scholarly journals A glimpse of African identity through the lens of Togolese literature

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Marie Line J. Charles-Galley
Keyword(s):  
Modern World ◽  
Western World ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
African Identity ◽  
The People ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Modern Identity

Togo, this small West African nation, is still relatively unknown, even in today's jet set world. The western world is only now discovering the numerous advances Togo has made in its social and economic policies, but most of all in its political conjectures. After its Independence on April 27, 1960, Togo had barely begun its journey to democracy when the dictatorship of Gnassingbe Eyadema became the yoke of the people for over thirty-one years, on April 14th, 1967. The consequences of the stranglehold exercised by Gnassingbe was to shut the nation's cultural growth and cause the people to close in onto themselves and build a protective barrier between themselves and the rest of the world. Yet, Togo had great beginnings. It was one of the pioneers of Sub-Saharan literature, publishing in 1929 one of the first true African novels still read today. In 1929, native son Felix Couchoro, was among the first Sub-Saharan authors to write a novel which gave agency to an African protagonist in a story set in Africa, with an African-themed plot, and with a conclusion that aimed at rethinking African society. Couchoro was the first to look deeply into his culture and the social identity of his nation. He brought forth suggestions that would help in Togo's growth and insure its successful battle for Independence. In doing so, however, Couchoro also created great controversy around a subject which continues to plague not only Togolese people, but all Africans who feel pulled in two directions: preserving their authentic traditional customs while taking an active part in the modern world, through economic improvements as well as technological advances. In this dissertation, I will first study Couchoro's flagship novel which was the starting point of this quest for a modern identity, then analyze how subsequent Togolese writers have taken up Couchoro's legacy.

INTERACTION WITH SOCIETY IN DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATION

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-117
Author(s):  
A. K. Aitpayeva ◽  
◽  
Zh. M. Akparova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Education ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Behavioral Models ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
The People ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Younger Generation

In modern psychological and pedagogical science, the concept of "socialization" is interpreted as the process of development and self-development of a person during the assimilation and reproduction of socio-cultural experience. And, of course, it is very important to ensure the successful socialization of the younger generation. In the modern world, the problem of social development of the younger generation is becoming one of the most urgent. Parents and educators are more concerned than ever about what needs to be done to ensure that a child entering this world becomes confident, happy, intelligent, kind, and successful. In this complex process of becoming a person, a lot depends on how the child adapts to the world of people, whether he will be able to find his place in life and realize his own potentialAt first glance, it seems that the social world of a preschool child is small. This is his family, adults and peers, whom he meets in kindergarten. However, the people around the child enter into a variety of relationships — kinship, friendship, professional and labor, etc. Therefore, even at preschool age, children need to form an idea of the diversity of human relations, tell them about the rules and norms of life in society, and equip them with behavioral models that will help them adequately respond to what is happening in specific life situations. In other words, it is necessary to manage the process of socialization.

Unity and Engagement in the Modern World

2021 ◽  
pp. 507-527
Author(s):  
John Halsey Wood
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Western World ◽  
Starting Point

In the midst of the roiling chaos of the nineteenth century, Abraham Kuyper’s Neo-Calvinism was a strategy to maintain a Calvinist unity and engagement with an increasingly disintegrated Western world. The unity Kuyper pursued was of two kinds: intellectual and social. As a thinker, Kuyper valued coherent, interrelated systems. He took as his starting point the systematic Calvinism of Protestant scholastics and the Reformed Confessions as well as Romanticism’s organic impulse which elevated the organic and natural over mechanical and artificial. In addition to a unified mind, Kuyper also pursued a unified Calvinist community, albeit a different kind than imagined by earlier Calvinists. Under the pressures of modernity, Kuyper didn’t pursue a repristinated Calvinist culture, but a renewed Calvinist subculture.

Walter Bagehot and Liberal Realism

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Easton
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Past ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Contemporary Liberalism

In the decline of his life, a disappointed man might well ask himself what destiny would have held in store for him if at some crucial juncture of his maturity he had accepted the earnest advice of a solicitous friend or even of a keen-sighted foe. Today liberalism is confronted with a similar question. It is on the defensive in all parts of the Western world except in the United States. Even there its position is deceptive. Perhaps it survives tenuously under the artificial protective canvas of postwar inflation. Today one can hardly question this threatened eclipse of liberalism. Because of this foreboding, disturbing questions haunt the liberal. What deficiency in liberalism is leading to the abandonment of its tenets throughout Europe? Was there counsel offered and ignored in the past which might have retarded the infirmities of age?The answer to the first question has long been apparent. Yet in practice contemporary liberalism, both of the progressive and nineteenth-century varieties, has never assimilated its essential meaning. Following the French Revolution and the English Reform Act, liberalism began its long history of divorcing theory from practice. In the splendor of Victorian industrial success, this separation was not driven into the consciousness either of the intellectual leaders or of the people. But with the tension, domestic and international, of the eighties, liberals themselves, like T. H. Green and then Hobhouse, undertook the task of correcting some of the glaring discrepancies between the doctrine and the reality. In the light of the basically abstract character of liberalism, these collectivist renovations now appear like amateurish tinkering with a vastly complex apparatus.Liberal doctrine had indeed long been suffering from a negative attitude toward the state. But this was simply a diagnostic symptom of an even deeper defect: liberalism's unconscionable indifference to the material conditions of society, and its ensuing failure to put its theories to the test of the social reality.

