The Rhetoric of Empire in the Scottish Mission in North America, 1732–63

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-37
Author(s):  
Jamie J. Kelly

In 1755, William Robertson delivered a sermon before the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, entitled The Situation of the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance…. He addresses British imperial expansion and its prospects for civil and moral improvement, while denouncing the moral decay manifest in the growth of slavery and exploitation of natives. Through advocating a considered balance between submission to revealed religious principles and the exercise of reason, Robertson stresses the necessity of both for promoting virtue and preventing vice. The SSPCK, an organisation dedicated to spreading ‘reformed Christianity’ as a catalyst of cultural progress (and thus the growth of virtue) among rural Scots and Natives in North America, was responding to a perceived lack of government commitment to this very task. Empire provided the framework for mission, yet the government's secular agenda often outweighed religious commitments. This article makes use of SSPCK sermons from the eighteenth century to trace the attitudes of Scottish churchmen and missionaries towards the institutions and motives driving empire, in a period when they too were among its most prominent agents. This will shed light on the Scottish church's developing views on empire, evangelism, race, improvability and the role of government.

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Vita Elysia ◽  
Ake Wihadanto

Local Government of Magelang Regency initiates the Sister Village Program after Mount Merapi Eruption in 2010. The idea of this program is to connect villages at risk from Merapi eruption to partner villages with less risk in the surrounding regions. This program is part of post-disaster recovery initiatives at the local level which includes planned evacuation routes, shelters, provision of food and other daily essentials. This paper aims to shed light on the role of sister village program in promoting community resilience after the volcanic eruption of Merapi. It is found that the system of sister village program can fulfill many aspects of community resilience components. Considering Indonesia is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, this program should be regarded as a good example to be replicated in other prone areas in the country.


2022 ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
Omar El Hiba ◽  
Hicham Chatoui ◽  
Nadia Zouhairi ◽  
Lahoucine Bahi ◽  
Lhoussaine Ammouta ◽  
...  

Since December 2019, the world has been shaken by the spread of a highly pathogen virus, causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-Cov2), which emerged in Wuhan, China. SARS-Cov2 is known to cause acute pneumonia: the cardinal feature of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Clinical features of the disease include respiratory distress, loss of spontaneous breathing, and sometimes neurologic signs such as headache and nausea and anosmia, leading to suppose a possible involvement of the nervous system as a potential target of SARS-CoV2. The chapter will shed light on the recent clinical and experimental data sustaining the involvement of the nervous system in the pathophysiology of COVID-19, based on several case reports and experimental data reporting the possible transmission of SARS-CoV2 throughout the peripheral nerves to the brain cardiorespiratory centers. Thus, understanding the role of the nervous system in the course of clinical symptoms of COVID-19 is important in determining the appropriate therapeutic approach to combat the disease.


Author(s):  
David W. Orr

The philosophy of free-market conservatism has swept the political field virtually everywhere, and virtually everywhere conservatives have been, in varying degrees, hostile to the cause of conservation. This is a problem of great consequence for the long-term human prospect because of the sheer political power of conservative governments. Conservatism and conservation share more than a common linguistic heritage. Consistently applied they are, in fact, natural allies. To make such a case, however, it is necessary first to say what conservatism is. Conservative philosopher Russell Kirk (1982, xv–xvii) proposes six “first principles” of conservatism. Accordingly, true conservatives:… • believe in a transcendent moral order • prefer social continuity (i.e., the “devil they know to the devil they don’t know”) • believe in “the wisdom of our ancestors” • are guided by prudence • “feel affection for the proliferating intricacy of long-established social institutions” • believe that “human nature suffers irremediably from certain faults.”… For Kirk the essence of conservatism is the “love of order” (1982, xxxvi). Eighteenth-century British philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke, the founding father of modern conservatism and as much admired as he is unread, defined the goal of order more specifically as one which harmonized the distant past with the distant future. To this end Burke thought in terms of a contract, but not one about “things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature.” Burke’s societal contract was not, in other words, about tax breaks for those who don’t need them, but about a partnership promoting science, art, virtue, and perfection, none of which could be achieved by a single generation without veneration for the past and a healthy regard for those to follow. Burke’s contract, therefore, was between “those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born . . . linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world” ([1790] 1986, 194–195). The role of government, those “possessing any portion of power,” in Burke’s words, “ought to be strongly and awefully impressed with an idea that they act in trust” (ibid., 190).


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-31
Author(s):  
Annamma Joy ◽  
Russell Belk

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the meaning, in both local and international context, of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB), the first international exhibit of contemporary art in India. Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF), which administers the KMB, identifies art as a means for transforming society, with a mission to bring global contemporary art to India and to present India’s modern art to the world. The authors further investigate the role of government sponsorship and corporate patronage in funding the KMB, and investigate how resistance through art is key to the KMB’s identity. Design/methodology/approach This study focuses primarily on published materials relating to the KMB. One of the authors attended the 2016 KMB and interviewed fellow attendees. Additionally, the authors reviewed and assessed social media postings regarding the 2016 KMB. Findings The authors argue that government sponsorship and corporate patronage are never solely about political or financial power. Rather, a generalized reciprocity among the three entities – corporations, the government and the artists – allows the KMB to flourish. For the artists involved, the KMB, co-founded by activist artists, sustains interest in and awareness of resistance. Originality/value Extant literature on biennales is sparse on ways in which these exhibits extend their impact beyond the art world. The authors examine issues such as India expanding its position on the world stage through art, and the implications of political resistance embraced by Indian artists on future directions for the KMB, that have heretofore been unaddressed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimo Ossi

