Suspending Events, Loving the Margin: Solitude According to Barthes

Paragraph ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-71
Author(s):  
SABINE HILLEN
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Collective Experience ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Collective Enterprise ◽  
The Way

In our contemporary society one would be tempted to see solitude as the result of individualism. The most striking idea Barthes developed in Comment vivre ensemble was the way in which solitude could be lived as a collective experience. This collective enterprise was not the result of a selfish retreat devoted to personal preoccupations. It fulfilled itself rather as an action dedicated to the other. In front of this singular way of seeing, the question arises how Barthes conceived this culture of distance as a ‘social’ action. Is it correct to present this ideological pathway as a form of courtesy, implying that others do not need to be confronted with the inner life of the individual? Taking these preliminary thoughts as a keystone, my article explores the content Barthes gives to his so-called socialisme des distances and how texts of early mystical societies develop this notion of distance.

Newman and the Spiritual Crisis of the Occident

1947 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-246
Author(s):  
Otto Karrer
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
The Common ◽  
Religious Mind ◽  
Long Life ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Spiritual Conflicts

Newman's is perhaps the most illustrious religious mind in the modern Anglo-Saxon world. Exactly half of his long life (1801–1890) was devoted to the Anglican Church, the other half to the Catholic. However clear and unequivocal his conversion, his intellectual position is nevertheless the same in both periods. The sources of his inner life stem from the revelation of the Eternal, which came to him when he was fifteen years old and never left him his whole life long. His philosophical thinking is influenced by English empiricism that involves an attitude of restraint concerning intellectual speculation. It is in conformity with the English love of the concrete, of the individual-personal element and, with due respect to the spirit of tradition, of Christian freedom. And even though Newman's theology is rooted in ancient Christian tradition, his missionary conscience is directed towards the future, towards the spiritual conflicts of the twentieth century. Their unfolding he sensed with astonishing prevision. Just as his sermons and writings are divided almost equally between the two periods of his life (with the exception of perhaps one decade at the height of his career, in which he saw himself doomed almost to inactivity because of tragic misunderstandings), so his life's work has become the common possession of all Christendom, first, in his native land and, then, increasingly in other countries. For what Newman has to say actually concerns the whole Christian world.

Edward Allworth: Cultural Revival and the Role of Writers

1989 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-67
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Human Dimension ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Cultural Revival ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way ◽  
Literature And Language

We have come to the human dimension in this discussion. It would, therefore, be useful for us to consider two different ways of approaching this. One is talking about people at arm's length, in the way we have been doing most of the day; to a certain extent we have had to do so, as social scientists or even as humanists. I am going to try the other approach, namely, to talk about a few individuals to see if there is anything there that might help us in understanding the nationality question. My subject is literature and language. First, I will cover literature as an instrument, as something of interest to social scientists; and then I will discuss certain important individuals. As far as the nationality question is concerned, the individual does matter, although, it seems, the Party places that aspect at the bottom of its list of nationality concerns deemed important.

Another view of the Pergamon divination kit

2002 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 188-198
Author(s):  
Richard Gordon
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Circular Disc ◽  
Similar Triangle ◽  
Greek Alphabet ◽  
Major Section ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Way

It is very welcome that A. Mastrocinque (above) has re-opened the dossier relating to the Pergamon Zaubergerät, first published by R. Wünsch almost a century ago. The discovery in 1977 of a very similar ‘triangle’ in the Maison du Cerf at Apamea seemed to confirm Wünsch's account of the kit as the equipment required to perform a type of divination very similar to that described in Hilarius' confession relating to the seance of A.D. 371. My remarks are not directly concerned with the possible theurgic background of the Pergamon kit, though I admit I am rather sceptical of it. I wish rather to take the opportunity to reconsider the kit as a whole, in the light of the find from Apamea.The problem is easily outlined. Rhetorically, Wünsch's commentary leads up to a kind of revelation, the disclosure of the true sense of the kit as whole. In the last major section of his account, Wünsch discussed each object in turn, noting the use of similar objects in diverse magical contexts. For his interpretation the crucial apparatus was the inscribed disc, which has 24 fields in the three outer circles, that is, the number of letters in the Greek alphabet. That implied an alphabet-oracle, and it was then easy to point to Ammianus' already famous report. It is his story of the ‘wizard at work’ that caught the imagination of his readers, the story of the polished stones used as protective amulets, the ring hung from the nail over the circular disc, which was moved by the handle to create words or sentences from the signs inscribed on its surface. But if one looks closely at the disc, it is very difficult (indeed, in my view impossible) to credit that it could have served as an alphabet-oracle or anything similar. If so, does the disc belong to the triangular support at all? Can the other appliances be understood differently from the way Wünsch suggested? My argument is that we might read much of his own commentary as undercutting the final disclosure that depends so heavily on Hilarius, and that we should revert to his own initial conception of an ensemble, a group of instruments with a variety of ritual uses. Indeed, there are reasons for thinking that the individual items were not conceived as a group, but rather assembled over time from various sources as a collection. I incline to understand the ensemble as not so much a ‘kit’ as a rag-bag collection.