Macro/Micro Dynamics in South Africa: Why the Reconciliation Process Will Not Reduce Violence

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingie Hovland
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
The People ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Reconciliation Process

The reconciliation process in South Africa has been hailed as an astounding example of a non-violent transition to democracy, and its Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has subsequently served as the starting point for reflections on reconciliation, transitional justice and the possibility of truth commissions in other countries. This article suggests that it is necessary to examine South Africa's reconciliation process more critically, focusing on why it has not brought about a reduction in the high levels of violence. It is argued that the reconciliation process has failed in this respect - despite good intentions - because it has not managed to transform the macro/micro dynamic in South Africa, i.e. the interaction between macro-level divisions and micro-level tensions which have fed off each other throughout South Africa's history. Macro-level violence has included - and still includes - economic policies that generate wealth for a minority while perpetuating the production of poverty for the majority. Micro-level violence includes extremely high levels of violent incidents at an interpersonal and local level. The use of the concept ‘reconciliation’ in post-apartheid South Africa may in certain respects have served as opium for the people - opium that has enabled continued accommodation of the interaction between macro and micro-level violence in the country.

scholarly journals Renaisans Eropa dan Transmisi Keilmuan Islam ke Eropa

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Hasyim Asy'ari
Keyword(s):  
Modern World ◽  
Western World ◽  
Secular Humanism ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Philosophy Of Life ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
Art Philosophy ◽  
European Civilization

<p><em>Renaissance are so important and considered historians as the starting point for the development of European civilization. First, European people succeed many achievement in various sector, namely: art, philosophy, literature, science, politics, education, religion, trade and others. Second, Renaissanse has revived the ideals, the realm of thought, the philosophy of life which then structures the standards of the modern world such as optimism, hedonism, naturalism and individualism. Third, the Ancient Greeks and Rome legacies need to revived. Fourth, the incorporation of secular humanism that shifts the human thinking orientation from the theocentric to the anthropocentric. Science had the transmission, dissemination, and proliferation to the Western world that supports the epoch of the Renaissance in Europe. Through the Islamic World, the Western world gained access to deepen and modernized science.</em></p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> <em>Renaissance,</em><strong> </strong><em>scientific transmission</em>, <em>Islam in Europe</em>.<strong></strong></p>

scholarly journals ON PERSONS AND ELEMENTALS: LATE-SOVIET SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY FROM MARXIST HUMANISM TO THE IDEA OF HOMO SOVIETICUS

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (47) ◽  
pp. 11-52
Author(s):  
Sergei Alymov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
The People ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Marxist Humanism ◽  
Homo Sovieticus

The article considers the ideas of personality, humanity, and society in the works of four prominent Russian philosophers and sociologists: G. Batishchev (1932–1990), A. Zinovyev (1922–2006), Yu. Levada (1930–2006), and M. Mamardashvili (1930–1990). The main argument of the article is that the social philosophy of these thinkers evolved along similar lines, which the author describes as an evolution from Marxist humanism to the idea of the society of “Homo Sovieticus”. Comparing the notions of personhood and society expressed in the works of these thinkers, the author traces the shift in their conceptualization. Its starting point was a vision of a harmonious relations between the interests of the person and (Soviet) society. The endpoint was quite the opposite — the idea of their incompatibility. In the late period of their work, the philosophers developed a highly pessimistic view of social life in general. They saw it as a suffocating “communality”, while the people that inhabited it were perceived as semi-illusionary macabre creatures who lived by “natural” social laws. They viewed “civilization” as an antidote to “natural” sociality. At the same time, they developed survival strategies for presumed highly-spiritual “persons” in this harsh environment. The author argues that this intellectual trajectory might be a result of the institutional marginalization and ideological critique aimed at these philosophers. The article also analyses the discussion about the subject matter of philosophy in the late 1960s to early 1970s. It demonstrates that the discussion resulted in an unsuccessful attempt at realizing the development of Marxist humanist anthropology in the USSR. The article is based on fresh archival material which also includes an analysis of the criticism expressed against G. Batishchev and Yu. Levada for their “ideologically incorrect” understanding of the notion of the “person”.

