Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In the Street ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 39-62
Author(s):  
Çiğdem Çidam
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
The Public ◽  
Interpretive Analysis ◽  
Plastic Arts ◽  
The People ◽  
Spontaneous Action ◽  
Political Works

This chapter offers an innovative interpretive analysis of Rousseau’s literary and political works, highlighting how his formulation of popular sovereignty as the immediate expression of the people rests on a critique of the theater’s conspicuous artificiality. Contrary to the established reading, Rousseau’s alternative to the theater is not the public festival, which he finds unpredictable and fragile due to its performative nature. Rousseau models his conception of politics on a different form of aesthetic experience, which he develops in Pygmalion—a monodrama that depicts the encounter between a sculptor and his work of art. The Social Contract embodies this aesthetic experience whose paradigmatic example comes from plastic arts. The chapter concludes with an exploration of the antidemocratic implications of this turn to plastic arts, which resurfaces in the works of contemporary theorists who share Rousseau’s idealization of the supposed immediacy of spontaneous action and his desire to remedy its fragility and unpredictability.

scholarly journals The role of architecture in an engaging and meaningful experience of the physical exhibition

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53
Author(s):  
Bárbara Dos Santos Coutinho ◽  
Ana Cristina Dos Santos Tostões
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Spiritual Intelligence ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
The Public ◽  
Exhibition Space ◽  
Digital World ◽  
The Arts

While recognising the part that digital media play in bringing about greater accessibility to artworks display and ensuring that they are more visible, this paper argues that the physical exhibition continues to be the primary place for the public to encounter the arts, as it can offer an engaging and meaningful aesthetic experience through which people can transcend their own existence. As such, it is essential to rethink now, in the scope of an increasing digital world, the exhibition in conceptual and methodological terms. For this purpose, the exhibition space must be considered as content rather than container and the exhibition as a work, often with the intentionality of a “total work of art”, rather than just a vehicle for exhibiting artworks and objects. Having the former purpose in mind, this paper proposes a re-reading of the exhibition designs of Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965), Franco Albini (1905–1977) and Lina Bo Bardi (1914–1992) in order to evaluate how their theory and practice can provide useful lessons for our contemporary thinking. The three architects, assuming the role of curators, use only the specific language of an exhibition and remix conventional modes of communication and architectural vocabulary, exploring the natural and artificial light, materials, layouts, surfaces and geometries in innovative ways. They considered the exhibition to be a work of art, overcoming the container/content dichotomy and trigging an intersubjective and self-reflective participation. Kiesler, Albini and Bo Bardi may all be considered visionaries of our time, as they offer a landscape that stimulates our curiosity through a multiplicity of information arranged in a multisensory way, allowing each visitor to discover associations between himself and his surroundings. None of them simply created an opportunity for distraction or entertainment. This perspective is all the more pertinent nowadays, as the processes of digitalising information and virtualising the real may well lead to the dematerialization of the physical experience of art. By drawing upon these historical examples, this paper seeks to contribute to current study on how an exhibition can stimulate the cognitive, emotional and spiritual intelligence of each visitor and clarify the importance of this effect in 21st century museums and society at large.

scholarly journals Od demokracji bezpośredniej do rządów zgromadzenia? Rousseau i problemy republikańskiego konstytucjonalizmu

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-210
Author(s):  
Rafał Lis
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Emergency Measure ◽  
The Government ◽  
Direct Government ◽  
The Relationship

The following article considers the problems connected with the relationship between the principles of the direct democracy and the gouvernement d’assemblée. The values contemporarily ascribed to these principles are often counted among different, sometimes even opposing, traditions of republican constitutionalism. However, the proposed analysis of Rousseau’s thought suggests that the general intellectual tendencies that are attributedto both systems might originally have had a lot in common. Furthermore, they embody the two different republican ways of implementing the very ideas of popular sovereignty and the accountability of the public authorities to the citizens. The undertaken juxtaposition of the contents of the Social Contract and of the Considerations on the Government of Poland may even point to an evolution of Rousseau’s stance. It can be discerned especiallyin the approval in the second work, which pertained to one of the largest European states of that time, as it conveys the need to shift the responsibility for law-making to the assembly of deputies (the Sejm). The proposition of transferring this responsibility to a quasi-representative body corresponds perfectly with the warnings against the abuses of an unchecked executive, which are equally stringent in the Social Contract. This actuallydenoted that Rousseau was ready to accept some sort of gouvernement d’assemblée in large states. In the end however, it did not mark a departure from the ideals of the direct government, especially after taking into consideration Rousseau’s extraordinary appreciation of the institutions of deputy directives and – treated already as an emergency measure – confederation.

