This paper examines Theodor W. Adorno’s notion of democratic pedagogy and the role of emotions in re-educating and democratizing a society, particularly in light of the current political situation in many countries around the world in which right-wing extremism is on the rise. The paper revisits Adorno’s educational thought on critical self-reflection, focusing on his views on educating emotions and the tensions between democratic pedagogy and a schooling of the emotions. It is argued that Adorno’s contribution to discussions of the role of emotion in education and his suggestions about how to resist and counteract fascism and right-wing extremism are not only illuminating today, but also provide remarkable clarity and force of argumentation in educational efforts to create critical spaces in the classroom in which moral and political learning does not end up a form of sentimental manipulation.
Recently, the world has experienced a wave of violent protest, and in particular Islamist and right-wing extremism have become increasing challenges for many societies. We argue that especially the experience of relative deprivation, that is the perception that oneself or one’s group is undeservingly worse off than others, can explain various, contemporary forms of violent extremism, including (a) low-power groups’ violent attempts to challenge the unequal status quo, (b) high-power groups’ violent defense of their privileged position, and sometimes even (c) people’s violent attempt to help out-groups in need. In light of recent research and growing social inequalities, we expect relative deprivation to be a key factor driving violent extremism across cultures and contexts in the 21st century.
“The Book of Tribulations by Nu`aym b. Hammad al-Marwazi (d. 844) is the earliest Muslim apocalyptic work to come down to us. Its contents focus upon the cataclysmic events to happen before the end of the world, the wars against the Byzantines, and the Turks, and the Muslim civil wars. There is extensive material about the Mahdi (messianic figure), the Muslim Antichrist and the return of Jesus, as well as descriptions of Gog and Magog. Much of the material in Nu`aym today is utilized by Salafi-jihadi groups fighting in Syria and Iraq.
In conjunction with the current “revisionism” of English history from a Catholic viewpoint, it is time to undertake a corresponding revision of the plays and personality of William Shakespeare. For this purpose it is not enough to rest content with the meagre historical record, but we have to go ahead in the light of recusant history with a reinterpretation of the plays, considering the extent to which they lend themselves to the Catholic viewpoint. This is not merely a matter of nostalgia for the mediaeval past, but it looks above all to the present sufferings of the “disinherited” English Catholics — in the light of the continued presence of Christ who is suffering, as Pascal famously noted, in his faithful even till the end of the world.
In several late texts, Derrida meditated on Paul Celan's poem ‘Grosse, Glühende Wölbung’, in which the departure of the world is announced. Delving into the ‘origin’ and ‘history’ of the ‘conception’ of the world, this paper suggests that, for Derrida, the end of the world is determined by and from death—the death of the other. The death of the other marks, each and every time, the absolute end of the world.
There is something more catastrophic than the end of the world, especially when ‘world’ is understood as the horizon of meaning and expectation that has composed the West. If the Anthropocene is the geological period marking the point at which the earth as a living system has been altered by ‘anthropos,’ the Trumpocene marks the twenty-first-century recognition that the destruction of the planet has occurred by way of racial violence, slavery and annihilation. Rather than saving the world, recognizing the Trumpocene demands that we think about destroying the barbarism that has marked the earth.
Beyond Prepper Culture as Right-wing Extremism: Selling Preparedness to Everyday Consumers as How to Survive the End of the World on a Budget
