4. Political Communications, Networks, and Textual Evidence

2021 ◽  
pp. 205-238
Author(s):  
Julian Haseldine
Keyword(s):  
Communications Networks ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Political Communications

Political Communications, Networks, and Textual Evidence

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Haseldine
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Communications Networks ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Political Communications ◽  
Political Structures

This chapter proposes a method for the comparative analysis of political communications which is potentially applicable to different languages, cultures and political structures. Political communications are defined not in relation to culturally pre-determined categories of relationships (allies, clients, friends, etc.), but as individual interactions or transactions between actors which have specific functions at specific times. The concept of ‘communicative function’ is proposed as the basis for the profiling of relationships, which is in turn the basis for a culturally neutral comparative analysis of political communications. Examples are given of the application of this methodology to a number of Western medieval letter collections, an important source of evidence for political communications and networks, along with suggestions for future directions of research.

‘If you shoulder a rifle […] let it be for Ireland’: James Connolly's War on War

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 364-381
Author(s):  
Margot Gayle Backus ◽  
Spurgeon Thompson
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
The Body ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Irish Nationalism ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Communications Networks ◽  
Easter Rising ◽  
Trade Unionist ◽  
The One ◽  
National Governments

As virtually all Europe's major socialist parties re-aligned with their own national governments with the outbreak of World War I, Irish socialist and trade unionist James Connolly found himself internationally isolated by his vociferous opposition to the war. Within Ireland, however, Connolly's energetic and relentless calls to interrupt the imperial transportation and communications networks on which the ‘carnival of murder’ in Europe relied had the converse effect, drawing him into alignment with certain strains of Irish nationalism. Connolly and other socialist republican stalwarts like Helena Molony and Michael Mallin made common cause with advanced Irish nationalism, the one other constituency unamenable to fighting for England under any circumstances. This centripetal gathering together of two minority constituencies – both intrinsically opposed, if not to the war itself, certainly to Irish Party leader John Redmond's offering up of the Irish Volunteers as British cannon fodder – accounts for the “remarkably diverse” social and ideological character of the small executive body responsible for the planning of the Easter Rising: the Irish Republican Brotherhood's military council. In effect, the ideological composition of the body that planned the Easter Rising was shaped by the war's systematic diversion of all individuals and ideologies that could be co-opted by British imperialism through any possible argument or material inducement. Although the majority of those who participated in the Rising did not share Connolly's anti-war, pro-socialist agenda, the Easter 1916 Uprising can nonetheless be understood as, among other things, a near letter-perfect instantiation of Connolly's most steadfast principle: that it was the responsibility of every European socialist to throw onto the gears of the imperialist war machine every wrench on which they could lay their hands.

Melchizedek, King of Sodom

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert R. Cargill
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Strategic Changes

This book argues that the biblical figure Melchizedek mentioned in Gen. 14 as the king of Shalem originally appeared in the text as the king of Sodom. Textual evidence is presented to demonstrate that the word סדם‎ (Sodom) was changed to שׁלם‎ (Shalem) in order to avoid depicting the patriarch Abram as receiving a blessing and goods from the king of Sodom, whose city was soon thereafter destroyed for its sinfulness according to the biblical tradition. This change from Sodom to Shalem caused a disjointed narrative in Gen. 14:18–20, which many scholars have wrongly attributed to a later interpolation. This book also provides textual evidence of minor, strategic redactional changes to the Hebrew Bible and the Samaritan Pentateuch that demonstrate the evolving, polemical, sectarian discourse between Jews and Samaritans as they were competing for the superiority of their respective temples and holy mountains. These minor strategic changes to the HB were used as the ideological motivation in the Second Temple Jewish literary tradition for the relocation of Shalem away from the Samaritan religious center at Mt. Gerizim to the Levitical priestly center in Jerusalem. This book also examines how the possible reference to Melchizedek in Ps. 110 may have influenced later Judaism’s understanding of Melchizedek.

Hume’s Argument for the Inertness of Reason

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth S. Radcliffe
Keyword(s):  
Active Principle ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Alternative Reading

This discussion first considers why Hume highlights the argument that reason alone is not a motive, given that few, if any, of his predecessors actually professed that reason could motivate without passion. Second, it ponders, but rejects, the idea that Hume’s “Inertness of Reason” argument equivocates. Third, it rebuts the view that Hume allows that beliefs, products of reason, can motivate, even if reason cannot. If Hume thinks beliefs can motivate, then: (1) his thesis that reason contributes to motivation without originating motives, will depend on the equivocation earlier dismissed; (2) we have no explanation how actions result from competing motives; and (3) he undermines his dictum that an active principle cannot be founded on an inactive one. There is textual evidence for an alternative reading of Hume, on which beliefs, even about sources of pleasure and pain, trace their force to sentiments that depend upon taste.

Writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2018 ◽  
pp. 324-341
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Schiffman
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Hebrew Word ◽  
The Dead

This chapter argues that the Writings was an evolving collection of scripture used in a wide variety of ways by the Dead Sea Scrolls community at Qumran (second century bce to first century ce). Though the Hebrew word Ketuvim (Writings) does not occur in the Scroll material, all but one (Esther) of the books contained therein are found. The plentiful and varied textual evidence at Qumran, and occasionally other Judean desert sites, is presented with special attention to the number of biblical and other manuscripts and place found; textual comparisons with the biblical Masoretic text and others (e.g., Septuagint); citations; and other interpretive uses in sectarian documents. The importance of the books in the Writings for the life of the late postexilic community of Qumran and the nature of the Dead Sea Scrolls biblical collection are, together, a constant focus of the study.

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