scholarly journals Myth, Utopia, and Political Action

Human Affairs ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Mendel

Myth, Utopia, and Political ActionStarting from the premise that some form of "reality transcendence", i.e. the ability to imagine a different reality and reach out for the (un)thinkable, is necessary for political action, the aim of this paper is to analyse the concepts of myth and utopia elaborated by Georges Sorel and Karl Mannheim and to examine their possible contributions to a theory of political action and social change. By comparing the role the authors assign to rationality and irrationality in human affairs, methodological and conceptual differences between Sorel's and Mannheim's approaches to the political are illustrated. It turns out that due to its immunity to critique Sorel's concept of the social myth is highly problematic. Mannheim's concept of utopia, on the other hand, culminates in a technocratic understanding of the political. Though both approaches emphasise the collective dimension of political action, they ultimately exhibit elitist understandings of the political.

1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Minogue

LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I FIND KARL POPPER BOTH FASCINATING and irritating. His vigour and lucidity are irresistible, and no one could complain that he fails to engage with the big questions. The problems begin when we consider his political thought. Some think him one of the great liberal philosophers of the century. I on the other hand, while being fascinated by The Open Society and its Enemies, am repelled by the grossness of its caricaturing of most of the thinkers it touches. The Poverty of Historicism is a marvellous text in the philosophy of the social sciences, but the idea of historicism is a straw man. The paradox seems to be that while there is a lot that refers to the political questions of the day, there is virtually nothing which takes up issues of political philosophy directly. The result is that he seems to me always to be on the wrong foot, and my problem is to discover why.


Dharma Duta ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tardi Edung

Social change is bound to happen and this continues as long as there is life on this earth. Increasing the individual's social status in society occurs in accordance with the profession occupied, change and increase one's position is absolutely there. How is the social status of an individual seen from the teachings of boarding chess. The problematic of life is quite diverse and complex, requiring individuals to live governed by the rules, norms and rules that exist in that society and none of them may deny it. Caste is the profession of a person in society who forms themselves in groups, natural arrangements. Color / caste depicts the characteristic spirit which is synthesis in Hindu mind with belief towards collaboration from race and cooperation from culture, caste system is the result of tolerance and belief. On the other hand racial color / caste is the emphasis of definite differences in human groups that cannot possibly be erased or destroyed by social change. This teaching determines whether an individual is respectable or not in his position in a homogeneous and multicultural society based on values ​​and norms as a rule of life. Transition of individual social status is adjusted to the profession occupied in society, both based on knowledge, appreciation in the form of honor and power. Changes in the profession can occur because of science, maturation of a household, self-introspection and leaving all positions in this world to more complex stages. Boarding Chess gives direction to the position of individuals in society


ALQALAM ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 171
Author(s):  
Muhammad Iqbal

The Sunni doctrine plays an important role in the government. Its accommodative characteristic is something important that makes Sunni doctrine to be a device of the legitimation of the authority. The Muslim thinkers of classical Sunni such as al-Mawardi (975-1058 M), al-Ghazali (1058-1111 M) and lbn Taimiyah(1263-1329 M) have a great role in formulating the political doctrine of Sunni. In spite of the different nuance, all of these three classical Sunni thinkers develop the moderate political doctrine of Sunni. On the one hand, it is, of course, significant in situating the harmonious relation between the ruler and community. Therefore, the social and political stabilities will be well-maintained On the other hand, such a thought for a certain extent evokes stagnancy. Because there is no radical thought which is critical and opposite against the authority, the Sunni idea is frequently made use for the instantaneous interests of power. On evenlttally, the mutual interrelationship between the Sunni ulama and the ruler often happens. While ulama feel obtaining the patronage from the authority, the ruler gains religious justification from ulama. In this context, Indonesia as the country with the majority of Sunni Muslims, as a matter of fact, applies the political doctrine of Sunni. It is because Sunni has had a long and establishei root since. the period of Islamic kingdoms in the archipelago, before Dutch-Colonial period. The archipelago ulama also formulated the harmonious relation between Islam and authority as formulated by the ulama of classical Sunni. The polotical tradition of Sunni was becoming stronger in line with the great influence of ulama in the archipelago kingdoms. This article tries to elaborate the relation between the Sunni ulama with the power of the kings in the archipelago and the patronage of the archipelago rulers toward them.


