Marcuse’s Contribution to Political Thought: On Potentiality, Pre-enactment, and the Surrealism of Liberation

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 131-142
Author(s):  
Oliver Marchart
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
The Status ◽  
Reality Principle

Among theorists associated with the first generation of the Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse’s position is singular in that he provides us with an unabashedly affirmative theory of politics as liberatory practice. The article discusses Marcuse’s contribution to political thought by pointing out how, in particular, three aspects remain highly pertinent to contemporary thought: (a) his account of freedom as potentiality, to be actualized in political practice; (b) his conception of the political pre-figuration or pre-enactment of a liberated society; and (c) his rehabilitation of the human faculty of imagination that allows us to overcome the reality principle of the status quo by venturing, qua practice, into the realm of the revolutionary surreal, thereby enlarging the horizon of what is politically imaginable. In a final step Marcuse’s contribution is contrasted with contemporary theories of the political.

scholarly journals Narrating technonatures: discourses of biotechnology in a neoliberal era

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 186
Author(s):  
Myles Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Economic

This article considers the role played by discourses of nature in structuring the cultural politics of anti-GMO activism. It argues that such discourses have been successful rhetorical tools for activists because they mobilize widely resonant nature-culture dualisms that separate the natural and human worlds. However, these discourses hold dubious political implications. In valorizing the natural as a source of essential truth, natural purity discourses fail to challenge how naturalizations have been used to legitimize sexist, racist and colonial systems of injustice and oppression. Rather, they revitalize the discursive purchase of appeals to nature as a justification for the status quo, indirectly reinforcing existing power relations. Moreover, these discourses fail to challenge the critical though contingent reality of GMOs' location within the wider framework of neoliberal social relations. Fortunately, appeals to natural purity have not been the only effective strategy for opposing GMOs. Activist campaigns that directly target the political economic implications of GMOs within the context of neoliberalism have also had successes without resorting to appeals to the purity of nature. The successes of these campaigns suggest that while nature-culture dualisms remain politically effective normative groundings, concerns over equity, farmers' rights, and democracy retain potential as ideological terrains in the struggle for social justice.

scholarly journals Gestation, equality and freedom: ectogenesis as a political perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Cavaliere
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Positive Case ◽  
The Political ◽  
Small Subset ◽  
Human Fetuses ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
Women's Equality ◽  
The Status ◽  
Limited Scope

The benefits of full ectogenesis, that is, the gestation of human fetuses outside the maternal womb, for women ground many contemporary authors’ arguments on the ethical desirability of this practice. In this paper, I present and assess two sets of arguments advanced in favour of ectogenesis: arguments stressing ectogenesis’ equality-promoting potential and arguments stressing its freedom-promoting potential. I argue that although successfully grounding a positive case for ectogenesis, these arguments have limitations in terms of their reach and scope. Concerning their limited reach, I contend that ectogenesis will likely benefit a small subset of women and, arguably, not the group who most need to achieve equality and freedom. Concerning their limited scope, I contend that these defences do not pay sufficient attention to the context in which ectogenesis would be developed and that, as a result, they risk leaving the status quo unchanged. After providing examples of these limitations, I move to my proposal concerning the role of ectogenesis in promoting women’s equality and freedom. This proposal builds on Silvia Federici’s, Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s and Selma James’ readings of the international feminist campaign ‘Wages for Housework’. It maintains that the political perspective and provocation that ectogenesis can advance should be considered and defended.

scholarly journals Bodily abjection and the politics of resistance in Tom Paulin’s Greek tragedies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Torrance
Keyword(s):  
Open Channel ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
The Status ◽  
Politics Of Resistance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
Political Actions

Abstract Tom Paulin’s Greek tragedies present extremes of bodily abjection in order to service of a politics of resistance that is tied, in each case, to the political context of the drama’s production. The Riot Act (1984), Seize the Fire (1989), and Medea (2010), share a focus on the degradation of oppressed political groups and feature characters who destabilize the status quo. Yet the impact of disruptive political actions is not ultimately made clear. We are left wondering at the conclusion of each tragedy if the momentous acts of defiance we have witnessed have any power to create systemic change within politically rigged systems. The two 1980s plays are discussed together and form a sequence, with The Riot Act overtly addressing the Northern Irish conflict and Seize the Fire encompassing a broader sweep of oppressive regimes. The politics of discrimination in Medea are illuminated by comparison with similar themes in Paulin’s Love’s Bonfire (2010). Unlike other Northern Irish adaptations of Greek tragedy, Paulin’s dramas, arrested in their political moments, present little hope for the immediate future. Yet in asking us to consider if individual sacrifice is enough to achieve radical change they maintain an open channel for political discourse.

The Armenian duduk resounds in Artsakh

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Milka Marie-Madeleine Malfait
Keyword(s):  
International Community ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mountainous Region ◽  
The Third ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Status ◽  
Descriptive Method

Throughout its history, Artsakh had to guard against the external threats of Neo-Ottomanism. At the present time it is especially relevant. September 27, 2020 marks escalation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh – which means Artsakh in Armenian. This led to six weeks of cease fire, humanitarian disaster, which killed many people and destroyed cultural and religious heritage of Artsakh. The mountainous region is surrounded by Azerbaijani land, although populated by Armenians. Due to the political novelty of this issue, the author employed analytical and descriptive method. The acquired results demonstrate that the history repeats itself in Neo-Ottomanism, which has been a threat to Artsakh and Armenia since its emergence until the present day. In recent years, the concept of reunification with Armenia, as well as the independence of Artsakh, outlined the prospects for the future. The third solution to the conflict became the ceasefire agreement of 9 November 2020, nobly negotiated by Russia to save Armenia from military collapse. However, this solution is more painful than the status-quo. The main conclusion consists in the statement that the international community should be more vigilant and prevent the expansion of such threats.

