Dostoyevsky and the Defense of Compassion

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110465
Author(s):  
Max Lykins

Is cruelty a problem for politics? For Hannah Arendt, the answer was no. On her view, a compassionate response towards persons suffering cruelty is best avoided because compassion can only become political by transforming incommunicable individual pain into abstract suffering. At crucial moments in her argument in On Revolution, she cites the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky as an ally. However, I argue that Arendt misrepresents Dostoyevsky. Through a critical examination of his mature novels, I show how suffering is communicable and compassion is political for Dostoyevsky. By attending to this theme in his writings, I argue that Dostoyevsky sheds light on the problem of cruelty in a way that Arendt’s framework cannot. This suggests that he is more at home with theorists like Judith Shklar who “put cruelty first” than with Arendt, although in favoring compassion I argue that he departs from Shklar’s liberalism of fear and offers a more constructive, hopeful political vision.

Author(s):  
Seyla Benhabib

This introductory chapter outlines the entanglement of Jewish intellectuals and others as they confronted exile, migration, and, in some cases, statelessness. These intellectuals include Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Albert Hirschmann, Varian Fry, Judith Shklar, Carl J. Friedrich, and Isaiah Berlin. They faced these challenges because of their Jewish origins, regardless of whether they themselves identified as Jewish, whether they were believers, or whether they were practicing Jews or not. Meanwhile, the chapter considers that for German Jews, the experience of belonging and not belonging, of being rendered migrants and internal exiles in their own country, began in the mid-nineteenth century, with the granting of certain civil rights to Jews residing in German territories. Lastly, the chapter presents a brief layout of the succeeding chapters' content.


1981 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Culatta ◽  
Donna Horn

This study attempted to maximize environmental language learning for four hearing-impaired children. The children's mothers were systematically trained to present specific language symbols to their children at home. An increase in meaningful use of these words was observed during therapy sessions. In addition, as the mothers began to generalize the language exposure strategies, an increase was observed in the children's use of words not specifically identified by the clinician as targets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xigrid Soto ◽  
Yagmur Seven ◽  
Meaghan McKenna ◽  
Keri Madsen ◽  
Lindsey Peters-Sanders ◽  
...  

Purpose This article describes the iterative development of a home review program designed to augment vocabulary instruction for young children (ages 4 and 5 years) occurring at school through the use of a home review component. Method A pilot study followed by two experiments used adapted alternating treatment designs to compare the learning of academic words taught at school to words taught at school and reviewed at home. At school, children in small groups were taught academic words embedded in prerecorded storybooks for 6 weeks. Children were given materials such as stickers with review prompts (e.g., “Tell me what brave means”) to take home for half the words. Across iterations of the home intervention, the home review component was enhanced by promoting parent engagement and buy-in through in-person training, video modeling, and daily text message reminders. Visual analyses of single-subject graphs, multilevel modeling, and social validity measures were used to evaluate the additive effects and feasibility of the home review component. Results Social validity results informed each iteration of the home program. The effects of the home program across sites were mixed, with only one site showing consistently strong effects. Superior learning was evident in the school + home review condition for families that reviewed words frequently at home. Although the home review program was effective in improving the vocabulary skills of many children, some families had considerable difficulty practicing vocabulary words. Conclusion These studies highlight the importance of using social validity measures to inform iterative development of home interventions that promote feasible strategies for enhancing the home language environment. Further research is needed to identify strategies that stimulate facilitators and overcome barriers to implementation, especially in high-stress homes, to enrich the home language environments of more families.


ASHA Leader ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-32
Author(s):  
Heidi Hanks

Leave your flashcards at home and try these five apps for early language learning.


2004 ◽  
Vol 171 (4S) ◽  
pp. 316-316
Author(s):  
Hunter Wessells ◽  
Harin Padma-Nathan ◽  
Jacob Rajfer ◽  
Robert Feldman ◽  
Raymond Rosen ◽  
...  

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (8) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
MICHELE G. SULLIVAN
Keyword(s):  

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-159
Author(s):  
J GUILLAMONT ◽  
A SOLE ◽  
S GONZALEZ ◽  
A PEREZITURRIAGA ◽  
C DAVILA ◽  
...  

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