Theodicy Sociologised: Suffering Smart in the Twenty-First Century

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Cosmic Order ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Normative Order

Theodicy is the branch of theology traditionally concerned with justifying palpable injustices in the world that are presumably the product of a just deity. The classical sociologists appreciated theodicy's relevance in terms of different social attitudes towards human suffering: is it to be tolerated, minimised, redressed or somehow transcended? Each answer implies a different view about the place of humanity in some larger cosmic order. In modern political theory, the question is normally specified in terms of the problem of distributive justice. However, the re-negotiation of the boundary between biology and sociology in the early twenty-first century is forcing a re-engagement with theodicy in its original broad sense, especially as we are increasingly asked to set resource distribution policies that bind across generations of humans and non-humans alike. In this context, as humans acquire an increasingly ‘godlike’ perspective on the normative order, suffering may come to be seen in more strictly instrumental terms – indeed, as itself a resource that might be recycled to produce good in the long term. Thus, we may be entering an era of ‘moral entrepreneurship’.

scholarly journals When the people are not reasonable: Multiculturalism and realistic normative theory in the contemporary era

Ethnicities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-292
Author(s):  
Phil Parvin
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
The People ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Feasible Solutions

In this piece, I offer an original and fundamental critique of a range of approaches to multiculturalism that have dominated the field of Anglo-American political theory since first-wave debates conducted in the 1990s/2000s. I suggest that the politics of the early twenty-first century, and especially the widespread rise of anti-immigrant and anti-minority sentiments among citizens of liberal democratic states throughout the world, requires political theorists who seek feasible solutions to real-world political problems to reject these theories. I focus on two approaches in particular: political liberalism and the politics of difference. Neither offers a vision of politics that is tenable in the early twenty-first century, I argue, as they both require citizens to deliberate about political matters in ways that they cannot. In discussing these approaches, and finding them wanting, it is revealed that political theorists face a choice. They can present a theory which is realistic in the sense that it takes account of political reality and offers a strategy which might be used to genuinely inform a process of reform. Alternatively, they can abandon realism and also the desire to produce an operational normative theory which can resolve real problems in actually existing states. I lay out the nature and importance of this choice and explain some of its implications for the discipline and for our current political predicament. I suggest that the choice is unavoidable and that making it requires political theorists to make a more fundamental decision about the purposes of normative political theory itself.

scholarly journals Photoblogs: the immediate need to document early twenty-first century photography practices

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Atwood
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Hard Copy ◽  
Digital Cameras ◽  
Collections Management ◽  
Camera Phones ◽  
The People ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

This thesis attempts to suggest ways in which museums might better understand and make informed decisions about acquiring, preserving, and cataloguing photoblogs, which are an early twenty-first century photography practice. Photographers can now use the World Wide Web to show and share their images, because of the advent of digital cameras, camera phones, and cheap, open-source photo-blogging tools available to the general population. This thesis will help museums to better understand and be comfortable in acquiring digital artefacts, such as photoblogs, that will enrich their photographic collections for future generations. Acquisition tools and preservation methods are defined and discussed. The process of cataloguing photoblogs in current collections-management databases is not much different from cataloguing hard-copy photographs. The "People of Walmart" photoblog is used as an example and an illustration to clearly define the difficult technical jargon separating curatorial and collections management departments from information technology departments.

The Prime Minister

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Trollope
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Life ◽  
British Society ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

‘Though a great many men and not a few women knew Ferdinand Lopez very well, none of them knew whence he had come.’ Despite his mysterious antecedents, Ferdinand Lopez aspires to join the ranks of British society. An unscrupulous financial speculator, he determines to marry into respectability and wealth, much against the wishes of his prospective father-in-law. One of the nineteenth century’s most memorable outsiders, Lopez’s story is set against that of the ultimate insider, Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium. Omnium reluctantly accepts the highest office of state; now, at last, he is ‘the greatest man in the greatest country in the world’. But his government is a fragile coalition and his wife’s enthusiastic assumption of the role of political hostess becomes a source of embarrassment. Their troubled relationship and that of Lopez and Emily Wharton is a conjunction that generates one of Trollope’s most complex and substantial novels. Part of the Palliser series, The Prime Minister’s tale of personal and political life in the 1870s has acquired a new topicality in the early twenty-first century.

scholarly journals Prostate cancer management: long-term beliefs, epidemic developments in the early twenty-first century and 3PM dimensional solutions

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radek Kucera ◽  
Ladislav Pecen ◽  
Ondrej Topolcan ◽  
Anshu Raj Dahal ◽  
Vincenzo Costigliola ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prostate Cancer ◽  
First Century ◽  
Cancer Management ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Prostate Cancer Management

6. The Global Wave of Democratization

2018 ◽  
pp. 82-100
Author(s):  
John Markoff ◽  
Daniel Burridge
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
First Century ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Mediterranean Europe ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Eastern Half

