To Fall from High or Low Estate? Tragedy and Social Class in Historical Perspective

PMLA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 129 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith Hall
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
New City ◽  
City State ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Human Condition

In a famous essay, the agnostic bertrand russell hailed tragedy as the highest instantiation of human freedom. tragedy results from human beings' persistence in the conscious, imaginative representation of the plight of humanity in the inhumane universe. Tragedy “builds its shining citadel in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit of his highest mountain; … within its walls the free life continues, while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair, and all the servile captains of tyrant Fate, afford the burghers of that dauntless city new spectacles of beauty” (53-54). Russell's “servile captains of tyrant Fate” are the instruments by which metaphysical compulsion tortures humans—Death and Pain and Despair. Man, instead of allowing himself to be terrorized as “the slave of Fate,” creates tragedy “to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life” (57). By transforming the human condition into tragic art, humans create their own world of resistance, in which they can be the truly free “burghers” of a dauntless new city-state of the mind.

Integral Engagement: Christian Constructivism and the Social Sciences

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-457
Author(s):  
Donald Guthrie
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Human Condition

This article explores how Christian constructivism can guide educators who are Christians toward an integral engagement with the social sciences that is both critically reflective and humbly teachable. Such an engagement requires a recognition that all image-bearing human beings may contribute insights about the human condition, responsible stewardship of knowledge with the mind of Christ, and approaching the social sciences with gospel-directed critical realism that is neither fearful nor uncritically accepting of social science perspectives.

On the Harm of Genocide

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-49
Author(s):  
Paul Kucharski
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Community Or ◽  
The World ◽  
Scholarly Discussion ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Individual Human ◽  
The Human Condition

My aim in this essay is to advance the state of scholarly discussion on the harms of genocide. The most obvious harms inflicted by every genocide are readily evident: the physical harm inflicted upon the victims of genocide and the moral harm that the perpetrators of genocide inflict upon themselves. Instead, I will focus on a kind of harm inflicted upon those who are neither victims nor perpetrators, on those who are outside observers, so to speak. My thesis will be that when a whole community or culture is eliminated, or even deeply wounded, the world loses an avenue for insight into the human condition. My argument is as follows. In order to understand human nature, and that which promotes its flourishing, we must certainly study individual human beings. But since human beings as rational and linguistic animals are in part constituted by the communities in which they live, the study of human nature should also involve the study of communities and cultures—both those that are well ordered and those that are not. No one community or culture has expressed all that can be said about the human way of existing and flourishing. And given that the unity and wholeness of human nature can only be glimpsed in a variety of communities and cultures, then part of the harm of genocide consists in the removal of a valuable avenue for human beings to better understand themselves.

Portraits of the Nigerian Soldier in Isidore Okpewho’s The Last Duty and Festus Iyayi’s Heroes

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110469
Author(s):  
Edwin Onwuka
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Social Experience ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Literary Representation ◽  
Literary Aesthetics ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Human Condition

An essential feature of Nigerian literatures is their capacity to exploit history and social experience to bring to light the human condition in society without compromising literary aesthetics. Thus, Nigerian novels often appear to be more educative than entertaining by their ability to illuminate social realities far more effectively than historical or sociological texts. This is evident in the representations of soldiers in Nigerian novels which are highly influenced by historical and social circumstances. This paper carries out a comparative and descriptive analysis of portrayals of Nigerian soldiers in Isidore Okpewho’s The Last Duty and Festus Iyayi’s Heroes from a new historical perspective. Most studies on the military in Nigerian novels often focus on their actions in war situations and their disruptive and undemocratic activities in politics. However, these studies frequently explore the military as a group with little attention to the texts as expositions on character types in the Nigerian military. This study therefore contributes to criticism on the nexus between literary representation, history, and society. It further highlights historical and social contexts of military explorations in Nigerian novels and their impacts on the perception of the Nigerian soldier in society. These are aimed at showing that depictions of the military in Nigerian novels go beyond their capacities for disruptions and destructions in society; they represent artistic probing of the nature and character of persons in the Nigerian military.

The Politics of Worldlessness

2020 ◽  
pp. 80-127
Author(s):  
Roland Végső
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Political World ◽  
Life Of The Mind ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Human Condition

The chapter examines Hannah Arendt’s critique of martin Heidegger and concentrates on the way Arendt tries to subvert the Heideggerian paradigm of worldlessness. While for Heidegger, the ontological paradigm of worldlessness was the lifeless stone, in Arendt’s book biological life itself emerges as the worldless condition of the political world of publicity. The theoretical challenge bequeathed to us by Arendt is to draw the consequences of the simple fact that life is worldless. The worldlessness of life, therefore, becomes a genuine condition of impossibility for politics: it makes politics possible, but at the same time it threatens the very existence of politics. The chapter traces the development of this argument in three of Arendt’s major works: The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and The Life of the Mind.

