scholarly journals ANCIENT RITUALS AND THEIR PLACE IN THE MODERN WORLD: CULTURE, MASCULINITY AND THE KILLING OF BULLS – PART ONE

Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Allister Peté ◽  
Angela Diane Crocker

Each year in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, a ceremony is held by the Zulu people in honour of the “first fruits”. A certain part of what is known as the Ukweshwama ceremony involves the ritual killing of a bull by young Zulu warriors with their bare hands. The ritual is opposed by certain animal rights campaigners, who believe it is cruel to the animal which is sacrificed. A highly polarized debate has arisen between those opposed to any form of cruelty to animals on the one hand, and those seeking to defend ancient cultural practices on the other. The purpose of this article is to explore whether or not ancient rituals such as the ritual bull-killing at theUkweshwama ceremony have a place in the modern world, and to interrogate the implications of the dispute which has arisen for the development of South Africa’s constitutional democracy. The article is in two parts. Part One provides a brief synopsis of the importance of cattle within traditional Zulu culture and traces the public controversy surrounding the bull-killing ritual in KwaZulu-Natal. It also examines the legal arguments put before court on the issue, and discusses the origins in antiquity of certain of the main myths and rituals concerning bulls and bullkilling. Part Two compares and contrasts the respective controversies surroundingthe Ukweshwama bull-killing ritual on the one hand, and Spanish bullfighting on the other. It also examines the wide range of positions adopted by philosophers and legal scholars vis-a-vis difficult questions of animal rights and cruelty to animals. The twosides of the argument are weighed up and tentative conclusions reached.

Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Allister Peté ◽  
Angela Diane Crocker

Each year in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, a ceremony is held by the Zulu people in honour of the “first fruits”. A certain part of what is known as the Ukweshwama ceremony involves the ritual killing of a bull by young Zulu warriors with their bare hands. The ritual is opposed by certain animal rights campaigners, who believe it is cruel to the animal which is sacrificed. A highly polarized debate has arisen between those opposed to any form of cruelty to animals on the one hand, and those seeking to defend ancient cultural practices on the other. The purpose of this article is to explore whether or not ancient rituals such as the ritual bull-killing at theUkweshwama ceremony have a place in the modern world, and to interrogate the implications of the dispute which has arisen for the development of South Africa’s constitutional democracy. The article is in two parts. Part One provides a brief synopsis of the importance of cattle within traditional Zulu culture and traces the public controversy surrounding the bull-killing ritual in KwaZulu-Natal. It also examines the legal arguments put before court on the issue, and discusses the origins in antiquity of certain of the main myths and rituals concerning bulls and bullkilling. Part Two compares and contrasts the respective controversies surroundingthe Ukweshwama bull-killing ritual on the one hand, and Spanish bullfighting on the other. It also examines the wide range of positions adopted by philosophers and legal scholars vis-a-vis difficult questions of animal rights and cruelty to animals. The two sides of the argument are weighed up and tentative conclusions are reached.


Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Peté ◽  
Angela Crocker

In a recent two-part article in this journal, the authors of this note analysed the controversy surrounding the ritual bull-killing which takes place during the Ukweshwama “first fruits” ceremony held each year in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. While much of the Ukweshwama ceremony is uncontroversial, the ritual killing of a bull by young Zulu warriors with their bare hands attracted strong opposition from certain animal-rights groups, which resulted in legal action and public controversy. The authors attempted to disentangle the different legal, historical, political and philosophical strands which combined to make up a complex story about the place of ancient rituals in the modern world, particularly those involving animal sacrifice. They also attempted to situate the controversy around the Ukweshwama bull-killing ritual within a contemporary global context, by comparing and contrasting the Zulu bull-killing ceremony on the one hand, and Spanish bullfighting on the other. The purpose of the present note is to report on recent developments in what is a global debate on the place of ancient rituals which involve the ritual killing of animals, within modern constitutional democracies. In particular, this note will examine and discuss the outcome of a recent legal challenge brought before the Constitutional Council of the Republic of France by certain animal-welfare groups in that country. The challenge was directed at bringing an end to a legal exception which operates in certain parts of the country – that is, those with an uninterrupted local tradition of bullfighting – excluding bullfighting from the provisions of animal-welfare legislation. The legal, political and cultural issues which arise as a result of this legal challenge are of relevance to those in South Africa who are concerned, one way or the other, about the future of the annual Ukweshwama bull-killing ritual in KwaZulu-Natal. Like it or not, although the bull-killing rituals which take place in the South of France and in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa are very different, the similarities between the rituals and their impact on broader society (legally, politically and culturally), are such that they cannot be ignored. The authors make a similar point in relation to the links between Spanish bullfighting and the Ukweshwama bull-killing ritual.


