Play and Interruption as a Mode of Action in Arendt, Dostoevsky, and Kharms

Janus Head ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Simon Ravenscroft ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mode Of Action ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fyodor Dostoevsky ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Daniil Kharms

This essay uses Hannah Arendt’s theory of action and her critique of modern politics to explore the themes of predictability and unpredictability in human affairs, and the political meaning of interruption and refusal. It draws on the life and literature of the Russian avant-gardist, Daniil Kharms (1905- 1942), alongside Fyodor Dostoevsky and several contemporary theorists, to offer a reading of action as taking the form, specifically, of playful interruption and generative refusal. A marginal figure whose deeds and writings were disruptively strange, Kharms is taken as an exemplar of action in this ludic mode. This serves to elaborate upon Arendt’s concepts of plurality and natality, while challenging some weaknesses in her theory of action as a whole.

Jus Tempus in the Magna Carta: The Sovereignty of Time in Modern Politics and Citizenship

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (03) ◽  
pp. 463-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth F. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
The Political ◽  
Place Of Birth ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Right ◽  
Constitutional Tradition

In the English constitutional tradition, subjecthood has been primarily derived from two circumstances: place of birth and time of birth. People not born in the right place and at the right time are not considered subjects. What political status they hold varies and depends largely on the political history of the territory in which they reside at the exact time of their birth. A genealogy of early modern British subjecthood reveals that law based on dates and temporal durations—what I will call collectivelyjus tempus—creates sovereign boundaries as powerful as territorial borders or bloodlines. This concept has myriad implications for how citizenship comes to be institutionalized in modern politics. In this article, I briefly outline one route through whichjus tempusbecame a constitutive principle within the Anglo-American tradition of citizenship and how this concept works with other principles of membership to create subtle gradations of semi-citizenship beyond the binary of subject and alien. I illustrate two main points aboutjus tempus: first, how specific dates create sovereign boundaries among people and second, how durational time takes on an abstract value in politics that allows certain kinds of attributes, actions, and relationships to be translated into rights-bearing political statuses. I conclude with some remarks about how, once established, the principle ofjus tempusis applied in a diverse array of political contexts.

scholarly journals Who is the modern ‘traitor’? ‘Fifth column’ accusations in US and UK politics and media

Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitry Chernobrov
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Opposition Movements ◽  
Western Politics

Accusations of treason and disloyalty have been increasingly visible in both western and international politics in recent years, from Russia and Turkey, to Brexit and the 2016 US presidential election. This article explores ‘traitor’ accusations in modern politics, with evidence from British and American newspapers for 2011–2016. Besides British and American politics, results reveal reported ‘fifth column’ accusations in over 40 countries. I identify three dominant patterns: authoritarian states describing opposition movements as a ‘fifth column’; suspicion of western Muslim populations as potential terrorists; and the use of traitor language to denote party dissent in western politics. Employed across the political spectrum, and not only by right-wing or populist movements, accusations of treason and betrayal point at a deeper breakdown of social trust and communicate collective securitizing responses to perceived threats.

Russophobia: the story of a chimera

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Karabuschenko
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political History ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Goals And Objectives

This paper presents the history of the development of the Russophobic tradition of the collective West, which it used in its political and ideological interests. Russophobia is a chimera of Western propaganda, based on myths about the superiority of Western civilization and the chronic backwardness of Russians. The tradition indicated by the author is assessed as a kind of pseudo-ideological chimera, which permanently arises in the national enemies and geopolitical competitors of Russia as the main ideological means in the general mechanism of deterring the imaginary "Russian threat". It is known that Russia itself has improved the political space of Eastern Europe and Asia, in accordance with the understanding of its goals and objectives. And most often, it was this independence that caused discontent and indignation of her opponents. It is intended for all those who are interested in the political history and modern politics of Russia.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Feisal G. Mohamed
Keyword(s):  
John Milton ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Andrew Marvell ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Political Settlement

A modern politics attaching itself to the state must adopt a position sovereignty, by which is meant the political settlement in which potestas and auctoritas are aligned. Three competing forms are identified: unitary sovereignty, divided and balanced sovereignty, and the view that sovereign power must be limited by universal principles. Each of these forms can be divided into “red” and “black” varieties, depending on the imagined relationship between sovereign power and modern conditions of flux. A chapter outline introduces the figures who will be explored in the book as a whole: Thomas Hobbes; William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele; John Barclay and the romance writers of the 1650s whom he influences; John Milton; and Andrew Marvell. Also described is the book’s sustained engagement of Carl Schmitt, and the ways in which his thought on sovereignty is an example of the competition amongst the concept’s three competing forms.

scholarly journals Epilogue The Scandal of the Refugee: Some peflections on the "Inter" of International Relations

Refuge ◽  
1998 ◽  
pp. 30-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Dillon
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Politics Of Identity ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Displaced People ◽  
International Power ◽  
Political Decision Making

