Download or read book Cynicism and the Evolution of the American Dream written by Wilber W. Caldwell and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Putting a recognizable face on contemporary American cynicism.
Download or read book The Power of Negative Thinking written by Benjamin Schreier and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2009-04-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benjamin Schreier is suspicious of a simple equation of cynicism with quietism, nihilism, selfishness, or false consciousness, and he rejects the notion that modern cynicism represents something categorically different from the classical outlook of Diogenes. He proposes, instead, that cynicism names the difficult position of not being able to recognize the relevance of democratic social norms in the future and yet being nonetheless invested in the power of these norms to determine cultural identity and to regulate social practices. In his readings of Henry Adams’s Education, Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts, the author affirms that cynicism is an important and under-appreciated current in mainstream modern American literature. He finds that, far from the simple selfishness or apathy for which it is so often dismissed, the cynicism in these texts is suffused by a desire for the certainty promised by norms such as national teleology, ethnic identity, and civic participation. But without faith in the relevance of these regulating terms, cynics lack ready accounts of America and of their place in it. Schreier’s focus is not only on the cynical characters in the texts but also on the textual and epistemological strategies used to render normative narratives recognizably legitimate in the first place. In his refusal to historicize cynicism away with generalized claims about American society, Schreier argues instead that cynicism stages an unanswerable challenge to the specific expectations through which normative accounts of history become visible. The Power of Negative Thinking makes a vital and wide-ranging contribution to our understanding of American literature, intellectual and cultural history, philosophy, ethics, and politics. Schreier’s close reading and his vigorous theoretical examination of analytical first principles combine to make a book that is valuable not only to the study of methodology but also to the scrutiny of the very assumptions the humanities bring to the exploration of the way we think.
Download or read book A Critique of Liberal Cynicism written by Will Barnes and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-07-26 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where does Extreme Liberal Cynicism—so common in academic and popular culture—come from, and is it capable of solving the problems it identifies? A Critique of Liberal Cynicism: Peter Sloterdijk, Judith Butler, and Critical Liberalism identifies the motivations and resources within liberal cynicism and their potential for overcoming its pernicious extremes. Will Barnes describes Extreme Liberal Cynicism as a product of mourning, guilt, and the experience of powerlessness stemming from the trauma of holding liberal investments in a world in which these investments are vulnerable to ideological critique and seem to have failed. Extreme Liberal Cynicism seeks invulnerability through disavowing the efficacy of its constitutive ideals achieved via a reified hopelessness that eclipses trauma, guilt, and disempowerment leaving the cynic unhappy, alienated, hostile, obstinate, delusional, and desperate; thus, it is a failing self-defense mechanism. Barnes argues that although Extreme Liberal Cynicism is rationally unjustifiable and intrinsically harmful, it also contains the impetus for a reappropriation of its complex desires and losses. This adjustment could compel the extreme cynic to maintain a moderate critical liberal cynicism committed to critiquing and reinvigorating its constitutive ideals of freedom, equality, and justice, and thereby contribute positively to progressive politics.
Download or read book The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism written by Sharon A. Stanley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-19 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sharon A. Stanley analyzes cynicism from a political-theoretical perspective, arguing that cynicism isn't unique to our time. Instead, she posits that cynicism emerged in the works of French Enlightenment philosophers, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot. She explains how eighteenth-century theories of epistemology, nature, sociability and commerce converged to form a recognizably modern form of cynicism, foreshadowing postmodernism. While recent scholarship and popular commentary have depicted cynicism as threatening to healthy democracies and political practices, Stanley argues instead that the French philosophes reveal the possibility of a democratically hospitable form of cynicism.
Download or read book Cynicism written by Ansgar Allen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A short history of cynicism, from the fearless speech of the ancient Greeks to the jaded negativity of the present. Everyone's a cynic, yet few will admit it. Today's cynics excuse themselves half-heartedly—“I hate to be a cynic, but..."—before making their pronouncements. Narrowly opportunistic, always on the take, contemporary cynicism has nothing positive to contribute. The Cynicism of the ancient Greeks, however, was very different. This Cynicism was a marginal philosophy practiced by a small band of eccentrics. Bold and shameless, it was committed to transforming the values on which civilization depends. In this volume of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Ansgar Allen charts the long history of cynicism, from the “fearless speech” of Greek Cynics in the fourth century BCE to the contemporary cynic's lack of social and political convictions. Allen describes ancient Cynicism as an improvised philosophy and a way of life disposed to scandalize contemporaries, subjecting their cultural commitments to derision. He chronicles the subsequent “purification” of Cynicism by the Stoics; Renaissance and Enlightenment appropriations of Cynicism, drawing on the writings of Shakespeare, Rabelais, Rousseau, de Sade, and others; and the transition from Cynicism (the philosophy) to cynicism (the modern attitude), exploring contemporary cynicism from the perspectives of its leftist, liberal, and conservative critics. Finally, he considers the possibility of a radical cynicism that admits and affirms the danger it poses to contemporary society.
