Towards an ethical politics

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 571-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Kiloh
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
Organizational Principle ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Work

Jürgen Habermas’ characterization of Adorno’s project as an aestheticization of philosophy continues to influence our reading of his work. In contradiction to Lambert Zuidervaart, who suggests that in order to be understood as politically relevant, Adorno’s philosophy must be supplemented with empirical research, I argue in this article that Adorno’s work contains many of the resources we would need to theorize an ethical politics. First, it both identifies the moral debt carried by the subject and addresses the need for social transformation in order to change this situation. Second, it proposes an ethical comportment of self-relinquishment as a first step towards this reorganization of the social. The self-relinquishment of philosophy to its object is modeled upon aesthetic experience, which, according to Adorno, we must regard as a remorseful atonement for the subject’s domination of the object in its attempt to ‘wrest itself free’ ( Aesthetic Theory, 1997c: 112) of undifferentiated being. By incorporating into philosophical thought the mimetic bodily impulses tamed by aesthetic form, we may engender within ourselves a solidarity with objectivity. Rather than the self-possessing and conservative subject that constitutes its world mentally, Adorno theorizes a subject for whom thinking is a temporalization or a becoming. Thinking produces otherness within the subject itself. In this thinking-as-becoming, we see the beginnings of a highly individuated political subjectivity capable of acting in solidarity with the other. This brings us to the third element within Adorno’s philosophy that can serve us in formulating an ethical politics: the non-violent organizational principle of the modern work of art. In mobilizing the logic of the modern work of art, the autonomous individual is empowered to forge a politics that preserves contradiction in the facilitation of a non-violent relation with others.

scholarly journals Critical agency in education: a Foucauldian perspective

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Postma
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Human Subject ◽  
The Self ◽  
Alternative Mode ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Educational Implications ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mode Of Being

While the neoliberal order is associated with the economy, government and globalisation, as a form of governmentality it effects a particular subjectivity. The subject is the terrain where the contest of control plays out. The subject is drawn into the seductive power of performativity which dictates its agency, desires and satisfactions and from which escape is difficult to imagine. Neoliberalism is particularly interested in an education which provides it with the much needed powers of production and consumption. This dependency of the neoliberal order on a particular kind of agential subjectivity is also its weakness because of the indeterminacy of the self. Within this openness of the human subject lies the possibility to be different and to escape any form of subjectification. Foucault’s account of the critical agent portrays a form of difference that opposes and transcends neoliberal ordering. Foucault finds the principle of practices of freedom in the Greco-Roman ethics of the care for the self. It is an ethics where the subject gains control of itself through the ascetic and reflective attention in relation to available ethical codes and with the guidance of a ‘master’. Such as strong sense of the self is the basis for personal and social transformation against neoliberal colonisation. The development of critical agency in education is subsequently investigated in the light of Foucault’s notions of agency and freedom. The contest of the subject is of particular importance to education interested in the development of critical agency. The critical agent is not only one who could identify and analyse regimes of power, but also one who could imagine different modes of being, and who could practice freedom in the enactment of an alternative mode of being. The educational implications are explored in relation to the role of the teacher and pedagogical processes.

scholarly journals Accounting and the Making of Homo Liberalis

2012 ◽  
pp. 67-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Lambert ◽  
Eric Pezet
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
Organisational Context ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual

This paper investigates the practices whereby the subject, in an organisational context, carries out systematic practices of self-discipline and becomes a calculative self. In particular, we explore the techniques of conduct developed by management accountants in a French carmaker, which adheres to a neoliberal environment. We show how these management accountants become calculative selves by building the very measurement of their own performance. The organisation thereby emerges as the cauldron in which a Homo liberalis is forged. Homo liberalis is the individual capable of constructing for him/her the political self-discipline establishing his/her relationship with the social world on the basis of measurable performance. The management accountants studied in this article prefigure the Homo liberalis in the self-discipline they develop to act in compliance with the organisation’s goals.

scholarly journals The Discursive Problematization of Death, Dehumanization and Sociocultural identity: An Analysis of 'The Walking Dead'

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Victoria Skye
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Major Site ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Discourses ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Way ◽  
Walking Dead

<p>The zombie is a significant cultural figure which is represented and produced as being symptomatic of and relevant to contemporary concerns about death and dehumanization. This thesis will focus on the ways that death and dehumanization are changing and being negotiated within popular cultural representations and discourses regarding zombies, particularly in Frank Darabont’s television series The Walking Dead. The thesis will consider the way in which the figure of the zombie is representative of issues and discourses that are indicative of a problematization of the category of the human, and the notion of the transcendental. This will involve an examination of the changing narratives of the body, with particular regard to consumerism and the insistence of the body as a major site of the truth and value of the self, in contrast to the horrifying bodily form of the zombie. The thesis will also examine the way that dehumanization is problematized in The Walking Dead, where the human/non-human distinction is shown to be increasingly precarious and difficult to sustain. Further, the thesis will examine how the zombie is represented as manifesting the collapse of identity, as agents become alienated from the social discourses, narratives and values which constitute and categorize the subject.</p>

scholarly journals Social Inversions and Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (12) ◽  
pp. 39-49
Author(s):  
D. A. Sevost’yanov
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Hierarchical System ◽  
Mutual Position ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
Organizational Principle ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Organizational Principles