The public doesn’t miss the public. Views from the people: Why news by the people?

Journalism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 577-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Karlsson ◽  
Christer Clerwall ◽  
Lars Nord
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Public Views ◽  
Journalism Research

One of the main debates within journalism research during the last decade has been the role of citizens as contributors or, conversely, as threats to the practice of journalism. While participation has been explored from many different theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives, one perspective remains noticeably underexplored – the perspective of the citizens themselves. Using social contract theory as a backdrop, this study draws on a representative survey ( N = 2091) and focus groups ( N = 82) in Sweden. The results show that although citizens do not bring up participation as an important element of journalism, they become more skeptical the more participation affects journalism. Furthermore, they expect journalists to moderate citizen contributions according to established journalistic standards. From the perspective of social contract theory, participation in journalism appears to be more of a problem than a benefit to citizens.

Arendt and Deleuze on Totalitarianism and the Revolutionary Event: Among the Peoples of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-136
Author(s):  
James Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Moment ◽  
State Form

Gilles Deleuze and Hannah Arendt are two thinkers who have theorised the exceptionalism of the revolutionary moment. For Deleuze, it is the moment of the people to come. For Arendt, it is the moment of the freedom of political action. In the decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall there has been extensive debate on how to remember the German Democratic Republic (DDR) and how to understand the events leading up to its demise. Arendt's analyses of totalitarianism, natality and the public sphere provide points of orientation in an attempt to clarify the nature of the DDR, the dishonesty of its evaluation in the West as well as the transitory purchase of its legitimating discourse on later generations of its citizens. Deleuze's reinvigoration of the revolutionary sense of the term ‘people’ sets it in defiance of prevalent notions of popular sovereignty and therefore facilitates a different reading of the protests against the so-called people's republic of the DDR: something else was at issue besides the substitution of one state form for another.

Reforming Democracy: Constitutional Crisis and Rousseau's Advice to Geneva

2018 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-438
Author(s):  
Dorina Verli
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Democratic Government ◽  
The People ◽  
Historical Accident ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

AbstractPolitical theorists have relegated Rousseau's writings on Geneva to the category of historical accident, assuming that whatever he had to say about politics was said fully in works like the Social Contract. This has created a widespread impression that Rousseau had little to say about ordinary political practice. In this paper, I take up his dissection of the Genevan constitution in the Letters from the Mountain. A work which has attracted little attention even from historians, the Letters are in fact essential for understanding Rousseau's thoughts on the people's role in democratic government. His proposals for reform give clear content to the abstract arguments about popular sovereignty presented in the Social Contract. Against readings that emphasize Rousseau's distrust of the people, the Letters reveal that Rousseau expected popular sovereignty to take the form of active and routine participation in both legislation and government on the part of ordinary citizens.

Democracy and constitutional reform: Deliberative versus populist constitutionalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (9-10) ◽  
pp. 1116-1131
Author(s):  
Simone Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Important Means ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Citizen’S Participation

