scholarly journals A Pragmatic Utopia? Utopianisms and Anti-utopianisms in the Critique of Educational Discourse

Paideusis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-50
Author(s):  
Christopher Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Educational Justice ◽  
Educational Discourse ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

This paper seeks to address what I claim are competing utopian and anti-utopian impulses within educational discourse aimed at formulating a just and fair conception of public education. On the one hand, there is a tendency to prescribe concrete utopias – normative blueprints that claim to portent how a redeemed public education will (and ought to) be. On the other hand, there is the tendency to prescribe material revolutions – strategic blueprints that dictate the kinds of political action that educators must undertake in order to bring about lasting social change. I argue that both of these approaches to formulating a just conception of public education are flawed for pragmatic as well as normative reasons. As a way of avoiding the pitfalls inherent to utopianism and anti-utopianism, I suggest that those of us interested in a just conception of education maintain our focus on a kind of pragmatic utopianism. While pragmatic utopianism requires that we abandon the notion that we can ever know what a redeemed public education will look like in its particulars, it does set out standards of deliberation that can increase the likelihood that we will be able to address issues of educational justice as they arise.

scholarly journals Liberalism, Governmentality and Counter-Conduct; An Introduction to Foucauldian Analytics of Liberal Civil Society Notions

2015 ◽  
pp. 8-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miikka Pyykkönen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Potential Field ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

This article gives an analysis of Foucault’s studies of civil society and the various liberalist critiques of government. It follows from Foucault’s genealogical approach that “civil society” does not in itself possess any form of transcendental existence; its historical reality must be seen as the result of the productive nature of the power-knowledge-matrices. Foucault emphasizes that modern governmentality—and more specifically the procedures he names “the conduct of conduct”—is not exercised through coercive power and domination, but is dependent on the freedom and activeness of individuals and groups of society. Civil society is thus analyzed as fundamentally ambivalent: on the one hand civil society is a field where different kinds of technologies of governance meet the lives and wills of groups and individuals, but on the other hand it is a potential field of what Foucault called ‘counter-conduct’ – for both collective action and individual political action.

scholarly journals Defnition as a Tool of the Formation of Legal Concepts

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 92-105
Author(s):  
VITALY V. OGLEZNEV
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Philosophy Of Law ◽  
Legal Philosopher ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Interesting Approach ◽  
The One ◽  
Legal Concepts

In his paper "The Influence of Normative Reasons on the Formation of Legal Concepts", German legal philosopher Lorenz Kähler offers a very interesting approach to normativity for the Russian theory and philosophy of law. L. Kähler, considering various normative reasons that influence on the formation of legal concepts, puts forward original and sometimes unexpected conclusions. On the one hand, this can be attributed to the peculiarities of his writing style, but on the other hand, it sometimes seems that he deliberately provokes the reader to questions, involving him in a discussion. In L. Kähler’s approach, there are at least two arguments that require serious clarification and discussion. First, the fact that all the concepts used in legal norms are legal, and, secondly, that the legislator can use lexical, stipulative and real definitions to disclose a content of these concepts. The counterarguments and criticisms offered in this article are based on the statements that the definition is one of the ways of forming legal concepts, and that the question of what is meant by concepts is closely related to the question of which definitions the legislator can use. This led to the following conclusions. First, that in the formulation of legal norms, non-legal concepts, legal concepts and concepts of the law can be used, and this use does not entail that all these concepts become legal. Second, that three types of definitions (lexical, stipulative, and real) are clearly not enough to define these concepts. Moreover, not all of these definitions can be effective and productive, and only some of them are normative in nature. Therefore, it is necessary either to expand the list of definitions, or to significantly modify them in accordance with the specifics of the field of application.

scholarly journals The Atmosphere of Democracy: Knowledge and Political Action

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-91
Author(s):  
Nico Stehr
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe leading scientists debating climate change increasingly view the relationship between knowledge and governance as an “inconvenient democracy.” On the one hand, the discrepancy between the knowledge of climate change and citizens’ commitments to behavioral changes amounts to the diagnosis of an “inconvenient mind”; on the other hand, the inertia of policies to capture progress in knowledge leads to the diagnosis of “inconvenient institutions.” The sense of political ineffectiveness felt especially among climate scientists provokes a strong disenchantment with democratic governance. As a result, some scientists propose that political action based on principles of democratic governance be abandoned. In my article, I argue that such a view is mistaken.

scholarly journals The Meaning of Radicalisation in Modern Social Pedagogy

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (Spec. Iss.) ◽  
pp. 103-127
Author(s):  
Ana Bogdan Zupančič
Keyword(s):  
Structural Change ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
Social Pedagogy ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Realistic Option ◽  
The One

The article defines radicalisation as part of the processes of modern liberation, which are recognised in the interlacement of emancipatory potential in social pedagogy and mobilisation in the theory of community development. In parallel to this, we problematise the internally divided socio-pedagogical attitude, which, on the one hand, seeks to liberate, and on the other hand, is repeatedly caught in the preservation of existing “oppressive” power relations. In doing so, we consider the concerns regarding political action as the goal of “radicalising” social pedagogy, which indicate that in social pedagogy we have internalized collaboration as a democratic “norm” of solving social and other societal issues and thus accepted it as the only formally realistic option to achieve structural change.