This chapter focuses on the great wave of democracy that had touched every continent. In the early 1970s, Western Europe was home to several non-democratic countries, most of Latin America was under military or other forms of authoritarian rule, the eastern half of Europe was ruled by communist parties, much of Asia was undemocratic, and in Africa colonial rule was largely being succeeded by authoritarian regimes. By the early twenty-first century, things had changed considerably, albeit to different degrees in different places. The chapter looks at regions of the world that underwent significant change in democracy between 1972 and 2004, including Mediterranean Europe, Latin America, Soviet/Communist Bloc, Asia, and Africa. It considers what was distinctive about each region’s democratization and what they had in common. It concludes with an overview of challenges faced by democracy in the early twenty-first century.

Toward a Global Ethic

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rodin
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Global Ethics ◽  
Financial Systems ◽  
Global Ethic ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Political Economic

We are one humanity, but seven billion humans. This is the essential challenge of global ethics: how to accommodate the tension between our universal and particular natures. This tension is, of course, age-old and runs through all moral and political philosophy. But in the world of the early twenty-first century it plays out in distinctive new ways. Ethics has always engaged twin capacities inherent in every human: the capacity to harm and the capacity to help. But the profound set of transformations commonly referred to as globalization—the increasing mobility of goods, labor, and capital; the increasing interconnectedness of political, economic, and financial systems; and the radical empowerment of groups and individuals through technology—have enabled us to harm and to help others in ways that our forebears could not have imagined. What we require from a global ethic is shaped by these transformative forces; and global ethics—the success or failure of that project—will substantially shape the course of the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals What's ‘French’ about French Studies?

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 312-327
Author(s):  
Charles Forsdick
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Past Century ◽  
French Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Disciplinary Field ◽  
Twenty First Century

Those reflecting on what is ‘French’ about ‘French studies’ in the early twenty-first century must consider the transformations evident in the disciplinary field over the past century. This article gives an overview of these shifts, but focuses in particular on the increasingly pluralized and diversified objects of study now addressed in explorations of the French-speaking world, as well as on the radical changes in the ways in which those objects are now approached. Central to the analysis is an awareness of a wider Francosphere, which has served to locate France in relation to a wider network of countries and communities, and may be seen to have provincialized, as a result, in a transnational and postcolonial frame, the former colonial centre. The article concludes with a reflection on Mary Louise Pratt's designation of Modern Languages as ‘knowing languages and […] knowing the world through languages’ (2002), and – in the context of French studies in the twenty-first century – asks: which languages? which world? and what forms of knowing?

5. The Global Wave of Democratization

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Markoff
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
First Century ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Mediterranean Europe ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Eastern Half

This chapter focuses on the great wave of democracy that had touched every continent. In the early 1970s, Western Europe was home to several non-democratic countries, most of Latin America was under military or other forms of authoritarian rule, the eastern half of Europe was ruled by communist parties, much of Asia was undemocratic, and in Africa colonial rule was largely being succeeded by authoritarian regimes. By the early twenty-first century, things had changed considerably, albeit to different degrees in different places. The chapter looks at regions of the world that underwent significant change in democracy between 1972 and 2004, including Mediterranean Europe, Latin America, Soviet/Communist Bloc, Asia, and Africa. It considers what was distinctive about each region’s democratization and what they had in common. It concludes with an overview of challenges faced by democracy in the early twenty-first century.

scholarly journals Photoblogs: the immediate need to document early twenty-first century photography practices

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Atwood
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Hard Copy ◽  
Digital Cameras ◽  
Collections Management ◽  
Camera Phones ◽  
The People ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

This thesis attempts to suggest ways in which museums might better understand and make informed decisions about acquiring, preserving, and cataloguing photoblogs, which are an early twenty-first century photography practice. Photographers can now use the World Wide Web to show and share their images, because of the advent of digital cameras, camera phones, and cheap, open-source photo-blogging tools available to the general population. This thesis will help museums to better understand and be comfortable in acquiring digital artefacts, such as photoblogs, that will enrich their photographic collections for future generations. Acquisition tools and preservation methods are defined and discussed. The process of cataloguing photoblogs in current collections-management databases is not much different from cataloguing hard-copy photographs. The "People of Walmart" photoblog is used as an example and an illustration to clearly define the difficult technical jargon separating curatorial and collections management departments from information technology departments.

The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Greenhouse
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Century ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Capitol Hill ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction draws on the Court’s history and its written and unwritten rules to show how it operates in the early twenty-first century. Today’s Supreme Court, housed in a majestic building on Capitol Hill, bears little resemblance to the institution launched by the Framers of the Constitution and was originally seen as the weakest of the three branches of government. Over the next 200 years, the Court put the independence the Framers gave it to use and now largely defines itself. How do cases reach the Supreme Court? What features have other courts around the world taken from the Supreme Court, and what have they left?

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