scholarly journals Gratitude Needs a Giver: Why Political Science Needs Intelligent Design

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
Brian G. Mattson

This article presents Jonah Goldberg’s Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy. Classical liberalism is under renewed attack from many directions. Many of its most notable defenders claim that the liberal order has no need of distinctively Christian theological resources. This essay scrutinizes that claim and argues for the necessity of a Christian doctrine of providence. KEYWORDS: God, gratitude, Jonah Goldberg, J. Gresham Machen, political science, Western civilization, providence, historicism, John Calvin

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip N. Cohen

This essay is a review of Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy, by Jonah Goldberg (Crown Forum, 2018), with a few data explorations along the way. I read the book to see what I could learn about contemporary conservative thinking, especially anti-Trump conservatism. Opposing Trump and the movement he leads is suddenly the most pressing progressive issue of our time, and it’s important not to be too narrow in mobilizing that opposition. Unfortunately, I found the book to be an extended screed against leftism with but a few pages of anti-Trump material grafted in here and there, which ultimately amounts to blaming leftism and immigration for Trump. And that might sum up the state of the anemic conservative movement. Goldberg’s own weak-kneed position on Trump is not resolved until page 316, when he finally concludes, “As much as I hold Trump in contempt, I am still compelled to admit that, if my vote would have decided the election, I probably would have voted for him” (316). In the end, Goldberg has charted a path toward a détente between his movement and Trump’s.


Author(s):  
Noor Mohammad Osmani ◽  
Tawfique Al-Mubarak

Samuel Huntington (1927-2008) claimed that there would be seven eight civilizations ruling over the world in the coming centuries, thus resulting a possible clash among them. The West faces the greatest challenge from the Islamic civilization, as he claimed. Beginning from the Cold-War, the Western civilization became dominant in reality over other cultures creating an invisible division between the West and the rest. The main purpose of this research is to examine the perceived clash between the Western and Islamic Civilization and the criteria that lead a civilization to precede others. The research would conduct a comprehensive review of available literatures from both Islamic and Western perspectives, analyze historical facts and data and provide a critical evaluation. This paper argues that there is no such a strong reason that should lead to any clash between the West and Islam; rather, there are many good reasons that may lead to a peaceful coexistence and cultural tolerance among civilizations


Author(s):  
Christian Joppke

AbstractThe rise of populism in the West is often depicted as opposition to a “double liberalism”, which is economic and cultural in tandem. In this optic, neoliberalism and multiculturalism are allied under a common liberal regime that prescribes “openness”, while populism rallies against both under the flag of “closure”. This paper questions the central assumptions of this scenario: first, that neoliberalism and multiculturalism are allies; and, secondly, that populism is equally opposed to neoliberalism and to multiculturalism. With respect to the alliance hypothesis, it is argued that only a diluted version of multiculturalism, in terms of diversity and antidiscrimination, is compatible with neoliberalism, which also needs to be sharply distinguished from liberalism. With respect to the dual opposition hypothesis, it is argued that the economic inequalities generated by neoliberalism may objectively condition populist revolts, but that these inequalities are not centrally apprehended and addressed in their programs; furthermore, it is argued that the rejection of multiculturalism indeed is central to populist mobilization, but that the two have important things in common, not least that both are variants of identity politics, if incompatible ones.


Author(s):  
A. Sindeev

At a first glance, the article is treating a private issue, namely that of the feasibility of the concept of a “Europe of citizens” in the Federal Republic of Germany. However, while discussing it we have to analyze at least three fundamental issues. 1). What is the West German democracy? 2). How democracy and Western/European integration are interlinked? 3). To what extent the concept of a “Europe of citizens” is able to lead both integration and democracy from the currently difficult situation in which are these two main components of the contemporary Western civilization?


