The Calling of a New Critical Theory: Self-Development, Inclusion of the Other and Planetary Realizations

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ananta Kumar Giri
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Development

scholarly journals The Frankfurt School and the authoritarian personality: Balance sheet of an insight

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 072551362110059
Author(s):  
Geoff Boucher
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Balance Sheet ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
The Other ◽  
Authoritarian Personality ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Authoritarian Populism ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
School Research

Frankfurt School critical theory is perhaps the most significant theory of society to have developed directly from a research programme focused on the critique of political authoritarianism, as it manifested during the interwar decades of the 20th century. The Frankfurt School’s analysis of the persistent roots – and therefore the perennial nature – of what it describes as the ‘authoritarian personality’ remains influential in the analysis of authoritarian populism in the contemporary world, as evidenced by several recent studies. Yet the tendency in these studies is to reference the final formulation of the category, as expressed in Theodor Adorno and co-thinkers’ The Authoritarian Personality (1950), as if this were a theoretical readymade that can be unproblematically inserted into a measured assessment of the threat to democracy posed by current authoritarian trends. It is high time that the theoretical commitments and political stakes in the category of the authoritarian personality are re-evaluated, in light of the evolution of the Frankfurt School. In this paper, I review the classical theories of the authoritarian personality, arguing that two quite different versions of the theory – one characterological, the other psychodynamic – can be extracted from Frankfurt School research.

Critical International Relations Theories and the Study of Arab Uprisings: A Critique

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-150
Author(s):  
Ahmed M. Abozaid
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Other ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Western Perspective

This study articulates that most of the critical theorists are still strikingly neglecting the study of the Arab Uprising(s) adequately. After almost a decade of the eruption of the so-called Arab Uprisings, the study claims that the volume of scholarly engaging of dominate Western International Relations (IR) theories with such unprecedented events is still substantially unpretentious. Likewise, and most importantly, the study also indicates that most of these theories, including the critical theory of IR (both Frankfurt and Habermasian versions), have discussed, engaged, analysed, and interpreted the Arab Spring (a term usually perceived to be orientalist, troubling, totally inappropriate and passive phenomenon) indicate a strong and durable egoistic Western perspective that emphasis on the preservation of the status quo and ensure the interests of Western and neoliberal elites, and the robustness of counter-revolutionary regimes. On the other hand, the writings and scholarships that reflexively engaged and represent the authentic Arab views, interests, and prospects were clearly demonstrating a strong and durable scarce, if not entirely missing. Keywords: International Relations, Critical Theory, Postcolonial, Arab Uprising(s), Middle East, Revolutions.

Individualisation as a social-cultural process and morality

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 11-33
Author(s):  
Janusz Mariański
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Relativism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Cultural Process ◽  
Self Development ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
Individual Human

In this article, the issue of structural individualisation, which is one of the results of social modernisation, is adopted as the subject-matter. In the processes of individualisation, it is, first and foremost, the importance of an individual human being and matters relevant to their life, including the obligation to make constant choices in all the aspects of life, that is placed emphasis upon. In the aspect of values, the process of individualisation means transfer from values seen as responsibilities (related to duties) to values connected with self-fulfilment (self-development). The consequence of individualisation is the significant changes in the realm of morality: departing from traditional moral values and standards, permissivism and moral relativism, the destruction of normativity, and the secularisation of morality. On the other hand, it creates the opportunity to determine one's own moral choices and shapean autonomous moral personality.

Jargon, Bullshit, sinnlos

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 646-660
Author(s):  
Max Beck
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Logical Empiricism ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Content ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Personal Approach ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Theological Language

Abstract Theodor W. Adorno’s Jargon of Authenticity (1964) is one of the bestknown, but also most controversial works of Critical Theory. Many philosophers, writers and editorialists have attacked the text in recent decades and accused Adorno of cultivating his own “jargon”. In his book, Adorno develops a critique of metaphysical and theological language, which he observed in Germany from the 1920s up to the 1960s. In my paper, I argue that the mode of critique Adorno deploys is still relevant today, even if its object has largely disappeared. This becomes clear in comparison to the language criticism of the analytical tradition, namely logical empiricism or Harry G. Frankfurt’s critique of “bullshit,” which are comparably more widespread today in academic debates. While Adorno examines linguistic expressions in terms of their social content and places them in a historical constellation, the critique of “bullshit” following Frankfurt remains constrained to a personal approach. In the language criticism of logical empiricism, on the other hand, the possibility of understanding linguistic phenomena as expressions of social conditions is still present. From this comparison, much can be learned for an up-to-date language criticism.

Constructing the Oriental ‘Other’: Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila

1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph P. Locke
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western World ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Musical Practices

Opera is rich in works that construct visions of the non-Western world and its inhabitants: Rameau's Les Indes galantes, Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de perles, Verdi's Aida, Strauss's Salome, Puccini's Turandot. In these operas the representation of what recent critical theory calls ‘the Other’ is most clearly announced in the basic plot, in characters' names, and in costumes, sets and props. But to what extent do the libretto and the music also participate in this project?The question easily lends itself to a narrower formulation: to what extent do these operas signal Otherness – Turkishness, Indianness, Chineseness and so on – through musical materials that depart from Western stylistic norms or even reflect specific musical practices of the region in question? Scholars and critics have repeatedly posed the problem in these terms, only to find themselves frustrated by three limitations: general stylistic aberrations are often applied indiscriminately by composers to vastly different geographical settings; borrowed tunes and the like tend to lose distinctive features by being uprooted and transplanted; and whole stretches of these operas are written in an entirely Western idiom.

Deferring to the Other

2021 ◽  
pp. 126-148
Author(s):  
Joseph Sung-Yul Park
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language And Identity ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Native Speakers Of English ◽  
Linguistic Insecurity

This chapter discusses how the notion of linguistic insecurity can illuminate the processes by which essentialist conceptions of language and identity—in particular, the persistent colonial ideology of nativeness—contribute to the hegemonic status of English in neoliberalism. This chapter conceptualizes linguistic insecurity in terms of tensions that speakers experience between conflicting language ideologies. Focusing on the case of Korean mid-level managers working in non-Korean multinational corporations abroad, the chapter argues that the notion of linguistic insecurity allows us to explore how conflicting ideologies about English in neoliberalism—one in which English is valorized as a commodifiable resource available to anyone through projects of self-development, and one in which who counts as a legitimate speaker of English is defined in ethnonational terms—can jointly create a sense of insecurity in those who are traditionally considered non-native speakers of English, and rationalize the inequalities they are subjected to in neoliberalism.

Slave Spectacles and Tragic Octoroons: A Cultural Genealogy of Antebellum Performance

1992 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Roach
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Topic ◽  
Modern Language Association ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Mixed Emotions ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Political Intervention

In recent critical theory, the word performance has undergone a significant expansion, some would say an inflation. As the Editor's Note to the May issue of PMLA (“Special Topic: Performance”) observes, “What once was an event has become a critical category, now applied to everything from a play to a war to a meal. The performative … is a cultural act, a critical perspective, a political intervention.” Theatre historians will perhaps greet such pronouncements with mixed emotions. On one hand, they may welcome the acknowledgment by the principal organ of the Modern Language Association that performance (as opposed to drama merely) can count for so much. On the other hand, they may wonder what exactly is intended by the conceptual leap that takes performance beyond the established theatrical genres to encompass armed conflict and comestibles.

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