The Politics of Mercy against Neoliberal Sacrifice

Send Lazarus ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 164-204
Author(s):  
Matthew T. Eggemeier ◽  
Peter Joseph Fritz

This chapter responds to the neoliberal crises described in chapter 3 in light of the theology of mercy developed in chapter 4. First, theological ideas provide theoretical-critical leverage over against the neoliberal vision for the world: the doctrine of creation, imago dei, the freedom of Christ, and the hospitality of Christ. Second, a principle from CST or secular discourse (if the Catholic church has not developed an adequate response) offers a long-term goal for civilization: universal destination of goods and abolitionism. Finally, corporal works of mercy respond to neoliberal sacrifices: against environmental destruction, visiting the sick; slum proliferation, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, and clothing the naked; mass incarceration, ransoming the captive; and mass deportation, welcoming the stranger. These works must be made political not only as direct action, but also as an interlocking strategy over the short-term, middle-term, and long-term for social transformation.

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 572-589
Author(s):  
Massimo Faggioli

The sexual abuse crisis has long-term consequences: not only on the victims and survivors of abuse, but also on the theological standing and balance of the Catholic Church throughout the world. Theological rethinking in light of the abuse crisis is necessary: not only from the lens of those who have suffered, but also from the lens of the changes caused by this global crisis in the history of the whole Catholic community. The article examines the consequences of the abuse crisis on different theological disciplines, with particular attention to the history of the Catholic Church, liturgy, ecclesiology of reform, and church–state relationships.


Author(s):  
ANDREY N. KLEPACH ◽  

The double tightening of monetary and fiscal policies will have a slowing effect on economic growth and the ability to respond to key medium­ and long­term challenges facing the Russian economy. The pace of economic growth will not be able to catch up with the world, and the fall in real incomes of the population accumulated since 2014 will be overcome no earlier than 2024. The demographic losses suffered during the coronavirus pandemic raise the issue of a systemic long­term family policy that contributes to an increase in the birth rate. The Achilles heel of the Russian economy, despite some achievements, remains the stag­nation of R&D spending and the weakness of the policy for the development of fundamental and applied science.


Author(s):  
Matthew T. Eggemeier ◽  
Peter Joseph Fritz

Contrary to Catholicism, Catholic social teaching, and the commitment to live out the mercy of Jesus Christ, today’s dominant global economic and cultural system, neoliberalism, demands that life be led as a series of sacrifices to the market. This book’s theological critique of neoliberalism begins with recent papal teaching against “economism,” proceeds into a historical and theoretical analysis of neoliberalism’s conception as a discourse in academia and the business community, its rise to global prominence through class warfare, its subtle redefining of human self-understanding via the notion of “human capital,” and its formation of an ethos of mercilessness. Central is treatment of four neoliberal-perpetuated and -exacerbated crises: environmental destruction, slum proliferation, mass incarceration, and mass deportation. This entails plumbing the sacrificial and racist depths of neoliberalism. The book offers an antineoliberal systematic theology founded on Trinitarian mercy, a neighbor anthropology and innkeeper ecclesiology, and a politics of mercy, or a civilizational program grounded in, yet reimagining, the traditional Catholic works of mercy. This coheres with a “playbook” for social transformation that uses the universal destination of goods and abolitionism to direct the corporal works of mercy against the neoliberal utopianism that brought enhanced ecological devastation, slum growth, mass imprisonment, and abuse of migrants. In concert with official Catholic teaching, the Gospel injunction to “be merciful,” and hopeful visions of various people of good will, Send Lazarus urges a robust antineoliberal and antiracist politics, which amounts to a joyous expression of Christic hope for abundant life.


