The Ancient Wisdom and Resurgence for Yoga

2021 ◽  
pp. 206-227
Author(s):  
Jah-Xolani Radebe
Keyword(s):  
Medical Research ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
East And West ◽  
Society Today

This chapter aims at connecting ancient wisdom and traditions of yoga by looking at the past with fast-paced, cutting edge natural science that constantly re-invents itself with time. It will unpack and explain both wisdom and experience from the orient against science and experiences from the West. The separation of East and West will give us an opportunity to see connections and boundaries of Western lifestyle as a convenient signpost to why yoga is relevant to society today. Furthermore, the chapter seeks to go beyond spirituality, mythology, and present yoga as a perpetual, evolving practice relevant in today's societies to challenge and engage today's science and medical research.

The Soviet Economic Challenge

Worldview ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
James Greene
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Capita Rate ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Cold War

The speed with which economics has sped to the front of the Cold War over the past four years has caught the West-used to diplomatic maneuvering and “little wars”-off guard. We have, as yet, no adequate answer to what may well prove to be Communism's most devastating weapon-a Soviet economy producing at a greater per capita rate than the United States. No nation of free men ever rallied round a column of statistics, and yet, clearly, that is where the current battle between East and West has moved.The change, it now seems, was inevitable. When they continue for any period of time, “total” wars, both hot and cold, slip more and more from the grasp of those charged with diplomacy and come to rest upon the impersonal powers of clashing armies, armies either on the battlefields or in the factories.

Reducing the divide between the West and the East

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-167
Author(s):  
Georges Corm
Keyword(s):  
Past History ◽  
The West ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
East And West

This article deconstructs the West–East divide and relates it to the rise of ‘mega identities’ in the West and the rise of contradictory Islamic fundamentalisms. The trauma in the West relates to Israel, to the past history of conflicts and invasions, to terrorism and immigration. The article also analyses the complexities of Jewish trauma, the problem of diverging values between East and West, and considers addressing the issue of double standards as a way towards reducing the divide.

Esperanto as language and idea in China and Japan

2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Lins
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
The West ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
Missionary Zeal ◽  
The Past ◽  
China And Japan ◽  
East And West

For the past hundred years Esperanto has found adepts in China and Japan. Outside Europe and the Americas, nowhere has Esperanto spread as much as it has in East Asia. The Chinese and Japanese were drawn to it through their desire to learn from the west; they hoped to use Esperanto as a bridge between east and west or they found in it a link to anarchism and communism. Often the Esperantists used their language for campaign purposes, for example in the battle against the Japanese invasion of China beginning in the 1930s (“For the liberation of China through Esperanto”) or for the popularization of pacifism in postwar Japan. As in the west, many Esperantists in China and Japan based their connection with Esperanto on the idea of the harmony of all humankind. The movement progressed thanks primarily to those who avoided too much missionary zeal and preferred to recruit on the basis of Esperanto as a neutral device. Given the lack of opportunity to use the language in practical ways, for more than half of the past hundred years the Esperantists of East Asia tended to emphasize Esperanto as an idea; but the economic prosperity of Japan and the opening of China, by allowing greater contact with the outside world, have given Esperanto the opportunity to demonstrate more strongly its usefulness as an easily learned means of communication, also for direct contact between Chinese and Japanese.

Managing rivers for conservation and ecotourism in the Kruger National Park

1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 227-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. J. Venter ◽  
A. R. Deacon
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Good Condition ◽  
Kruger National Park ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Flow Through ◽  
Three Rivers

Six major rivers flow through the Kruger National Park (KNP). All these rivers originate outside and to the west of the KNP and are highly utilized. They are crucially important for the conservation of the unique natural environments of the KNP. The human population growth in the Lowveld during the past two decades brought with it the rapid expansion of irrigation farming, exotic afforestation and land grazed by domestic stock, as well as the establishment of large towns, mines, dams and industries. Along with these developments came overgrazing, erosion, over-utilization and pollution of rivers, as well as clearing of indigenous forests from large areas outside the borders of the KNP. Over-utilization of the rivers which ultimately flow through the KNP poses one of the most serious challenges to the KNP's management. This paper gives the background to the development in the catchments and highlights the problems which these have caused for the KNP. Management actions which have been taken as well as their results are discussed and solutions to certain problems proposed. Three rivers, namely the Letaba, Olifants and Sabie are respectively described as examples of an over-utilized river, a polluted river and a river which is still in a fairly good condition.

