The Virtues of Violence

Author(s):  
Kevin Duong

This book uncovers an unfamiliar vision of political violence that nonetheless prevailed in modern French thought: that through “redemptive violence” the people would not rend but regenerate society. It homes in on invocations of popular redemptive violence across four historical moments in France specifically: the French Revolution, Algeria’s colonization, the Paris Commune, and the eve of the first World War. In each of these cases, the book reveals how French thinkers experienced democratization as social disintegration. Yet, before such danger, they also proclaimed that virtuous violence by the people could repair the social fabric. The path leading from an anarchic multitude to an organized democratic society required, not violence’s prohibition, but its virtuous expression by the people. Understanding this counterintuitive vision of violence in French thought offers a new vantage point on the meaning of modern democracy. It alerts readers to how struggles for democracy do not merely seek justice or a new legal regime but also liberating visions of the social bond.

2021 ◽  
Vol 133 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-615
Author(s):  
Daniël Hendrikse

Abstract Dreaming of a state for the people. The German idea of a people’s state in the long nineteenth century (1789-1914)The idea of a people’s state was central to nineteenth-century German political thought from the aftermath of the French Revolution to the beginning of the First World War. However, it has not as yet been studied either systematically or thoroughly. This article explores the concept of the people’s state in German political texts, arguing that the people’s state has a double meaning: it could either be a state for the people, such as a republic, or a state with one supposedly homogenous population. The two notions are intertwined, and this could explain how the people’s state became a central idea in ideologies as diverse as socialism, liberalism, and nationalism, as well as anti-Semitism and national-socialism. The development of the idea of a people’s state in the nineteenth century is crucial for a better understanding of political thinking in twentieth-century Germany.


Professare ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Claudemir Aparecido Lopes

<p class="resumoabstract">O professor Giorgio Agamben tem elaborado críticas à engenhosa estrutura política ocidental moderna. Avalia os mecanismos de controle estatal, nos quais os denomina ‘dispositivos’, cuja força está na imbricação às normas jurídico-teológicas com seus similares ritos e liturgias. Suas ocorrências e legitimidade preponderam no tecido social cuja organização sistêmica se põe quase como elemento natural e não cultural. O texto tem por objetivo explorar a concepção política de Agamben sobre a política contemporânea, especialmente considerando seu livro: ‘Estado de Exceção’, cuja investigação apresenta a possibilidade de atenuação dos direitos de cidadania e o enfraquecimento da prática da liberdade política e o processo de relação dos indivíduos no meio social através da redução das subjetividades ‘autênticas’. Analisamos ainda a transferência do mundo sacro elaborado pelos teólogos católicos presente na modernidade à política cuja democracia moderna faz do homem (sujeito) tornar-se objeto do poder político. Faz também, reflexão dos conceitos de subjetivação e dessubjetivação relacionando-os às implicações políticas do homem moderno. A pesquisa é bibliográfica com ênfase na análise dos conceitos elaborados por Agamben, especialmente quanto ao ‘dispositivo’. Conclui que o indivíduo ocidental, de modo geral, sofre o processo de dessubjetivação e está ‘nu’, indefeso e alienado politicamente. Ele precisa voltar-se ao processo de ‘profanação’ dos dispositivos para libertar-se das vinculações orientadoras que forçosamente o descaracteriza enquanto ser ativo e livre.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Política. Liberdade. Subjetivação.</p><h3>ABSTRACT</h3><p class="resumoabstract">Professor Giorgio Agamben has been criticizing the ingenious modern Western political structure. It evaluates the mechanisms of state control, in which it calls them 'devices', whose strength lies in the overlap with legal-theological norms with their similar rites and liturgies. Its occurrences and legitimacy preponderate in the social fabric whose systemic organization is almost as a natural and not a cultural element. The text aims to explore Agamben's political conception of contemporary politics, especially considering his book 'State of Exception', whose research presents the possibility of attenuating citizenship rights and weakening the practice of political freedom and the individuals in the social environment through the reduction of 'authentic' subjectivities. We also analyze the transfer of the sacred world elaborated by the Catholic theologians present in the modernity to the politics whose modern democracy makes of the man - subject - to become object of the political power. It also reflects on the concepts of subjectivation and desubjectivation, relating them to the political implications of modern man. The research is bibliographical with emphasis in the analysis of the concepts elaborated by Agamben, especially with regard to the 'device'. He concludes that the Western individual, in general, suffers the process of desubjectivation and is 'naked', defenseless and politically alienated. He must turn to the process of 'desecration' of devices to free himself from the guiding bindings that forcibly demeanes him while being active and free.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Keywords</strong>: Politics. Freedom. Subjectivity. </p><p> </p>


