scholarly journals Utopian/Dystopian Visions: Plato, Huxley, Orwell

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Nic Panagopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Sexual Politics ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
The Social ◽  
Utopian Thinking ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
The Republic

This paper attempts to theorize two twentieth-century fictional dystopias, Brave New World (2013) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), using Plato’s political dialogues. It explores not only how these three authors’ utopian/dystopian visions compare as types of narrative, but also how possible, desirable, and useful their imagined societies may be, and for whom. By examining where the Republic, Brave New World, and Nineteen Eighty-Four stand on such issues as social engineering, censorship, cultural and sexual politics, the paper allows them to inform and critique each other, hoping to reveal in the process what may or may not have changed in utopian thinking since Plato wrote his seminal work. It appears that the social import of speculative fiction is ambivalent, for not only may it lend itself to totalitarian appropriation and application—as seems to have been the case with The Republic—but it may also constitute a means of critiquing the existing status quo by conceptualizing different ways of thinking and being, thereby allowing for the possibility of change.

scholarly journals The scope and limits of combatting violent extremism in the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
pp. 155-174
Author(s):  
Tahir Abbas
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
The Status ◽  
British Muslims

This article situates the debate on the United Kingdom’s Prevent policy in the broader framework of the global paradigm for countering violent extremism (CVE), which appeared at the end of 2015. It argues that omission of a nuanced focus on the social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics of radicalised people has led to a tendency to introduce blanket measures which, inadvertently and indirectly, have had harmful results. Moreover, although Prevent has been the fundamental element of the British government’s counterterrorist strategy since 2006, it confuses legitimate political resistance of young British Muslims with signs of violent extremism, thus giving credence to the argument that Prevent is a form of social engineering which, in the last instance, pacifies resistance by reaffirming the status quo in the country’s domestic and foreign policy.

Incentives Then and Now

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth W. Grant
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Scientific Management ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Ethical Aspects ◽  
Behavioral Psychology ◽  
The Social

This chapter presents a historical account of the use of the term “incentives” and of the introduction of incentives in scientific management and behavioral psychology. “Incentives” came into the language in the early part of the twentieth century in America. During this period, the language of social control and of social engineering was quite prevalent, and incentives were understood to be one tool in the social engineers' toolbox—an instrument of power. Not coincidentally, incentives were also extremely controversial at this time and were criticized from several quarters as dehumanizing, manipulative, heartless, and exploitative. When incentives are viewed as instruments of power, the controversial ethical aspects of their use come readily to the fore.

The Social Conditions for Nanomedicine: Disruption, Systems, and Lock-In

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 733-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Best ◽  
George Khushf
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
New World ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
Policy Statements ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Molecular Manufacturing ◽  
Lock In ◽  
Self Replication

Many believe that nanotechnology will be disruptive to our society. Presumably, this means that some people and even whole industries will be undermined by technological developments that nanoscience makes possible. This, in turn, implies that we should anticipate potential workforce disruptions, mitigate in advance social problems likely to arise, and work to fairly distribute the future benefits of nanotechnology. This general, somewhat vague sense of disruption, is very difficult to specify – what will it entail? And how can we responsibly anticipate and mitigate any problems? We can't even clearly state what the problems are anticipated to be. In fact, when we move from sweeping policy statements to more concrete accounts, nanotechnology seems to bifurcate into two divergent streams: one is fairly continuous with current developments, extending extant science in a quantitative way; the other is radically new, and includes science fiction-like dreams of molecular manufacturing and assemblers, with their utopian (or dystopian) scenarios of absolute plenty (or runaway self-replication). In these cases, “disruption” takes on the valence of Huxley's brave new world.

scholarly journals 'Maggid of Montreal': Rabbi Hirsch Cohen on the dilemmas of the Canadian rabbi

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Lapidus
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
New World ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
European Values

Tzvi Hirsch Cohen was one of those pioneering eastern European clergy who immigrated to North America in the early twentieth century. So many others stayed put. His goal was to provide a foundation for traditional Judaism in the New World, which he sought to fulfill while serving for decades as Montreal’s first Chief Rabbi. In his speeches, sermons, and writings, Cohen considered how to merge his traditionalist eastern European values and customs with the social mores of democratic and egalitarian Canada. He found particularly vexing the multiple roles rabbis in the New World were called upon to play. In Europe, rabbis were specialized. Some were preachers, others halakhic experts. Cohen viewed the two as being in a state of perennial tension, and he had great difficulty seeing how one rabbi could function as both. Using himself as an example, Cohen’s description of his internal struggles offers a glimpse into the challenges rabbis in the immigrant Orthodox community in early twentieth century Canada had to face.

scholarly journals Catholic and monarchist nationalism in twentieth-century Portugal

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-56
Author(s):  
Jacek Bartyzel
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Nationalist Party ◽  
Social Doctrine ◽  
National Tradition ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Christian Nationalism

The subject of this article is Christian nationalism in twentieth-century Portugal in its two ideological and organizational crystallizations. The first is the Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista), operating in the late period of constitutional liberal monarchy, founded in 1903 on the basis of Catholic circles, whose initiator, leader, and main theoretician was Jacinto Cândido da Silva (1857–1926). The second is the metapolitical movement created after overthrowing the monarchy in 1914, aimed against the Republic, called Integralismo Lusitano. Its leader and main thinker was António Sardinha (1887–1925), and after his untimely death — Hipólito Raposo. Both organizations united nationalist doctrine with Catholic universalism, declaring subordination to the idea of national Christian ethics and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. The difference between them, however, was that, although the party led by Cândido was founded, i.a., to save the monarchy, after its collapse, it doubted the sense of combining the defence of Catholicism against the militant secularism of the Republic with monarchism. Lusitanian integralists, on the other hand, saw the salvation of national tradition and Christian civilization in the restoration of monarchy — not liberal, but organic, traditionalist, anti-parliamentary, anti-liberal, and legitimistic. Eventually, the Nationalist Party gave rise to the Catholic-social movement from which an António Salazar’s corporate New State (Estado Novo, 1889–1970) originated, while Lusitanian Integralism was the Portuguese quintessential reactionary counter-revolution, for which Salazarism was also too modernist.

The Dystopian Imagination

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Oskar Gruenwald ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Free Will ◽  
New World ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Immortal Soul ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Post Industrial

This essay seeks to exploe the nature and effects of the new Post-Industrial Revolution as epitomized by the digital universe, the fusion of synthetic biology and cybenetics, and the promise of genetics, engendering new hopes of a techno-utopian future of material abundance, new virtual worids, human-like robots, and the ultimate conquest of nature. Central to this prefect is the quest for transcending human limitattons by changing human nature itself, consciously directing evolution toward a posthuman or transhuman stage. Less well understood is the utopia-dystopia syndrome illuminated by ttw dystopian imagination refracted in science-fiction literature in such famous twentieth-century dysopias as Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and George Orwell's 1984, cautioning that utopias may lead to their opposite: dystopia, totalitarianism, dictatorship. The thrall of techno-utopia based on technology as a prosthetic god may lead to universal tyranny by those who wield political power. The essay concludes that what humanity needs is not some unattainable Utopia but rather to cherish and nurture its God-given gifts of reason, free will, conscience, moral responsibility, an immortal soul, and the remarkable capacity of compasston to become fully human.

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