Distribution of Responsibility for Climate Change within the Milieu

This article approaches the challenges of the distribution of responsibility for climate change on a local level using the framework of the milieu. It suggests that the framework of the milieu, inspired by Japanese and cross-cultural environmental philosophy, provides pathways to address the four challenges of climate change (global dispersion, fragmentation of agency, institutional inadequacy, temporal delay). The framework of the milieu clarifies the interrelations between the individual, the community, and the local milieu and is open to a conservative view of human communities and an inclusive view of multispecies communities. On this basis, an account of individual responsibility that is anchored in the local milieu and includes a responsibility to collaborate across milieus is developed. It consists of a forward-looking responsibility that balances a degree of contributory responsibility for one’s imprints on the milieu with a degree of capacity-responsibility that varies regarding the individual’s knowledge and powers, and the acceptability of practices within the local milieu.

Conservative Aesthetics in the Context of M.O. Menshikov's Worldview1

In the present work the concept of “conservative aesthetics” is analyzed for the first time in Russian historiography and the significance of this phenomenon for understanding the originality of European, American and Russian traditional culture, as well as its essential role in opposing destructive postmodern tendencies in the life of society is shown. This concept is interpreted from the historical, cultural and socio-philosophical aspects. On the basis of the domestic and foreign conservatives’ ideas, the authors of the article propose a number of theses characterizing «conservatism» as ideological attitude and show its interpretation in the sphere of aesthetic perception of the world. Special emphasis was placed on the similarity of a number of features of conservative aesthetics in Russian, English and American historical traditions. The revealed characteristics of the conservative view of the world through the prism of aesthetics were used to show additional facets of the philosophical heritage of the outstanding Russian publicist of the late 19th – early 20th centuries Mikhail Osipovich Menshikov.

Kondraty Ryleev. Poet and Conspirator, Conservative view.

This research is devoted to the study of the person, creative work, views and activity of Kondraty Ryleev, the famous Russian poet and one of the leaders of the Decembrist movement. His participation in the management of Russian-American company is analyzed. The author also pays special attention to the creative work and views of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, whom he compares to Ryleev. Special regard in this research is given to the spirit of that epoch and its tendencies.

Women and the Challenges of the Future of Islamic Education

This study seeks to elaborate on the position and function of women in the realm of Islamic education. This study uses the critical review method, a method used to interpret texts critically. The results of the study show that Muslim women in Indonesia are in fact part of Muslim women in other parts of the world. However, Indonesian Muslim women tend to have greater opportunities and chances in facing a bright future of education. Within Islamic education institutions, the viewpoint of women has shifted from a conservative view to a more egalitarian one. The oldest and largest Islamic education institution in Indonesia, namely pondok pesantren, is accustomed in using the terminology of equality and alignment relatives to gender as their educational discourse. They are not only fluent in discussing the concept of gender equality, the terminology has even become part of the practice of pondok pesantren education.

NOVELTY IN ARCHITECTURE AS A FACTOR OF ITS DESIGN: A CONSERVATIVE VIEW

The purposeful attitude towards novelty is a relatively young phenomenon. The attitude to the New as an independent value was shaped initially in the Renaissance (or in the late Middle Ages); it lies in the same channel with the theory of progress. The phenomenon of fashion was gradually formed under its influence and involved into its orbit almost all aspects of life, including art and architecture, one or another degree. The endless need for renewal is defined as one of the main features of modernity as a paradigm (‘modern’ as new, contemporary). What is fashion as a cultural phenomenon, and why did it acquire such great importance precisely in the Modern Times – the epoch of architectural ‘styles’? When does tradition become fashion? How are novelty and freedom, the two main values of the modern paradigm, related? How does the general attitude towards novelty affect the criteria for the aesthetic assessment of contemporary architecture? The category of fashion only recently has become a subject of philosophical reflection, while not affecting the sphere of architecture. In this article, the phenomenon of the New in architecture is considered from the point of philosophical traditionalism. Another starting point of reasoning is the method of the Viennese school of art history, formulated in the phrase “History of art as the history of the spirit”. The religious and philosophical context reveals a fundamentally different approach to the phenomena of novelty and freedom in tradition and modernity and deepens the understanding of the revolution that was carried out in modern architecture. Thus, it helps to substantiate S.O. Khan-Magomedov's idea of two superstyles and refutes the generally accepted point of view, according to which modern architecture directly inherits and evolutionarily develops the achievements of tradition. Taking this idea as a whole, we consider it more broadly – in the sphere of traditional and modern architecture.

Trauma as Social Vaccine in Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering

This article looks into Scott’s use of trauma as a fictional construct. Despite Scott’s indebtedness to the Scottish Enlightenment Weltanschauung, his descriptions of trauma in Guy Mannering come incredibly close to the distinctions analyzed in trauma studies today. Very sensitive to the elements of absence and loss, Scott mirrors traumatic memory in his narrative strategy as well. Young Bertram and the readers are able to process the traumatic experience into a narrative and recover the lost ‘historical’ narrative only after a long process in which Bertram’s ‘acting out’ memories trigger responses in his former community which help him recover a narrative of the traumatic events. Scott fulfills the task of the ‘historian’ to detraumatize events (White 87). Trauma and the element of absence have a social cause and a deeper ripple. They function as a social vaccine, strengthening the weakened social structure against radical impulses. These impulses are at loggerheads with Scott’s conservative view, which unites Whig principles with a Torry perspective (Trumpener 715). Being at the center of a social imbalance caused by radical measures, trauma can be healed only with the help of the community whose immune mechanisms expel and neutralize the pathological development, of a society in which enlightened official forces cooperate with the marginal social strata and outcasts.

The War over the War on Drugs

This chapter focuses on the war over the war on drugs, which is a secondary, derivative, and ideological war that is used as a framing device for understanding the question of drugs in the United States over the past two decades. It addresses whether the fight against drugs has achieved its objectives and whether the moral, political, economic, and personal costs of protracted policies of drug prohibition outweigh liberalization. It also refers to John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under George W. Bush, who recruited core American values to defend the drug war. The chapter discusses the conservative view on drugs, which was reiterated by the Temperance and Prohibition movements as part of the Progressive reform wave that swept the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. It points out how pervasive drug use in America is a signal of moral decline, and prohibition is the only solution.

Poverty

Poverty is a chronic problem in both Texas and California, as it is in the rest of the nation. This chapter analyzes the two states’ competing strategies for addressing it. The Texas Model provides comparatively low levels of direct government support for the poor. The choice is based in part on budget limitations, but more fundamentally on the conservative view that government welfare programs often fail to lift people out of poverty and can foster dependency. California takes a more progressive approach. The state believes that government has a responsibility to provide for those in need and has increased state spending on government programs to assist the poor, including Medicaid expansion, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), aid to the homeless, and more.