scholarly journals Sustainability as a “magic concept”

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
Trond Ove Tøllefsen
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
The Other ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One ◽  
Conceptual Confusion ◽  
Brundtland Report

Sustainability studies have not been able to come up with a consensus conceptualization of “sustainability,” despite many attempts. This article asks what this conceptual confusion means. I do this through a (conceptual history) vertical analysis, and horizontal (discourse) analysis of the current use of the term. It finds that sustainability is a perfect fit for what Hupe and Pollit have called a “magic concept,” in that it is; broad, has a positive normative charge, imply consensus or at least the possibility of overcoming current conflicts, and has global marketability (2011: 643). This has both positive and negative effects: On the one hand, the popularity of the concept of sustainability has enabled an overarching discourse on the responsible use of natural resources. On the other hand, the concept is vulnerable to various strategic misuses, ranging from corporate greenwashing to Luddite passions. Based on a vertical analysis of the history of sustainability, this vagueness is not a coincidence: It was part of a political bargain at its birth, where environmental concerns were grafted onto an older discourse on “development” during the writing of the 1987 Brundtland report. Based on a horizontal analysis, this vagueness is now inherent to the concept and cannot be abandoned without losing the very magic qualities that make sustainability such a rallying point. This finding points to the conclusion that we should be cautious about how sustainability is wielded. Received: 03 February 2021Accepted: 01 March 2021

scholarly journals Berbagai Pembacaan al-Qur’an Kontemporer

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Andy Hadiyanto
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
The Past ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Comprehensive Picture ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

The different interpretations of the holy texts of the Qur'an further broaden the horizon of Muslim understanding of the content of God's messages on the one hand. But on the other hand, the greater the interpretation if not accompanied by an attitude of openness will lead to idiologization (talwiin) to certain understandings arising from that interpretation. Such an idiologisation will elicit a blind and faithless fanatic attitude in religion. Violence in the name of religion and the various conflicts among fellow Muslims recorded in the history of Islam from the past until now is concrete evidence of the negative effects of an interpretation. Therefore this paper is present to provide a comprehensive picture of the recitation of the Qur'an.  Keywords: Al-Qur'an, Contemporary Tafsir, Interpretation  Abstrak Perbedaan penafsiran terhadap teks suci al-Qur’an semakin memperluas horizon pemahaman umat Islam tentang kandungan pesan-pesan Tuhan di satu sisi. Namun di sisi lain, semakin banyaknya penafsiran tersebut apabila tidak dibarengi dengan sikap keterbukaan akan menimbulkan idiologisasi (talwiin) terhadap pemahaman-pemahaman tertentu yang muncul akibat penafsiran itu. Idiologisasi tersebut akan memunculkan sikap fanatik buta dan ketertutupan dalam beragama. Kekerasan atas nama agama dan berbagai konflik antar sesama pemeluk Islam yang tercatat dalam sejarah Islam dari dulu hingga sekarang adalah bukti kongkrit efek negatif sebuah penafsiran. Oleh karena itu tulisan ini hadir untuk memeberikan gambaran yang komprehensif terhadap pembacaan al-Qur’an.  Kata Kunci: Al-Qur’an, Tafsir Kontemporer, Penafsiran