‘From the Congested Districts’

J. M. Synge ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136-168
Author(s):  
Seán Hewitt
Keyword(s):  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
The People ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Thought Patterns ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Aran Islands

While travelling in the ‘Congested Districts’ of Mayo and Connemara with Jack Yeats in early summer 1905, on commission for The Manchester Guardian, Synge wrote a short vignette which he later added to the fourth part of his as-yet-unpublished prose narrative, The Aran Islands. The vignette in question takes the form of an inserted ‘set piece’ in which a crow is found trying to smash a golf ball. Here, the manuscript reveals the effects of the Guardian commission in confirming Synge’s oppositions to modernization in the west of Ireland and in prompting an increasing irony towards his earlier Romanticism. Taking this ‘set piece’ as its starting point, this chapter mobilizes Synge’s reading in socialism, and his correspondence and drafts for the Guardian commission, to demonstrate the writer’s socialist proclivities and to chart their nuances. Drawing on the earlier chapters of the book, this chapter shows that Synge’s socialism is rooted in nature and mystical experience, and in thought patterns borrowed from Spencerian evolutionism: he opposes modernization when it takes on a homogenizing form which he perceives as anti-nature. By showing that for Synge the aesthetic is politicized, and the political aestheticized, this chapter also registers a recalibrated Synge, evolving a more modernist response to his own notoriety. It concludes by positing the revision of his subsequent article, ‘The People of the Glens’, as a measure of an increasingly ironic sensibility, leading into the elaborate ironical, political structures of his final completed play, The Playboy of the Western World.

African Identity, Cultural Knowledge and the Imperative of Endogenous Development for Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Felix O. Olatunji
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Endogenous Development ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Common Goal ◽  
African Identity ◽  
The People ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
The Social ◽  
Do So

Abstract The search for knowledge is a fact of any human society in the quest for development, as it is in the nature of human species to do so. This is geared towards humanisation of the society in the attainment of positive social change, which cannot be realised without adequate and informed knowledge from the culture of the people. This form of knowledge is seen from the identity of the people, focusing on the social change of their society. The creation of a national consciousness is a crucial component of the society as it (consciousness) presupposes identity, seen as the heart of any culture that motivates the collective common goal of the people. This paper, using the analytic methodology in the philosophical discipline, therefore argues that the acceptance of cultural knowledge from the platform of its identity in the quest for development in Africa is a conditio sine qua non.

scholarly journals ХРИШЋАНСКО ВАСПИТАЊЕ И МОДЕРНА ПЕДАГОШКА МИСАО

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
Ивица Живковић
Keyword(s):  
Christian Education ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Western World ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
Maria Montessori ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Historical Periods

Christian pedagogy is based in a specific pedagogical approach which, through all the historical periods, represents more than same possible new doctrine, new pedagogical theory or system of pedagogical comprehensions in the world. In this article we review Christian education by several most general principles, among which the most important are: the starting point of the faith in God, the specific relationship of love for child and the awareness of human sin. Furthermore we explore the opinion of some relevant researchers who claimed that the significance attributed to child in the history of pedagogical thought is related to the more profound penetration of Christian religion into the customs and perceptions of the Western world. The influence of Christianity is also apparent in the emancipatory tendencies of pedagogical classics, first of all in the attitudes of Maria Montessori, whose interpretation of Christ’s words on children may be quoted as one of the greatest challenges for the contemporary understanding about the child issue. The status of child and grown-ups in the modern world imposes certain perplexities, and Christian pedagogy can propose some material contribution to their resolution.

scholarly journals Making of Representations of the Religious Adherent Engaged in Politics

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-179
Author(s):  
Anne Fisker-Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Personal Interaction ◽  
The People ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Soka Gakkai ◽  
The Subject

In this paper, I present two ethnographic examples of young Japanese who as members of the lay Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai in Japan support the political party Komeito. I highlight that concord about interpretations of meaning between the anthropologist and the interlocutors makes for different understanding of motivation and subsequently for different representations. While the anthropologist’s work in most cases remains an ethnographic account written by the researcher, fieldwork and personal interaction with people who are regarded as interlocutors rather than subjects of study help to make the subject community, not the observer, the people who set the criteria for representation. This does not exclude a critical approach to the social phenomenon researched, but a closer understanding of the paradigmatic position of the people whom one writes about can, with careful reflection, help to overcome the particular biases of structural objectivism. While this position may have its own biases, the starting point is the participation of the anthropologist in inter-cultural discourse with the people studied, rather than an authority who has the last say on the matter. This is looking at social phenomena from the level of meaning, aiming to understand social tendencies to action rather than from a position that asks questions about facticity from a deductive approach about an abstract empirical reality.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document