scholarly journals POST-TRUTH AND NEOLIBERALISM AS FACTORS OF THE CRISIS OF THE HUMANISTIC TRADITION AND EDUCATION: SOME DISCURSIVE ASPECTS OF MODERN THEORETICAL DISCUSSIONS

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 228-245
Author(s):  
Vladimir Gutorov ◽  

The article analyzes the results of the latest theoretical discussions in Western political theory, whose participants explore the specific features of the formation of the neoliberal discourse of “post-truth” that destroys the traditions of rational politics and the foundations of the humanistic paradigm of education that emerged during the European Renaissance and Enlightenment. In the modern world, classical humanism contrasts sharply with political realities and ideas prevailing in social discourses, including in the field of social sciences. Nowadays, many intellectuals, politicians and scientists consider it an almost immutable fact that we have all finally transitioned to the world of “post-truth” and “post-humanism”. Therefore, we must come to terms with endless streams of lies, manipulations, meaningless propaganda that significantly primitivize the prevailing ideas about democratic norms and institutions and try to develop a conceptual apparatus that reflects the new reality. At the same time, modern concepts of post-truth in many of their aspects develop ideas that arose at the turn of the 1960s-1970s, when the contours of the “postmodern turn” were only outlined in Western political discourse. Moreover, the historical origins of the modern phenomenon of post-humanism go back to counter-revolutionary ideology and philosophical controversy with the legacy of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, which was initiated at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries in the works of the “founding fathers” of modern conservatism - Joseph de Maistre and Louis de Bonald. After World War II, an intellectual assault on humanism became one of the hallmarks of French structuralism and subsequent more radical post-structuralist doctrines. The article substantiates in detail the thesis that today the topic of discourse claims to be a kind of “hegemon”, often dictating to the participants in discussions the nature and direction of the argumentation. Scientists’ disputes on various aspects of political dominance, political communication and education are no exception in this regard. In the process of dispersing this trend, it became obvious that a necessary prerequisite for analyzing the language of politics is an understanding of the specifics of its various levels - from “high” political theory to personal, subjective characteristics.

Author(s):  
Aurelian Craiutu

Political moderation is the touchstone of democracy, which could not function without compromise and bargaining, yet it is one of the most understudied concepts in political theory. How can we explain this striking paradox? Why do we often underestimate the virtue of moderation? Seeking to answer these questions, this book examines moderation in modern French political thought and sheds light on the French Revolution and its legacy. The book begins with classical thinkers who extolled the virtues of a moderate approach to politics, such as Aristotle and Cicero. It then shows how Montesquieu inaugurated the modern rebirth of this tradition by laying the intellectual foundations for moderate government. The book looks at important figures such as Jacques Necker, Germaine de Staël, and Benjamin Constant, not only in the context of revolutionary France but throughout Europe. It traces how moderation evolves from an individual moral virtue into a set of institutional arrangements calculated to protect individual liberty, and explores the deep affinity between political moderation and constitutional complexity. The book demonstrates how moderation navigates between political extremes, and it challenges the common notion that moderation is an essentially conservative virtue, stressing instead its eclectic nature. Drawing on a broad range of writings in political theory, the history of political thought, philosophy, and law, the book reveals how the virtue of political moderation can address the profound complexities of the world today.


Author(s):  
Leander Scholz

Der Aufsatz geht der These nach, daß die Fundierung der politischen Theorie in einer ästhetischen Theorie bei Jacques Rancière eine Aktualisierung der Losung der Brüderlichkeit aus der Französischen Revolution darstellt. Diese Aktualisierung der Brüderlichkeit als »ästhetische Gemeinschaft« erlaubt es Rancière, an den Klassenbegriff von Marx anzuschließen, ohne die damit verbundene Gemeinschaftserfahrung begrifflich bestimmen und damit an positive Merkmale binden zu müssen. Weil Rancière seine Demokratietheorie vor allem als eine Interventionstheorie angelegt hat, soll die »ästhetische Gemeinschaft« im Unterschied zum Klassenbegriff es ermöglichen, eine prinzipiell unabgeschlossene Reihe von politischen Subjektivierungsprozessen zu denken. Um diese These zu schärfen, wird Rancières Demokratietheorie mit der von Jacques Derrida verglichen, der auf ganz ähnliche Weise das Demokratische der Demokratie in einem Streit gegeben sieht, der jenseits von demokratischen Spielregeln stattfindet, die Losung der Brüderlichkeit jedoch für überaus problematisch hält.<br><br>This article argues that the foundation of political theory in aesthetics by Jacques Rancière can be seen as an actualization of the slogan of fraternalism during the French Revolution. This actualization of fraternalism as »aesthetic community« gives Rancière the possibility to operate with the Marxian concept of classes without positively defining the experience of community. Because Rancière understands democracy as the chance for political intervention, the concept of an »aesthetic community« (as opposed to the traditional concept of classes) allows him to posit an endless process of political subjectification. To sharpen this argument, the article compares Rancière’s understanding of democracy to Jacques Derrida’s, who also focuses on a democratic struggle beyond democratic rules, but is very skeptical about the slogan of fraternalism.


Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Ivo Engels

The so-called “long 19th century”, from the French Revolution to the First World War, ranks as the crucial phase in the genesis of the modern world. In the Western countries this period was characterized by the differentiation of the public and the private spheres, the birth of the modern bureaucratic state and the delegitimation of early modern practices such as clientelism and patronage. All these fundamental changes are, among other things, usually considered important preconditions for the modern perception of corruption.This paper will concentrate on this crucial phase by means of a comparative analysis of debates in France, Great Britain and the United States, with the aim to elucidate the motives for major anti-corruption movements. The questions are: who fights against corruption and what are the reasons for doing so? I will argue that these concerns were often very different and sometimes accidental. Furthermore, an analysis of political corruption may reveal differences between the political cultures in the countries in question. Thus, the history of corruption serves as a sensor which enables a specific perspective on politics. By taking this question as a starting point the focus is narrowed to political corruption and the debates about corruption, while petty bribery on the part of minor civilservants, as well as the actual practice in the case of extensive political corruption, is left aside.


Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kivisto

Conservatism refers to one of the constituent political positions found in all contemporary democracies. It can be construed as a philosophy, an ideology, a political party, a movement, a disposition, a mode of discourse, performance style, and an emotional relationship to the political. Since the birth of modern democracies in the aftermath of the French Revolution, it has become commonplace to describe the range of political options available to the citizenry as occupying a spectrum from left to right, with a range of alternatives between the extreme poles, including a centrist position in the middle that straddles the divide. The left was associated with promoting challenges to established authorities and existing hierarchies, along with calls for increased economic equality and expanded social and political rights to all citizens, including the heretofore marginalized. This contrasts with the right, which was defined as defending inequalities and differential entitlements, concentrating matters involving rights around preserving property rights, shoring up public and social order, and promoting traditional values and conventional social relations. In this context, liberalism became a mark of political identity associated with the left, as did socialism, while conservatism, broadly construed, represented the right. This framing of politics also includes the possibility of underminings by extremism on both the left and right. For the former, the main threat since the Russian Revolution has been posed by revolutionary communism, while right-wing extremism has manifested itself in reactionary movements, including fascism and illiberal populism. Since liberalism and conservatism must be understood in relational terms, the spatial and temporal settings for the politics of opposition will vary considerably. It is impossible to do justice to the vast literature on conservatism in a bibliography such as this. What follows is a more delimited, and thus manageable examination of work on conservatism. First, it focuses on conservatism in the United States, and not elsewhere. Second, it is chiefly concerned with conservatism since the end of World War II. Third, it concentrates on the study of conservatism by sociologists and those working in cognate disciplines; while not all the authors are card-carrying sociologists, their works reflect a sociological character, although the exception to this third point is the overview section, which presents key readings by advocates of conservatism, and thus offers insider depictions of the meaning of conservatism. Fourth, this article does not concentrate solely on extremist right-wing movements; rather, in surveying the relevant literature on American conservatism broadly construed, it points to a growing consensus that the radical right wing has pushed mainstream conservatism increasingly further to the right.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-63
Author(s):  
Naomi R Williams