2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 180-198
Author(s):  
Sándor Horváth

AbstractThe images of the “modern youth” and moral panics concerning the youth as a metaphor played an important part in the identity construction process throughout Cold War Europe. For Hungarian youth the West represented the land of promise and desires, albeit their knowledge of the Western other was highly limited and controlled by the socialist state. But how did the partly unknown West and its “folk devils” become the objects of desire in the East? For Western youngsters it seemed to be easier to realize their cultural preferences, however, youth cultures of the sixties were represented in the transnational discourses as manifestations of intra-generational, parent–adolescent conflicts not only in the Eastern Bloc, but also in Western democracies. The perception of the parent–child conflict became a cornerstone of the studies on the sixties, and the youth studies represented youth subcultures as “countercultures.” This paper addresses the role of the official discourse in the construction of “youth cultures” which lies at the heart of identity politics concerning youngsters. It looks at some of the youth subcultures which emerged in socialist Hungary and, in particular how “Eastern” youth perceived “the West,” and how their desires concerning the “Western cultures” were represented in the official discourse. It also seeks to show that borders created in the mind between “East” and “West” worked not only in the way that the “iron curtain” did, but it also became a cultural practice to create social identities following the patterns of Eastern and Western differentiation in the socialist countries.


Thesis Eleven ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 149 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zygmunt Bauman ◽  
Aleksandra Kania

This conversation between Zygmunt Bauman and Aleksandra Kania picks up on the themes of crisis, interregnum and the decline of the West. Decline of the West is first of all decline of western civilization. This easily leads to panic about the end of the world; what it really indicates is the limits and constraints of a world system based on nation-states. Spengler and Elias are introduced as interlocutors, in order to open these issues, and those of capitalism, socialism and caesarism. Trump here appears as a wilfully decisionist leader. Populism plays its part, but illiberalism now overpowers neoliberalism. Bauman and Kania engage in this text as interlocutors; this is a record of their own dialogue, and a reminder of its possibilities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Zaprulkhan Zaprulkhan

Abstract: In 1989 Francis Fukuyama with his article The End of History? In the journal The National Interest revolves a speculative thesis that after the West conquered its ideological rival, hereditary monarchy, fascism and communism, the constellation of the world of international politics reached a remarkable consensus to liberal democracy. A few years later, Samuel P. Huntington came up with a more provocative thesis that ideological-based war would be a civilization-based war in his article, The Clash of Civilizations? In the journal Foreign Affairs. It reveals that in the future the world will be shaped by interactions among the seven or eight major civilizations of Western civilization: Confucius, Japan, Islam, Hinduism, Orthodox Slavs, Latin America and possibly Africa. Huntington directed the West to pay particular attention to Islam, for Islam is the only civilization with great potential to shake Western civilization. Departing from the above hypotheses, this paper will specifically discuss the bias of Fukuyama and Huntington's thesis on Islam, and how its solution to build a dialogue of civilization by taking the paradigm of dialogue from Ibn Rushd and Raghib As-Sirjani. Abstrak: Pada tahun 1989 Francis Fukuyama dengan artikelnya The End of History? Dalam jurnal The National Interest revolusioner tesis spekulatif bahwa setelah Barat telah menaklukkan lawan-lawan ideologisnya, monarki herediter, fasisme dan komunisme, konstelasi politik internasional mencapai konsensus yang luar biasa untuk demokrasi liberal. Beberapa tahun kemudian, Samuel P. Huntington muncul dengan tesis yang lebih provokatif bahwa perang berbasis ideologis akan menjadi perang berbasis peradaban dalam artikelnya, The Clash of Civilisations? Dalam jurnal Luar Negeri. Ini mengungkapkan bahwa di masa depan akan dibentuk oleh interaksi antara tujuh atau delapan peradaban utama peradaban Barat: Konfusius, Jepang, Islam, Hindu, Slavia Ortodoks, Amerika Latin dan mungkin Afrika. Perhatian Huntington pada Islam adalah potensi terpenting untuk mengguncang peradaban Barat. Berangkat dari hipotesis di atas, makalah ini akan secara khusus membahas bias tesis Fukuyama dan Huntington tentang Islam, dan bagaimana mereka akan mengambil paradigma dialog dari Ibn Rushd dan Raghib As-Sirjani.


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