We Pity Victims

2020 ◽  
pp. 195-210
Author(s):  
James M. Jasper ◽  
Michael P. Young ◽  
Elke Zuern
Keyword(s):  
Reasoned Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Soft Or ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Political Realm

This chapter presents victims as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims and minions. The same attributes that make heroes appear strong also make victims—who lack them—appear weak: a soft or feeble physique, small size, a lack of experience, intelligence, wisdom, wealth, offices, or special skills. Victims cannot protect themselves or maneuver in the political realm or other strategic arenas. They must be good, and are therefore also innocent. Victims can arouse pity, horror, and indignation in audiences. But those very emotions can make them seem something less than human. Victimhood creates a gap between viewer and viewed, objectifying the victim and freezing her outside the possibility of will or reasoned action. They lack agency. Victimhood is thus a risky self-presentation, as with victims of rape or abuse who are sometimes criticized for not having done enough to save themselves.

Affect regulation in the political realm: Managing terror in an age of terror

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon Solomon ◽  
Tom Pyszczynski ◽  
Abdolhossein Abdollahi ◽  
Jeff Greenberg ◽  
Florette Cohen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Affect Regulation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Realm

The Gallic Singularity and the Royal Mistress

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
Christine Adams
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Marie Antoinette ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Realm

The relationship of the French king and royal mistress, complementary but unequal, embodied the Gallic singularity; the royal mistress exercised a civilizing manner and the soft power of women on the king’s behalf. However, both her contemporaries and nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians were uncomfortable with the mistress’s political power. Furthermore, paradoxical attitudes about French womanhood have led to analyses of her role that are often contradictory. Royal mistresses have simultaneously been celebrated for their civilizing effect in the realm of culture, chided for their frivolous expenditures on clothing and jewelry, and excoriated for their dangerous meddling in politics. Their increasing visibility in the political realm by the eighteenth century led many to blame Louis XV’s mistresses—along with Queen Marie-Antoinette, who exercised a similar influence over her husband, Louis XVI—for the degradation and eventual fall of the monarchy. This article reexamines the historiography of the royal mistress.

The Orator in the Theatre

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphaëla Dubreuil
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Athenian Democracy ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Strong Emotion ◽  
Close Study

This chapter explores the image Plutarch created of the end of Athenian Democracy. Its aim is to show that Plutarch conceived of this end through the lens of the theatre, and to explore the origins of this portrayal. It makes this argument through close study of the intersection of theatre and politics in Plutarch’s Life of Phocion. Plutarch expresses the political significance of crucial moments by drawing attention to their theatrical dimension. Theatrical venues, self-presentation, staging, speech, and props are used in order to create an emotional impact on an Athenian audience. Since Plutarch understood theatre in (mostly) Platonic terms, this evaluation is negative. He wishes to depict an Athenian society predisposed to strong emotion, ready to welcome an exuberant tyrant with open arms despite its previous democratic values.

Neuplatonische politische Philosophie in der Rede Περὶ βασιλείας des Synesios von Kyrene

Elenchos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151-177
Author(s):  
Michael Schramm
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Political Realm ◽  
The Ideal

Abstract This paper argues that Synesios’ De regno is a mirror for princes and a splendid example of Neoplatonic political philosophy. It is based on Plato’s Politeia and its model of philosopher-kingship. Synesios makes his audience compare the current political reality with the ideal of the philosopher-kings, who are the image of the transcendent god in the political realm. In doing so he recommends political virtue in general, especially phronesis and sophrosyne. Particularly he argues for reforming the recruitment of military and civil officials with reference to Plato’s concept of friendship in the Politeia.

Heraclitus’ Political Thought

Apeiron ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Maximilian Robitzsch
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Political Realm

Abstract This paper deals with Heraclitus’ political thought. First, in discussing the conception of cosmic justice, it argues that it is a mistake to separate Heraclitus’ political thought from his cosmological thought. Second, the paper works out two basic principles of Heraclitean political thinking by offering a close analysis of fragment B 114 as well as related texts. According to Heraclitus, (1) there is a standard common and relevant to all human beings in the political realm, namely, the logos, and (2) ruling well is a matter of grasping the logos and using it as a guide in all things political. Finally, the paper tackles the notoriously difficult question of whether there are certain forms of political order towards which Heraclitean thought is more or less inclined. According to what may be called the traditional view, Heraclitus is seen as a supporter of an aristocratic political order, while according to what may be called the revisionist view, Heraclitus is classified as a supporter of a democratic political order. The paper concludes that while Heraclitean philosophy is compatible with a plethora of different forms of political order, including democratic ones, the two basic principles of Heraclitean politics that were distinguished above are more conducive to aristocratic forms of political order.