2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 125-136
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Liżyńska ◽  
Anna Płońska

The authoritarian ideology that guided the authorities of the communist Polish state did not remain indifferent to the emerging model of jurisprudence in petty offence cases. Eliminating the possibility of court proceedings, the location of adjudicating boards in petty offence cases at national councils, the introduction of collegial jurisprudence exercised by the social factor, giving the jurisprudence an educational character, and abandoning it in favour of severe penalties implemented for hooligan petty offences — these are just some of the features that distinguish the jurisprudence model in petty offence cases in the People’s Republic of Poland. The pursuit of the authorities to subordinate the individuals by, on the one hand, handing over the jurisprudence in petty offence cases into the hands of the people, and, on the other hand, filling the adjudication boards with members subordinate to the authority, did not bring independence in the decisions issued. It is evidenced, for example, by the excessive repressive adjudication boards judgments issued against participants of the political crisis of March 1968. The Authors present the development of the model of jurisprudence in petty offence cases in the controversial period of the communist regime.


Author(s):  
GerShun Avilez

This chapter shows how artists recognize the political reading of sex and use it to examine the social realm and the intimate realm simultaneously, ultimately illustrating a disintegration of the distinction between the two. Cecil Brown's Black Arts novel The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger (1969) provides an extended look at hypersexual masculinity in hopes of exhibiting its flaws. On the other hand, Jayne Cortez's Black Arts poetry collections Pissstained Stairs and the Monkey Man's Wares (1969) and Festivals and Funerals (1971) turn their attention to limiting constructions of Black femininity and sexual minority existence that impede self-definition. The chapter also highlights Darieck Scott's experimental novel Traitor to the Race (1995) because it presents queer desire specifically as having the potential to disrupt social meaning.


1977 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael L. Perlin

In discussing the legal status of the psychologist in the courtroom, the more important but hidden issue of the social status of the psychologist must also be explored. Thus, although psychologists now routinely testify as expert witnesses on a whole range of issues in criminal and civil matters, a perception lingers in the minds of judges and jurors that the psychologist is a “second-rate” expert compared to the forensic psychiatrist. The roots of this assumption are examined, and it is suggested that psychologists themselves have helped perpetuate this myth. On the other hand, psychologists clearly do have special skills and techniques uniquely preparing them for certain courtroom work; in addition, participation in the judicial process enables psychologists to serve as advocates for social change. Psychologists must thus confront the background of the anticourtroom bias and educate all participants in the litigation process as to the need for appropriate psychological testimony.


Paideusis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-50
Author(s):  
Christopher Martin

This paper seeks to address what I claim are competing utopian and anti-utopian impulses within educational discourse aimed at formulating a just and fair conception of public education. On the one hand, there is a tendency to prescribe concrete utopias – normative blueprints that claim to portent how a redeemed public education will (and ought to) be. On the other hand, there is the tendency to prescribe material revolutions – strategic blueprints that dictate the kinds of political action that educators must undertake in order to bring about lasting social change. I argue that both of these approaches to formulating a just conception of public education are flawed for pragmatic as well as normative reasons. As a way of avoiding the pitfalls inherent to utopianism and anti-utopianism, I suggest that those of us interested in a just conception of education maintain our focus on a kind of pragmatic utopianism. While pragmatic utopianism requires that we abandon the notion that we can ever know what a redeemed public education will look like in its particulars, it does set out standards of deliberation that can increase the likelihood that we will be able to address issues of educational justice as they arise.


Pólemos ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-89
Author(s):  
Katariina Kaura-aho

Abstract The article analyses the political meaning of silence by reflecting on the communicative, autonomous and aesthetic function of silence in context of prevailing political speech systems. In the article, silence is interpreted as an active communication form, as an activist protest tactic and as an aesthetic practice. The article argues that silence can have a politically subversive function toward prevailing aesthetically organised speech systems.Conventionally, silence is devalued in Western societies that primarily celebrate the expressive and communicative capacity of verbal speech. In theorising about radically egalitarian politics, it is however crucial to note the various ways in which silence can be an important source of power. Silence holds the potential for certain active political change in current legal-political frameworks. On the one hand, silence can enable new communication forms and actualise alternative political solidarities and attachments. Also, the logic of oppressive speech systems can be resisted through silent political action. On the other hand, it is in an individual’s own practices of silence, ones that silent protests can bring about in their aftermath, where the sensibility of prevailing political speech orders can be rearranged. The article analyses these many meanings of political silence.


