Democracy in the Discourse of Postmodernism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon S. Wolin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Richard Rorty ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
Communist Manifesto ◽  
The Right

This chapter examines the work of Richard Rorty, perhaps the leading philosopher, or lapsed philosopher, of postmodernism. His writings are one of the few, perhaps the only, major attempts to ally postmodernism with liberal democracy, rather than with Marxism or social democracy. He has supplied a focus to his writings that is as remarkable in its way, and as revealing, as the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto. The right questions, he writes in postmodernese, are “like” “What is it to inhabit a rich twentieth-century democratic society?” and “How can an inhabitant of such a society be more than the enactor of a role in a previously written script?” The first question would seem to be simply answered by saying, “Enjoy it.” But the second question carries a note of dissatisfaction; it is certainly not outrage or even sharply critical.

Neo-trasformismo: Historical legacies and populist revolt

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 710-720
Author(s):  
Dylan Riley
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Mixed Model ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Outcome ◽  
Five Star Movement ◽  
The Right ◽  
Historical Legacies

There have been three main types of political outcome from the Great Recession. The first is an insurgency from the left exemplified by Podemos, now in decline, in Spain. It demands a return to classic European social democracy, but presents itself in a more radical rhetorical garb than its mid twentieth century forbears. The second is an insurgency from the right, best exemplified by Hungary’s Victor Orbán and his Fidesz Party. It demands a return to a national capitalism reminiscent of the 1930s. The third is the uniquely Italian phenomenon of the Five Star Movement-Lega combination combined with the rise of technocratic governments called into existence by an increasingly activist presidency. What explains this third, mixed model?

1. Controversial Speakers, Moral Disagreements, and the Middlebury Moment

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Ashley Floyd Kuntz
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Student Protests ◽  
Free Inquiry ◽  
The Right

Abstract Student protests have developed on campuses throughout the country in response to controversial speakers. Overwhelmingly, these protests have been framed as conflicts over the right to free speech and the importance of free inquiry on college campuses. This essay reframes conflicts like these as moral disagreements over the role of individuals and institutions in producing and disseminating knowledge that supports or undermines justice within a pluralistic, democratic society. Using the specific case of Charles Murray’s visit to Middlebury College in spring 2017 and drawing insight from social moral epistemology, the essay aims to clarify the moral concerns at stake in clashes over controversial speakers and to identify possibilities to advance the moral aims of institutions of higher education in response to such events.

The Spanish Church and The Revolutionary Republican Movement, 1930–1931

1962 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-439
Author(s):  
José M. Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Nineteen Thirties ◽  
Republican Movement ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Church

Few subjects in recent history have lent themselves to such heated polemical writing and debate as that concerning the Spanish Church and its relationship to the abortive Spanish revolution of 1931–1939. Throughout this tragic era and especially during the Civil War, it was commonplace to find the Church labelled as reactionary, completely and unalterably opposed to progress, and out of touch with the political realities of the twentieth century.1 In the minds of many whose views were colored by the highly partisan reports of events in Spain during the nineteen thirties, the Church has been pictured as an integral member of the Unholy Triumvirate— Bishops, Landlords, and enerals—which has always conspired to impede Spanish progress. Recent historical scholarship has begun to dispel some of the notions about the right-wing groups,2 but there has been little research on the role of the clergy. Even more important, there has been little understanding of the Church's response to the radical revolutionary movements in Spain.

scholarly journals Mussolini Predicted a Fascist Century: How Wrong Was He?

Fascism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Benito Mussolini ◽  
New Developments ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Right ◽  
Wide Community

In the entry on ‘Fascism’ published in 1932 in the Enciclopedia Italiana, Benito Mussolini made a prediction. There were, he claimed, good reasons to think that the twentieth century would be a century of ‘authority’, the ‘right’: a fascist century (un secolo fascista). However, after 1945 the many attempts by fascists to perpetuate the dreams of the 1930s have come to naught. Whatever impact they have had at a local level, and however profound the delusion that fascists form a world-wide community of like-minded ultranationalists and racists revolutionaries on the brink of ‘breaking through’, as a factor in the shaping of the modern world, their fascism is clearly a spent force. But history is a kaleidoscope of perspectives that dynamically shift as major new developments force us to rewrite the narrative we impose on it. What if we take Mussolini’s secolo to mean not the twentieth century, but the ‘hundred years since the foundation of Fascism’? Then the story we are telling ourselves changes radically.

