Epidemics in Antiquity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
The Political ◽  
Epidemic Disease ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Moral Universe ◽  
Polluted Rivers

This chapter refutes present claims that epidemics in antiquity led to blame of the ‘other’. By assembling contemporary descriptions, explanations, and consequences of ancient epidemics, this chapter overturns a second commonplace about ancient epidemics: that contemporaries understood them within a moral universe, in which plagues arose from the evil deeds of individuals usually within the political sphere, such as betrayals, unjust wars, violations of peace, and breaches of justice, and as a consequence, the gods punished communities with epidemic disease. Such explanations, however, clustered in undatable, mythological time. Instead, classical authors explained the majority of epidemics solely by natural phenomenon—climate, famine, bad food and unaccustomed diets, vapours from unburied corpses, polluted rivers, etc. These explanations did not cast blame on anyone, including the enemies of the afflicted, who may have created the preconditions that brought about these plagues.

Indian and Russian Tolstoy: one among strangers and a stranger among one’s

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-35
Author(s):  
Svetlana M. Klimova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Indian Thought ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Lev Tolstoy ◽  
The One ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Church ◽  
Peculiar Phenomenon

The article examines the phenomenon of the late Lev Tolstoy in the context of his religious position. The author analyzes the reactions to his teaching in Russian state and official Orthodox circles, on the one hand, and Indian thought, on the other. Two sociocultural images of L.N. Tolstoy: us and them that arose in the context of understanding the position of the Russian Church and the authorities and Indian public and religious figures (including Mahatma Gandhi, who was under his influence). A peculiar phenomenon of intellectually usL.N. Tolstoy among culturally them (Indian) correspondents and intellectually them Tolstoy among culturally us (representatives of the official government and the Church of Russia) transpires. The originality of this situation is that these im­ages of Lev Tolstoy arise practically at the same period. The author compares these images, based on the method of defamiliarisation (V. Shklovsky), which allows to visually demonstrate the religious component of Tolstoy’s criticism of the political sphere of life and, at the same time, to understand the psychological reasons for its rejection in Russian official circles. With the methodological help of defamiliarisation the author tries to show that the opinion of Tolstoy (as the writer) becomes at the same time the voice of conscience for many of his con­temporaries. The method of defamiliarisation allowed the author to show how Leo Tolstoy’s inner law of nonviolence influenced the concept of non­violent resistance in the teachings of Gandhi.

But I Do Academic Anthropology!: Advocacy, Ethics, and the Politics of Research

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-23
Author(s):  
Rachel Adler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Political Milieu ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
The U.S

Conducting research among immigrants in the United States can pose ethical problems not encountered by anthropologists working abroad. Research occurs, of course, in the context of a political milieu. When anthropologists are working outside of their own societies, it is easier to dissociate themselves from the political sphere. This is because foreign anthropologists are not expected to embrace the political rhetoric of societies of which they are only observers. Ethnographers inside the U.S., on the other hand, often become politicized, regardless of their academic intentions.

scholarly journals The Other, Shame, and Politics: Levinas, Justice, and Feeling Responsible

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 381
Author(s):  
Steve Larocco
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Political Realm

Adi Ophir has suggested that the political realm is an order of evils, producing and managing regular forms of suffering and violence rather than eliminating them. Thus, the political is always to some extent a corrupted order of justice. Emmanuel Levinas’ work presents in its focus on the face-to-face relationship a means of rethinking how to make the political more open to compassionate justice. Though Levinas himself doesn’t sufficiently take on this question, I argue that his work facilitates a way of thinking about commiserative shame that provides a means to connect the face-to-face to its potential effects in the political sphere. If such shame isn’t ignored or bypassed, it produces an unsettling relation to the other that in its adversity motivates a kind of responsibility and care for the other that can alter the public sphere.

Political implications of compassion in Mencius

Diogenes ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 039219212097038
Author(s):  
Sarinya Arunkhajornsak
Keyword(s):  
Young Child ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Cultivation ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Universal Love ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Moral Universe ◽  
Political Realm

This paper examines Mencius’ view on compassion in the political realm by proposing that Mencius defends compassionate governance by reconciling the two extremes of Yangist self-love and Mohist universal love. This paper proposes a reading of two famous stories, namely, the story of a young child on the verge of falling into a well, and the story of King Xuan of Qi sparing an ox as paradigmatic cases for understanding Mencius’ account of compassion in the political realm. This paper argues that Mencius succeeds in his defense of governance with compassion against the other two extremes of self-love and altruism. To provide an argument for compatibility with egoism or self-love, this paper offers an analysis of Mencius’ idea of the ruler sharing pleasure with his people instead of denying pleasure for himself. In this sense, a good ruler does not need to sacrifice his self-interest. To counter the demand of universal love of the Mohists, Mencius develops a position that the Confucian ideal ruler, while not sacrificing his self-interests, those interests need to be guided and directed by a proper process of moral cultivation of his compassionate heart so that he can readily share his pleasures with all the peoples in his kingdom. These readings indicate Mencius’ expanded argument for political implications of compassion in the moral universe of the Confucian school.

