God, Tsar, and People

2020 ◽  
pp. 358-388
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Rowland
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Historical Thinking ◽  
The West ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Social Units

This chapter provides a background on the crucial role of fictions in history and in current lives, a role arguably bigger than that played by any other force, human or even natural. It mentions Yuval Noah Harari's claim that cultural skill allowed humans to first organize themselves into political or social units larger than a few tens of individuals. It also reviews developments in Russian culture that made the creation and preservation of the Muscovite state possible. The chapter explains how Muscovite culture was more effective as social cement than the broader, more diffuse, and more divided cultures of the West. It explores some of the themes that Muscovite churchmen created and elaborated, like the importance of the Old Testament to the historical thinking of Muscovy.

Maximising Soft Power: the Role of Digital Diplomacy in Building Trust with Nation-Branding

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Jess Gosling
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Nation Branding ◽  
Building Trust ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Digital Diplomacy

Perceptions of attractiveness and trustworthiness impact the prosperity and influence of countries. A country's soft power is not guaranteed. Countries have their brands, an image shaped by the behaviour of governments, by what they do and say, whom they associate with, and how they conduct themselves on the global stage. Increasingly, digital diplomacy plays a crucial role in the creation and application of soft power. This paper argues that digital diplomacy is increasingly vital in the articulation of soft power. Digital diplomacy is a new way of conducting public diplomacy, offering new and unparalleled ways of building trust with previously disengaged audiences. Soft power is now the driving force behind reputation and influence on the global stage, where increasingly digital diplomacy plays an essential role.

African Clergy, Bishop Lucas and the Christianizing of Local Initiation Rites: Revisiting 'The Masasi Case'

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-208
Author(s):  
Anne Marie Stoner-Eby
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
African Culture ◽  
Christian Initiation ◽  
Initiation Rites ◽  
The Creation

AbstractOne of the most famous instances of missionary 'adaptation' was the Christianizing of initiation rites in the Anglican Diocese of Masasi in what is now southeastern Tanzania. This was long assumed to be the work of Bishop Vincent Lucas, who from the 1920s became widely known in mission, colonial and anthropological circles for his advocacy of missions that sought 'not to destroy, but to fulfill' African culture. Terence Ranger in his groundbreaking 1972 article on Lucas and Masasi was the first to point out the crucial role of the African clergy. In reexamining the creation of Christian initiation in Masasi, this article reveals that Lucas's promotion of Christianized initiation was actually based on the vision and efforts of the African clergy, an indication that mission Christianity in the colonial period cannot be assumed to reflect European initiative and African compliance.

How Old Magic Does the Trick for Modern Politics

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 428-450
Author(s):  
Claudio Sergio Nun-Ingerflom
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
The West ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Material Form ◽  
Spiritual Ideal

This article attempts to interpret the insurrection led by Razin in the seventeenth century as the beginning of modern politics, because it was founded on the immanence of the social in contrast to the transcendent conceptions of power maintained by the court and church. This advance was made possible by the working of magic. Through performative speech, magic permitted the creation of a verbal presence for the non-existent tsarevich Alexis, who, however, was never given material form. In keeping the self-appointed heir invisible and by declaring his father’s rule illegitimate, the rebels reduced the role of the tsar to a pure signifier. The proof that this uprising represented a turn toward modern politics is that it did not rely upon the invocation of an intangible philosophical or spiritual ideal (as in the West); it was built instead upon an armed people, expressing itself in a language that was still archaic but already oriented toward a new representation of power as socially legitimatized. This analysis opens an important line of argument that has power beyond this specific case.

Usage-based Theory and Exemplar Representations of Constructions

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan L. Bybee
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Repeated Exposure ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
The Creation

This chapter outlines a view of Construction Grammar in which the mental grammar of speakers is shaped by the repeated exposure to specific utterances, and in which domain-general cognitive processes such as categorization and cross-modal association play a crucial role in the entrenchment of constructions. Under this view, all linguistic knowledge is viewed as emergent and constantly changing. The chapter emphasizes that the process of chunking along with categorization leads to the creation of constructions. It also provides semantic/pragmatic and phonetic arguments for exemplar representation and a discussion of the role of type and token frequency in determining the structure of the schematic slots in constructions, as well as the productivity of constructions.

