Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London

'Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London' reveals the hidden stories of enslaved and bound people who attempted to escape from captivity in England’s capital. In 1655 White Londoners began advertising in the English-speaking world’s first newspapers for enslaved people who had escaped. Based on the advertisements placed in these newspapers by masters and enslavers offering rewards for so-called runaways, this book brings to light for the first time the history of slavery in England as revealed in the stories of resistance by enslaved workers. Featuring a series of case-studies of individual "freedom-seekers", this book explores the nature and significance of escape attempts as well as detailing the likely routes and networks they would take to gain their freedom. The book demonstrates that not only were enslaved people present in Restoration London but that White Londoners of this era were intimately involved in the construction of the system of racial slavery, a process that traditionally has been regarded as happening in the colonies rather than the British Isles. An unmissable and important book that seeks to delve into Britain’s colonial past.

The analysis of the hashtag #Jokowi404NotFound on Twitter in protesting mural removal in the public sphere

The removal of mural looking like President Joko Widodo's face with the words 404 Not Found triggered a wide range of reactions from the public, including some on Twitter, who saw the action as an anti-critical form of government. As a result, the hashtag #Jokowi404notfound became a popular topic and was used over 11,000 times on August 14, 2021. The purpose of this study is to look at how people use the hashtag #Jokowi404notfound on Twitter to protest the removal of murals. In August 2021, this study takes a qualitative approach, collecting data in the form of observation of media texts on Twitter's public timeline. According to the findings of this study, the hashtag #Jokowi404notfound was used to protest the government's anti-critical decision to remove murals as a form of suppression of individual freedom. When the public interest is at stake and the movement is mobilized by Twitter activists with large social media followings, the hashtag activism movement has the potential to drive and influence government policy. Messages to the government are also conveyed using various styles of language.

Wpływ ideologii totalitarnych na konstrukcje prawne stosowane w zakresie ograniczania autonomii woli jednostki na przykładzie modeli wiązania wzorców umownych

The paper aims to examine the influence of totalitarian ideologies on the issue of the mechanism of binding contractual standard forms. Although totalitarian ideologies mainly influence the situation of an individual through the norms of criminal law and administrative law (public law in its broadest sense), private law — especially in its theoretical aspect involving accepted legal constructs — is also influenced by the political doctrines dominant at a given time. As it seems, this also applies to such a technical and far-from-political model as that of contractual binding. It turns out that also in this area totalitarian concepts found room for restricting the scope of individual freedom. This is indicated by a certain correlation between the development of views on the nature of contractual forms and the mechanism of their binding and the intensification or weakening of totalitarian tendencies. Such a conclusion can be derived from the historical analysis of the views represented by the main representatives of French and German doctrine from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century.

Algoritminė valdysena: implikacijos, priešinimosi strategijos ir santykis su biogalia

In the article, I associate modern algorithmic technologies with biopolitics by proposing a hypothesis that despite several fundamental differences, there are certain similarities between algorithmic control and biopower. In order to prove it, I first thoroughly review Rouvroy and Berns and Stiegler’s concepts of algorithmic control and distinguish strengths and weaknesses of their theories. Further, I briefly draw attention to the impact of algorithmic governmentality on the perception of the categories of the subject, normativity, individual freedom, and autonomy, as well as analyze strategies for resisting algorithmic governmentality. Finally, I consider the relationship between algorithmic governmentality and biopower, and the implications that algorithmic governmentality may have for life as such, which was traditionally associated with biopolitics, as well as question the future of the concept of biopower.

Modern solidarity and administrative repression

Modern society is based on the predominance of organic solidarity over mechanical solidarity and, consequently, on the predominance of the law, which ensures cooperation between autonomous subjects from repressive law, which sanctions, through penalty, any deviation from the standards of the common conscience. Modern society is “civilized”, i.e. it is firstly and foremost based on “civil” law, the repressive law only being exceptional, which translates into three principles: that of the subsidiarity of criminal law, that of the necessity and legality of offences and penalties, and that of the additional protection of individual freedom when the subject is criminally charged. The consequence thereof is that, in modern liberal democracies, all repressive law is criminal, that any charge which may lead to the application of a repressive sanction is a criminal charge and that the law-maker cannot assign to the administration the competence regarding the application of repressive sanctions. Under these circumstances, the transformation of some repressive norms into norms of administrative law is a violation of the fundamental principles that structure the legal order of modern liberal states. Nonetheless, this type of practice is becoming more common. In order to ensure individual freedom, this tendency must be corrected. As politicians are not willing to do so, naturally this is a task for the judicial courts, that can rely for this endeavour on the European Court of Human Rights’ constructive jurisprudence.

