scholarly journals Elementer i Grundtvigs politiske tænkning

1995 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-162
Author(s):  
Tine Damsholt

Grundtvig’s Political TheoriesBy Tine DamsholtGrundtvig’s positive view of the Danish absolute monarchy has often been a problematic issue in today’s understanding of Grundtvig’s political ideas. It is a common view that in 1848 Grundtvig turned a political somersault, suddenly becoming a democrat after being a fervent adherent of absolutism. Quite a few have wanted either to see a break in Grundtvig’s political view or tried to explain away his apparently »undemocratic« attitude. However, if one examines Grundtvig’s basic political opinions, it is possible to establish a continuity in his political view. It is possible to see his apparent change of attitude as an expression of inevitable consequences of his idea of what were the central democratic elements in relation to the changing political situations.The analysis of Grundtvig’s view of democracy and representative government must take its point of departure in the political tradition that Grundtvig had grown up in. The ideal concept of the 18th century of absolute monarchy as the interpreter of the people’s voice is an essential background for the understanding of Grundtvig’s praise of Danish absolute monarchy in the period before and after the Danish constitution came into effect.Grundtvig’s political ideal can be epitomized as a unity of the two concepts of the King’s hand and the people’s voice, i.e. an absolute King listening to the people’s voice as it finds expression in a free debate, in writing and in speech, in an enlightened people. The enlightenment of the people is crucial to Grundtvig, and the gist of his criticism of the French Revolution is that the unenlightened mob assumed power. The folk high school, where the people is enlightened and educated to rise above narrow selfish interests to look at the common good, is thus a central part of Grundtvig’s political universe.Grundtvig also maintained this ideal after the Danish absolute monarchy was abolished in 1848. He claimed that this was the original and therefore the true Danish constitution, thus embracing the national-romantic tradition.

This biographical introduction begins with the formation of Catharine Macaulay’s political ideas from when, as Catharine Sawbridge, she lived at the family estate. It follows her through her mature development as the celebrated female historian, to her death in 1791, as Mrs. Macaulay Graham. It notes the influence on her of writings of John Milton, Algernon Sidney, and John Locke as well as other republican works. It covers her marriage to the physician and midwife George Macaulay, and sets out the circumstances which led to the composition, and influence of, her History of England from the Accession of James I (HEAJ). The content of her histories, political philosophy, ethical and educational views, and criticisms of the philosophers David Hume, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Edmund Burke are sketched, and it is argued that her enlightenment radicalism was grounded in Christian eudaimonism, resulting in a form of rational altruism, according to which human happiness depends on the cultivation of the self as a moral individual. It deals with her engagement with individuals in North America before and after the American Revolution, in particular her exchanges with, John Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Benjamin Rush, and George Washington, and also recounts her contacts with influential players in the French Revolution, in particular, Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville and Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti count of Mirabeau. The introduction concludes with her influence on Mary Wollstonecraft and an overview of her mature political philosophy as summarized in her response to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.


2000 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 154-171
Author(s):  
Ove Korsgaard

Grundtvig's Educational Ideas - On tying bonds and cutting knotsBy Ove KorsgaardFormer reseach into Grundtvig’s ideas has concentrated mostly on his pedagogical ideas and the folk high school. A third category must be added - Grundtvig’s ideas regarding enlightenment.These ideas can be understood only in the light of the main complex of problems which occupied Grundtvig throughout his entire life, namely the question: What does it imply to be a human being, a human being in society and a human being in the world? The assignment is to »develop a complete enlightenment of man«, and »human life through thousands of years«. Grundtvig wanted to establish a school system based upon two columns: the people and mankind - a folk high school and a university.We now live in the era of the school - resulting in an individualization of man which may become dangerous if there is no agreement on »the common good«. Only true enlightenment will result in the triad between the individual, the people and mankind. The folk high school was to enlighten the people. The university was to be »a spiritual workshop«, striving towards a universal understanding and towards clarification. Grundtvig’s university was never established.However, in this time of globalization the need for research into Grundtvig’s ideas of enlightenment is as great as ever.