2006 ◽  
pp. 4-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Abalkin

The article covers unified issues of the long-term strategy development, the role of science as well as democracy development in present-day Russia. The problems of budget proficit, the Stabilization Fund issues, implementation of the adopted national projects, an increasing role of regions in strengthening the integrity and prosperity of the country are analyzed. The author reveals that the protection of businessmen and citizens from the all-embracing power of bureaucrats is the crucial condition of democratization of the society. Global trends of the world development and expert functions of the Russian science are presented as well.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Khodijatul Qodriyah

The lack of students’ knowledge of their teachers’ works and the less of their consciousness to the environment are crucial problems in some islamic boardingschool, especially in Nurul Jadid. These issues will be settled by implementation of religious preaching (dakwah) with poem (syi’ir) in Syu’abul Iman of Kiai Zaini Mun’im and prefentive action to the illness through herbal medicines of family crops medicine (tanaman obat keluarga). The program is undertaken with some phases, including planting family crops medicine, making herbal medicines, musicalisation of poem in book of Syu’abul Iman, socialization of the herbal medicine and musical poem of Syu’abul Iman. These phases have been structured with long-term, middle-term, and short-term programs which were finished during approximately 4 months (Augustus – November 2019). The involvement of many parties, such as activists of environment in Nurul Jadid, has strongly influenced on the successful implementation of these programs.Keywords: Family Crops Medicine, Nurul Jadid Islamic Boardingschool, Book of Syu’abul Iman


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Gellert ◽  
Paul S. Ciccantell

Predominant analyses of energy offer insufficient theoretical and political-economic insight into the persistence of coal and other fossil fuels. The dominant narrative of coal powering the Industrial Revolution, and Great Britain's world dominance in the nineteenth century giving way to a U.S.- and oil-dominated twentieth century, is marred by teleological assumptions. The key assumption that a complete energy “transition” will occur leads some to conceive of a renewable-energy-dominated twenty-first century led by China. After critiquing the teleological assumptions of modernization, ecological modernization, energetics, and even world-systems analysis of energy “transition,” this paper offers a world-systems perspective on the “raw” materialism of coal. Examining the material characteristics of coal and the unequal structure of the world-economy, the paper uses long-term data from governmental and private sources to reveal the lack of transition as new sources of energy are added. The increases in coal consumption in China and India as they have ascended in the capitalist world-economy have more than offset the leveling-off and decline in some core nations. A true global peak and decline (let alone full substitution) in energy generally and coal specifically has never happened. The future need not repeat the past, but technical, policy, and movement approaches will not get far without addressing the structural imperatives of capitalist growth and the uneven power structures and processes of long-term change of the world-system.


Author(s):  
V.B. Kondratiev

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the commodity markets and mining industry around the world in different ways. Mining company’s operations have been hit by coronavirus outbreaks and government-mandated production stops. Demand for many commodities remains low. This paper examines the potential long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on future commodity demand, mining prospects, as well as tactical and strategic steps by mining companies to overcome the current crisis quickly and effectively.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Lisa Guenther

In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry analyzes the structure of torture as an unmaking of the world in which the tools that ought to support a person’s embodied capacities are used as weapons to break them down. The Security Housing Unit (SHU) of California’s Pelican Bay State Prison functions as a weaponized architecture of torture in precisely this sense; but in recent years, prisoners in the Pelican Bay Short Corridor have re-purposed this weaponized architecture as a tool for remaking the world through collective resistance. This resistance took the form of a hunger strike in which prisoners exposed themselves to the possibility of biological death in order to contest the social and civil death of solitary confinement. By collectively refusing food, and by articulating the meaning and motivation of this refusal in articles, interviews, artwork, and legal documents, prisoners reclaimed and expanded their perceptual, cognitive, and expressive capacities for world-making, even in a space of systematic torture.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chinweike Eseonu ◽  
Martin A Cortes

There is a culture of disengagement from social consideration in engineering disciplines. This means that first year engineering students, who arrive planning to change the world through engineering, lose this passion as they progress through the engineering curriculum. The community driven technology innovation and investment program described in this paper is an attempt to reverse this trend by fusing community engagement with the normal engineering design process. This approach differs from existing project or trip based approaches – outreach – because the focus is on local communities with which the university team forms a long-term partnership through weekly in-person meetings and community driven problem statements – engagement.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lifang Chen ◽  
Yong Li ◽  
Yizhong Wang ◽  
Bohui Zhang
Keyword(s):  

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