The article focuses on hierarchical and inverse relations in social systems. Hierarchy is the basic form of organization in social systems. Complex hierarchies have the ability to form inverse relationships. Inverse relationships occur when the lower element in social hierarchy becomes the dominant, but formally remains in a subordinate position. In a hierarchical system, there are certain organizational principles that determine the mutual position of the elements. There are several such principles in complex hierarchies. Inversions arise when two or more organizational principles collide in social hierarchy. The developed inversions are a manifestation of internal contradictions in the hierarchical system. The accumulation of these contradictions can lead to the collapse of the hierarchical system. For example, the development of social inversions can cause a revolution in which certain organizational principles in the social system are abolished. But in some cases, resolving of these contradictions leads to another step in the progressive development of the system. Thus, the resolution of contradictions occurs when the subject actually moves to a higher position in the social hierarchy. One of the most important organizational principles that determine the position of the subject in the social hierarchy is based on the educational level of this subject. Increasing the level of education entails the increase of the subject’s social status. However, the position of the subject in the social hierarchy is also determined by other organizational principles. These principles may conflict with the educational organizational principle. As a result, there is a social inversion. Education is a factor that can both generate inversions in the social hierarchy and eliminate them. The development of society is closely connected with the manifestations of the educational organizational principle, with its interaction with other organizational principles in the social hierarchy. The analysis of inverse relations in social hierarchies is an effective research tool that allows to predict and prevent social tension in society.

Postmodern and Social Problems of Cities

2018 ◽  
Vol 931 ◽  
pp. 765-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gennady V. Sorokin ◽  
Tatyana I. Eroshenko ◽  
Alexander V. Fedoseenkov ◽  
Alexander V. Malyshev
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Self ◽  
General Level ◽  
Theoretical Studies ◽  
Demographic Structure ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Single Tooth ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

Today it is possible to speak about a postmodern sociology. It is based on the number of provisions reflecting the general level of social and humanitarian knowledge as well the provisions formulated on the ground of the theoretical studies analysis on postmodernism performed. In its diverse manifestations the postmodern paradigm essentially turns into an independent cognitive and theoretical-ideological entity that influences mainly the development of the already existing sociological concepts and arises their new models or modalities. The mono-city is the element of the self-organising social being fabric that is the subject of social synergies. The cognitive and heuristic element of joining social, economic and political problems and the prospects for the development of single-tooth cities can be classified as "fractal". The social world consists of many things that are the processes of formation, and in fact are fractals. The degradation of modern Russia in the social, political and economic sense is an indicator of the destruction of single-tooth cities in the conditions of the modern socio-demographic structure within the framework of the postmodern "end of history".

scholarly journals Towards an expansive object and a restrictive experience in Everyday Aesthetics: A Chestertonian metaxological approach

Kepes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (24) ◽  
pp. 197-231
Author(s):  
Miguel A. Romero-Ramírez ◽  
Duncan Reyburn
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Original Intention ◽  
Everyday Aesthetics ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The One

This article proposes to resolve an internal ambiguity in the subdiscipline called Everyday Aesthetics (EA), systematized by the researcher Horacio Pérez-Henao, according to whom the extension of aesthetics to the everyday has been done, on the one hand, by means of a consideration of an expansive object and subject according to aesthesis itself, as mainly proposed by Katya Mandoki, and, on the other hand, by means of a restrictive object and subject according to the parameters of an authentic aesthetic experience, a theory headed by John Dewey. Methodology: To resolve this tension, a hermeneutic methodology known as the fourfold sense of being, related to Hegelian dialectic, albeit with important modifications supplied by William Desmond was used. This methodology allows a suitable way to explore and discuss different approaches in everyday aesthetics epitomized by Mandoki and Dewey, and makes possible the proposal of a third way, epitomized by G. K. Chesterton. Results: Bearing in mind the original intention of EA—according to which the everyday must be revitalized from an aesthetic perspective, as explained by Joseph Kupfer, it is argued that the two alternate positions of Mandoki and Dewey are unsatisfactory; an attempt is therefore made to respond to this through the analysis of the aesthetic approach of G. K. Chesterton. From his aesthetic reflections, it can be ascertained that to revitalize daily life, the object must be expansive and the subject, restrictive, from a certain méthodos and according to patterns that qualify an everyday aesthetic experience. All of this seeks to pave the way for subsequent investigations of EA being both expansive and restrictive. Finally, it is argued that this Chestertonian EA converges with and extends the aesthetics of design of Jane Forsey, and thus shows that design itself can be revitalized in keeping with a restrictiveexpansive approach to everyday aesthetics. Conclusion: aesthetics should be expansive every day, in that it should concern itself with any aspect of daily life, and restrictive, in that it should set certain limits on the self and its intentions with regard to the possibilities of aesthetic experience.

