scholarly journals Theories of Alienation – Seeman and Marx

2020 ◽  
pp. 7-26
Author(s):  
Mike Healy
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Broad View ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Autonomist Marxism ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Alternative Theories

This chapter examines in detail the two contrasting approaches to alienation of Seeman and Marx detailing how key concepts of Marx’s theory of humanity affects his understanding of alienation. After discussing Seeman’s more routinely-favoured perspective the chapter outlines three problems with such alternative theories of alienation: first, the shadow of Marx and the political implications of his broad view; secondly, the difficulty in undertaking measurable, quantifiable work that is demanded by dominant positivist frameworks; and lastly the problem of the vague nature of the term alienation, that it is frequently synonymised with vague feelings of unease or dissatisfaction. The relation of alienation to reification is also discussed as well as the approaches of Blauner, Wendling and autonomist Marxism. The author concludes that it is feasible to research alienation using Marx’s categories and approach to social analysis because they offer greater penetrating explanatory power than other viewpoints.

PENSAMENTO POLÍTICO EM GIORGIO AGAMBEN

Professare ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Claudemir Aparecido Lopes
Keyword(s):  
Political Freedom ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Control ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Social

<p class="resumoabstract">O professor Giorgio Agamben tem elaborado críticas à engenhosa estrutura política ocidental moderna. Avalia os mecanismos de controle estatal, nos quais os denomina ‘dispositivos’, cuja força está na imbricação às normas jurídico-teológicas com seus similares ritos e liturgias. Suas ocorrências e legitimidade preponderam no tecido social cuja organização sistêmica se põe quase como elemento natural e não cultural. O texto tem por objetivo explorar a concepção política de Agamben sobre a política contemporânea, especialmente considerando seu livro: ‘Estado de Exceção’, cuja investigação apresenta a possibilidade de atenuação dos direitos de cidadania e o enfraquecimento da prática da liberdade política e o processo de relação dos indivíduos no meio social através da redução das subjetividades ‘autênticas’. Analisamos ainda a transferência do mundo sacro elaborado pelos teólogos católicos presente na modernidade à política cuja democracia moderna faz do homem (sujeito) tornar-se objeto do poder político. Faz também, reflexão dos conceitos de subjetivação e dessubjetivação relacionando-os às implicações políticas do homem moderno. A pesquisa é bibliográfica com ênfase na análise dos conceitos elaborados por Agamben, especialmente quanto ao ‘dispositivo’. Conclui que o indivíduo ocidental, de modo geral, sofre o processo de dessubjetivação e está ‘nu’, indefeso e alienado politicamente. Ele precisa voltar-se ao processo de ‘profanação’ dos dispositivos para libertar-se das vinculações orientadoras que forçosamente o descaracteriza enquanto ser ativo e livre.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Política. Liberdade. Subjetivação.</p><h3>ABSTRACT</h3><p class="resumoabstract">Professor Giorgio Agamben has been criticizing the ingenious modern Western political structure. It evaluates the mechanisms of state control, in which it calls them 'devices', whose strength lies in the overlap with legal-theological norms with their similar rites and liturgies. Its occurrences and legitimacy preponderate in the social fabric whose systemic organization is almost as a natural and not a cultural element. The text aims to explore Agamben's political conception of contemporary politics, especially considering his book 'State of Exception', whose research presents the possibility of attenuating citizenship rights and weakening the practice of political freedom and the individuals in the social environment through the reduction of 'authentic' subjectivities. We also analyze the transfer of the sacred world elaborated by the Catholic theologians present in the modernity to the politics whose modern democracy makes of the man - subject - to become object of the political power. It also reflects on the concepts of subjectivation and desubjectivation, relating them to the political implications of modern man. The research is bibliographical with emphasis in the analysis of the concepts elaborated by Agamben, especially with regard to the 'device'. He concludes that the Western individual, in general, suffers the process of desubjectivation and is 'naked', defenseless and politically alienated. He must turn to the process of 'desecration' of devices to free himself from the guiding bindings that forcibly demeanes him while being active and free.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Keywords</strong>: Politics. Freedom. Subjectivity. </p><p> </p>

The Concept of “Zemsky Sobor” in the Interpretation of State Authority in Russia of the 19th Century: From Karamzin to Stepnyak-Kravchinsky

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 140-155
Author(s):  
Dmitry A. Badalyan
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
State Authority ◽  
The 19Th Century

“Zemsky Sobor” was one of the key concepts in Russian political discourse in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. It can be traced to the notion well-known already since the 17th century. Still in the course of further evolution it received various mew meaning and connotations in the discourse of different political trends. The author of the article examines various stages of this concept configuring in the works of the Decembrists, especially Slavophiles, and then in the political projects and publications of the socialists, liberals and “aristocratic” opposition.

