scholarly journals Learning to be Moved: The Modes of Democratic Responsiveness

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
Bryan Warnick ◽  
Douglas Yacek ◽  
Shannon Robinson

Being responsive to the experiences, ideas, and stories of others is an essential trait for democratic citizens. Responsiveness promotes the general welfare, it shows respect for others, and allows for what Tony Laden has called the social practice of reasoning. Political theorists have shown how responsiveness is a middle ground between dominance and acquiescence, where citizens show a willingness to be moved by those around them. Responsiveness is tested, though, when citizens interact with those who hold what are thought to be immoral or unjust beliefs. The key question: Is it possible to engage responsively with those who hold morally suspect beliefs, to be legitimately “moved” by those around us, without necessarily acquiescing to the moral problems? We argue that such engagement is both possible and desirable. There are at least five different ways to be moved by others in a productive, civic sense. We describe these modes, explain their moral depth, and give some examples. Civic educators should be aware of these modes and teach students how they can be manifest in democratic life.

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 11-15
Author(s):  
Gan N.Yu. ◽  
Ponomareva L.I. ◽  
Obukhova K.A.

Today, worldview, spiritual and moral problems that have always been reflected in education and upbringing come to the fore in society. In this situation, there is a demand for philosophical categories. One of the priority goals of education in modern conditions is the formation of a reasonable, reflexive person who is able to analyze their actions and the actions of other people. Modern science is characterized by an understanding of the absolute value and significance of childhood in the development of the individual, which implies the need for its multilateral study. In the conditions of democratization of all spheres of life, the child ceases to be a passive object of education and training, and becomes an active carrier of their own meanings of being and the subject of world creation. One of the realities of childhood is philosophizing, so it is extremely timely to address the identification of its place and role in the world of childhood. Children's philosophizing is extremely poorly studied, although the need for its analysis is becoming more obvious. Children's philosophizing is one of the forms of philosophical reflection, which has its own qualitative specificity, on the one hand, and commonality with all other forms of philosophizing, on the other. The social relevance of the proposed research lies in the fact that children's philosophizing can be considered as an intellectual indicator of a child's socialization, since the process of reflection involves the adoption and development of culture. Modern society, in contrast to the traditional one, is ready to "accept" a philosophizing child, which means that it is necessary to determine the main characteristics and conditions of children's philosophizing.


Author(s):  
Stefan Schröder

This chapter addresses secular humanism in Europe and the way it is “lived” by and within its major institutions and organizations. It examines how national and international secular humanist bodies founded after World War II took up, cultivated, and transformed free-religious, free-thought, ethical, atheist, and rationalist roots from nineteenth century Europe and adjusted them to changing social, cultural, and political environments. Giving examples from some selected national contexts, the development of a nonreligious Humanism in Europe exemplifies what Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt call “Multiple Secularities”: different local or national trajectories produced a variety of cultures of secularity and, thus, different understandings of secular humanism. Apart from this cultural historization, the chapter reconstructs two transnational, ideal types of secular humanism, the social practice type, and the secularist pressure group type. These types share similar worldviews and values, but have to be distinguished in terms of organizational forms, practices, and especially policy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 183449092199329
Author(s):  
Tulips Yiwen Wang ◽  
Allan B. I. Bernardo

The present investigation explored Chinese people's attitudes toward the social practice of going “through the back door” or zouhoumen. Zouhoumen is an informal approach to achieve one’s goal through personal connections (called guanxi). We propose that Chinese people distinguish between different acts of zouhoumen and propose at least two types that differ in terms of social cognitive aspects, and that the two types evoke different perceptions of fairness that shape attitudes towards zouhoumen. Two experiments (total N = 414) provided evidence for the differentiation between facilitative zouhoumen and expropriative zouhoumen and also explore the role of type of guanxi in attitudes towards the two types of zouhoumen. Both experiments indicated that facilitative zouhoumen was less unacceptable than expropriative zouhoumen, but there were no marked differences in attitudes between zouhoumen involving expressive or instrumental guanxi. The results support a more nuanced theoretical account of a pervasive social phenomenon in Chinese society that we assume is adaptive responses to features of Chinese historical socioeconomic context.


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-951
Author(s):  
Emma Teng

Engseng Ho proposes that “the study of Asia, thought of as an Inter-Asian space, and smaller than the whole globe, can provide tractable concepts for a new round of research to shed light on the social shapes of societies that are mobile, spatially expansive, and interactive with one other.” Moving us away from more static models of China studies, Japan studies, etc., the concept of “inter-Asian”—where I take the “inter” to stand for inter-national, inter-regional, inter-faith, inter-racial, and inter-ethnic—offers a productive framework for examining histories that have been previously marginalized in dominant historical narratives: for example, the history of colonial Hong Kong's Eurasian community. In such a case, where the scope of inquiry is neither fully global in scale nor strictly local, the inter-Asian framework provides a middle ground and intermediate scale that brings this history into focus.


2000 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 257-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Kirk ◽  
George Williams ◽  
A. Caseldine ◽  
J. Crowther ◽  
I. Darke ◽  
...  