scholarly journals The Good Samaritan has Arrived

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Thamil Venthan Ananthavinayagan
Keyword(s):  
Western World ◽  
The West ◽  
Good Samaritan ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Prime Objective ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Set Up

The purpose of this article is to investigate the ongoing attempts by the West to colonize the Non-Western cultures by the means of religion. To this end, the missionary was and is without doubt the frontrunner for the standard of civilization, providing the pretext and fertile ground for the subsequent infiltration of the colonialist who was eager to carve an empire in the ‘discovered’  world - with the goal to exploit African resources for his own good. The exploitation of the resources in the colonized world was accompanied by the early religious Missionaries who set up secular missionaries. Their travels to other countries was not the bible but other documents of conquest such as dubious treaties, guns and trinkets to attract the unsuspecting colonized to be lured to them. Missionaries often aligned themselves with the powerful in order to achieve their prime objective of “saving souls” more rapidly. Colonization, civilisation and religion are means to the creation of imperialism. This article, to this end, will inquire the role of the non-Western world to resist attempts of there West to engage in practices of repeated colonization under the pretext of religion.

scholarly journals Islam, Corruption, Good Governance, and Civil Society: The Indonesian Experience

ICR Journal ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
ICR Admin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Muslim Country ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Creation

Corruption is no doubt one of the most serious problems faced by many countries, including Muslim countries such as Indonesia. Sometimes it might seem that the teachings of Islam - a religion which prohibits corruption - alone do not work to prevent Muslims from conducting such harmful acts. The author of this article therefore looks at other factors that influence Muslims in their daily lives and reviews the status of governance. In his view, one way to address the problem of corruption would be the fostering of good governance. However, at the same time Muslims would need a vibrant and dynamic civil society that can play a crucial role in the creation and empowerment of good governance. In Indonesia, a majority Muslim country - in fact the largest Muslim country in the world - a large number of Islam-based civil societies exist. The author discusses the role of Islamic teachings against corruption, and the recent experiences of Indonesia in combating this vice, particularly the role of an Islamic civil society sphere.

The Kingdom of God and the Common School: PROTESTANT MINISTERS AND THE EDUCATIONAL AWAKENING IN THE WEST

1966 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Tyack
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
The West ◽  
Common Schools ◽  
Protestant Clergy ◽  
Common School ◽  
The Common

Using early Oregon as a case study, the author analyzes the crucial role of the Protestant clergy in the establishment of American common schools.

Why Business Unit Controllers Create Budget Slack: Involvement in Management, Social Pressure, and Machiavellianism

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank G. H. Hartmann ◽  
Victor S. Maas
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Social Pressure ◽  
Business Unit ◽  
Budgetary Slack ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Personality Construct

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates business unit (BU) controllers’ inclination to engage in the creation of budgetary slack. In particular, we explore whether controllers who are involved in BU decision making are more susceptible to social pressure to engage in slack creation than controllers who are not. We expect, and find, a crucial role of the controller’s personality. Results from an experiment among 136 management accountants suggest that the personality construct Machiavellianism interacts with involvement to explain controllers’ responses to social pressure to create budgetary slack. Controllers scoring high on Machiavellianism are more likely to give in to pressure by BU management to create budgetary slack when they have been involved in decision making. In contrast, controllers scoring low on Machiavellianism are less likely to give in to pressure to create slack when they have been involved in decision making.

Maiakovskii and the Mobile Monument: Alternatives to Iconoclasm in Russian Culture

Slavic Review ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 766-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Rann
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Soviet Power ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Way

This article examines Vladimir Maiakovskii's frequent references to statues and monuments in his poetry in relation to traditions of iconoclasm in Russian culture in order not only to shed light on the poet's attitude toward the role of the past in the creation of a new culture but also to investigate the way in which the destruction, relocation, and transformation of monuments, both in the urban landscape and in art, reflects political change in Russia. James Rann demonstrates that, while Maiakovskii often invoked a binary iconoclastic discourse in which creation necessitates destruction, his poetry also articulated a more nuanced vision of cultural change through the symbol of the moving monument: the statue is preserved but also transformed and liberated. Finally, an analysis of “Vo ves' golos” shows how Maiakovskii's myth of the statue helped him articulate his relationship to Soviet power and to his own poetic legacy.

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