: Visions of Freedom

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noël O’Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Michael Oakeshott ◽  
Genuine Knowledge ◽  
The Human Condition

This chapter considers four of the most influential visions that characterized the response to totalitarianism, and in particular the various concepts of limit they provide, since those are the basis of the opposition which each vision sought to oppose to the totalitarian ideal. The first vision is the positivist one of Karl Popper, for whom the logic of scientific method offers the only genuine knowledge of man and society. The second great vision is that of Berlin, who abandons positivism and instead presents the human condition in tragic terms, on the grounds that it is intrinsically characterized by a plurality of incommensurable and conflicting values. A third vision situates positivism in a naturalistic portrait of the human condition. Finally, there is the ‘civil’ vision of Michael Oakeshott, which is ultimately grounded in a radical, anti-reductionist conception of human freedom.

Leonard Woolf’s Fear and Politics: A Debate at the Zoo: Satirical Heritage as Apocalyptic Prophecy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vara Neverow
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Closing Time ◽  
Genetic Elements ◽  
Zoo Animals ◽  
Leonard Woolf ◽  
Animal Farm ◽  
The Human Condition

Leonard Woolf, in his 24-page satirical pamphlet, Fear and Politics: A Debate at the Zoo, was published in 1925 and was the seventh work in the first series of Hogarth Essays. In the work, Woolf explores the inherent attributes of the human condition from a highly ironic viewpoint, presenting his argument through the discourse of animals. Victoria Glendinning (Leonard Woolf: A Biography) categorizes the work as a “satirical squib” and describes how “the supercivilized zoo animals hold a debate after closing time to discuss Man.” The elephant, all too familiar with human nature, states emphatically that, “Human beings delude themselves that a League of Nations or Protection or armies and navies are going to give them security and civilization in their jungle.” Glendinning not only aligns the heritage of Woolf’s essay with the caustic social critiques of Swift and Kipling but also observes that Fear and Politics “casts a beam ahead toward Orwell’s Animal Farm” (Glendinning 240-41). By situating the essay in the context of its hereditary, genetic elements, Glendinning highlights how Woolf’s work is also passed on to another heir.

From consumer to construer: Travels in human subjectivity

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 504-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Fuat Fırat ◽  
Nikhilesh Dholakia
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
Human Subjectivity ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
The Human Condition

A key component of how human beings organize their lives is how they perceive and make sense of what it means to be human, that is, their subjectivity. Human subjectivity has taken on different dominant forms across history, the consumer being one of the most dominant contemporary forms. Based on current and potential trends, we argue, with a deliberate tone of optimism about transformative potential of the human condition, that if the contemporary iconographic culture is transcended, there is the possibility of a subject that transcends the consumer, a construer subject. In contrast to what largely exists in extant literature – extrapolating from the consumer subjectivity to posthuman subjects – we envision the possibility of an epochal cultural change that will provide the ground for a construer subjectivity to emerge. We offer some preliminary insights into what such subjectivity may entail.

scholarly journals The Joy of Being as Anthropological Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 66-73
Author(s):  
Agapov Oleg D. ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Subjectivity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Human Condition

The joy of being is connected with one’s activities aimed at responding to the challenges of the elemental forces and the boundlessness of being, which are independent of human subjectivity. In the context of rising to the challenges of being, one settles to acquire a certain power of being in themselves and in the world. Thus, the joy of being is tied to achieving the level of the “miraculous fecundity” (E. Levinas), “an internal necessity of one’s life” (F. Vasilyuk), magnanimity (M. Mamardashvili). The ontological duty of any human being is to succeed at being human. The joy of being is closely connected to experiencing one’s involvement in the endless/eternity and realizing one’s subjective temporality/finitude, which attunes him to the absolute seriousness in relation to one’s complete realization in life. Joy is a foundational anthropological phenomenon in the structure of ways of experiencing the human condition. The joy of being as an anthropological practice can appear as a constantly expanding sphere of human subjectivity where the transfiguration of the powers of being occurs under the sign of the Height (Levinas) / the Good. Without the possibility of transfiguration human beings get tired of living, immerse themselves in the dejected state of laziness and the hopelessness of vanity. The joy of being is connected to unity, gathering the multiplicity of human life under the aegis of meaning that allows us to see the other and the alien in heteronomous being, and understand the nature of co-participation and responsibility before the forces of being, and also act in synergy with them.The joy of being stands before a human being as the joy of fatherhood/ motherhood, the joy of being a witness to the world in creative acts (the subject as a means to retreat before the world and let the world shine), the joy of every day that was saved from absurdity, darkness and the impersonal existence of the total. Keywords: joy, higher reality, anthropological practices, “the height”, subject, transcendence, practice of coping

Essays in Analytic Theology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Rea
Keyword(s):  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Hiddenness ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Face ◽  
Part Deal ◽  
The Human Condition

This book is the second of two volumes collecting together the most substantial work in analytic theology that I have done between 2003 and 2018. The first volume contains essays focused, broadly speaking, on the nature of God; this second volume contains essays focused more on doctrines about humanity, the human condition, and how human beings relate to God. The essays in the first part deal with the doctrines of the incarnation, original sin, and atonement; the essays in the second part discuss the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, and a theological problem that arises in connection with the idea God not only tolerates but validates a response of angry protest in the face of these problems.

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