Perspectives Against Racism: educational and socialization efforts at the departmental level

The current heightened social awareness and anxiety triggered by escalating violence against Black Americans in the United States demands a safe space for reflection, education, and civil discourse within the academic setting. Too often there is an unmet need paired with a collective urgent desire to better understand the chronic existing structural, social, educational, and health inequities affecting disadvantaged populations, particularly Black Americans. In this perspective, the authors provide insight into a shared learning approach that provided a forum to discuss Perspectives Against Racism (PAR). Unlike existing top-down approaches, faculty, trainees, and staff were engaged in leading a series of focused discussions to examine unconscious bias, promote awareness of implicit biases, and reflect on individual and collective roles and responsibilities in working toward becoming antiracist. An existing 1-h graduate elective seminar course was dedicated to creating a space for learning, discussion, and exchange of ideas related to the experience and existence of racism (personal and institutional/systemic). A goal of each session was to go beyond didactics and identify mechanisms to implement change, at the level of the individual, department, and institution. This perspective of the shared experience may provide an adaptable framework that can be implemented in an academic setting at the departmental, center, or institutional level.

A Plebeian Lexicon of Capitalism (and Socialism)

It is by no means exaggeration to suggest that society finds itself increasingly ill equipped in the art of civil discourse.  In particular, the realm of political debate has polarized at partisan extremes, arguably fueled by gross economic inequality.  And as is typical when advocates’ hearts are aflame, logic can give way to passion, whether for lack of empathy or failures in communication.  With skirmish lines firmly drawn seeming eons ago, the opposing forces calcify in their trenches, rarely daring set foot on the field of battle, choosing instead to lob poorly calculated mortars at their “enemy,” not in honest attempt to “win” the war, but merely hoping to quiet the shells raining down, even if but temporarily.  Before we can broker peace, it is crucial we mend the broken lines of communication, starting with the most basic building blocks of language.  Of late, our (un)civil discourse has been rife with talking at each other and past each other, without pause to consider the foundational definitions of the words we lob.  We have weaponized our very means of intellectual connection, to the point that what remains is a toxic stew of defensive reactions.  Into this fray author beckons reader, with lofty goals of both deconstructing and then intentionally framing a lay person’s lexicon with useful definitions for capitalism, capitalist, and capital, each considered as relative to socialism.

Conservative Islamic factions vs. secular nationalists: toward a civil contestation in democratic Indonesia

This paper describes how Indonesia’s presidents have delt with Islamist and secular nationalist political contestation since the preparation of Indonesian independence and how the current president compares. Soekarno’s initial reliance on civil discourse ended in his autocratic decree that banned the Indonesia’s most powerful Islamic party (Masyumi). Soeharto’s initial iron-fist approach ended up meeting some Islamic demands. B.J. Habibie helped transformed Indonesia through a democratic election in 1999, but the leader of the winning party, Megawati was defeated in the parliament that elected a pluralist Muslim cleric, Gus Dur. Gus Dur’s administration, ended by the central axis, suggests that liberal democratic processes cannot be applied in an increasingly conservative Muslim majority country. Megawati lost, partly because she is a female president unpopular among the Islamists, while SBY was sympathetic toward the Islamist’s demands, enhancing the “conservative turn.” Jokowi has used discursive and legal approaches to promote Pancasila in challenging the hardline Islamic demands, enabling him to ban HTI and FPI and to implement the speech freedom-limiting laws, leading to criticisms and the decline in the 2020 Indonesia's Democracy Index. Jokowi’s expansion of these laws to maintain unity and stability may be deemed an “authoritarian turn,” but I argue that it may be more appropriately called “the Pancasila turn.” In framing and analyzing Jokowi’s laws as a Pancasila turn, I am arguing in this paper that this lays the foundation for a more equal, civil, and democratic contestation.