cepts, or sermoned at large, as they vse, then thus clowdily enwrapped in Allegoricall deuises. But such, me seeme, should be satisfide with the vse of these dayes, seeing all things accounted by their showes, and nothing esteemed of, that is not delightfull and pleasing to commune sence. For this cause is Xenophon preferred before Plato, for that the one in the exquisite depth of his iudgement, formed a Commune welth such as it should be, but the other in the person of Cyrus and the Persians fashioned a gouernement such as might best be: So much more profitable and gratious is doctrine by ensample, then by rule. So haue I laboured to doe in the person of Arthure: whome I conceiue after his long education by Timon, to whom he was by Merlin deliuered to be brought vp, so soone as he was borne of the Lady Igrayne, to haue seene in a dream or vision the Faery Queen, with whose excellent beauty rauished, he awaking resolued to seeke her out, and so being by Merlin armed, and by Timon throughly instructed, he went to seeke her forth in Faerye land. In that Faery Queene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceiue the most excellent and glorious person of our soueraine the Queene, and her kingdome in Faery land. And yet in some places els, I doe otherwise shadow her. For considering she beareth two persons, the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most vertuous and beautifull Lady, this latter part in some places I doe expresse in Belphœbe, fashioning her name according to your owne excellent conceipt of Cynthia, (Phœbe and Cynthia being both names of Diana.) So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette forth magnificence in particular, which vertue for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all, therefore in the whole course I mention the deedes of Arthure applyable to that vertue, which I write of in that booke. But of the xii. other vertues, I make xii. other knights the patrones, for the more variety of the history: Of which these three bookes contayn three. The first of the knight of the Redcrosse, in whome I expresse Holynes: The seconde of Sir Guyon, in whome I sette forth Temperaunce: The third of Britomartis a Lady knight, in whome I picture Chastity. But because the beginning of the whole worke seemeth abrupte and as depending vpon other antecedents, it needs that ye know the occasion of these three knights seuerall aduentures. For the Methode of a Poet historical is not such, as of an Historiographer. For an Historiographer discourseth of affayres orderly as they were donne, accounting as well the times as the actions, but a Poet thrusteth into the middest, euen where it most concerneth him, and there recoursing to the thinges forepaste, and diuining of thinges to come,

2014 ◽  
pp. 738-738
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Times ◽  
The One

Historical Study and Historians in Indonesia Today

1963 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Sartono Kartodirdjo
Keyword(s):  
Academic Work ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
National History ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Local Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One

It should be plainly stated that historical study and writing in Indonesia have so far played a very slight part in academic work, “but there is reason to expect that this situation will change in the years to come. Indonesia entered the postwar period with a heritage consisting mostly of Dutch colonial historiography. Deeply affected by the national revolution in the cultural scene, particularly in the field of history, a reconstruction and rewriting of Indonesian history was urgently felt. Many conceptions had tobe reviewed and many facts reinterpreted. A growing acceptance of this new approach has come to focus historical study on old regional or local sources on the one hand and the formulation of the idea of the history of indonesia as a national history on the other.

The Internal Forum and the Literature of Penance and Confession

Traditio ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 175-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Goering
Keyword(s):  
Canon Law ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Ecclesiastical Courts ◽  
Legal Competence ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One ◽  
Medieval Canon Law

When Dante ascended to the Sphere of the Sun, he was directed by St. Thomas Aquinas to consider a circle of shining lights. One of the lights, St. Thomas tells him, is Gratian, “who served the one and the other court so well that it gives pleasure in Paradise” (che l'uno e l'altro foro/aiutò sì che piace in paradiso[Paradiso10:104–5]). The allusion to two “courts” (fora) would have puzzled Gratian, but to both Thomas and Dante it would have had a clear reference to the two broad arenas in which the Church's canon law was operative: the external forum of ecclesiastical courts (sometimes known as the “contentious forum”) andthe internal forum of conscience andof penance. This new way of describing the Church's legal competence had been invented in the decades immediately following the publication of Gratian's magisterial textbook (ca. 1140), and it would have important consequences for the history of medieval canon law in the years to come.

Theodor W. Adorno

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colby Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In his somewhat controversial book Remnants of Auschwitz, Agamben makes brief reference to Theodor Adorno’s apparently contradictory remarks on perceptions of death post-Auschwitz, positions that Adorno had taken concerning Nazi genocidal actions that had seemed also to reflect something horribly errant in the history of thought itself. There was within such murderous acts, he had claimed, a particular degradation of death itself, a perpetration of our humanity bound in some way to affect our perception of reason itself. The contradictions regarding Auschwitz that Agamben senses to be latent within Adorno’s remarks involve the intuition ‘on the one hand, of having realized the unconditional triumph of death against life; on the other, of having degraded and debased death. Neither of these charges – perhaps like every charge, which is always a genuinely legal gesture – succeed in exhausting Auschwitz’s offense, in defining its case in point’ (RA 81). And this is the stance that Agamben wishes to hammer home quite emphatically vis-à-vis Adorno’s limitations, ones that, I would only add, seem to linger within Agamben’s own formulations in ways that he has still not come to reckon with entirely: ‘This oscillation’, he affirms, ‘betrays reason’s incapacity to identify the specific crime of Auschwitz with certainty’ (RA 81).