Excavations at the Glandy Cross monumental complex during 1991 and 1992 formed part of an integrated programme of evaluation, rescue, and research by Dyfed Archaeological Trust (DAT). Enclosures, pit circles, standing stones, and cairns were excavated and their environs systematically surveyed. Radiocarbon dates show the monumental complex to have been constructed between c. 2190–1530 cal BC. However, the earliest activity at the site may date to c. 4470–4230 cal BC. A defended enclosure was constructed on the peripheries of the complex c. 830–510 cal BC.The 1991–92 excavation results are presented along with a summary of survey, salvage, and research spanning the period 1981 to 1992. This new data set is tentatively interpreted in terms of historical process and the social practice of monumental construction. A brief commentary on heritage management at Glandy Cross is also presented.A note on authorship: one of the authors (George Williams) directed the Glandy Cross excavations during 1991–92 and prepared an initial draft of the project report. Following his retirement from DAT a project editor (Trevor Kirk) was commissioned by Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments to guide the project towards publication. This paper was largely penned by the project editor, though the excavation and survey data were produced by George Williams and his fieldwork team. The excavation and survey archives are held at the offices of DAT.


2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 653-701
Author(s):  
Heiko Hausendorf ◽  
Kenan Hochuli ◽  
Johanna Jud ◽  
Alexandra Zoller

Abstract The present paper is concerned with the lecture hall as the natural home of lecturing. We will focus on constructed, designed and equipped space as a material and communicative manifestation of science which fundamentally contributes to the multimodal practice of lecturing. Taking an interactionist point of view, we start off with introducing our concept of architecture-for-interaction which aims at spatial built-in features as a resource for social interaction, namely for situational anchoring among those present. In a second step, we identify key architectural elements of the lecture hall as material sediments of communicative problems connected with the social practice of lecturing. In doing so, we will also give a high-level overview of the historical development of the lecture hall (and its precursors) since the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. Turning to current data from lecturing in times of the pandemic, we will then deal with so called „ghost lectures“ behind closed doors. This current development brings out a refiguration process due to which the lecture hall undergoes a change from the classical auditorium with copresent participants to a multi-media hub allowing for tele-present participants.


Author(s):  
Alexander A. Somkin

Introduction. The paper analyzes the specificity of the dialectical development of the integrated social systems of such a personality and society. The presence of positive (natural) contradictions is recognized as a necessary and creative factor in social practice. Under the influence of this type of contradiction, the old, outdated forms of social structure (individual components of the social system) are denied and transformed to new, more perfect ones occurs as a result of their successful resolution. Methods. In the analysis, the author relied on a system-holistic approach, traditional general philosophical methods: induction and deduction, theoretical analysis and synthesis, extrapolation, etc. Discussion. The social system as an integrated unity goes through a number of stages from inception, formation and maturity to the transition to a qualitatively new state. Accordingly, the process of the emergence and development of dialectical contradictions also has several stages: from insignificant differences between opposite sides at the beginning of the emergence of the system to their strengthening and exacerbation. The nature of the contradictions depends on the specifics of the opposing sides, as well as on the conditions in which their interaction unfolds. The determining factor here, in the opinion of the author, is the positive (natural) direction of social opposition, under the influence of which the essence of the contradictions themselves is formed. Conclusion. According to the dialectical approach, the source of social development is the unity and struggle of opposites within the social system. However, the presence of opposite sides is a necessary but insufficient condition for development. They create the preconditions for it, but do not act as its driving force. Only a change in one opposition relative to another creates alternative tension, giving rise to a dialectical contradiction. Therefore, the antagonistic or non-antagonistic character of the latter is due to the positive (natural) or negative character of the social opposition itself.


Anthropology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jo Day

The influence of the “sensory turn” in the social sciences was first manifested in archaeology in the late 1990s and since then has permeated regional, chronological, and material specializations. Two interlinked themes underpin sensory archaeology: firstly, a recognition of a historically constructed ocularcentrism in how archaeological research has been planned, conducted, and presented; secondly, a realization that the senses are not just physiological but culturally created, and therefore every culture will have a different sensorium that establishes, reflects, and reinforces social practice (although this can be subverted by individuals or groups). Early efforts to counter the primacy of vision highlighted different sensory modalities, such as touch or hearing (less often olfaction and taste), and discussed more ephemeral aspects of visual analysis like shimmer and color symbolism. These studies explored a range of archaeological material, including monuments, artifacts, and significant elements in the landscape such as rock art. More recent work shies away from singling out any one sense and focuses on full-bodied, multisensory encounters—as happens in reality where the senses operate in tandem. This approach is a professed aim of phenomenological archaeology, adopted especially in studies of the landscapes of prehistoric northwestern Europe, although it has been much critiqued for being overly subjective and predominantly visual. Fully accessing the sensorium of any past culture is impossible, but if written sources can be used in tandem with archaeology, a more detailed picture can be painted—this has been the case with Roman, Mesoamerican, and Near Eastern archaeology in particular. Overall, the aim is to explore sensory relations for new insights into issues such as memory, feasting, social hierarchy, and ritual. To what extent this multisensory awareness can be practiced across the chain of archaeological knowledge production is much debated. Whether individual sensory experiences of excavation and finds analysis in the present are relevant for interpreting the past can be queried, but “doing” a more sensory archaeology must involve some element of reflection. Experiments with sensual narratives, audio recordings, collaborations with contemporary artists, and augmented reality (AR) explore dissemination beyond the traditional text and image. Museums have embedded multisensory elements within exhibitions and collections management, both to further engage the public and at a curatorial level to create more inclusive object biographies. Rather than requiring archaeologists to embrace a paradigm shift, as some have called for, sensory archaeology is one more element in the toolkit that enriches our understanding of past lives.


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