Embracing a Suitable Past: Independence Celebrations under Mexico's Second Empire, 1864–6

1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT H. DUNCAN
Keyword(s):  
Social Cohesion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Second Empire ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
Political Realm

This study examines Emperor Maximilian's efforts in using public rituals, patriotic symbolism, and the emblems of nationalism to devise an appropriate past for his Mexican empire. The ‘republican’ celebration of independence and its heroes formed the cornerstone of an effort to reconcile feuding political factions, build social cohesion, and ultimately legitimate his regime. The article concentrates on the independence ceremonies, speeches, and statuary employed by the empire. Ultimately, the political dissension existing in Mexico could not be surmounted by symbols alone. Nevertheless, the attempt reveals the creative use and limits of public rituals in the political realm.

scholarly journals The Pitfalls of “Love and Kindness”: On the Challenges to Compassion/Pity as a Political Emotion

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 53-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Kathrin Weber
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Political Realm ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

Martha Nussbaum’s political theory of compassion offers an extensive and compelling study of the potential of employing compassionate emotions in the political realm to further social justice and societal “love”. In this article, two pitfalls of Nussbaum’s affirming theory of a politics of compassion are highlighted: the problem of a dual-level hierarchisation and the “magic” of feeling compassion that potentially removes the subject of compassion from reality. I will argue that Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on pity provide substantial challenges to a democratic theory of compassion in this respect. Following these theoretical reflections, I will turn to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 US-American presidential election campaign, to her video ads “Love and Kindness” in particular, in order to provide fitting illustrations from current realpolitik for these specific pitfalls of the political employment of compassionate emotions.

scholarly journals Institutionalized Ambiguity in Legal Status: Managing Citizenship in the U.S. Imperial Rule of the Philippines

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina Quisumbing King
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The Political ◽  
Administrative Capacity ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Political Realm ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Do So

A perennial question in the scholarship of the state asks how states rule and expand their capacity to do so. Scholars have paid special attention to activities that rationalize and build administrative capacity, known as legibility projects. Alongside these projects, state actors also rule through ambiguous and unclear techniques that have been given less scholarly attention. I introduce the concept of institutionalized ambiguity in legal status to extend the study of state rule. I ask what generates ambiguity, what purposes it serves in law and policy, and what consequences it has for the management of populations. I propose an analytic approach that draws attention to equivocation in law as enabling classificatory debates and discretion in the political realm. To illustrate the purchase of institutionalized ambiguity in legal status, I analyze how, during the years of formal imperial rule (1898-1946), U.S. state actors debated the racial fitness and membership of Filipinos in the imagined U.S. nation. I consider the broader implications of this analysis for scholars of modern state formation and suggest that foundational conflicts over national identity can be institutionalized in law, in turn facilitating a range of contradictory, but co-existing, legally defensible policies.

Cosmetic surgery and neoliberalisms: Managing risk and responsibility

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Leve ◽  
Lisa Rubin ◽  
Andrea Pusic
Keyword(s):  
Cosmetic Surgery ◽  
The Political ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Surgical Risk ◽  
The Past ◽  
Facial Surgery ◽  
Managing Risk ◽  
Feminine Body

The practice and culture of cosmetic surgery has proliferated in the past two decades. While much feminist scholarship has investigated women’s surgical stories, as well as the gendered sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts surrounding, and promoting, the ‘choice’ of surgery, very little research has examined material and symbolic risks associated with cosmetic surgery. This study employs a feminist interpretative phenomenological (IPA) approach to investigate cosmetic surgical risk experiences, as narrated by seven women who underwent aesthetic facial surgery. Our analysis focuses on how participants confront, and manage, medical, consumer and self-presentation risks associated with cosmetic surgery, under the political ethos of neoliberalism. The implications of these risk experiences are discussed in relation to the increasing normalization of cosmetic surgery and patriarchal/neoliberal obligations to construct a ‘feminine’ body through socially sanctioned practices.

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