Realästhetik

2020 ◽  
pp. 236-291
Author(s):  
Evgeny Dobrenko
Keyword(s):  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Music Theater ◽  
The People ◽  
The Masses

This chapter describes the effectiveness of politico-ideological transformations that is assured by the accessibility of propaganda. It talks about the “popular spirit” as a key category of Socialist Realism, which produces the image of the people as the Stalinist Regime wanted to see them. It also describes the popular spirit as a key characteristic of Socialist Realism that gained a new momentum in 1948 during the campaign against “formalism” in music. The chapter investigates the “realistic trend in music” that Andrei Zhdanov fought for in relation to extreme pragmatism and realism as the regime's aesthetic strategy for articulating the intentions of the masses. It assesses the Realästhetik campaign that focused on the popular spirit theme in music, theater, cinema, and literature.

scholarly journals Myth and Antimyth in the Fictions of Socialist Realism in Albania

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Laureta Misiri
Keyword(s):  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Dominant Term ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The People ◽  
Soviet Literature ◽  
Aesthetic Realism ◽  
The Status ◽  
Historical Truth ◽  
The Masses

The process of formation of socialist realism in literary creativity goes hand in hand with the crystallization of social awareness "down", within the psychology of the masses and "up", with the strengthening ideological party institutes of state. Endless discourses among the circles of artists on this plane, so competent is the new artistic unity as "the soc-realistic method" that obtained the status of state doctrine. In 1936 the Soviet government undertook measures to implement the undisputed total soc-realistic method all the arts in the USSR. Socialist realism becomes the dominant term in the science of Soviet literature and art sciences from the thirties to mark "basic approach" which "requires the artist to introduce the concrete historical truth of reality in its revolutionary development", so the literature had to be created with the task of educating the workers in the spirit of socialism. The notion aesthetic "realism" was related to defining "socialist", brought the practice of literature and arts submission to ideology. Demands of using the socialist realism techniques in fact became an obstacle, an anxiety to halt creativity that for years was avoid against the spiritual life of the people, so the writers created in the majority mediokre works of conformist who became propaganda trumpets. In the late ‘80s realism becomes literary and historical term, but in the embryonic stage of many characteristics, the soc-realism literature is determined as "heroic realism", "monumental", "social", "biased" and as if the category of “folk" is the basic principle of a work of art where the mythical watches in the mirror its other part of the medal.

Serge Moscovici's "Réflexions sur la popularité des conspiracy mentalities"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Klein
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Social Representation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The People ◽  
Social Representation Theory ◽  
The Masses

This is a pdf of the original typed manuscript of a lecture made in 2006. An annotated English translation will be published by the International Review of Social Psychology. I this text, Moscovici seeks to update his earlier work on the “conspiracy mentality” (1987) by considering the relationships between social representations and conspiracy mentality. Innovation in this field, Moscovici argues, will require a much thorough description and understanding of what conspiracy theories are, what rhetoric they use and what functions they fulfill. Specifically, Moscovici considers conspiracies as a form of counterfactual history implying a more desirable world (in which the conspiracy did not take place) and suggests that social representation theory should tackle this phenomenon. He explicitly links conspiracy theories to works of fiction and suggests that common principles might explain their popularity. Historically, he argues, conspiracism was born twice: First, in the middle ages, when their primary function was to exclude and destroy what was considered as heresy; and second, after the French revolution, to delegitimize the Enlightenment, which was attributed to a small coterie of reactionaries rather than to the will of the people. Moscovici then considers four aspects (“thematas”) of conspiracy mentality: 1/ the prohibition of knowledge; 2/ the duality between the majority (the masses, prohibited to know) and “enlightened” minorities; 3/ the search for a common origin, a “ur phenomenon” that connects historical events and provides a continuity to History (he notes that such a tendency is also present in social psychological theorizing); and 4/ the valorization of tradition as a bulwark against modernity. Some of Moscovici’s insights in this talk have since been borne out by contemporary research on the psychology of conspiracy theories, but many others still remain fascinating potential avenues for future research.

scholarly journals The strategy of demagoguery in Donald Trump’s thankful speech

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Expressive Language ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Specific Strategy ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Views ◽  
National Convention ◽  
Local Strategy ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Linguistic Means