warning; or, on a different plane, referring to people or things, presupposing the existence of people or things or the truth of propositions, and implicating mean-ings which are not overtly expressed. The idea of uttering as acting is an impor-tant one, and it is also central to CLS in the form of the claim, that discourse is social practice. The main weakness of pragmatics from a critical point of view is its individ-ualism: ‘action’ is thought of atomistically as emanating wholly from the individ-ual, and is often conceptualized in terms of the ‘strategies’ adopted by the individual speaker to achieve her ‘goals’ or ‘intentions’. This understates the extent to which people are caught up in, constrained by, and indeed derive their individual iden-tities from social conventions, and gives the implausible impression that conven-tionalized ways of speaking or writing are ‘reinvented’ on each occasion of their use by the speaker generating a suitable strategy for her particular goals. And it correspondingly overstates the extent to which people manipulate language for strate-gic purposes. Of course, people do act strategically in certain circumstances and use conventions rather than simply following them; but in other circumstances they do simply follow them, and what one needs is a theory of social action – social practice – which accounts for both the determining effect of conventions and the strategic creativity of individual speakers, without reducing practice to one or the other. The individuals postulated in pragmatics, moreover, are generally assumed to be involved in cooperative interactions whose ground rules they have equal con-trol over, and to which they are able to contribute equally. Cooperative interac-tion between equals is elevated into a prototype for social interaction in general, rather than being seen as a form of interaction whose occurrence is limited and socially constrained. The result is an idealized and Utopian image of verbal inter-action which is in stark contrast with the image offered by CLS of a sociolinguistic order moulded in social struggles and riven with inequalities of power. Pragmatics often appears to describe discourse as it might be in a better world, rather than discourse as it is. Pragmatics is also limited in having been mainly developed with reference to single invented utterances rather than real extended discourse, and central notions like ‘speech act’ have turned out to be problematic when people try to use them to analyse real discourse. Finally, Anglo-American pragmatics bears the scars of the way in which it has developed in relation to ‘linguistics proper’. While it has provided a space for investigating the interdependence of language and social con-text which was not available before its inception, it is a strictly constrained space, for pragmatics tends to be seen as an additional ‘level’ of language study which fills in gaps left by the more ‘core’ levels of grammar and semantics. Social con-text is acknowledged but kept in its place, which does it less than justice.

2005 ◽  
pp. 132-132
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Conventions ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Additional Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Theory Of Social Action

Building Scaffolds

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Botin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Technological Society ◽  
Critical Constructivism ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Way

Critical Constructivism and postphenomenology are two possible ways of describing, analysing and evaluating the role and meaning of technology in contemporary society and world. Whereas Critical Constructivism looks at the way technologies are dealt with on a macro level considering systems and programs, then postphenomenology digs into the individual and personal appropriation and understanding of technology in everyday life. This means that there is a gap for what concerns levels, but also in relation to what they want to accomplish. The critical stance of Andrew Feenberg in conceiving societal and political problems as ripe for radical technological change is met by postphenomenology’s pragmatic focus on how to build appropriate and meaningful structures for handling of emergent and imminent problems together with and through technology. This paper tries to bridge this gap by introducing the concept of scaffolding, which is inspired by Heidegger’s “Gestell,” but re-read in a new and different way than the usual pessimistic and deterministic interpretation where exploitation and “enframing” is at hand. Scaffolding is read as a common enterprise where we stretch and reach out towards each other in order to create platforms for interventions and activism. The paper is an attempt to direct this common enterprise in specific directions, and this directedness is indicative for our aims and goals. It is the claim that Critical Constructivism and postphenomenology should meet, and perform a certain kind of Techno-Activism when confronted with problems in technological society.

scholarly journals Politics and theOresteia

1982 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 124-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. W. Macleod
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Political Message ◽  
The Individual