Legal regulation of digitalization processes in the Russian Federation: civil law aspect

The subject of this research is the trends and problems in the development of civil legislation within the framework of legal regulation of digitalization processes in the Russian Federation. The goal of this article lies in comprehensive examination and disclosure of the legal essence of the concept of digital rights as an object of civil rights, introduced into the Russian legislation within the framework of legal regulation of digitalization processes. The research methodology employs systematic approach, general scientific and special methods of legal science – formal-legal, interpretation of law, etc. For achieving the set goal, the author explores the prerequisites for the development of civil law provision pf digitalization processes; analyzes the novelties of civil legislation pertinent to implementation of various types of digital rights into civil discourse; studies the legal essence of digital rights; determine the ratio between digital rights and equity securities within the civil discourse. The scientific novelty lies in revealing the legal essence of digital rights as a special concept uses in civil law ; systematic analysis of the utilitarian digital rights and digital financial assets that  encompass all types of digital rights in the current Russian legislation; substantiation of the fact that property rights in their extensive interpretation used in legal science and case law are the generic concept of digital rights; outlining that the content and conditions for exercising digital rights are determined conformity with the rules of the information system that meets the criteria established by law; examination and explanation of interrelation between different types of digital financial assets and equity securities in the civil discourse. The acquired results can be applied in further research of civil law regulation of digitalization processes, in teaching civil law disciplines in the higher school.

Developing Leadership Cultural Agility for Civil Discourse

Organizations continue to increase their presence in the global landscape, and their leaders are frequently challenged by the political, socio-economic, and cultural diversity of the growing workforce. The global organization's culture and climate are often influenced by employees' education, local political involvement, and digital and medial landscape. As a result, organizational leaders should develop culturally agile competencies in order to engage and motivate their employees. This study examines the role and need for cultivating cultural agility in leaders of global organizations in an effort to assist them in developing effective civil discourse among their followers.

RELIGION LITERACY AS A FORMATION CONDITION KAZAKHSTAN'S CIVIL DISCOURSE

The formation of a civil community takes place in the process of statehood formation and involves the development of a system of communication between communities and social groups that have different characteristics of economic, ethnic, linguistic, confessional, settlement, and demographic plans. In the light of the above, one of the most important functions of the state is to promote the formation of a civil discourse that is understandable to all social groups without exception. Depending on the characteristics of the community, the civil discourse can coincide with the national, confessional discourse or represent a supra-corporate, supra-group integral. Since the 2000s, in Kazakhstan (which also reflects the global trend), concepts that set the principles of orientation of modern man in the post – secular world-a world in which a large-scale return of religion to everyday life and the practices of individuals, social communities and institutions began to actively penetrate into civil discourse. To fully participate in the communications conditioned by the discourse of this type, individuals need religious literacy. The request for its formation is received by the education system, which acts as an instinct for the socialization of individuals. The article examines the transformation of Kazakhstan’s civil discourse from the point of view of the presence in it of concepts reflecting the principles of state-confessional relations at various stages of Kazakhstan’s development over the years of independence. The authors undertake a special analysis of what challenges the education system faces and how it solves them in the context of the formation of civil discourse.

The Excellent Mind

What makes for a good education? What does one need to count as well educated? Knowledge, to be sure. But knowledge is easily forgotten, and today’s knowledge may be obsolete tomorrow. Skills, particularly in critical thinking, are crucial as well. But absent the right motivation, graduates may fail to put their skills to good use. In this book, Nathan King argues that intellectual virtues—traits like curiosity, intellectual humility, honesty, intellectual courage, and open-mindedness—are central to any education worthy of the name. Further, such virtues are crucial to our functioning well in everyday life, in areas as diverse as personal relationships, responsible citizenship, civil discourse, and personal success. Our struggles in these areas often result from a failure to think virtuously. Drawing upon recent work in philosophy and psychology, the book paints a portrait of virtuous intellectual character—and of the vices such a character opposes. Filled with examples and applications, this book introduces readers to the intellectual virtues: what they are, why they matter, and how we can grow in them.