China's Western Horizon

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Markey
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
National Wealth ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Infrastructure Investments

This book explains how China’s new foreign policies like the vaunted “Belt and Road” Initiative are being shaped by local and regional politics outside China and assesses the political implications of these developments for Eurasia and the United States. It depicts the ways that President Xi Jinping’s China is zealously transforming its national wealth and economic power into tools of global political influence and details these developments in South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Drawing from extensive interviews, travels, and historical research, it describes how perceptions of China vary widely within states like Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Iran. Eurasia’s powerful and privileged groups often expect to profit from their connections to China, while others fear commercial and political losses. Similarly, statesmen across Eurasia are scrambling to harness China’s energy purchases, arms sales, and infrastructure investments as a means to outdo their strategic competitors, like India and Saudi Arabia, while negotiating relations with Russia and America. The book finds that, on balance, China’s deepening involvement will play to the advantage of regional strongmen and exacerbate the political tensions within and among Eurasian states. To make the most of America’s limited influence along China’s western horizon (and elsewhere), it argues that US policymakers should pursue a selective and localized strategy to serve America’s aims in Eurasia and to better compete with China over the long run.

Reading Politics with Machiavelli

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Family Farm ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
White Nationalism ◽  
The Republic

Reading Politics with Machiavelli is an anachronistic reading of certain key concepts in Machiavelli’s The Prince and The Discourses (as well as some of his correspondence). In 1513, soon after the Medici returned to power in Florence, Machiavelli lost his position as First Secretary to the Republic, and he was exiled. On his family farm, he began a self-consciously anachronistic reading of great political figures of antiquity, and, in combination with his own experience as a diplomat, crafted a unique perspective on the political crises of his time. At our own moment of democratic crisis, as the democratic imagination, as well as democratic habits and institutions face multiple attacks from neoliberalism, white nationalism, and authoritarianism, I argue that a similar method, in which we read Machiavelli’s work as he read Livy’s and Plutarch’s, can help us see the contingency, and the increasingly forgotten radical potential, of our politics. Louis Althusser argued that Machiavelli functions for us as an uncanny authority, one whose apparent familiarity is dispelled as we examine his epistolary yet opaque account of history, politics, and authority. This makes his readings a potentially rich resource for a time of democratic crisis. With that challenge in mind, we will examine the problems of conspiracy, prophecy, torture, and exile and use a close reading of Machiavelli’s work to make out new perspectives on the politics of our time.

Afterword

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh B. Urban ◽  
Greg Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Education Today

The Afterword includes an interview with Bruce Lincoln, in which he is asked to reflect on the current study of religion, methods of comparison, and the political implications of academic discourse. In addition to responding to specific points in these chapters, Lincoln also fleshes out what he thinks it would mean “to do better” in the critical study of religion amid the ongoing crises of higher education today. Perhaps most importantly, he reflects upon and clarifies what he means by “irreverence” in the study of religion; an irreverent approach, he concludes, entails a rejection of the sacred status that other people attribute to various things, but not of the people themselves.

The Stakes of Decolonization, 1945–1960

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talbot C. Imlay
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Majority Rule ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Common Position ◽  
Human Individual ◽  
Post War

In examining the efforts of European socialists to forge a common position towards the issue of post-war empires, this chapter highlights some of the political stakes involved in decolonization. As debates between European and Asian socialists suggest, the process of decolonization witnessed a struggle between competing rights: national rights, minority rights, and human (individual) rights. Each set of rights possessed far-reaching political implications, none more so than minority rights, as they were often associated with limits on national sovereignty. These limits could be internal, such as constitutional restraints on the working of majority rule; but they could also take the form of external constraints on sovereignty, including alternatives to the nation state itself. The victory of the nation state, in other words, was inextricably tied to the defeat of minority rights as well as the growing predominance of human rights.

The Catholic Hierarchy in the Nicaraguan Revolution

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
The Political ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Nicaraguan Revolution ◽  
Clear Majority

The involvement of Christians in the Nicaraguan Revolution is a clear manifestation of the profound changes taking place within the Nicaraguan Church as a whole. While a clear majority of the clergy took a stand against the injustices of the Somoza regime, a smaller group of priests and religious demonstrated a more profound commitment to radical structural transformation of society. Although their efforts to organize andconcientizar1rural and urban poor had serious political implications – in fact, many joined the guerrilla as a result of the ‘radicalization of their faith’ – to these priests and religious the political solutions available to counter growing social injustices and government abuses were few: either fight or capitulate. The bishops, on the other hand, were cautious about the pace of change and rejected the violent option, choosing instead an intermediate path. Unfortunately, such an option proved futile in the case of Nicaragua, and finally the bishops justified armed revolution as a viable alternative to systematic repression.

Interview with Vicki Kirby

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 261-271
Author(s):  
Daniel McLoughlin
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
New Materialisms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

In this interview, Vicki Kirby discusses her research into the relationship between nature and culture, focusing in particular on her recent edited collection, What If Culture Was Nature All Along? The volume appears in the ‘New Materialisms’ series, and so the interview begins by situating the collection with respect to the recent materialist turn in social theory. Kirby discusses the influence of deconstruction on her thought, and the way that she draws upon Derrida to think through recent research in the life sciences and its implications for understanding the relationship between matter, life, and communication. She also goes into the political implications of her work and the relationship between biopolitics and biodeconstruction.

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