Constitutional reform has been an important means to push populist authoritarian agendas in Hungary, Poland, Turkey and Venezuela. The embrace of constitutional means and rhetoric in pursuit of these agendas has led to the growing recognition of ‘populist constitutionalism’ as a contemporary political phenomenon. In all four examples mentioned above, democracy, popular sovereignty and direct plebiscitary appeal to the people is the rhetorical and justificatory framework for constitutional reform. This, I worry, gives democracy a bad name and reinforces the widespread suspicion that citizens should not be directly involved in constitutional reform as popular participation can lead to dangerous majoritarianism and is easily manipulated by elite actors seeking to weaken constitutional checks and balances. But the problem, I argue, is not inherent in citizen’s participation in constitutional reform. In contrast to populist constitutionalism, I develop an idea of deliberative constitutionalism in which citizens can participate in constitution-making and reform without hijacking constitutionalism for majoritarian, nationalist or anti-pluralist ends. Deliberative constitutionalism as I understand it has four features: a Habermasian co-originality thesis that articulates the interdependence of democracy and liberalism mediated by a conception of discourse; a proceduralized idea of popular sovereignty that reduces the tension between appeal to the people and respect for pluralism; the centrality of the public sphere over the voting booth as the cradle of democracy; institutional innovations intended to include citizens in constitutional reform (including through referendums) but avoid majoritarian and populist pathologies.

scholarly journals Dari Pengalaman Estetis ke Sikap Estetis dan Etis

MELINTAS ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Yeremias Jena
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Ethical Action ◽  
The People ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic

Every encounter with a work of art has the potential to give birth to the aesthetic experience. The depth of the experience and its transformative effect is different on each person. However, as an experience, its existence is not in doubt. The problem lies on whether an aesthetic experience is something purely subjective or objective. If the aesthetic experience is objective, to what extent can it be accounted for? Could an aesthetic experience encourage certain ethical action? In this paper the author argues that an aesthetic experience is always moving between the directions of a pendulum, namely, when the artwork appeared to the awareness of the subject and when the experiencing subject narrated the experience. The author wants to defend one of the main positions in aesthetics which says that not only the aesthetic experience encourages a particular moral action, the artwork itself might often stand as a medium of a moral struggle for the betterment of the people.

Pelaksanaan Jaminan Kesehatan Oleh BPJS Kesehatan Dalam Perspektif Syariah

Liquidity ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-118
Author(s):  
Iwan Subandi ◽  
Fathurrahman Djamil
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Financial Institution ◽  
Social Supports ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ministry Of Finance ◽  
Health Support ◽  
The Government

Health is the basic right for everybody, therefore every citizen is entitled to get the health care. In enforcing the regulation for Jaringan Kesehatan Nasional (National Health Supports), it is heavily influenced by the foreign interests. Economically, this program does not reduce the people’s burdens, on the contrary, it will increase them. This means the health supports in which should place the government as the guarantor of the public health, but the people themselves that should pay for the health care. In the realization of the health support the are elements against the Syariah principles. Indonesian Muslim Religious Leaders (MUI) only say that the BPJS Kesehatan (Sosial Support Institution for Health) does not conform with the syariah. The society is asked to register and continue the participation in the program of Social Supports Institution for Health. The best solution is to enforce the mechanism which is in accordance with the syariah principles. The establishment of BPJS based on syariah has to be carried out in cooperation from the elements of Social Supports Institution (BPJS), Indonesian Muslim Religious (MUI), Financial Institution Authorities, National Social Supports Council, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Finance. Accordingly, the Social Supports Institution for Helath (BPJS Kesehatan) based on syariah principles could be obtained and could became the solution of the polemics in the society.

Homicide in Scotland, 1800–1849: Numbers and Theories (2)

2019 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-240
Author(s):  
W. W. J. Knox
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cause Of Death ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
The Public ◽  
Common Location ◽  
Spontaneous Action

This article challenges a series of orthodox propositions put forward by historians writing on the decline in homicide levels over the last three hundred years. Firstly, there was a decline in impulsive violence; secondly, there was a shift from stranger to intimate killing; and thirdly, there was a transition of the site of murder from the public to the private sphere. It will be argued that murder remained a mainly spontaneous action, a response to highly charged or impassioned insults and words, sometimes alcohol-fuelled and while the killing of spouses and other immediate family members increased over the course of 150 years (1700–1849), the pattern established in the second half of the eighteenth century was hardly disturbed since most victims were known to their assailants as family, friends or workmates. Stranger killing became more commonly associated with drunken brawls in taverns or in the streets; homicides that involved premeditative action, such as robbery, were rarely the cause of death. It is also clear that the street rather than the home was the most common location, again reflecting the spontaneous and opportunistic character of homicide.

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