XIX: Toward a Modern Humanism

PMLA ◽  
1936 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 284-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Schütze
Keyword(s):  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Critical Survey ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Biological Organism ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mode Of Life ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
The Ideal

(Read under the title “Main Types of Literaturwissenschaft: A Critical Survey and a New Approach,” at the Fifty-first Annual Meeting, in Philadelphia, 1934. —Ed.) A MODERN humanism would be a mode of life controlled by an active aspiration to adjust present conditions to the highest interests and values of personality. It would be three-fold, involving (1) the physical-biological organism, (2) the powers finding expression in letters and the arts, and (3) the social, ethical, religious, political and economic beliefs, theories, interests, and circumstances by which personality is affected. The principle of integral unity—which is the central theme of this essay and the ultimate measure of the reality, validity, and value pertaining to the ideal of humanity here projected—demands an unremitting endeavor to combine and harmonize those three main parts of personal being. Culture is an ultimate personal unity of values.

Social and Psychological Interpretations of Graeco-Roman Religion: Some Thoughts on the Ideal Benefactor

Antichthon ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.R. Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Response ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Psychological Approach ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Roman World ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Ideal

In the past couple of decades, scholarship on Graeco–Roman religion has been dominated by an approach which emphasises the social function of religion rather than matters relating to emotion and belief (Part I below). There is much in the new approach which is enlightening, but for various reasons it should not be allowed to supersede the traditional or psychological approach completely (II). In particular I would like to argue in this paper that the phenomenon of cult for mortals in the Graeco-Roman world can only be understood through a combination of the two modern approaches, because the figure of the ideal benefactor, which I take to underlie cult for mortals, presumed both a concern for relationship structuring and an emotional response. Indeed, the ambiguous interface between the social plane and the psychological plane was fundamental to the success and persistence of such cult (III).

The Scythian tombs: Construction and geographical orientation

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-496
Author(s):  
Maria Ochir-Goryaeva
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Spatial Representation ◽  
Burial Mound ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Detailed Understanding ◽  
The Social ◽  
Burial Mounds ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Ideal

This paper details a new approach to the study of the Scythian burial mounds—the ‘planigraphy’ (or spatial analysis) of the mound and its burials, which follows two lines of enquiry that have so far been largely overlooked. Firstly, the statistics concerning the depth of all types of graves, such as primary and secondary burials, servants’ and horse graves, have been closely examined and compared because this parameter is an important mark of the social status and hierarchy of the deceased and their burials in Scythian funeral ceremonies. Secondly, grave locations within the mounds have been analysed with regard to their arrangement in relation to the ideal latitudinal and meridian axis of the Scythian mound. This analysis has led to the discovery of new facts concerning the planigraphy of the Scythian burial mound, which contribute to a more detailed understanding of the spatial representation of kinship and family hierarchy in Scythian society. The new evidence also sheds light on their system of geographical orientation in terms of cardinal points.

Social transmission bias and the cultural evolution of folk-economic beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Siew Hong Teoh
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
Over Time

AbstractEvolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for asocialexplanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk-economic beliefs over time and across individuals.

When the State Speaks, What Should It Say?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey Brettschneider
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
The State ◽  
Hate Groups ◽  
New Approach ◽  
State Action ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
The Right ◽  
Equal Citizenship ◽  
The Ideal

How should a liberal democracy respond to hate groups and others that oppose the ideal of free and equal citizenship? The democratic state faces the hard choice of either protecting the rights of hate groups and allowing their views to spread, or banning their views and violating citizens' rights to freedoms of expression, association, and religion. Avoiding the familiar yet problematic responses to these issues, this book proposes a new approach called value democracy. The theory of value democracy argues that the state should protect the right to express illiberal beliefs, but the state should also engage in democratic persuasion when it speaks through its various expressive capacities: publicly criticizing, and giving reasons to reject, hate-based or other discriminatory viewpoints. Distinguishing between two kinds of state action—expressive and coercive—the book contends that public criticism of viewpoints advocating discrimination based on race, gender, or sexual orientation should be pursued through the state's expressive capacities as speaker, educator, and spender. When the state uses its expressive capacities to promote the values of free and equal citizenship, it engages in democratic persuasion. By using democratic persuasion, the state can both respect rights and counter hateful or discriminatory viewpoints. The book extends this analysis from freedom of expression to the freedoms of religion and association, and shows that value democracy can uphold the protection of these freedoms while promoting equality for all citizens.