Abstract This article explores the shifting politics of the Racine, Wisconsin, working-class community from World War II to the 1980s. It looks at the ways Black workers’ activism influenced local politics and how their efforts played out in the 1970s and 1980s. Case studies show how an expansive view of the boundaries of the Racine labor community led to cross-sector labor solidarity and labor-community coalitions that expanded economic citizenship rights for more working people in the city. The broad-based working-class vision pursued by the Racine labor community influenced local elections, housing and education, increased the number of workers with the power of unions behind them, and improved Racine's economic and social conditions. By the 1980s, Racine's labor community included not only industrial workers but also members of welfare and immigrants’ rights groups, parents of inner-city students, social workers and other white-collar public employees, and local and state politicians willing to support a class-based agenda in the political arena. Worker activists’ ability to maintain and adapt their notion of a broad-based labor community into the late twentieth century shows how this community and others like it responded to the upheaval of the 1960s social movements by creating a broad and relatively successful concept of worker solidarity that also incorporated racial justice.


1997 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 475-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Logan

‘Civilization’ was a major keyword in the Italian Catholic discourse of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. Indeed Catholic Christian civilization was seen as synonymous with true civilization itself insofar as the post-classical era was concerned. The concept of ‘Christian civilization’ was closely allied to that of cristianità, as distinct from cristianesimo (Christianity). The terms cristianità and chrétienté, like English ‘Christendom’, had originally had primarily geographical connotations, but in post-Revolutionary Catholic thought they acquired connotations of a Christian order of society under the leadership of the Church, the evils of the modern world being presented as consequences of its breakdown. The allied discourse on ‘Christian civilization’ itself in the Italian Catholic world, as in the French one, was in large measure reactionary in character, associated with Counter-Revolutionary ideology and with opposition to liberalism. It asserted that a return of society to the Church was a precondition of social order. Thus the myth of a lost universal order offered a paradigm for the future.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 301-322
Author(s):  
Tuğba RENKÇİ TAŞTAN

20th century; it is a period in which two world wars took place and a new world order in human history occurred in many areas of innovation, development and transformation. After the war, the meaning, content and boundaries of art and the artist have been discussed, expanded and gained a new dimension and acceleration with the deep changes in the social, economic, political and cultural fields with the crisis brought on by the war. This complex period also manifested itself in the traditional art scene in France. The French artist Daniel Buren (b. 1938) has witnessed this process; by adopting the innovations in art with his productions, he has demonstrated his space-oriented conceptual works dating back to the present day in a period in which daily life accelerates with the mechanization of art practice and conceptual art movements are in succession. In this article, in order to comprehend the point of the artist and his productions from the beginning until today; the cultural environment in France after the World War II, the developments in the art world, the changes in the social field and the artistic dimensions of these changes are mentioned. The development and practices of the French artist Daniel Buren's artistic practice, policy, artistic attitude and style for the place, architecture, workshop and museum in the period from the second half of the 1960s to the present day are examined with examples with certain sources. In this context, the views and concepts that the artist advocates with his original productions are included. Finally, in the research, the evaluations were made in line with the sources and information obtained about the art adventure and development of the artist, and the innovations, contributions and different perspectives he offered about the art are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Lorne D. Bruce

This article undertakes a historical survey of university and college library developments in Canada between 1945 and 1960. It examines contemporary accounts in relation to library architecture, the acquisition and organization of collections, administrative library structures and staffing, services for faculty and students, and efforts by librarians to realize professional standing. A national review of academic libraries and librarianship expands our knowledge beyond the typical themes applied to this era: "growth" and "progress." The architectural redefinition of libraries, the impetus to establish research collections, the maturation of academic librarianship, and the increasing complexity of library operations were prominent features in the postwar period. The gradual evolution of academic libraries towards more-uniform organizational purposes and structures on a national basis following World War II can be considered a period of “midcentury modernization” that preceded the more memorable and better documented decades of the 1960s and later.


2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52
Author(s):  
Balázs Fekete

This article discusses the revival of comparative law in Hungarian Socialist jurisprudence. Prior to World War II, the development of comparative law generally had followed international trends; however, it was disrupted at both a personal and an institutional level at the end of the 1940s due to the Marxist-Leninist turn of legal thinking that accompanied the introduction of a Communist regime in the country. Nonetheless, this rejection of comparative law was gradually replaced by a more open attitude that strongly supported participation in the international comparative-law movement from the 1960s. Imre Szabó and Gyula Eörsi played a prominent role in this transformation. They legitimized the use of comparative methods in Socialist jurisprudence and, also, created a plausible conceptual framework for Socialist comparative law.


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