Istota totalitaryzmu. Wokół teorii Zbigniewa Brzezińskiego i Carla Friedricha

The aim of this text is a contemporary estimation of the thesis formed in a famous book by Zbigniew Brzeziński and Carl Friedrich, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (1956). This is a classic text of Western political science about totalitarianism, simultaneously scientific and political. Scientific, because it presents the idea of three types of political regimes in the 20th century: totalitarian, authoritarian, and liberal-democratic. Political, because the term “totalitarianism” was very useful in the time of the Cold War. This term presents the old (Nazi Germany) and new (Stalinist Russia) totalitarian states as equal political enemies of the USA, equal in their hostility to political and individual freedom, i.e. America’s creed. By using this term, the Americans can create a horrible picture of Russian communism as totalitarian, the same as Hitler’s regime, while presenting old enemies (West Germany, Italy, and Japan) as good friends of both the USA and freedom, because in this moment these states are democratic and liberal. The new term ended the old line of the delimitation between fascist or pro fascist and antifascist states and legitimates the new alliance between the USA and Franco’s Spain. The author analyses the definition of totalitarianism by Brzeziński and Friedrich as well as the political and ideological accusations made against this book by leftist critics.

Citizenship as an Aim of Higher Education

The focus of this chapter is on the merits of civic education as an aim of higher education. First, the chapter explains how a legitimate and justifiable liberal civic education for children must (and can) strike a balance between the goods of political stability and individual freedom. Second, it makes the make the case for extending civic educational goals to higher education. The third and fourth sections show how civic educational aims look like a promising foundation for the justification of higher education. But a closer look reveals that this justification cannot strike a balance between stability and freedom. The upshot is that while it makes sense to cherish the indirect benefits of higher education for the civic capacities of graduates, these benefits ought not be understood as the overarching aim that justifies state involvement in its management and provision.

Gordon Keith Chalmers and the Politics of Advanced Placement

This article investigates the role of mid-century conservatism in shaping the College Board's Advanced Placement program. Kenyon president Gordon Keith Chalmers and superintendent of New Trier public schools William Cornog, who led the committee that directly gave rise to the AP Program, understood themselves as classically liberal but socially conservative, and their proposed program was rooted in principles associated with that movement. In keeping with other mid-century conservative thinkers, they promoted humanistic inquiry that introduced all American students, regardless of backgrounds, to the notion of individual freedom, in spaces set apart from economic activity. This article explains that Chalmers and Cornog agreed that schools should focus on reinforcing and transmitting a distinctly American heritage of constitutionalism, individualism, and universal morality by way of the liberal arts. The article ends by establishing how this ideological framing contradicts the Advanced Placement program's current shape.

A Commentary on Ambedkar's Posthumously Published "Philosophy of Hinduism"- Part III

This article forms part III of a running commentary on Ambedkar’s posthumously published “Philosophy of History” (Ambedkar, 2014a). We attempt to follow Ambedkar’s reflections on the early origins of religion and his initial distinctions of the religions of “savage society” and “civilized society” (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 9). Using the tools of philosophical critique, we see his attempt to dissect the real “principal” (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 10) of religion beyond the apparitional nature of rites, rituals, and taboos. This leads to a series of deductions of what constitutes the very “core,” “source,” and “substance” of religion rooted in the “preservation of life” (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 10). However, this is also a moment that will foreshadow Ambedkar’s ultimate judgement of Hinduism’s status as a religion when founded on the unequal social structure of caste. We argue the following in this article: what Ambedkar says about the architectonic of “savage society” and the failure to undergo a profound revolution in the nature and concept of religion bears an eerie resemblance to what ultimately takes the place of “savage society” (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 9) over time, namely the Hindu caste system. This makes modern Hinduism a strange hybrid of pre-history and a future history whose conclusion is uncertain. Whether caste can disappear from society is the burning question. And this is intertwined with profound metaphysical questions of time, life, birth, and death, which only philosophy can deconstruct if a religion, like Hinduism, were submitted for critical judgement. The article concludes with an attempt to set the stage for the next phase of the commentary: there Ambedkar will transition from a general discussion about the philosophy and history of religion as a concept to an actual engagement with the philosophical contents of the religion known and practiced by hundreds of millions of adherents as Hinduism. As we already know, his conclusion is dire: a religion can only be true if it is rooted in ‘justice’ and serves the ‘utility’ of individual freedom (Ambedkar, 2014a, p. 22).