Religion and Support for Democracy in Bosnia-Herzegovina

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 609-633
Author(s):  
Marko Valenta ◽  
Zan Strabac
Keyword(s):  
Negative Influence ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractThis article examines the relationship between religiosity and support for democracy in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Using data from the last World Values Survey, we examine levels of religiosity among Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, and their support for democracy. The influence of religiosity on support for democracy is also explored. The results indicate that religiosity has a negative influence on support for democracy, and it is particularly true for individuals who do not support the separation of the religious from the political sphere and who exhibit lower support for democracy. The article also examines different levels of religiosity among the three groups, controlling for a wide range of variables. We conclude that there is basically no difference in support for democracy between Croats and Bosniaks, while Serbs exhibit somewhat lesser support for democracy than members of the other two ethnic groups. Serbs also seem to be somewhat less religious than Bosniaks and Croats. Opposition to separation of the religious from the political sphere is a major source of lack of support for democracy among Croats and Bosniaks, but not among Serbs.

Partitions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Esposito
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social ◽  
Simone Weil ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the relationship between Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil. It argues that each one thinks in the inverse of the other's thought, in the shadow of the other's light, in the silence of the other's voice, in the emptiness of the other's plenitude. To think what the thought of the other excludes not as something that is foreign, but rather as something that appears unthinkable and, for that very reason, remains to be thought. It is precisely this “remainder,” this “boundary,” this “partition” that divides while joining and separates while combining that is the object of the present analysis. The chapter then turns examines the question for which the two thinkers appear to be most distant: the relation between action and work, between praxis and poiesis, between the political sphere and the social sphere.

Política y caudillismo en el Congreso Constituyente mexicano de 1917

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-78
Author(s):  
Marcelo Blidstein
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The One ◽  
Dividing Line

This article examines the political and ideological components of the Mexican Constitutional Assembly of 1917 and offers a new and more heterogeneous interpretation of this composition. Here, a dividing line is drawn between the political followers of either Carranza or Obregón, on the one hand, and other representatives who, despite their ideological proximity to the obregonistas, acted independently on the political sphere. A further group comprising those representatives who were not aligned with any of the other three groups is also considered. / Este artículo trata sobre la composición política e ideológica del Congreso Constituyente mexicano de 1917 y propone una interpretación nueva y más heterogénea de dicha composición. El artículo traza una línea divisoria entre los diputados constituyentes aliados políticamente a Carranza y a Obregón, por un lado, y a otros delegados, que pese a compartir una ideología que guardaba gran similitud con la de los obregonistas, eran independientes en cuanto a la esfera política. Además de ello, existía un grupo, mayoritario y heterogéneo formado por diputados que no estaban alineados con ninguno de los otros tres grupos.

Invention et (dé)stabilisation d’un espace politique singulier: Brasilia un demi-siècle après la fondation

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-119
Author(s):  
Daniella Rocha
Keyword(s):  
Federal District ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Flexible Structure ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Point Of Departure

Resume The instability of political life in the Federal District is a curious research problem from a scientific standpoint. This article attempts to unveil the paradoxes underlying the difficulty of stabilizing this space of relations and competences. In so doing, it looks into the processes that led, in the mid-1980s, to the specialization of a political sphere peculiar to Brasilia and to its rapid but low-key institutionalization. The invention of a local political space appears as a process deeply marked by the specificities of the territorial problematic specific to the Brazilian urban configuration. The author’s point of departure is the hypothesis that, in spite of its institutionalized rules and agencies, the political space of the Federal District tends to produce a more flexible structure than the political spaces found in the other units of the Brazilian federation.

scholarly journals Francophone Catholic Achievements in Igboland, 1883-–1905

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 307-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eddie E. Okafor
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Southeastern Nigeria ◽  
Holy Ghost ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Igbo People ◽  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
African Missions

When the leading European powers were scrambling for political dominion in Africa, the greatest rival of France was Britain. The French Catholics were working side by side with their government to ensure that they would triumph in Africa beyond the boundaries of the territories already annexed by their country. Thus, even when the British sovereignty claim on Nigeria was endorsed by Europe during the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, the French Catholics did not concede defeat. They still hoped that in Nigeria they could supplant their religious rivals: the British Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the other Protestant missionary groups. While they allowed the British to exercise political power there, they took immediate actions to curtail the spread and dominion of Protestantism in the country. Thus some of their missionaries stationed in the key French territories of Africa—Senegal, Dahomey, and Gabon—were urgently dispatched to Nigeria to compete with their Protestant counterparts and to establish Catholicism in the country.Two different French Catholic missions operated in Nigeria between 1860s and 1900s. The first was the Society of the African Missions (Société des Missions Africaines or SMA), whose members worked mainly among the Yoruba people of western Nigeria and the Igbos of western Igboland. The second were the Holy Ghost Fathers (Pères du Saint Esprit), also called Spiritans, who ministered specifically to the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria. The French Catholics, the SMA priests, and the Holy Ghost Fathers competed vehemently with the British Protestants, the CMS, for the conversion of African souls. Just as in the political sphere, the French and British governments competed ardently for annexation and colonization of African territories.

scholarly journals Jeremy Waldron and the Circumstances of Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Alexander Latham-Gambi
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Civic Virtue ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
The Face

Abstract This article examines Jeremy Waldron's concept of the “circumstances of politics” (CoP), which he describes as the felt need for a common decision in the face of disagreement. Waldron uses the CoP to detach certain issues surrounding civic virtue and institutional design from questions about substantive principles such as justice and human rights. While emphasis is often placed on the fact of disagreement, I argue that the other aspect of the CoP, the need for collective action, is in fact the more fundamental. Waldron's arguments rely on an understanding that there is expressive value in citizens affirming commitment to the political community and on an awareness of how the nature of politics as public collective action is structured by the constitutional architecture. I argue that a lopsided focus on disagreement threatens to obscure the fact that the political sphere is itself a fragile achievement that is in need of continual support.

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