The New Islamic State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhad Khosrokhavar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
The West ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

The creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) changed the nature of jihadism worldwide. For a few years (2014–2017) it exemplified the destructive capacity of jihadism and created a new utopia aimed at restoring the past greatness and glory of the former caliphate. It also attracted tens of thousands of young wannabe combatants of faith (mujahids, those who make jihad) toward Syria and Iraq from more than 100 countries. Its utopia was dual: not only re-creating the caliphate that would spread Islam all over the world but also creating a cohesive, imagined community (the neo-umma) that would restore patriarchal family and put an end to the crisis of modern society through an inflexible interpretation of shari‘a (Islamic laws and commandments). To achieve these goals, ISIS diversified its approach. It focused, in the West, on the rancor of the Muslim migrants’ sons and daughters, on exoticism, and on an imaginary dream world and, in the Middle East, on tribes and the Sunni/Shi‘a divide, particularly in the Iraqi and Syrian societies.

The Impact of Culture on Reactions to Promise Breaches: Differences Between East and West in Behavioral Integrity Perceptions

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Friedman ◽  
Ying-Yi Hong ◽  
Tony Simons ◽  
Shu-Cheng (Steve) Chi ◽  
Se-Hyung (David) Oh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Work Life ◽  
Communication Style ◽  
The West ◽  
Behavioral Integrity ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
East And West ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Behavioral integrity (BI)—a perception that a person acts in ways that are consistent with their words—has been shown to have an impact on many areas of work life. However, there have been few studies of BI in Eastern cultural contexts. Differences in communication style and the nature of hierarchical relationships suggest that spoken commitments are interpreted differently in the East and the West. We performed three scenario-based experiments that look at response to word–deed inconsistency in different cultures. The experiments show that Indians, Koreans, and Taiwanese do not as readily revise BI downward following a broken promise as do Americans (Study 1), that the U.S.–Indian difference is especially pronounced when the speaker is a boss rather than a subordinate (Study 2), and that people exposed to both cultures adjust perceptions of BI based on the cultural context of where the speaking occurs (Study 3).

Anti-Catholicism in Germany, Britain, and the United States: A Review and Critique of Recent Scholarship

2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjule Anne Drury
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Irish Question ◽  
Political Economic

The past two decades have seen an efflorescence of works exploring cultural anti-Catholicism in a variety of national contexts. But so far, historians have engaged in little comparative analysis. This article is a first step, examining recent historical literature on modern British and American anti-Catholicism, in order to trace the similarities and distinctiveness of the turn-of-the-century German case. Historians are most likely to be acquainted with American nativism, the German Kulturkampf, continental anticlericalism, and the problems of Catholic Emancipation and the Irish Question in Britain. Many of the themes and functions of anti-Catholic discourse in the West transcended national and temporal boundaries. In each case, the conceptualization of a Catholic ‘other’ is a testament to the tenacity of confessionalism in an age formerly characterized as one of inexorable secularization. Contemporary observers often agreed that religious culture—like history, race, ethnicity, geography, and local custom—played a role in the self-evident distinctiveness of peoples and nations, in their political forms, economic performance, and intellectual and artistic contributions. We will see how confessionalism remained a lens through which intellectuals and ordinary citizens, whether attached or estranged from religious commitments, viewed political, economic, and cultural change.

The Problem of Energy

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Urry
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Control ◽  
Global Growth

Energy forms and their extensive scale are remarkably significant for the ways that societies are organized. This article shows the importance of how societies are ‘energized’ and especially the global growth of ‘fossil fuel societies’. Much social thought remains oblivious to the energy revolution realized over the past two to three centuries which set the ‘West’ onto a distinct trajectory. Energy is troubling for social thought because different energy systems with their ‘lock-ins’ are not subject to simple human intervention and control. Analyses are provided here of different fossil fuel societies, of coal and oil, with the latter enabling the liquid, mobilized 20th century. Consideration is paid to the possibilities of reducing fossil fuel dependence but it is shown how unlikely such a ‘powering down’ will be. The author demonstrates how energy is a massive problem for social theory and for 21st-century societies. Developing post-carbon theory and especially practice is far away but is especially urgent.

For Science and Country: History Writing, Nation Building, and National Embeddedness in Third Republic France, 1870–1914

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Guillaume Lancereau
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The West ◽  
Academic Competition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Territorial Claims

This article examines late nineteenth and early twentieth-century historiographical practices and convictions in Third Republic France. It shifts the focus from the question of whether French academic historians were nationalists to the issue of how they were nationalists. If republican academic historians took a critical stance on nationalist distortions of the past, they nevertheless associated the teaching of history with patriotism and opposed historiographical “pan-Germanism” in ways favorable to French cultural and territorial claims. Meanwhile, the growing internationalization of the field stimulated scholarly competition across the West and spurred reflections about nationals’ epistemological privilege over national histories, methodological nationalism, and the invention of national historiographical traditions. Uncovering the anxieties of continual debate with foreign historians and the nationalist right wing, this article offers a prehistory of present-day dilemmas over global, national, and nationalist histories in an international field characterized by structural inequalities and academic competition.

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