The critical theory of democracy in Western political thought

2020 ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Ruqaya Saeed Khalkhal
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
Science And Politics ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Church ◽  
Theory Of Democracy ◽  
Or Applications ◽  
The Ideal

The darkness that Europe lived in the shadow of the Church obscured the light that was radiating in other parts, and even put forward the idea of democracy by birth, especially that it emerged from the tent of Greek civilization did not mature in later centuries, especially after the clergy and ideological orientation for Protestants and Catholics at the crossroads Political life, but when the Renaissance emerged and the intellectual movement began to interact both at the level of science and politics, the Europeans in democracy found refuge to get rid of the tyranny of the church, and the fruits of the application of democracy began to appear on the surface of most Western societies, which were at the forefront to be doubtful forms of governece.        Democracy, both in theory and in practice, did not always reflect Western political realities, and even since the Greek proposition, it has not lived up to the idealism that was expected to ensure continuity. Even if there is a perception of the success of the democratic process in Western societies, but it was repulsed unable to apply in Islamic societies, because of the social contradiction added to the nature of the ruling regimes, and it is neither scientific nor realistic to convey perceptions or applications that do not conflict only with our civilized reality The political realization created by certain historical circumstances, and then disguises the different reality that produced them for the purpose of resonance in the ideal application.

“The Pain Of Protagonists” Inselected Novels Of Anita Nair

Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 434-438
Author(s):  
R. CELIN DIANA
Keyword(s):  
Family Members ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Social Convention ◽  
Indian Women ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Pain And Suffering ◽  
Simple Life

MRS. R. CELIN DIANA A female is God's lovable creature to balance man. She is mentally and physically weak through creation itself, but she express her feelings unexpectedly in the battle against her. She is even spoiled for that. A women’s picture is a central theme to literature writings around the globe. The writings of Anita Nair is concerned with man, females, nature, true life, and social convention. She explores the existential struggle of her protagonists in most of her novels. Nair describes particularly, how Indian women are exploited, abused, marginalized even in the modern times both by individuals and by the society. Apart from the society women are tossed even by her family members. Anita Nair emphasizes the need for creating awareness in women. Her female protagonists are conscious of the injustice in marriage brought to them.Probably, the protagonists of Nair’s novels denies to flow along the current.  They seem to be adamant or aggressive, but the fact is that they underwent much pain and suffering. Apart from the pain the protagonists are the losers of life, respect, family, dignity and everything. This paper is an effort to bring to light the pathetic conditions of the protagonists,and to study the social, family and economic picture of women's suffering in life. Though the protagonist characters are brave, they seem pathetic and losers of a common simple life, they dream to live. Anita Nair defines circumstances or occurrences that harm or kill characters due to the aggressive nature of characters in her novels.

The World Underfoot

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hallie M. Franks
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
Physiological Reaction ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Foreign Land ◽  
Social Gathering ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Ideal

In the Greek Classical period, the symposium—the social gathering at which male citizens gathered to drink wine and engage in conversation—was held in a room called the andron. From couches set up around the perimeter of the andron, symposiasts looked inward to the room’s center, which often was decorated with a pebble mosaic floor. These mosaics provided visual treats for the guests, presenting them with images of mythological scenes, exotic flora, dangerous beasts, hunting parties, or the specter of Dionysos, the god of wine, riding in his chariot or on the back of a panther. This book takes as its subject these mosaics and the context of their viewing. Relying on discourses in the sociology and anthropology of space, it argues that the andron’s mosaic imagery actively contributed to a complex, metaphorical experience of the symposium. In combination with the ritualized circling of the wine cup from couch to couch around the room and the physiological reaction to wine, the images of mosaic floors called to mind other images, spaces, or experiences, and, in doing so, prompted drinkers to reimagine the symposium as another kind of event—a nautical voyage, a journey to a foreign land, the circling heavens or a choral dance, or the luxury of an abundant past. Such spatial metaphors helped to forge the intimate bonds of friendship that are the ideal result of the symposium and that make up the political and social fabric of the Greek polis.

Conclusion: Rethinking Punishment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didier Fassin
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ideal Language ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Ideal

If punishment is not what we say it is, if it is not justified by the reasons we invoke, if it facilitates repeat offenses instead of preventing them, if it punishes in excess of the seriousness of the act, if it sanctions according to the status of the offender rather than to the gravity of the offense, if it targets social groups defined beforehand as punishable, and if it contributes to producing and reproducing disparities, then does it not itself precisely undermine the social order? And must we not start to rethink punishment, not only in the ideal language of philosophy and law but also in the uncomfortable reality of social inequality and political violence?

Marcel Mauss and the Turn to the Gift

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Colesworthy
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Experimental Writing ◽  
Market Society ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Gift ◽  
New Material ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Leonard Woolf

Chapter 1 takes a cue from recent anthropologists who have stressed the influence of Mauss’s socialism on his sociological work. Returning to Mauss’s The Gift, the chapter argues that what links his essay to the experimental writing of his literary contemporaries is not their shared fascination with the primitive, as other critics have suggested, but rather their shared investment in reimagining social possibilities within market society. Mauss was, as his biographer notes, an “Anglophile.” Shedding light on his admiration of British socialism and especially the work of Beatrice and Sidney Webb—friends of Virginia and Leonard Woolf—as well as competing usages of the language of “gifts” in the social sciences and the arts, the chapter ultimately provides a new material and conceptual framework for understanding the intersection of largely French gift theory and Anglo-American modernist writing.

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