The Feeling of Being a Body: Resurrection and Habitus in Vaughan’s Medical Writings

2021 ◽  
pp. 124-147
Author(s):  
Daniel Juan Gil
Keyword(s):  
Social Connectedness ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Devotional Writings

Chapter 4 articulates more explicitly than the previous chapter the way resurrection beliefs in Vaughan’s poetry function as “critical theory” about selfhood, identity, and the social world. The chapter examines Vaughan’s devotional and religious “self-help” literature and Vaughan’s translation and expansion of a hermetic medical treatise. Vaughan’s immanent corporeal resurrectionist commitment to finding the “seeds” of resurrection leads him to posit an essential core of bodily life—the radical balsam—that seeks eternal life but that is sickened when it is penetrated and rewired by the social and historical world. The goal of Vaughan’s devotional writings and medicine alike is to rewire the self so that it reduces its investment in the historical and social world by having its life directed by the essential core, a move that is analogous to his poetic search for the seeds and signs of resurrection within himself his poetry (the subject of chapter 3). This vision anticipates Heidegger’s phenomenology and Bourdieu’s theory of habitus. Vaughan also describes a form of sexuality that anticipates Leo Bersani in imagining the body as socialized and yet as potentially unhinged from that social connectedness.

VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY: EDUCATION AS A LIFESTYLE

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-50
Author(s):  
Denys Svyrydenko ◽  
Valentyna Kyvliuk
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
University Education ◽  
Virtual University ◽  
The Social ◽  
Intellectual Abilities ◽  
The Subject

The concept of the virtual university is relatively new and it is necessary to distinguish a number of contradictory points in its verification. Firstly, it is the quality of the education received. The problem of educational process content at the virtual university, organization of control and level of accomplished tasks, issues of intellectual abilities and critical thinking development, reflexivity of consciousness are the subject of heated discussions of both the supporters and opponents of the virtual university idea. Secondly, there is the question of the way of thinking. The virtual space involves a network mode of organization characterized by openness of the structure, poly variability of determination and expediency of modal logic. The phenomenon of virtual university is the result of responding to the needs of social transformation. In such model, the content of the social roles of the teacher and the student changes significantly. The competence of the modern teacher is not limited to knowledge. After all, the most experienced academician is not able to absorb all the information in a certain science, and obviously loses in the volume of assimilated information to any search engine.

On the Subject of Far-Right-Wing Politics

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 763-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Short
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
World War ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Second World ◽  
Insight Into

This paper explores how to consider the far right in historical-material and psychoanalytic perspective in the current conjuncture. Since the early post-Second World War interventions in this register, both the social relations of capitalism and psychoanalytic theory have evolved, while the problematic of the far-right had been somewhat marginalized as an object of research. This discussion revisits these broad concerns with attention to developments in the characterization of contemporary character structures and social relations. It examines two psychoanalytic approaches – drawn from Kohut and Lacan – that have been mobilized to examine the dominant character structures of late capitalism to consider their complementarity (and differences) with respect to certain psychological functions – defenses, affect and identification – that may offer insight into the far-right in the contemporary moment.

scholarly journals La educación física chilena y su profesorado: proponiendo algunos retos para la investigación en el área (Chilean physical education and its teachers: proposal of some challenges for research about the subject)

Retos ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 291-296
Author(s):  
Alberto Moreno Doña ◽  
Carolina Poblete Gálvez
Keyword(s):  
Education Research ◽  
Physical Education ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Physical Education Teachers ◽  
Research Challenges ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Depth Interviews

El siguiente artículo presenta una caracterización de la educación física chilena a partir de las creencias del profesorado del área sobre la asignatura en cuestión y su relación con la transformación social. Para dicha caracterización se han considerado, también, los cambios que la asignatura ha sufrido a raíz de la implementación de nuevas políticas públicas. A partir de grupos focales, entrevistas en profundidad y la observación participante, como técnicas de recogida de datos, se profundiza en cómo la educación física de carácter tecnocrático sigue siendo el eje vertebrador tanto del decir como del hacer de los profesionales del área. A partir de los datos mostrados, se concluye presentando una serie de retos en y para la investigación en la educación física.Abstract. The following paper shows a characterization of Chilean physical education based on the beliefs of teachers in this area about the PE subject and its relationship with social transformation. For this characterization, the changes that the physical education subject has undergone with the implementation of new public policies were also taken into account. Using focal groups, in-depth interviews and participating observation, as well as data collection techniques, the articles explores how a physical education subject with a technocratic character is still the axis on which physical education teachers base their work. Finally, from the data shown, several physical education research challenges are suggested.

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