As a drama and a poem theEumenidesis often regarded with unease. It brings theOresteiato a conclusion; but its account of Athens and the Areopagus seems to many readers inspired more by patriotism (of whatever partisan tinge) than a sense of dramatic unity. Hence much attention has been devoted to Aeschylus' supposed political message in the play; as a result, the question of its fitness to crown the trilogy recedes into the background or even vanishes. On the other hand, those whose concern is with Aeschylus' poetry tend to ignore his ‘politics’. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to vindicate Aeschylus the artist: to show, that is, how the founding of the homicide court and the cult of the Semnai on the Areopagus in Athens properly marks the end of the troubles of the Argive Atridae, and how the sufferings and guilt of individual men and women are resolved in a city's institutions. In pursuing this aim, it also has to consider, and try to define, the relation of the tragedian to his audience and to contemporary society. My concern, then, is with the individual and the community, both within the play and behind it.

Situations

2020 ◽  
pp. 42-76
Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
The Way

This chapter describes the characteristics of situations that shape the way religious activities and experiences take place. It looks into practices that are influenced by the discrete physical and temporal spaces in which social action occurs. It also illustrates how practices are constructed by the actors involved and in interaction with the other people who may be present, including physical objects such as rooms, furniture, and food. The chapter reviews the study that is conducted using ethnographic methods that directly take account of interactions. It analyzes survey that is based on archival research that emphasizes how religious practices make use of and bear the imprint of the situations in which they occur.

Introduction

2015 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Library User ◽  
The Way

The liberation of learning is a prelude to the expansion of the personal conscience—this expansion is the first of two of the only natural freedoms given to the individual, the other being the employment of one’s physical, mental, and emotional abilities in accord with that conscience—and becomes the foundation of all other rights and corruptions that both bless and plague every society ever created by mankind. This is fundamental and explains why universal learning is necessary for any kind of progress in the way we see, think about, and treat one another and the World around us. For every book somebody wants you to read, there is a book they do not want you to read—both can be found at the library. Let that sink into your thoughts for a moment, its meaning. That is the ”library,” its very concept, and this is what it has come to represent in the minds of millions of patrons. It is a fine heritage matched by no other institution, and one that all its workers should be proud to be a part of and hopefully protect and perpetuate. This introductory chapter covers a few brief insights into why I wrote this book—subjective motivates and goals guiding its completion. The chapter is concluded with a light historical review of the pivotal technologies establishing the foundation of information technology leading into the Information Age and paving the way to changes in the library user environment.

scholarly journals Choosing the "Other" as a Realization of Personal Freedom in Judaism

2009 ◽  
pp. 133-141
Author(s):  
Z.V. Shved
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Motivating Factors ◽  
Religious School ◽  
General Process ◽  
Personal Freedom ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Way

Recent studies of the Religious School of Ukraine give grounds to argue that the question of the interaction of religion and nation in society is a separate, important factor in the process of comprehending ethno-religious origin, as a component of a more general process of nationalization. In this connection it is worth mentioning the works of the leading scientists A.M. Kolodny, ON Sagan, L.O. Filipovich, PL Yarotsky, V.E. Yelensky et al., Who highlighted the problem of understanding identity as a multifaceted phenomenon operating at the individual or group levels. At the same time, the actual question of the role of awareness of one's own difference from the non-national or non-religious environment emerged as a pressing problem, on the way of solving which the answer and the inquiry concerning the motivating factors in the process of identity identification depend.

scholarly journals THE CULTURAL RELEVANCE OF INDONESIAN PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS AS CONTRASTED WITH POLISH

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Przemysław Wiatrowski
Keyword(s):  
Research Area ◽  
Cultural Relevance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Multiword Expressions ◽  
Research Material ◽  
Cultural Specificity ◽  
Collective Experience ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
The Way

This article discusses Indonesian set phrases, a research area not previously investigated by Polish scholars. The aim is to analyze expressions which reveal the cultural specificity of the Indonesian speech community. Specifically, the author is concerned with two categories of multiword expressions. One of them is lexical combinations which preserve observations characteristic of the Indonesian speech community. These are reflected in a system of lexical connotations drawn upon in the process of semantic motivation of idioms. The other is expressions made up of units which are specific to Indonesian culture. The cultural relevance of Indonesian multi-word combinations is examined against the background of the Polish language. By examining research material derived from dictionaries of phrases and collocations and general dictionaries of the Indonesian language, the author provides insights into the way of thinking and responding to reality which is embedded in the language and in the collective experience of members of the Indonesian community.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document