The article is focused on identifying local and speech strategies (tactics) that are subjected to the global strategy of demagoguery in American political discourse. The article concerns analysis of the definitions and synonyms of the term demagoguery. Such analysis confirmed the appropriateness of considering demagoguery as a specific strategy of political discourse. The results of the research ascertain that the term demagoguery is perceived differently in Ukrainian and English linguistic cultures. Ukrainians perceive demagoguery as a tool for deceiving and manipulation, while Englishmen think of it as of a method of leading a political game and broadening the voter base. The recipients of demagoguery in Ukrainian linguistic culture are uneducated groups of people, while in English linguistic culture the recipient is the people as a whole. Demagoguery as a specific strategy of political discourse is mainly used to influence the electorate through appealing to the feelings, instincts, and prejudices and through forming required political views and preferences. The analysis of the American sociologists’ works enabled us to identify the main features of demagoguery. They are the following: the focus on broadening the audience, using propaganda for manipulating the masses and entertaining character. Analysis of empirical evidence, Donald Trump's thankful speech, which was given at the Republican national convention in 2016, allows us to single out local strategies of demagoguery. The local strategies of demagoguery, which are typical for American political discourse, are the following: populism, manipulation, subjectivation, fascination, and information simplification. Moreover, the article identifies and describes speech tactics that are typical for each local strategy. Among them, there are tactics of empty promises, lies, accusing, ridicule, using slogans, vulgarization, intimidation, and a tactic of finding a scapegoat. The research also concerns analysis of the linguistic means used for the realization of every local strategy and speech tactic. The most frequently used linguistic means are usage of expressive language with positive and negative meaning, repetition, anthroponomy, and subjectivation.

scholarly journals Advertising photography during the 1930s: Victor Keppler's strike cigarette campaign

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loreto Pinochet
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Budget Cuts ◽  
Advertising Agency ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The People ◽  
Print Advertisement ◽  
Colour Photography ◽  
The Masses

The Great Depression was a decade in the United States which was characterized by high unemployment, budget cuts and low income. Citizens, especially the working class did not have the financial resources to purchase the same amount of goods previous to this economic crisis. The advertising business took this opportunity to sell products to the masses, during a time when purchasing luxury goods were not a priority or even a possibility. This created many changes in how advertisements were produced and how they looked. Using Victor Keppler as an example, this thesis will describe how the advertising agency Lord & Thomas used colour photography for their Lucky Strike cigarette advertisement campaign, the Witnessed Statement Series. It will describe how the colour carbro print became the mass reproduced advertisement found in magazines and newspapers. The thesis will describe this process and the people who were involved in creating the final print advertisement.

scholarly journals POLITICAL CULTURE OF THE MODERN WORLD: EPOCHAL TRANSFORMATIONS

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (50) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ihor Oleksiiovych Polishchuk ◽  
Tetiana Mykolaivna Maksimishyna
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
The People ◽  
Traditional Societies ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Modern Era

The article is devoted to the topical problem of political and cultural transformations in the interaction between political power and its only source in democratic discourse, the people. This eternal problem of political science and policy is considered in chronological order in the global context and in today’s Ukraine. In traditional societies, there was a remote and alienated coexistence of state institutions and the masses. The exception was the democratic republics of ancient polises. The modern era generates a contractual theory of the origin of the state, which considers the institutions of power as the result of a social agreement between the sovereign people and the governors. In the modern era in the middle of the twentieth century, the concept of the welfare state was formed. In the postmodern era, unstable life forces citizens to behave in relation to state power, depending on the actualization of a particular guise of their own existence. Citizens are losing a clear, unambiguous idea of state power, its functions, place and role in society.

scholarly journals The Cultural Populism of Iosif I. Kablits (Yuzov) and its Foundations

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 641-653
Author(s):  
Gennadiy N. Mokshin
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The People ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Masses

This article reconstructs the cultural doctrine of the famous publicist of populism (narodnichestvo), I.I. Kablits (Yuzov). To just equate Kablits views with the slogan of yuzovshchina would be a narrow interpretation of his kul'turnichestvo; the slogan is characteristic for extreme right-wing populism during the upsurge of the revolutionary populist movement (narodovol'cheskoe dvizhenie). In 1880, Kablits was the first of the legal populists to pose the question, What is populism? According to the publicist, true narodnichestvo should be based on the principle that the forms of public life of the people must be in conformity with the development level of their consciousness. The author explains Kablits evolution from Bakunism to a peasant-centered narodnichestvo by his interpretation of the reasons for the split between the intelligentsia and the people. Kablits considered them antagonists, and defined the ultimate goal of the narodniki as the liberation of the people from the power of the intellectualbureaucratic minority, the latter supposedly trying to subjugate the life of the masses to its will. The article analyzes the main provisions of Kablits sociocultural concept of social transformations: apolitism, populism, and the initiative of the masses. The article identifies the differences between his program of developing the cultural identity of the people, on the one hand, and other populists' understanding of the tasks of cultural work, on the other. Particular attention is paid to Kablits-Yuzov's attitude towards the problem of educating the masses. Kablits was one of the few Russian populists who opposed the idea that the foundations of the worldview of the people must be changed, arguing that this would eliminate the traditional moral values of the village, including the sense of collectivism. The author assesses how Kablits, the leading publicist of the newspaper Nedelya, contributed to the establishment of a cultural direction in narodnichestvo at the turn of the 1870s and 1880s. According to the author, Kablits played a leading role in shaping the ideology of the right flank of the cultural direction in narodnichestvo. However, the pure populism of Kablits turned out to be too pseudo-scientific, dogmatic and irrational to attract the democratic intelligentsia for a long time; the latter had already become disillusioned with the idea of the people as the creator of new forms of social life.

