Politics of Manufacturing Consent in a Post-Truth Society

2022 ◽  
pp. 0169796X2110684
Author(s):  
Biswajit Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
Life World ◽  
Global Society ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Human Subjectivity ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Way

This article critically examines how human life today is faced with issues of dishonesty and deception. Using the concept of post-truth in analyzing and understanding the context of change in a global society under neo-liberalism, it focuses on the way powerful people, groups, political parties, and media now take recourse to strategies such as falsification, manipulation, or deception to influence and control the human mind. Those involved in doing this use nostalgic narratives, idealize a fictional past and generate conspiracy theories to create false consciousness and thereby colonize the life world. Such colonization not only promotes social pathologies but also limits the democratic, secular, and plural spirits of multicultural nations like India. The article ends by arguing that there are limits to such politics and the best alternative to the conundrum is the assertion of human subjectivity and agency, and alternative media can play a major role in this endeavor.

scholarly journals ‘WAAROM EIGENLIJK KRUISJES IN PLAATS VAN POLLUTIE?’

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-159
Author(s):  
Leonieke Vermeer
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Activity ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Sexual Ethics ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Mind And Body ◽  
Diary Writing ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Way

‘WHY CROSSES INSTEAD OF POLLUTION?’ The diary of Leo Polak (1901-1941) and the discourse against masturbation The diary of the Dutch criminal law theorist, philosopher, and freethinker Leo Polak, which recently has become accessible, contains symbols such as ‘X’ and ‘#’. In this article, I interpret such symbols not as ‘silence’, but as disguising, narrative strategies. These symbols and the way Polak reflects on them, can be connected to the discourse on masturbation as a ‘total illness’, which developed from the beginning of the eightteenth century to the 1930s. The symbols in Polak’s early diaries indicate that diary writing functioned as a medium to register and control his solitary sexual activity. The diaries show the anti-masturbation discourse; the experience of it, the struggle with it and ways to resist it. Later in life, he used these experiences in his work on Sexual ethics (1936) in which he rejects the medical and religious views on masturbation and makes a plea for the autonomy of the human mind and body.

The Integration and Control of Behaviour

2011 ◽  
pp. 176-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Glasspool
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Mobile Robotics ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Scale Model ◽  
Large Scale Model ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Way

Clues to the way behaviour is integrated and controlled in the human mind have emerged from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. The picture that is emerging mirrors solutions (driven primarily by engineering concerns) to similar problems in the rather different domains of mobile robotics and intelligent agents in artificial intelligence (AI). This chapter looks in detail at the relationship between a psychological theory of willed and automatic control of behaviour, the Norman and Shallice framework, and three types of engineering-based theory in AI. As well as being a promising basis for a large-scale model of cognition, the Norman and Shallice framework presents an interesting example both of apparent theoretical convergence between AI and empirical psychology, and of the way in which theoretical work in both fields can benefit from interaction between them.

scholarly journals Mapping cultural and natural landscape: metaphors in mapping human nature

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornel W. Du Toit
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Natural Landscape ◽  
Life World ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Reality ◽  
Critical Scrutiny ◽  
And Control ◽  
Main Factor

The article uses the cartographic metaphor to describe the relations between culture and nature, science and life world, signifier and signified. Modernism may be defined as a project to map the whole of human reality to ensure our comprehension and control of it. The Hobbes-Boyle controversy is cited by way of example. Today this project is under critical scrutiny, because there is more to the world than what is captured in maps. The main example of control and reduction of meaning is the way human nature is defined. Nowadays the main factor is not so much ideology of one kind or another but, increasingly, technoscience. Mapping the future of humankind will depend on successful integration of humans with nature, faith with reason, natural sciences with human sciences, physicality with spirituality. Heidegger provides an example of a meaningful way to integrate science and technology with the human life world. Finally, the self-transcending character of human culture remains the driving force behind the process.

Un Dieu sadique : le rôle de l’image blasphématoire de Dieu dans Dolce agonia de Nancy Huston

2013 ◽  
pp. 160-166
Author(s):  
Izabela Front
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Character Of God ◽  
Double Character ◽  
The Way

The present article seeks to analyze the way in which the blasphemous figure of God in Dolce agonia by Nancy Huston allows the author to describe the sacred element in human life, seen as deprived of transcendental character. This is possible thanks to the three aspects of the text dependent on the type of God’s figure, which are: the contrast between passages marked by the cynical God’s voice and passages focused on man’s life filled with suffering; the tone and the appropriation of time var-iations and, finally, the double character of God who, at the same time, is indifferent to man’s lot while touched by his capacity of love.