Clientelism, Law and Politics. Considerations in the Light of the Argentine Case

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Rivas
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The One ◽  
Empirical Approaches

AbstractThe purpose of this article is, on the one hand, to explain what clientelism is through a description of its characteristics in its current Argentinean form. On the other hand, it will evaluate clientelism from a legal and political point of view. In order to achieve these purposes, we will distinguish clientelism from legitimate politics, and then offer a critical evaluation in case there were any differences. Regarding the first objective, it will be necessary to resort to some kind of canonical definition, broad enough to grasp different clientelistic phenomena. Then, it will be possible to explain its Argentinean particularities, noting that it happens to be a specially interesting kind of clientelism because of its refinement and breadth. As to the second objective, we will oppose to the reasoning that equates clientelism and legitimate types of political action. We will argue that ordinary politics is different and that, in fact, this difference turns clientelism illegitimate. Criticism against clientelism may include empirical approaches but, as these only show deficiencies of a particular public policy, they lack the ability to be extended to other cases. Alternative criticism may be more interesting, but it will necessarily be weaker as it may only reveal a model of citizens and political relations upon which clientelism is grounded.

scholarly journals Political Movement By Apolitical Activist: Gezi Park Protests

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferihan Polat ◽  
Ozlem Ozdesim Subay
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Party Government ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Gezi Park Protests leaving its mark in the June of 2015, is understood from so many perspectives by national and international academicians. On the one hand, some social scientists recognize this movement as apolitical action by analyzing the identity of activist, on the other hand, some of them claims that this movement is a political one by pointing out that the aim of the movement is against the Ak Party Government especially Erdoğan himself. This study aiming to understand Gezi Park Protests puts forward that having apolitical identity of activists is not enough to recognize the movement as apolitical one and also claiming that having political action cannot be explained by the idea that the movement is just against the Ak Party Government. This study justifying that this movement cannot be explained by the idea of domestic political conflict and separation as Turkey is a part of global capitalist order, focuses on dimensions of crossing national borders. Beyond the evaluation of Gezi Park Protests as an international conspiracy, interpretation of this movement as a part of the growing public protests against the system on a global scale is a more plausible perspective to understand the multidimensional social reality.

scholarly journals Right to education – young people with disabilities and children with special educational needs

2021 ◽  
pp. 304-313
Author(s):  
Ildiko Laki
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Young People ◽  
Educational Needs ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Educational Needs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Educational Need ◽  
Complex Forms ◽  
The One

One of the biggest educational challenges of the past decades is the question of the social and educational integration of young people with special educational needs (SEN) and/or youth and young adults with disabilities. The importance of the topic is provided by two factors; there is a clearly rising trend in the increase in the number of children with special educational needs, which can be identified almost immediately among the children due to the methodological results, on the one hand, and it has become a feature of the public education that was able to launch many segments of the market – developments, movement therapy, complex forms of education based on special needs – and, as a result, industries are slowly beginning to emerge to create opportunities for them to enter the system, on the other hand. In the case of the public education, the SEN category also represents a kind of set of problems, because in the case of students who study at a normal pace, those belonging to the SEN group only experience disadvantages. The purpose of this summary is, on the one hand, to describe the concept and the framework of the content of the special educational needs used in the public education, and, on the other hand, to summarize the types of disabilities in the light of such data. The study also seeks to give an answer to the question how the determination of the disability is able to reflect a specific educational need, and shed light on the usable, more relevant concept from the perspective of the interested persons.

Anarchism in Deleuze

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-292
Author(s):  
Jernej Kaluža
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Practice Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Basic Ideas ◽  
The One

In this article, we argue that Deleuze's philosophy could be understood as anarchistic in a specifically defined meaning. The imperative of immanence of thought, which we explicate mainly through the reading of Deleuze's Spinoza, on the one hand establishes indivisibility between theory and practice and on the other hand paradoxically orders disobedience. We argue for a thought that is immanent, adequate with its inner practice, for thought that cannot be forced. That is the basis on which we combine the reading of Deleuze, Spinoza, Nietzsche and some basic ideas from the contemporary anarchistic movement (Graeber) and the anarchistic tradition (Stirner). We do not try to argue for a certain form of political action. Our goal is to establish a field of thought, that is by its innermost ontological principles anarchistic: practice must be accompanied by its own theory. Adequate thought cannot be forced. This is a necessary condition for each consistent practice-theory.

scholarly journals Myth, Utopia, and Political Action

Human Affairs ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Mendel
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Karl Mannheim ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
Collective Dimension ◽  
Social Myth

Myth, Utopia, and Political ActionStarting from the premise that some form of "reality transcendence", i.e. the ability to imagine a different reality and reach out for the (un)thinkable, is necessary for political action, the aim of this paper is to analyse the concepts of myth and utopia elaborated by Georges Sorel and Karl Mannheim and to examine their possible contributions to a theory of political action and social change. By comparing the role the authors assign to rationality and irrationality in human affairs, methodological and conceptual differences between Sorel's and Mannheim's approaches to the political are illustrated. It turns out that due to its immunity to critique Sorel's concept of the social myth is highly problematic. Mannheim's concept of utopia, on the other hand, culminates in a technocratic understanding of the political. Though both approaches emphasise the collective dimension of political action, they ultimately exhibit elitist understandings of the political.

Sexual activism and ‘actually existing eroticism’: The politics of victimization and ‘lynching’ in Argentina

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-470
Author(s):  
Mario Pecheny ◽  
Luca Zaidan ◽  
Mirna Lucaccini
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Strategies ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Neoliberal Governance ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
The One

Focusing on the case of Argentina, this text discusses two issues. The first refers to the tension between progress in feminist and LGBTIQ+ politics, on the one hand, and erotic-affective practices, that is, ‘actually existing eroticism,’ on the other hand. This tension is analyzed on two levels: first, through the construction of identities, theoretical perspectives, and political strategies in the sex-gender arena from a stance of victimization; and second, through examining new ‘normativities’ that resulted from the achievements by feminist and LGBTIQ+ movements in transforming their demands into laws and policies. The second issue calls attention to a particular form of political action: public shaming and what the authors refer to here as ‘lynching,’ which describes extreme methods of a sexual politics of victimization in a context of neoliberal governance.

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