A.S. Khomyakov and “people’s thought” in the epic novel by Leo Tolstoy “War and Peace”

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 91-97
Author(s):  
Yury V. Lebedev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
War And Peace ◽  
Russian Art ◽  
The People ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
Single Organism ◽  
Papal Infallibility ◽  
Cult Of Personality ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Masses

The article reveals the deep connections of the “people’s thought” and Tolstoy’s philosophy of history in “War and Peace” with the theological and literary-critical works of A.S. Khomyakova. The author of the work analyzes the dispute between Tolstoy and the cult of an outstanding personality, with the Hegelian understanding of his role in the historical process. Tolstoy is alien to the Hegelian rise of “great personalities” over the masses, the Hegelian liberation of the “genius” from moral control and evaluation. Tolstoy believes that it is not an exceptional personality, but the life of the people that turns out to be the most sensitive organism, catching the will of Providence, intuitively sensing the hidden meaning of the historical movement. Anticipating Tolstoy, Khomyakov sharply criticizes the cult of personality in the church hierarchy, the Catholic dogma of papal infallibility, of the unconditional authority of an individual in matters of conscience and faith. Khomyakov reveals deep religious roots that feed the centuries-old Western enmity towards Russia. The article proves that Tolstoy is close to Khomyakov’s idea that Divine Providence overshadows with its grace only the believing people, united into a single organism by Christian love, that the epic basis of “War and Peace” is anticipated in Khomyakov’s literary-critical works “Glinka’s Opera ‘Life for Tsar’”, “On the Possibility of the Russian Art School”, “Ivanov’s Painting. Letter to the editor of ‘Russian Beseda’”. The article proves that “War and Peace” overcomes the conflict between the individual and society, the hero and the people, and reveals the epic horizons lost in the Western European novel.

The Maze and the Masses

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hélène Landemore
Keyword(s):  
Decision Procedure ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
The People ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Masses

This chapter argues that collective intelligence offers an attractive solution to the problem of the average citizen's ignorance and irrationality. It first illustrates this point by presenting the metaphor of the maze, inspired by Descartes' thought experiment in the Discourse on Method. Next, the chapter sets out the definition of “democracy,” which gains a certain meaning and relevance within the context of this book—as, primarily, an inclusive collective decision procedure, that is, a procedure for collective decisions characterized by the fact that it is inclusive, more or less directly, of all the members of the group for whom decisions need to be made. The chapter then considers the domain of democratic reason and politics, before turning to the concept of democratic reason as the collective intelligence of the people. Finally, the chapter closes with a brief overview of the following chapters.

Confucianism on Political Legitimacy

2019 ◽  
pp. 32-51
Author(s):  
Tongdong Bai
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The State ◽  
Basic Fact ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
The People ◽  
Xun Zi ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Political Decisions

This chapter discusses political legitimacy within the Confucian context. It attempts reconcile the early Confucians’ embrace of equality with their defense of hierarchy. The chapter also considers how to reconcile their idea that the legitimacy of the state lies in service to the people, with the idea that it is not the people alone who make the final political decisions. It shows that the lack of capacities of making sound political decisions by the masses cannot result from the failure of the state to secure basic goods, education, and other necessary conditions for people to make sound political decisions, and it has to be the result of a basic fact of human life. That is, in spite of all these governmental efforts that are demanded by them, and in spite of their beliefs that human beings are all potentially equal (Mencius and Xun Zi) or close to being equal (Confucius), early Confucians also took it as a fact of life that the majority of the people cannot actually obtain the capacity necessary to make sound political decisions and participate fully in politics.

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