Beauty, Morality, and the Promise of Happiness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Iris Murdoch ◽  
Fundamental Feature ◽  
The Way

This chapter takes up the themes of Chapter 3—loving beauty’s formative power—in a dialogue with contemporary philosophers Alexander Nehamas and Elaine Scarry, as well as with (to a lesser extent) Iris Murdoch. It explores the nature of love, beauty, and morality through a dialogue across historical–contemporary, theological–philosophical lines. A number of prominent modern criticisms of Augustine focus on a fundamental feature of his thought: that everything in human life is ordered towards the promise of heavenly happiness. This chapter shows some of the resources Augustine offers contemporary discussions of aesthetics by arguing that the way he links beauty and morality accounts for the ethical demands of love elicited by attraction to beauty.

scholarly journals The Enduring Greatness: The Mahāpuruşha Paradigm—An Indian Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 002216782110008
Author(s):  
Maharaj K. Raina
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Spirit ◽  
Positive Direction ◽  
Indian Tradition ◽  
Indian Perspective ◽  
Relative Concept ◽  
The Way

Greatness, a relative concept, has been historically approached in different ways. Considering greatness of character as different from greatness of talents, some cultures have conceptualized greatness as an expression of human spirit leading to transcending existing patterns and awakening inner selves to new levels of consciousness, rising above times and circumstances, and to change the direction of human tide. Individuals characterized by such greatness working with higher selves, guided by moral and ethical imperatives, and possessing noble impulses of human nature are considered to be manifesting spiritual greatness. Examining such greatness is the goal of this article. Keeping Indian tradition in focus, this article has studied how greatness has been conceptualized in that particular tradition and the way in which life and times have shaped great individuals called Mahāpuruşha who exhibited extraordinary moral responsibility relentlessly in pursuit of their visions of addressing contemporary major issues and changing the direction of human life. Four Mahāpuruşha, who possessed such enduring greatness and excelled in their thoughts and actions to give a new positive direction to human life, have been profiled in this article. Suggestions have also been made for studies on moral and spiritual excellence to help realize our true human path and purpose.

scholarly journals Bringing the Virus Back Home: Media Representations of Ukrainian Labour Migrants in a Time of Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 088832542110187
Author(s):  
Alexander Tymczuk
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Frame Analysis ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Potential Danger ◽  
Economic Resource ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
And Control ◽  
Globalized World ◽  
The Way

In a globalized world where mobility and movement is at its essence, the movement of viruses paradoxically causes a preoccupation with boundaries, containment, and control over borders, and thus keeping the “dangerous” outside separated from the “safe” inside. Through a qualitative thematic and frame analysis of news articles published on 12 Ukrainian news sites, I found that Ukrainian labour migrants conceptually constitute a challenge to such a clear-cut spatial organization in a time of a pandemic. Labour migrants are part of the national “we,” but their presence in the dangerous outside excludes them from the “imagined immunity.” This ambiguity is evident in the way labour migrants were portrayed during the first months of the outbreak in Ukraine. Initially, Ukrainian labour migrants were depicted as a potential danger, and then blamed for bringing the virus back home. However, the framing of the labour migrants as a danger is only part of the story, and the image of a scapegoat was eventually replaced with images of an economic resource and a victim. Thus, Ukrainian labour migrants have been the object of vilification, heroization, as well as empathy during the various phases of the outbreak. I would argue that these shifting frames are connected to the ambiguous conceptualization of Ukrainian labour migrants in general.

Can animals sing? On birdsong, music and meaning

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hektor KT Yan
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
A Value ◽  
Music And Meaning ◽  
To Come ◽  
Factual Issue ◽  
The Way

This article deals with conceptual questions regarding claims to the effect that humans and animals share artistic abilities such as the possession of music. Recent works focusing on animals, from such as Hollis Taylor and Dominique Lestel, are discussed. The attribution of artistic traits in human and animal contexts is examined by highlighting the importance of issues relating to categorization and evaluation in cross-species studies. An analogy between the denial of major attributes to animals and a form of racism is drawn in order to show how questions pertaining to meaning can impact on our understanding of animal abilities. One of the major theses presented is that the question of whether animals possess music cannot be answered by a methodology that is uninformed by the way concepts such as music or art function in the context of human life: the ascription of music to humans or non-humans is a value-laden act rather than a factual issue regarding how to represent an entity. In order to see how humans and animals share a life in common, it is necessary to come to the reflective realization that how human beings understand themselves can impact on their perception and experience of human and non-human animals.

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