Conatus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Christoforos Efthimiou

The concept of political difference concerns the distinction between politics and the political. The political refers to the ontological making possible of the different domains of society, including the domain of politics in the narrow sense. Political difference was introduced as a reaction to the theoretical controversy between foundationalism and anti-foundationalism. This reaction took the form of post-foundationalism. According to Marchart, post-foundationalism does not entirely deny the possibility of grounding. It denies only the possibility of an ultimate transcendent foundation insofar as this ontological impossibility makes possible the historical and contingent grounds in plural.The Heideggerian concept of ontological difference also undermines the possibility of an ultimate ontical ground which establishes the presence of all the other beings. If one wants to think beyond the concept of ground, one should obtain a clear understanding of Being as Being, namely one should grasp the Being in its difference from beings. All the same, Heidegger tends to replace the ontical grounds of metaphysics with Being itself as a new kind of ultimate ontological foundation.On the other hand, one can detect in many points of Heideggerian argumentation traces of a second alternative understanding of ontological difference which does not belong in Heidegger’s intentions and which undermines the primordiality of Being. This alternative understanding establishes a reciprocity between Being and beings. In our view, political difference not only is based in this second way of understanding but, at the same time, develops more decisively the mutual interdependence between Being and beings.In political difference the grounding part, namely the political, possesses both a grounding character and a derivative one. Politics and political both grounds and dislocate each other in an incessant and oscillating, historical procedure which undermines any form of completion of the social.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 197
Author(s):  
Fathurrahman Azhari

Abstract: The Dynamics of Social Change and Islamic Law are related each other in making a change. In the one hand,  social changeis caused by the Islamic law, but on the other hand, the change of Islamic law itself is causedby the social changes. The existence of Islamic law, which was brought  by Rasulullah Saw, had clearly changed the social community at that time;the changes started from jahiliyyah societyera that strongly held  their  tradition to the Islamic societyera that held Islamic law.By the same token, Islamic law had also made a change due to social changes. According to juries-prudency of Islamic law(regulations made by fukaha/Islamic cleric) that thechange of the fatwa (advice) was caused by the change of the periode, place, situation (niat) and tradition".  By doing the change of law, the Islamic law becomes dynamic, and adaptable and islamic lawswould be up to date in accordance with the current development and the social changes.الملخص: الدينا ميكية الاجتماعية والأحكام الشرعية مرتبطان في إيجاد التغير. من جهة كان التغير الاجتماعي بسبب وجود الأحكام الشرعية. ومن جهة اخرى تغيّر الحكم الشرعي بسبب التغيّر الاجتماعى . وجود الشريعة الاسلامية التي أتى بها الرسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم غيّرت - بوضوح - المجتمعات فى ذلك الوقت من مجتمعات جاهلية متمسكة بالعادات إلى مجتمعات إسلامية متمسكة بالشريعة الاسلامية. ولكن الأحكام الشرعية أيضا تتغير بسبب التغير الاجتماعي الموافق بالقاعدة الفقهية التي وضعها الفقهاء " تغير الفتوى بتغير الزمان والمكان والاحوال والعادة " فبتغير الاحكام  تكون الأحكام الشرعية مرنة، عطوفة، لينة، قابلة للمواجهة ، اذن كانت الأحكام الشرعية قابلة للتجديد ومناسبة بتطور الزمان والتغير الاجتماعي. Abstrak: Dinamika sosial dan hukum Islam saling memiliki keterkaitan dalam melakukan perubahan. Satu sisi perubahan sosial karena hukum Islam. Di sisi lain, perubahan hukum Islam karena  perubahan sosial. Keberadaan hukum Islam yang dibawa oleh Rasulullah Saw. dengan jelas merubah sosial masyarakat pada waktu itu dari masyarakat jahiliyyah yang berpegang kepada adat kebiasaan mereka menjadi masyarakat Islam yang berpegang kepada hukum Islam. Tetapi hukum Islam juga melakukan perubahan karena terjadinya perubahan sosial. Sesuai dengan kaidah fikih yang dibuat oleh fuqaha: “berubahnya fatwa dengan sebab berubahnya masa, tempat, keadaan (niat) dan adat kebiasaan.” Dengan melakukan perubahan hukum, maka hukum Islam itu dinamis, dan mampu beradaptasi, sehingga hukum Islam itu op tu date sesuai dengan perkembangan zaman dan perubahan sosial.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document