Download or read book Artful Immorality Variants of Cynicism written by Daniel Scott Mayfield and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-09-14 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a term is overused, it tends to fall out of fashion. Cynicism seems to be an exception. Its polytropic versatility apparently prevents any discontinuation of its application. Everyone knows that cynicism denotes that which is deemed deleterious at a given time; and every time will specify its toxicities – the apparent result being the term’s non-specificity. This study describes the cynical stance and statement so as to render the term’s use scholarly expedient.Close readings of textual sources commonly deemed cynical provide a legible starting point. A rhetorical analysis of aphorisms ascribed to the arch-Cynic Diogenes facilitates describing the design of cynical statements, as well as the characteristic features of the cynical stance. These patterns are identifiable in later texts generally labeled cynical – above all in Machiavelli’s Principe. With recourse to the Diogenical archetype, cynicism is likewise rendered describable in Gracián’s Oráculo manual, Diderot’s Le neveu de Rameau, and Nietzsche’s Posthumous Fragments.This study’s description of cynicism provides a phenomenon otherwise considered amorphous with distinct contours, renders transparent its workings, and tenders a dependable basis for further analyses.
Download or read book National Pastimes written by Katharina Bonzel and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sports have long fascinated filmmakers from Hollywood and beyond, from Bend It Like Beckham to Chariots of Fire to Rocky. Though sports films are diverse in their approach, style, and storytelling modes, National Pastimes discloses the common emotional and visual cues that belie each sports film’s underlying nationalistic impulses. Katharina Bonzel unravels the delicate matrix of national identity, sports, and emotion through the lens of popular sports films in comparative national contexts, demonstrating in the process how popular culture provides a powerful vehicle for the development and maintenance of identities of place across a range of national cinemas. As films reflect the ways in which myths of nation and national belonging change over time, they are implicated in important historical moments, from Cold War America to the class dynamics of 1980s Thatcherite Britain to the fragmented sense of nation in post-unification Germany. Bonzel shows how sports films provide a means for renegotiating the boundaries of national identity in an accessible, engaging form. National Pastimes opens up new ways of understanding how films appeal to the emotions, using myth-like constructions of the past to cultivate spectators’ engagement with historical events.
Download or read book Cynical Suspicions and Platonist Pretentions written by John McGuire and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Cynical Suspicions and Platonist Pretentions, John McGuire conducts a critical analysis of contemporary political theory with a view to facilitating a less reductive understanding of political disaffection.
Download or read book City at the Cusp written by J. Allison Brown and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2009-08-21 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To arrive at the pinnacle is a mark of progress. But where do we go from here? At this point, because we can only improve modestly due to diminishing marginal returns, things change. Mentalities change, philosophies change, priorities change, people change--and at the root of these changes, we find cultural evidence for the demise of the American economy.City at the Cusp looks thoroughly at this sociological issue, providing a unique glance at, and possible remedies for, overcoming this incredibly timely and urgent matter.
Download or read book Not Quite Hope and Other Political Emotions in the Gilded Age written by Nathan Wolff and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not Quite Hope and Other Political Emotions in the Gilded Age argues that late nineteenth-century US fiction grapples with and helps to conceptualize the disagreeable feelings that are both a threat to citizens' agency and an inescapable part of the emotional life of democracy—then as now. In detailing the corruption and venality for which the period remains known, authors including Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Adams, and Helen Hunt Jackson evoked the depressing inefficacy of reform, the lunatic passions of the mob, and the revolting appetites of lobbyists and office seekers. Readers and critics of these Washington novels, historical romances, and satiric romans à clef have denounced these books' fiercely negative tone, seeing it as a sign of cynicism and elitism. Not Quite Hope argues, in contrast, that their distrust of politics is coupled with an intense investment in it: not quite apathy, but not quite hope. Chapters examine both common and idiosyncratic forms of political emotion, including 'crazy love', disgust, cynicism, 'election fatigue', and the myriad feelings of hatred and suspicion provoked by the figure of the hypocrite. In so doing, the book corrects critics' too-narrow focus on 'sympathy' as the American novel's model political emotion. We think of reform novels as fostering feeling for fellow citizens or for specific causes. This volume argues that Gilded Age fiction refocuses attention on the unstable emotions that continue to shape our relation to politics as such.