scholarly journals What Constitutions Can Do (but Courts Sometimes Don’t): Property, Speech, and the Influence of Constitutional Norms on Private Law

2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Gerstenberg
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
Recent Attempt ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
The Right ◽  
Higher Law

In this paper I want to address, against the background of the ECtHR’s recent attempt to resolve the clash between property rights and the right to freedom of expression in its decision in Appleby v. UK, two questions, both of which I take to be related to the overarching theme of “social democracy”. First, there is the problem of the influence of “higher law”-of human rights norms and constitutional norms-on private law norms; second, the question of the role of adjudication in “constitutionalizing” private law, in other words, the question of the “judicial cognizability” of constitutional norms within private law.

Political Autobiography and the Art of the Plausible: R. A. Butler at the Foreign Office, 1938–1939

1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Stafford
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Suez Crisis ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Right ◽  
Enoch Powell

R. A. Butler has been one of the outstanding figures in twentieth-century British politics. After his death The Times described him as ‘the creator of the modern educational system, the key-figure in the revival of post-war Conservatism, arguably the most successful chancellor since the war and un-questionably a Home Secretary of reforming zeal’. His record of achievement was unequalled by his rivals in the contests for the party leadership in 1957 and in 1963, but on both occasions the leadership eluded him. How and why this happened was understandably of the greatest interest to those who reviewed Rab's memoirs, The art of the possible, which were published in 1971. These memoirs won unanimous praise for their literary excellence, but otherwise met with a rather mixed reception. Enoch Powell, one of Rab's supporters in 1963, described them as ‘a work of astonishing self-revelation [belonging] with the classic Confessions. Augustine and Rousseau were not more unsparing of themselves than Rab…’ The ‘large episodes’ of Rab's career, Powell went on, ‘are treated with a generous vision (including, it need not be added, a generosity to Rab) which leaves the reader with improved understanding and perspective’. Powell's comments were echoed by others on the Right, but the Left was more critical. Anthony Howard noted that ‘what tend…to get wholly left out are the mistakes and blunders’ – the now infamous Villacoublay meeting during the Suez crisis; and Rab's astonishing admission to the journalist George Gale during the 1964 campaign that the election was slipping Labour's way. Harold Wilson, who had offered Rab the mastership of Trinity, was perhaps the least charitable of all. He found The art of the possible disappointing because, he claimed, Rab underwrote the great occasions. Rab's reticence about Suez, however, upset Wilson less than the description of his tribulations at the hands of Labour MPs as government spokesman for the policy of non-intervention during the Spanish Civil War. Here was an issue which could excite the older soldiers of the British Left, and if Wilson was alone among Rab's reviewers in making more than passing reference to Rab's association with appeasement this was why.

scholarly journals Hydro Democracy: Water Power and Political Power in Ontario

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Macfarlane ◽  
Andrew Watson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
Rural Residents ◽  
Water Power ◽  
Early Twentieth Century

Drawing on Timothy Mitchell’s Carbon Democracy, and using envirotechnical analysis, we probe how the materiality of energy—public hydropower—influenced democracy and governance in Ontario during the early twentieth century. Within Canada, hydro-electricity disproportionately shaped the politics of Ontario and Canada-US relations during the first half of the century. Within the province, it provided the energy-based affluence that underpinned claims for a liberal and democratic society. But residents experienced the consequences of hydropower unevenly. Urban and industrial residents enjoyed most of the benefits, while rural residents and Indigenous peoples living close to hydro developments endured the burdens of development.

scholarly journals Lviv as the cradle of Polish independence organizations

2021 ◽  
Vol 201 (3) ◽  
pp. 534-545
Author(s):  
Janusz Zuziak
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Social Activists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Lviv occupies a special place in the history of Poland. With its heroic history, it has earned the exceptionally honorable name of a city that has always been faithful to the homeland. SEMPER FIDELIS – always faithful. Marshal Józef Piłsudski sealed that title while decorating the city with the Order of Virtuti Militari in 1920. The past of Lviv, the always smoldering and uncompromising Polish revolutionist spirit, the climate, and the atmosphere that prevailed in it created the right conditions for making it the center of thought and independence movement in the early 20th century. In the early twentieth century, Polish independence organizations of various political orientations were established, from the ranks of which came legions of prominent Polish politicians and military and social activists.

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