1992 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-32
Author(s):  
Lorenz Rerup

Grundtvig’s Position in Early Danish NationalismBy Lorenz RerupThe article deals with Grundtvig’s important position in Early Danish nationalism, i.e., in the decades from about 1800 to 1830. The background is the Danish Monarchy from the prosperous years at the turn of the century to the disastrous war 1807-1814, the loss of Norway in 1814, and the following needy postwar time. After 1814 the Danish Monarchy consisted of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, the North-Atlantic Islands (the Faeroes and Greenland) and some minor colonies. The ideology which integrated the higher ranks of these heterogeneous ethnic groups of the Monarchy into one society was a patriotism underlining peace and order in the realm, the importance of just government and - before 1807 - the protection provided by the Danish navy.The patriotism of the Monarchy was compatible with various feelings of identity which bred in different parts of it from about 1750. The Danes, living in an old kingdom, equipped with a written language, with a complete educational system, and with a history of their own, of course, had a feeling of a Danish identiy, as the German speaking population of the Duchies had a corresponding feeling of an identity of their own. Clashes of these different identities might happen but were not connected with political ideas. The state was run by the king, not by the people, and a public opinion about politics was not allowed - and was almost non-existent - before the announcement of the Advisory Estates Assemblies in 1831. Now nationalism spread and soon undermined the supranational Monarchy, which finally disintegrated in 1864.However, in the first decades of the 18th century and influenced by the ideas of Romanticism a few poets, first of all Grundtvig, developed a literary national movement without political aims. In the writings of these poets the Danes - the whole people - have a real chance to make history if they abandon their superficial life and revive the virtues and piety of the great periods in Danish history. Like political nationalists these poets propagate this kind of revival. Their attempt failed. People were still divided into a ’high’ and a ’broad’ culture and some decades had to pass until the latter one felt the need of an ideology in order to be integrated into society. Nevertheless, Grundtvig seems to be a kind of link between the patriotic ideology of the 18th and the political nationalism of the 19th century.


Author(s):  
Joel Colón-Ríos

This chapter examines the ways in which the debates about the nature and implications of the theory of constituent power that arose during the French Revolution reappeared in later constituent episodes. It pays particular attention to the electoral rules regulating citizen activity and to the types of constitutional forms that resulted from them. In Part I, the chapter explores the distinction between the constituent power of the people and the constituent power of the nation. From each of these notions, emanate different types of legal and institutional demands on the juridical order. After distinguishing between these two approaches, the chapter examines, in Part II, the ways in which they were (or not) put into practice in the constitution-making process that resulted in the creation of the Spanish Constitution of 1812. Part III focuses on the creation of the Venezuelan Constitution of 1811 and Part IV examines the process that led to the adoption of the Colombian Constitution of 1886. During these three processes, constituent power became an extraordinary constitution-making jurisdiction directed at the identification of the common good, and as a power that could be exercised through mechanisms that excluded important parts of the population.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
Kateryna Dysa

The recommendations of the Bohemian philanthropist of the late eighteenth century Leopold von Berchtold to travelers were not unique: there were others before and after. In the previous centuries other authors also tended to recommend their readers to pay attention to the economic state of foreign countries and provided them with a long list of questions they had to ask the people in the country of their destination. However, Berchtold’s recommendations were the product of his time, the age of Enlightenment, and they mentioned numerous topics and problems characteristic for that period. For instance, the author believed that self-improvement of a traveler had to begin long before the start of the trip. In Berchtold’s opinion, a traveler prepared for the journey was a kind of ideal, universal superhuman who was physically proficient, expert in all spheres of science, mechanics, economics, and medicine, who knew many languages, and was a talented artist and musician. Among the topics related to the Enlightenment, to which the author paid attention, were, for instance, patriotism of the traveler, which he understood as civil virtue, destined to improve not only his own country but also the whole of humankind. Moreover, patriotism in Berchtold’s interpretation did not contradict cosmopolitanism but rather it based itself on it. Philanthropy – which in the eighteenth century was a kind of secular religion – also featured a lot in Berchtold’s recommendations. Finally, the theme of doubt, as a basis for a critical assessment of reality and verification of authorities, pierced through the whole text of Leopold Berchtold. So did the topic of the public sphere, especially sociability and creation of social networks. The recommendations of Berchtold are thus valuable as a source that can tell a lot about the age of Enlightenment – not only about the practical side of traveling but also about the intellectual history of that period.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-775
Author(s):  
Hugo Bonin

Abstract ‘Democracy’ is a central word of our current political lexicon, often defined as ‘the power of the people’. However, in 19th century Britain, ‘democracy’ was not characterized by the rule of the ‘people’ but by the power of lower classes, of the ‘populace’ and the ‘mob’. In political discourse, and especially in parliamentary debates, the ‘people’ were an antagonist of ‘democracy’, not its protagonist. To support these statements, this article analyses British parliamentary debates between 1775 and 1885, through both a ‘distant reading’ with the help of corpus linguistics tools and a closer examination of certain key debates and actors. After a brief overview of the methodology, three crucial periods of British political history are analysed. (1) The end of the 18th century, where the impact of the French Revolution on democratic vocabulary is measured. (2) The debates surrounding the 1832 Reform Act, in which the explicit differentiation between the constitutional ‘people’ and the democratic ‘mob’ is drawn out by Whigs and Tories alike. (3) The Second Reform Act (1867), also presented as a ‘popular’ measure, and not a step towards ‘democracy’. In conclusion, the adoption of the democratic vocabulary by British Members of Parliament is traced to the 1880s, notably with the emergence of the idea of ‘Tory democracy’.