The refugee is a scandal for philosophy in that the refugee recalls the radical instability of meaning and the incalculability of the human. The refugee is a scandal for politics also, however, in that the advent of the refugee is always a reproach to the formation of the political order subjectivity which necessarily gives rise to the refugee. The scandal is intensified for any politics of identity which presupposes that the goal of politics is the realization of sovereign identity. The principal argument, then, is that what I will call the scandal of the refugee illuminates both the fundamental ontological determinations of international politics and the character of political action, because the refugee is both a function of the intentional political destruction of the ontological horizons of people's always already heterogeneous worlds, and effects an equally fundamental deconstruction of the ontological horizons which constitute the equally heterogeneous worlds into which, as refugees, these people are precipitated. It is precisely on this concrete and corporeal site that both the ontological horizons and the allied political decision-making of modern politics are thrown into stark relief and profoundly called into question. For it is precisely here that the very actions of modern politics both create and address the incidence of its own massive and self-generated, political abjection. If that is one of the principal ends of international relations, one is forced to ask, what does it take as its beginning? If, in other words, the vernacular political architecture of modern international power commonly produces 1:115 forcibly displaced people globally, one is inclined to ask about the foundations upon which that architecture is itself based.

Greek Interstate Associations and the League of Nations

1921 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. E. R. Boak
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Casual Reader ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Greek World ◽  
Close Parallel

The political achievements of the Greek people are so manifold and so important that any student of modern politics naturally is tempted to turn to ancient Greece to find the origin of, or parallels to, recent developments in his own field. And so there are not wanting those who would see in certain unions or associations of Greek states anticipations of the ideas which are incorporated in the newly constituted League of Nations. However, the view that any close parallel to the League of Nations existed in the ancient Greek world is due, I believe, to a misinterpretation or idealization of the character and aims of these ancient associations. Accordingly, in the present article I shall try to give a survey of the chief types of interstate associations that arose in ancient Greece, besides suggesting certain changes in their current English nomenclature, which is apt to mislead the casual reader as to their true character.

The Institutional Entrepreneur as Modern Prince: The Strategic Face of Power in Contested Fields

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 971-991 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Levy ◽  
Maureen Scully
Keyword(s):  
Mode Of Action ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Field Structure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Organizational Fields ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurs ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneur ◽  
Collective Agent

This paper develops a theoretical framework that situates institutional entrepreneurship by drawing from Gramsci's concept of hegemony to understand the contingent stabilization of organizational fields, and by employing his discussion of the Modern Prince as the collective agent who organizes and strategizes counter-hegemonic challenges. Our framework makes three contributions. First, we characterize the interlaced material, discursive, and organizational dimensions of field structure. Second, we argue that strategy must be examined more rigorously as the mode of action by which institutional entrepreneurs engage with field structures. Third, we argue that institutional entrepreneurship, in challenging the position of incumbent actors and stable fields, reveals a `strategic face of power', particularly useful for understanding the political nature of contestation in issue-based fields.

The Ideologics of Modern Politics

1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 482-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Manning ◽  
Ysanne Carlisle
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Ethical Beliefs ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
The Future ◽  
Psychological Reaction ◽  
Industrial Modernity ◽  
Political Decisions

It is a platitude that a political ideology is an organized set of ethical beliefs that authorize the political commitment of a group of people. This article addresses the question: how is the distinctive ideologic of such an organization of ethical ideas related to the political decisions of adherents? The suggestion made is that the distinctive psychological reaction of a group of people to economic and social change plays an important part in making a particular form of ideologic formative of their view of the future. The scope of the article is not restricted to English reactions to the advent of industrial modernity, but the universality of its argument, as to the persuasive function of the ideologics investigated, is primarily illustrated by examples drawn from the works of English ideologues.

Philosophical Anthropology and Dostoevsky's “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor”

1964 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellis Sandoz
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Fyodor Dostoevsky ◽  
The Brothers Karamazov ◽  
Grand Inquisitor ◽  
Brothers Karamazov

The political thought of Fyodor Dostoevsky grows out of his opposition to nihilism, atheistic humanism, and socialism in much the same way as the philosophy of Plato grew out of his opposition to the sophists. Indeed, the parallel of Dostoevsky's thought with that of Plato is to be seen in some further aspects of this fundamental opposition. Both the Russian master of the novel and the Hellenic founder of political science confronted adversaries for whom “Man is the measure of all things” and each based his opposition on the principle “God is the Measure,” to use Plato's formulation. This declaration, echoing like a thunderclap across more than twenty centuries of history, found consummate expression in the last great work of each writer: the Laws and The Brothers Karamazov.

scholarly journals GENDER IN THE HISTORY OF EARLY MODERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 843-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA BECKER
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
The Public ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn the history of early modern political thought, gender is not well established as a subject. It seems that early modern politics and its philosophical underpinnings are characterized by an exclusion of women from the political sphere. This article shows that it is indeed possible to write a gendered history of early modern political thought that transcends questions of the structural exclusion of women from political participation. Through a nuanced reading of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century commentaries on Aristotle's practical philosophy, it deconstructs notions on the public/political and private/apolitical divide and reconstructs that early modern thinkers saw the relationship of husband and wife as deeply political. The article argues that it is both necessary and possible to write gender in and into the history of political thought in a historically sound and firmly contextual way that avoids anachronisms, and it shows – as Joan Scott has suggested – that gender is indeed a ‘useful category’ in the history of political thought.

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