Download or read book Challenges to Democracy In and Beyond Education written by Richard Van Heertum and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-31 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores political cynicism as a driving force at the heart of the current crisis of democracy in the United States, focusing on the crisis and the role of education, popular culture and news media in fostering and fighting cynicism. In this unique text, Van Heertum draws on historical and contemporary data, policy, and current events to map the growth of a cynicism that risks undermining the democratic principles upon which American society is built. Tracing the philosophical, social and historical origins of an “ubiquitous cynicism” cultivated in political discourse, media and educational policy, the chapters then explore avenues to challenge cynicism and restore hope through a more affirmative discourse, aesthetic education, media and educational reform, challenging rampant inequality, and methods to rein in corporate power. The book ultimately advocates for a radical democracy that can restore the power of the people to have a meaningful say in the decisions that affect their lives. A timely and useful contribution to the field of education, this book will be of interest to postgraduate students and researchers in the fields of educational policy and politics, the sociology of education and American studies.
Download or read book Revolutionizing Pedagogy written by S. Macrine and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-12-21 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together a group of top international scholars who consider Pedagogy of Critique, Revolutionary Pedagogy and Radical Critical Pedagogy as forms of praxis to examine the paradoxical roles of schooling in reproducing and legitimizing large-scale structural inequalities.
Download or read book Hollowed Out written by Jeremy S. Adams and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do teachers have a front row seat to America’s decline? Jeremy S. Adams, a teacher at both the high school and college levels, thinks so. Adams has spent decades trying to instill wisdom, ambition, and a love of learning in his students. And yet, as he notes, when teachers get together, they often share an arresting conclusion: Something has gone terribly wrong. Something essential is missing in our young people. Their curiosity seems stunted, their reason undeveloped, their values uninformed, their knowledge lacking, and most worrying of all, their humanity diminished. Digital hermits of a sort unfamiliar to an older generation, they have little interest in marriage and family. They largely dismiss—and are shockingly ignorant of—religion. They sneer at patriotism, sympathize with riots and vandalism, and regard American society and civilization as so radically flawed that it must be dismantled. Often friendless and depressed, they eat alone, study alone, and even “socialize” alone. Educators like Adams see a generation slipping away. The problems that have hollowed out our young people have been festering for years. A year of COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing have magnified them. The result could be a generation—and our nation’s future—lost in a miasma of alienation and stupefaction. In his stunning new book, Hollowed Out, Jeremy S. Adams reveals why students have rejected the wisdom, culture, and institutions of Western civilization—and what we can do to win them back. Poignant, frightening, and yet inspiring, this is a book for every parent, teacher, and patriot concerned for our young people and our country
Download or read book Posthegemony written by Jon Beasley-Murray and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A challenging new work of cultural and political theory rethinks the concept of hegemony.
Download or read book The Evolution of the American Dream written by Amber Clark and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2011-05-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Dream has been a driving force in the development and success of our nation and a key motivating factor in all that we have achieved, individually and collectively. But what is the American Dream, exactly, and how has it changed over the course of America's history? This is the question that Bob Skandalaris and Amber Clark explore in their latest book, The Evolution of the American Dream. From the dream of land and a new start in the colonial era, to the dream of political and religious freedom during the Revolutionary War, to the dream of living a life of self-reliance on the frontier or amassing a vast fortune as a captain of industry in the nineteenth century, the American Dream has constantly evolved. By the early twentieth century, it was living the good life; then during the Great Depression it took a sharp swing toward security and ensuring the comforts of a middle-class lifestyle rather than chasing a better one. As prosperity returned after World War II, the dream morphed into a house in the suburbs and a college education for one's children, and then into a vision of a Great Society where government could cure all social ills and ensure constant upward mobility. That version of the American Dream, however, cannot last. In an era of global capitalism, the American Dream has now become the Chinese Dream, the Indian Dream, and the World Dream. People across the globe are not only taking "our" jobs, but also appropriating the dream itself-and the question is, what will that do to the American Dream for Americans? Will it force us to reinvent and redefine the dream once more, as we have done so often in the past? Or will the American Dream disappear from our shores entirely? Is the there still an authentic, achievable version of the American Dream today?
Download or read book Choice written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Everybody Knows written by William Chaloupka and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1978 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Everybody Knows, William Chaloupka scrutinizes the cynicism that is in our common condition, examining both its uses in the politics of backlash and resentment and its surprisingly positive aspects.'