2019 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 260-275
Author(s):  
Victor V.  Aksyuchits

In the article the author studies the formation process of Russian intelligentsia analyzing its «birth marks», such as nihilism, estrangement from native soil, West orientation, infatuation with radical political ideas, Russophobia. The author examines the causes of political radicalization of Russian intelligentsia that grew swiftly at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and played an important role in the Russian revolution of 1917.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-115
Author(s):  
Munawir Munawir

Non-Muslim leadership becomes a problematic issue in the context of inter-religious relations in Indonesia, especially for Muslims in conducting religious-social-political relations with non- Muslims. The problematic position of this non-Muslim leadership issue is the state constitution allows but the religious constitution (based on the textuality of the Qur'an) forbids. How does M. Quraish Shihab respond as well as answer the problematic of the people in the case? It is this core issue that will be tested by the answer through this research. Using the descriptive-inferential method and the philosophical-historical approach (philosophical and historical approach), the conclusion that M. Quraish Shihab in interpreting the verses (ban) of non-Muslim leadership (Surat al-Maidah: 51, QS Ali 'Imran: 28, and QS al-Mumtahanah: 1) is contextual, or in other words, the verses are understood to be sociological and not theological. Therefore he allows non-Muslim leadership as long as the non-Muslims are not of a hostile group of Islam, even he does not allow the leadership of a Muslim if a Muslim is actually injurious Islam and harms the interests of Muslims.


Author(s):  
Janusz Adam Frykowski

SUMMARYNon-city starosty of Tyszowce was located in the province of Belz and received the status of royal land in 1462. Its territory included the town of Tyszowce and villages: Mikulin, Perespa, Klatwy and Przewale. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the starosty suffered from a significant increase of various negative phenomena. The crown lands had bitterly tasted devastating fires, epidemics, contributions, requisitions, robberies and field devastations. All these disasters were caused mainly by war and military activities. Marches of soldiers and quartering of troops greatly contributed to the situation and were usually associated with the need of maintaining the soldiers. The requisitions of food, alcohol, cattle, horses and poultry were particularly burdensome for the people. The greatest economic devastation as regards the resources of the starosty and its people was caused by monetary contributions, usually several times higher than the financial capacity of the town and its inhabitants. This work focuses on damages to the starosty caused by the royal cavalry. According to the literature, it is clear that the behavior of the troops in Tyszowce Starosty was not different from the behavior of soldiers in other areas of Poland. It must be admitted that the reprehensible behavior of the army was influenced by many conditions, from the recruitment of people from backgrounds often involving conflict with law, as well as foreigners, to the accommodation system under which the soldiers were forced to supply themselves “on their own.”


EMPIRISMA ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Limas Dodi

According to Abdulaziz Sachedina, the main argument of religious pluralism in the Qur’an based on the relationship between private belief (personal) and public projection of Islam in society. By regarding to private faith, the Qur’an being noninterventionist (for example, all forms of human authority should not be disturb the inner beliefs of individuals). While the public projection of faith, the Qur’an attitude based on the principle of coexistence. There is the willingness of the dominant race provide the freedom for people of other faiths with their own rules. Rules could shape how to run their affairs and to live side by side with the Muslims. Thus, based on the principle that the people of Indonesia are Muslim majority, it should be a mirror of a societie’s recognizion, respects and execution of religious pluralism. Abdul Aziz Sachedina called for Muslims to rediscover the moral concerns of public Islam in peace. The call for peace seemed to indicate that the existence of increasingly weakened in the religious sense of the Muslims and hence need to be reaffi rmed. Sachedina also like to emphasize that the position of peace in Islam is parallel with a variety of other doctrines, such as: prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and so on. Sachedina also tried to show the argument that the common view among religious groups is only one religion and traditions of other false and worthless. “Antipluralist” argument comes amid the reality of human religious differences. Keywords: Theology, Pluralism, Abdulaziz Sachedina


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