Author(s):  
Gabriel Giorgi

Resumen: Distintas intervenciones desde prácticas activistas y culturales en torno al VIH escenifican poéticas y políticas del resto corporal en las que se juegan, por un lado, una reorganización de los modos en que se dramatiza en umbral entre lo vivo y lo muerto en lo público –redefiniendo así el tejido mismo de lo que llamamos “comunidad”—; y por otro, indican los modos en que estos activismos impulsan una disputa sobre los “marcos de temporalización” desde los cuales lo viviente se vuelve reconocible políticamente y donde la noción de supervivencia adquiere una centralidad decisiva. Combinando materiales heterogéneos el artículo busca iluminar los modos en que los activismos y las culturas en torno al VIH configuran un terreno decisivo para pensar políticas de la supervivencia del presente. Palabras clave: VIH, ACT-UP, Supervivencia, Temporalidades, Biopolítica. Abstract: Different interventions from activist and cultural practices around HIV staged poetics and politics of the body remmant. They implie, on the one hand, a reorganitzation of the dramatization of the threshold between the living and the dead in the public space; and on the other, they indicate the ways in which these activisms mobilize a dispute over the “frames of temporalization” from which the living becomes politically recognizable and where the notion of survival acquires a decisive centrality. Combining heterogeneous materials, the article seeks to illuminate the ways in which activism and cultures on HIV constitute a decisive ground for thinking about the present policies of survival. Keywords: IHV, ACT-UP, Survival, Biopolitics.


2020 ◽  
pp. 6-16
Author(s):  
Володимир Копилов ◽  
Олександр Панфілов

The article deals with the research of axiological nature of the theory and practice of modern education. The problem is relevant in that education can be the key to solving the global problems of the modern world. The more popular the knowledge of people, their experience, abilities, skills, their professional and personal qualities in social development, the more important education is. Improvement and modernization of national education systems is becoming the leading direction of the sustainable development strategy of many states of the modern world. Consequently, the philosophical understanding of the educational process, in particular the definition of the values of education is relevant.The authors substantiate that, given the diversity of educational values, they can be divided into two main groups: the values of maintaining the existing order of things and the values of its transformation.In various worldview systems, the problem of the values of education is resolved in different ways. The article gives the basic ideas of representatives of such systems: classical realism, essentialism, perinalism, analytical philosophy, experimentalism, existentialism, neo-Freudianism.Analyzing the views of researchers, the authors of the article attribute free ideological self-determination to the cardinal values of education as the main mission, which provides the conditions for the free self-determination of each person in the worldview world to accept their own values in the form of life goals, main motives and interests, aspirations, needs, principles, etc.It is substantiated that the axiological guidelines of education should be associated primarily with the orientation of education towards the interests of the individual – a free, creative person, capable of self-realization. The mission of education is to find an individual approach to a person, to contribute to the realization of his personal potential, internal, unconscious, even irrational needs (otherwise this culturally unrealized potential can become destructive for both the individual and society). Thus, education should be aimed at the formation of fundamental foundations that will allow a person to solve worldview problems, make a moral, legal or ideological choice, navigate in the modern sociocultural situation.The authors emphasize that in a modern dynamic society, value-semantic variability and the influence of the accelerated development of education on the formation of social innovations are necessary. The dynamically changing conceptual field of modern educational practices, the desire and attempts to humanize education are favorable factors for the creation and implementation of the concept of modern education. The humanization of education is aimed at creating a sustainable and flexible value attitude to the world. The universal value horizon, the idea of universal values are not reflected in modern cultural practices. On the one hand, culture becomes value-oriented, its phenomena become subject to assessment, its values are structured and organized, on the other hand, obvious value pluralism, poly-paradigmalism, relativism and simplification of values as such.Thus, the analysis of theoretical studies on the value aspects of education, and the study of the possibilities that arise as a result of the humanization of education, allow us to state: only as a result of changes in the content of education in the context of its humanization it is possible to talk about the transition to understanding a specialist as a harmoniously developed personality, which is the ultimate purpose of education. The primary task is to eliminate the discrepancy between the generally accepted and declared values, on the one hand, and their implementation, primarily in the minds of participants in the educational process, on the other.