Policy analysis and complexity – a non-equilibrium approach for integrated water management

1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 301-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Govert D. Geldof
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Control System ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
The Other ◽  
Integrated Water Management ◽  
Equilibrium Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Groundwater Policy ◽  
Non Equilibrium

In integrated water management, the issues are often complex by nature, they are capable of subjective interpretation, are difficult to express in standards and exhibit many uncertainties. For such issues, an equilibrium approach is not appropriate. A non-equilibrium approach has to be applied. This implies that the processes to which the integrated issue pertains, are regarded as “alive”’. Instead of applying a control system as the model for tackling the issue, a network is used as the model. In this network, several “agents”’ are involved in the modification, revision and rearrangement of structures. It is therefore an on-going renewal process (perpetual novelty). In the planning process for the development of a groundwater policy for the municipality of Amsterdam, a non-equilibrium approach was adopted. In order to do justice to the integrated character of groundwater management, an approach was taken, containing the following features: (1) working from global to detailed, (2) taking account of the history of the system, (3) giving attention to communication, (4) building flexibility into the establishing of standards, and (5) combining reason and emotions. A middle course was sought, between static, rigid but reliable on the one hand; dynamic, flexible but vague on the other hand.

On the nature of chemistry

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric R. Scerri
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Recent History ◽  
History Of Chemistry ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Fundamental Unity ◽  
The 19Th Century

<span>The very nature of chemistry presents us with a tension. A tension between the exhilaration of diversity of substances and forms on the one hand and the safety of fundamental unity on the other. Even just the recent history of chemistry has been al1 about this tension, from the debates about Prout's hypothesis as to whether there is a primary matter in the 19th century to the more recent speculations as to whether computers will enable us to virtually dispense with experimental chemistry.</span>

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anh Q. Tran
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Vietnamese Studies

The Introduction gives the background of the significance of translating and study of the text Errors of the Three Religions. The history of the development of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism in Vietnam from their beginning until the eighteenth century is narrated. Particular attention is given to the different manners in which the Three Religions were taken up by nobles and literati, on the one hand, and commoners, on the other. The chapter also presents the pragmatic approach to religion taken by the Vietnamese, which was in part responsible for the receptivity of the Vietnamese to Christianity. The significance of the discovery of Errors and its impact on Vietnamese studies are also discussed.

Multicultural and Transnational Novels

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Meffan
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The Other ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Return Home ◽  
Access Rights ◽  
The One

This chapter discusses the history of multicultural and transnational novels in New Zealand. A novel set in New Zealand will have to deal with questions about cultural access rights on the one hand and cultural coverage on the other. The term ‘transnational novel’ gains its relevance from questions about cultural and national identity, questions that have particularly exercised nations formed from colonial history. The chapter considers novels that demonstrate and respond to perceived deficiencies in wider discourses of cultural and national identity by way of comparison between New Zealand and somewhere else. These include Amelia Batistich's Another Mountain, Another Song (1981), Albert Wendt's Sons for the Return Home (1973) and Black Rainbow (1992), James McNeish's Penelope's Island (1990), Stephanie Johnson's The Heart's Wild Surf (2003), and Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip (2006).

scholarly journals The Orderliness of Music from the Perspective of Complex Information Systems

Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Shan Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
20Th Century Music ◽  
Complex Information ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

By applying the concept of natural science to the study of music, on the one hand, we can understand the structure of music macroscopically, on the other, we can reflect on the history of music to a certain extent. Throughout the history of western music, from the classical period to the 20th century, music seems to have gone from order to disorder, but it is still orderly if analyzed carefully. Using the concept of complex information systems can give a good answer in the essence.

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