Author(s):  
Igor Lyubchyk

The research issue peculiarities of wide Russian propaganda among the most Western ethnographic group – Lemkies is revealed in the article. The character and orientation of Russian and Soviet agitation through the social, religious and social movements aimed at supporting Russian identity in the region are traced. Tragic pages during the First World War were Thalrogian prisons for Lemkas, which actually swept Lemkivshchyna through Muscovophilian influences. Agitation for Russian Orthodoxy has provoked frequent cases of sharp conflicts between Lemkas. In general, attempts by moskvophile agitators to impose russian identity on the Orthodox rite were failed. Taking advantage of the complex socio-economic situation of Lemkos, Russian campaigners began to promote moving to the USSR. Another stage of Russian propaganda among Lemkos began with the onset of the Second World War. Throughout the territory of the Galician Lemkivshchyna, Soviet propaganda for resettlement to the USSR began rather quickly. During the dramatic events of the Second World War and the post-war period, despite the outbreaks of the liberation movement, among the Lemkoswere manifestations of political sympathies oriented toward the USSR. Keywords: borderlands, Lemkivshchyna, Lemky, Lemkivsky schism, Moskvophile, Orthodoxy, agitation, ethnopolitics


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 564-583
Author(s):  
Allison Schmidt

AbstractThis article investigates interwar people-smuggling networks, based in Germany and Czechoslovakia, that transported undocumented emigrants across borders from east-central Europe to northern Europe, where the travelers planned to sail to the United States. Many of the people involved in such networks in the Saxon-Bohemian borderlands had themselves been immigrants from Galicia. They had left a homeland decimated by the First World War and subsequent violence and entered societies with limited avenues to earn a living. The “othering” of these Galician immigrants became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as those on the margins of society then sought illegal ways to supplement their income. This article concludes that the poor economic conditions and threat of ongoing violence that spurred migrant clients to seek undocumented passage had driven their smugglers, who also faced social marginalization, to emigration and the business of migrant smuggling.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096777202097458
Author(s):  
Božidar Pocevski ◽  
Prim. Predrag Pocevski ◽  
Lidija Horvat

Dr Božidar Kostić (1892–1960) – physician of noble heart – was born in Niš (Kingdom of Serbia) in a distinguished family of academically educated parents. As there were no medical faculties in Kingdom of Serbia, after high school, which he had finished with great success, in 1911 he enrolled at the Graz University of Medicine, a prestigious medical university. Soon he transferred to the Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Prague, where he continued his studying for another ten semesters. In Prague, The Golden City, after the First World War, he finished his studies with an average grade of 10. After the Second World War, he worked as a doctor with a private medical practice in Belgrade, but soon he moved to Vranje, where he established the Town Polyclinic and contributed to the final flourishing of the most important forms of health care activities in liberated Vranje, donating his rich knowledge and skills, which led the health service to move to forms of independent work and development of new activities. For his contribution to the community, by decree of His Majesty King of Yugoslavia Alexander I Karađorđević, he received the Order of Saint Sava. Dr Božidar Kostić and his wife Pravda devoted their lives to the health and educational upbringing of the people in the south parts of Serbia (then Social Federative Republic of Yugoslavia). Until his last days he lived and worked as a true folk doctor.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-41
Author(s):  
Gülsüm Polat

This article compares and contrasts state-society relations during wartime, first under the Ottoman government during the First World War and, secondly, under the Ankara government during the National War of Liberation, and concludes that while the Ottoman government did attempt to address the great hardships faced by the population in this period, the Ankara government placed more emphasis both on the importance of the people, the halk, and on the development of a social state.


Author(s):  
Joshua Mauldin

Recent political events around the world have raised the specter of an impending collapse of democratic institutions. Contemporary worries about the decline of liberal democracy harken back to the tumult of the 1930s and 1940s in Europe. Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived in Germany during the rise of National Socialism, and each reflected on what the rise of totalitarianism meant for the aspirations of modern politics. Engaging the realities of totalitarian terror, they avoided despairing rejections of modern society. Beginning with Barth in the wake of the First World War, following Bonhoeffer through the 1930s and 1940s in Nazi Germany, and concluding with Barth’s postwar reflections in the 1950s, this study explores how these figures reflected on modern society during this turbulent time and how their work is relevant to the current crisis of modern democracy


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-182
Author(s):  
Rashid A. Nadirov ◽  

This article addresses the problem of socio-economic status of the Austro-Hungarian capital Vienna in the second period of the First World War - 1916-1918. Much attention is paid to the consequences of the war: the food crisis, the deficit, the rise in prices for basic necessities, speculation, protests, etc. It shows the transformation of the mood of the Viennese society in the conditions of the growing economic crisis. The food issue directly affected the quality of life of the residents of the capital, who were in difficult wartime conditions, and largely influenced their attitude to the current government. In this study, the task was to analyze the relationship between the government and the people and to find out why the people of Vienna, who had initially been patriotic and united around the monarchy, had joined the opposition by 1916. The author concludes that the food crisis, against the backdrop of the inaction of the government, which has used only the practice of prohibitions and restrictions on the civilian population, has become a key factor in exacerbating protests and leading to the overthrow of the political regime and the collapse of the monarchy.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document