2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry Green

Journalism education in Australia, as it seems in New Zealand, finds itself between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand universities find themselves under pessure to provide courses that meet industry demands and enhance job success rates; on the other hand journalists seek to be recognised as professionals for a wide range of reasons. Among those reasons is the desire to raise the credibility of journalism in the public perception and the need to argue for higer rates of pay and improved conditions.


Etyka ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 175-194
Author(s):  
Oktawian Nawrot

The public controversy over results of modern biological sciences, especially the new reproductive technologies, is accelerating. Undoubtedly, surrogate motherhood is the most controversial of them. For most surrogate motherhood agreements, the gestational mother is expected to give up the child that she has given birth to to the other couple – for this reason surrogate motherhood is found controversial. Moreover, many people think that it is the equivalent of selling children, can be exploitative of the surrogate, and violates a mother’s fundamental right to rise her child. Even altruistic surrogacy is not considered to be moral because women who choose to bear children voluntarily for someone else reap disdain, and are seen as cold, heartless, and mercenary, because they seem to give away their babies. There are also a lot of legal problems. First the answer to the question which woman is the mother must be given: the one who donates her ova or the gestational mother. Furthermore the problem of baby-selling and surrogate motherhood ought to be analysed and compared. In Polish law there is no direct regulation of surrogate motherhood – for this reason foreign legislations yield suggestions. Some suggestions can be taken from Christian, Jewish and Buddhist morality. Undoubtedly the last word belongs to us, but we should not forget the baby and its rights.


APRIA Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
José Teunissen

In the last few years, it has often been said that the current fashion system is outdated, still operating by a twentieth-century model that celebrates the individualism of the 'star designer'. In I- D, Sarah Mower recently stated that for the last twenty years, fashion has been at a cocktail party and has completely lost any connection with the public and daily life. On the one hand, designers and big brands experience the enormous pressure to produce new collections at an ever higher pace, leaving less room for reflection, contemplation, and innovation. On the other hand, there is the continuous race to produce at even lower costs and implement more rapid life cycles, resulting in disastrous consequences for society and the environment.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Al-Bsheish ◽  
Mu’taman Jarrar ◽  
Amanda Scarbrough

The outbreak of COVID-19 has placed a heavy burden on society, threatening the future of the entire world as the pandemic has hit health systems and economic sectors hard. Where time moves fast, continuing curfews and lockdown is impossible. This paper assembles three main safety behaviors, social distancing, wearing a facemask, and hygiene in one model (PSC Triangle) to be practiced by the public. Integrating public safety compliance with these behaviors is the main recommendation to slow the spread of COVID-19. Although some concerns and challenges face these practices, the shifting of public behaviors to be more safety-centered is appropriate and available as an urgent desire exists to return to normal life on the one hand and the medical effort to find effective cure or vaccine that has not yet succeeded on the other hand. Recommendations to enhance public safety compliance are provided.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 519-539
Author(s):  
Thiago Minete Cardozo ◽  
Costas Papadopoulos

Abstract Museums have been increasingly investing in their digital presence. This became more pressing during the COVID-19 pandemic since heritage institutions had, on the one hand, to temporarily close their doors to visitors while, on the other, find ways to communicate their collections to the public. Virtual tours, revamped websites, and 3D models of cultural artefacts were only a few of the means that museums devised to create alternative ways of digital engagement and counteract the physical and social distancing measures. Although 3D models and collections provide novel ways to interact, visualise, and comprehend the materiality and sensoriality of physical objects, their mediation in digital forms misses essential elements that contribute to (virtual) visitor/user experience. This article explores three-dimensional digitisations of museum artefacts, particularly problematising their aura and authenticity in comparison to their physical counterparts. Building on several studies that have problematised these two concepts, this article establishes an exploratory framework aimed at evaluating the experience of aura and authenticity in 3D digitisations. This exploration allowed us to conclude that even though some aspects of aura and authenticity are intrinsically related to the physicality and materiality of the original, 3D models can still manifest aura and authenticity, as long as a series of parameters, including multimodal contextualisation, interactivity, and affective experiences are facilitated.


1981 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 149-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. J. McNair

Between the execution of Gerolamo Savonarola at Florence in May 1498 and the execution of Giordano Bruno at Rome in February 1600, western Christendom was convulsed by the protestant reformation, and the subject of this paper is the effect that that revolution had on the Italy that nourished and martyred those two unique yet representative men: unique in the power and complexity of their personalities, representative because the one sums up the medieval world with all its strengths and weaknesses while the other heralds the questing and questioning modern world in which we live.


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