Vivaldi's concerto titles draw ambivalent reactions from historians, who see them as commercial hooks, rarely reflecting musical substance. But titles condition a work's reception, connecting it to a cultural context by which to steer a listener's reactions, both intellectual and affective. Eighteenth-century writers on aesthetics recognized the role of textual “ideas” in the reception of music. Vivaldi's Il Proteo, ò Il mondo al rovverscio is regarded as a “trick piece” in which the solo violin and cello parts are “reversed,” each being written in the other's clef. The concerto, however, invokes a deeper conception of the mundus inversus metaphor, in that it constitutes a remarkably sophisticated exploration of upside-down compositional practices. While the opening movement challenges notions of “correct” musical syntax, evoking the Carnival celebrations of the “world upside down,” the last presents a well-ordered example of Vivaldian ritornello form. Vivaldi included Il Proteo as the first concerto in a large group sold to Pietro Ottoboni in the mid-1720s, twelve of which bear titles. Some are as concrete as “The Four Seasons,” but others are more abstract, deriving from affective or intellectual subjects such as“Il riposo.” Il Proteo, in this context, seems especially sophisticated, cleverly satirizing some of the composer's own trademark compositional techniques. Its self-conscious treatment of style appears to address contemporary debates regarding music's ability to carry “meaning,” an ability that members of Ottoboni's Arcadian Academy seemed to deny but that others, such as the philosopher Antonio Conti, endorsed. Might Vivaldi have fueled these debates with a provocative set of concertos headed by Il Proteo?


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Nguyen Xuan Trung ◽  
Dang Thai Binh ◽  
Dang Thi Thuy ◽  
Dong Thi Thuy Linh

SMEs account for a large propotion and play an important role in the development of each country in the world, including India. The globalization will bring many advantages for enterprises however SMEs will face fierce competition at the local, national and international level. In order to maintain and promote the important role of SMEs in the context of increased competition, SMEs have to change and adopt new technologies. E-commerce and digital technologies are bringing opportunities to help SMEs improve their competitiveness, narrow the gap with big enterprises thanks to their fairness and flexibility of the digital business environment. According to UNIDO (2017), India is one of the countries successfully applying e-commerce to SMEs. Contributing to this success is the important role of the Indian government. Therefore, this paper focuses on researching the application of e-commerce to SMEs in terms of the role of government in promoting and creating ecosystem for SMEs and e-commerce development.


1987 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lakshmi Subramanian

The pressing preoccupation of the British administration in the early decades of the nineteenth century to clip the wings of the malicious Indian shroffs (Bankers) and their manoeuvres and secret dealings was in sharp and in a sense valid contrast to their earlierperceptions of the Indian shroffs and their Hundi empire. By 1807, Mr Rickards, senior member of the Bombay establishment, was urging the Governor-General in Council to establisha General Bank whose operations would extend throughout India, facilitate remittances andcredit transfers from one part of the country to another, and above all ‘free the mercantile body from losses and inconveniences suffered in the exchange and from the artifices of shroffs’. Their ‘undue and pernicious influence over the course of trade and exchange’ could no longer be treated with forbearance, and the urgency of remedy was stressed. It was both strange and ironical that such advice should stem from a quarter where in the crucial years of political change and transition in the second half of the eighteenth century, the cooperation and intervention of the indigenous banking fraternity and their credit support had proved vital to the success of the Imperial strategy. The experience was admittedly not unique to Bombay and the English East India Company (hence-forth E.E.I.C) and in a sense the guarantee of local credit and the support of service groups for a variety of reasons, was clearly envisagedas a basic ingredient to state building in the eighteenth century.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (02) ◽  
pp. 54-72
Author(s):  
Samuel Fleischacker

Abstract:This essay lays out three kinds of corruption—personal, structural, and civic—stressing the differences among these phenomena. It then explores civic corruption via the work of the eighteenth-century Scottish thinker Adam Ferguson. Civic corruption occurs when the citizens of a republic lose interest in defending their shared institutions, and pursue their private wealth alone; avoiding it, according to Ferguson, requires placing limits on these private pursuits and getting citizens to participate in the public realm instead. By way of a comparison with Ferguson’s contemporary and friend Adam Smith—who agreed with Ferguson on many issues, although not on what was corrupting about the acquisition of wealth—the essay argues that Ferguson, for all his emphasis on participatory government, was a liberal, not a collectivist. With that in mind, the essay endorses many of Ferguson’s suggestions from a liberal perspective, and argues that, to preserve liberal republics, it is often necessary to expand what governments do, so as to maintain the commitment of citizens to their public institutions. This prescriptive implication brings out sharply how civic corruption differs from personal corruption, which may best be limited by shrinking the role of government, rather than expanding it.


2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (S) ◽  
pp. 117-126
Author(s):  
Vito Tanzi

AbstractWhy did China grow so fast in the past four decades? What were the main factors? Important ones were: attitude of government; opening to the world; role of culture; exploitation of technological gap; role of foreign trained students; and role of government in the creation of modern infrastructure. These factors are likely to play a much smaller role in the future while several negative factors –populism, trade wars, environmental obstacles, aging of the population, authoritarianism and others are likely to lead to significantly lower growth rates.


Author(s):  
Alexandre Freitas

The objective of this article is to discuss the relevance of the concept of semiperiphery to analyze the world system in the 21st century. First, the main concepts of the world-system approach will be analyzed. In the second part, a more in-depth examination of the question of the semi-periphery will be made through its political and economic characteristics. Later, we will examine the empirical attempts to define the semiperiphery, its role in the reproduction of the capitalist world-economy and the question of mobility in the world-system hierarchy. In conclusion, the role of government apparatus in the issue of development and overcoming the status of semi-periphery in the capitalist world-system will be highlighted.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document