish coconut plantations. For some decades most copra came from Indigenous growers. Administrations constantly urged the people to thin old groves and plant new ones like plantations, in grid patterns, regularly spaced and weeded. Local growers were instructed to collect all fallen coconuts for copra from their groves. For half a century, the administrations’ requirements met with Indigenous passive resistance. This paper examines the underlying reasons for this, elucidating Indigenous ecological and social values, based on experiential knowledge, knowledge that clashed with Western scientific values.

THE PROFILE OF A LEADER AND HIS LEDERSHIP

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 345-350
Author(s):  
Ali Hajro
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Skills ◽  
Real Power ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Core ◽  
Behavior Code ◽  
The People ◽  
Study Case ◽  
Personal Skills

The Current and future leaders live in a turbulent and chaotic environment, where the real power of acting derives from the recognition of the concept of change and looking for options. In this type of environment a lot of competence is necessary for the leaders to survive. The aim of this study case was to explore i.e. gain a clearer picture of the position of the leader, their characteristics, functions, levels, the core and the factors affecting the leader and their leadership. To see what type of leader the people want simply to draw conclusions about the characteristics, qualities and techniques of a leader and their leadership. So that in the end, to have empirical proof of the leader. The set goal in this study case is today’s leaders in everyday process, starting from the very beginning of their work, to serve as an example in developing inter-personal skills at the same time as treating people with dignity and respect. In other words, they have to possess leadership skills, characteristics and the necessary actions. This research aims at finding out the real attributes that is the profile of a leader and their leadership running an organization regardless if it is economic, political, and military or some other non-governmental organization. The values are more than a set of rules, they are not only behavior code, and they say what a leader should be every day in every action that they take. The values shade the leaders’ identity and the organization that they run.

Legitimizing Transformation without Calling it Change:Tajdīd, Iṣlāḥ, and Saudi Arabia’s Place in the Contemporary World

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Sean Foley
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Political System ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
The West ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The People ◽  
Diverse Society ◽  
Oil Revenues

For decades, many scholars have contended that Saudi Arabia is a fixed political system, where a conservative monarchy uses advanced technology, oil revenues, and religion to dominate the people. Such a system is often portrayed as inherently unstable, a seemingly never-ending series of collisions between an unchanging traditional political structure seeking to hold on to power at any cost and a dynamic modernity—a view encapsulated in a phrase expressed at virtually every public discussion of the Kingdom in the West: ‘you must admit that Saudi Arabia must change’. Ironically this phrase confirms what this article argues is a secret to the success of Saudi Arabia in the contemporary era: the ability to legitimize transformation without calling it change. No society is static, including Saudi Arabia. Throughout the Kingdom’s history, the defining social institutions have repeatedly utilized Tajdīd (Revival) and Iṣlāḥ (Reform) to respond to new technologies and the changing expectations of a diverse society. While Muslim scholars are most often entrusted to arbitrate this process, ordinary Saudis use this process to guide their actions in the various social spaces they encounter both at home and abroad. Critically, this process reflects the response of King Abdulaziz and the founders of the third Saudi state in the early twentieth century to the factors that had brought down previous Saudi states in the nineteenth century.

Fetishism and the Moral Marketplace: How Abolitionist Sugar Boycotts in the 1790s Defined British Consumers and the West Indian "Other"

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Laurel Carmichael
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
West Indian ◽  
Political Activism ◽  
Class Consciousness ◽  
Direct Link ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
The West ◽  
The People

<p>In the early 1790s more than 300,000 Britons boycotted West Indian sugar in one of the most impressive displays of public mobilisation against the slave trade. Many of those who abstained were inspired by William Fox’s 1791 pamphlet An Address to the People of Great Britain on the Utility of Refraining from the Use of West India Sugar and Rum. The abstention movement gained momentum amidst the failures of the petition campaign to achieve a legislative end to the slave-trade, and placed the responsibility of ending slavery with all British consumers. This thesis draws from cross-disciplinary scholarship to argue that the campaign against slave sugar appealed to an idealised image of the humanitarian consumer and maligned slave. Writers such as Fox based their appeal on a sense of religious duty, class-consciousness and gendered values. Both the domestic sphere and the consumer body were transformed into sites of political activism, as abolitionists attempted to establish a direct link between the ingestion of sugar and the violence of colonial slavery. Attempts to encourage consumers’ sympathetic identification with the plight of distant slaves occurred alongside attempts to invoke horror and repulsion at slave suffering. The image of the West Indian slave presented to consumers was one shaped by fetishized European imaginings. The decision to abstain from slave sugar, therefore, was not only motivated by genuine philanthropic concerns, but the desire to protect the civilised and refined modern consumer, from the contaminating products of colonial barbarity.</p>

Volkswille: Reale Substanz oder notwendige Fiktion?

Der Staat ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-396
Author(s):  
Shu-Perng Hwang
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Real ◽  
The People ◽  
The Will ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Individual

Angesichts des markanten Aufstiegs des Rechtspopulismus in den vergangenen Jahren drängt sich die Frage immer wieder auf, ob oder inwiefern das Parlament den eigentlichen Volkswillen (noch) vertreten kann, und wie im Zeitalter der Globalisierung und Digitalisierung der eigentliche Volkswille überhaupt festzustellen und effektiv durchzusetzen ist. In dieser Hinsicht steht das Vertrauen in die Fähigkeit des Parlaments, den wahren Volkswillen herauszubilden und zu artikulieren, erneut vor großen Herausforderungen. Durch eine vergleichende Analyse zwischen den Demokratietheorien Böckenfördes und Kelsens zeigt der vorliegende Beitrag, weshalb und inwiefern das weitverbreitete Verständnis des Volkswillens und dessen Rolle in der parlamentarischen Demokratie gerade vor dem heutigen Hintergrund eine kritische Besinnung verdient. Es wird argumentiert, dass gerade in demokratischer Hinsicht nicht die Suche nach dem „wahren Volkswillen“, sondern nach wie vor die Gewährleistung der Menschen- bzw. Grundrechte der Einzelnen und insbesondere der Minderheiten von zentraler Bedeutung sein soll. In view of the spread of right-wing populism in recent years, the question as to how the will of the people is to be ascertained and expressed has attracted much attention in constitutional scholarship. In particular, the issue of whether or to what extent the parliament is (still) capable of representing and demonstrating the will of the people has been repeatedly discussed and debated. Through a comparative analysis of Böckenförde’s und Kelsen’s democratic theories, this article critically examines the problems of the widespread understanding of the will of the people as a real-empirical existence and its significance for the realization of democracy. Accordingly, it points out why and in what sense the reference to the so-called real will of the people would undermine rather than promote democracy. This article concludes by arguing that, precisely for the sake of democracy, what is crucial is not to determine what the “real will of the people” is, but rather to guarantee the freedom of the individual and especially of the minorities.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document