What Changes for the Constitutional Court with the New Russian Constitution?

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-49
Author(s):  
Ivan S. Grigoriev
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Locus Standi ◽  
The Status ◽  
Russian Constitution ◽  
International Obligations

Abstract Of the 206 amendments introduced to the Russian constitution and adopted on July 1, 2020, 24 deal directly with the Constitutional Court, its organization, functioning, and the role it plays in the political system. Compared to many other, these are also rather precise and detailed, ranging from the number of judges on the bench, their nomination and dismissal, to the Court’s inner procedures, new locus standi limitations, and the primacy of the Constitution over Russia’s international obligations. Most changes only reproduce amendments brought to the secondary legislation over the last twenty years, and are therefore meant to preserve the status quo rather than change anything significantly. At the same time, a number of amendments aim at politicizing and instrumentalizing the Court for the president’s benefit, marking a significant departure from the previous institutional development.

Displaced Vision: The Politics of Realism in Kracauer and Kluge1

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara Forrest
Keyword(s):  
Physical Reality ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Siegfried Kracauer ◽  
The Future ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
The Status ◽  
Alexander Kluge

This chapter focuses on some of the key intersections between the theories of cinematic realism developed by Siegfried Kracauer and Alexander Kluge. While, on the surface, their definitions of realism may appear very different, on closer view it is clear that both theorists are concerned with the role that a realist film practice can play in displacing the spectator’s vision and, in the process, facilitating a mode of perception that is not inflected by the ‘ideas’ and ‘value judgements’ that shape and delimit our experience of the present. Focusing on Kracauer’s Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality and on Kluge’s essays on the political promise of an “antagonistic” realist aesthetic, this chapter explores the role that a realist film practice can play in reanimating the viewer’s capacity to conceive of the possibilities of the future outside the parameters of the status quo.

The political significance of data visualization: Four key perspectives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torgeir Uberg Nærland
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Data Visualization ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Progressive Change ◽  
The Status ◽  
Data Visualizations

Practitioners and scholars alike assume that data visualization can have political significance—as vehicle for progressive change, manipulation, or maintaining the status quo. There are, however, a variety of ways in which we can think of data visualization as politically significant. These perspectives imply differing notions of both ‘politics’ and ‘significance’. Drawing upon political and social theory, this chapter identifies and outlines four key perspectives: data visualization and 1) public deliberation, 2) ideology, 3) citizenship, and 4) as a political-administrative steering tool. The aim of this chapter is thus to provide a framework that helps clarify the various contexts, processes, and capacities through which data visualizations attain political significance.

White Rooms, Red Scare

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Kosstrin
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
New Left ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
The Political ◽  
Red Scare ◽  
American Modernism ◽  
Old Left ◽  
The Status ◽  
Concert Dance

Anna Sokolow’s early Cold War choreography cloaked social(ist) challenges to the status quo under the façade of American modernism. Lyric Suite (1953) laid bare sexual discontent in the guise of universal abstraction; Rooms (1954) portrayed gay people’s and Jews’ experiences among those of society’s untouchables in tenement houses; and the Opus series (1958–1965) cemented the political significance of the Old Left meeting the New Left through ironic uses of musical and movement elements drawn from jazz, as Africanist elements like these signaled a generalized Americanness. Sokolow’s assimilation into concert dance whiteness through these works’ critical reception and Israeli Bonds festivals reflected the American Jewish community’s postwar assimilation from racially marked to Caucasian. Sokolow’s work evidences roles played by leftist Jews in crafting definitive images of midcentury Americana as they publicly rewrote their 1930s leftist actions into normative postwar American activities in the wake of the Second Red Scare.

Social Imperialism and Wilhelmine Germany

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian L. D. Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Interpretive Scheme

In recent times the historiography of the Wilhelmine Reich has clearly reflected the influence of Eckart Kehr and of later historians who have adopted and developed his work. The Rankean dogma of the Primat der Aussenpolitik (primacy of foreign policy) has been replaced by a new slogan, Primat der Innenpolitik (primacy of domestic policy). The resultant interpretive scheme is by now quite familiar. The social structure of the Bismarckean Reich, it is said, was shaken to its foundations by the impact of industrialization. A growing class of industrialists sought to break the power of the feudal agrarian class, and a rapidly developing proletariat threatened to upset the status quo. The internecine struggle between industrialists and agrarians was dangerous for both and for the state, since the final beneficiary might be the proletariat. Consequently agrarians and industrialists closed their ranks against the common social democrat enemy and sought to tame the proletariat, which had grown restive under the impact of the depression, by means of a Weltpolitik which would obviate the effects of the depression, heal the economy, and vindicate the political system responsible for such impressive achievements. Hans-Ulrich Wehler and others call this diversionary strategy against the proletarian threat social imperialism; and this, it is said, is the domestic policy primarily responsible for Wilhelmine imperialism.

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