Download or read book Intellectuals and Society written by Thomas Sowell and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The influence of intellectuals is not only greater than in previous eras but also takes a very different form from that envisioned by those like Machiavelli and others who have wanted to directly influence rulers. It has not been by shaping the opinions or directing the actions of the holders of power that modern intellectuals have most influenced the course of events, but by shaping public opinion in ways that affect the actions of power holders in democratic societies, whether or not those power holders accept the general vision or the particular policies favored by intellectuals. Even government leaders with disdain or contempt for intellectuals have had to bend to the climate of opinion shaped by those intellectuals. Intellectuals and Society not only examines the track record of intellectuals in the things they have advocated but also analyzes the incentives and constraints under which their views and visions have emerged. One of the most surprising aspects of this study is how often intellectuals have been proved not only wrong, but grossly and disastrously wrong in their prescriptions for the ills of society -- and how little their views have changed in response to empirical evidence of the disasters entailed by those views.
Download or read book Intellectuals and Race written by Thomas Sowell and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intellectuals and Race is a radical book in the original sense of one that goes to the root of the problem. The role of intellectuals in racial strife is explored in an international context that puts the American experience in a wholly new light. The views of individual intellectuals have spanned the spectrum, but the views of intellectuals as a whole have tended to cluster. Indeed, these views have clustered at one end of the spectrum in the early twentieth century and then clustered at the opposite end of the spectrum in the late twentieth century. Moreover, these radically different views of race in these two eras were held by intellectuals whose views on other issues were very similar in both eras. Intellectuals and Race is not, however, a book about history, even though it has much historical evidence, as well as demographic, geographic, economic and statistical evidence-- all of it directed toward testing the underlying assumptions about race that have prevailed at times among intellectuals in general, and especially intellectuals at the highest levels. Nor is this simply a theoretical exercise. The impact of intellectuals' ideas and crusades on the larger society, both past and present, is the ultimate concern. These ideas and crusades have ranged widely from racial theories of intelligence to eugenics to "social justice" and multiculturalism. In addition to in-depth examinations of these and other issues, Intellectuals and Race explores the incentives, the visions and the rationales that drive intellectuals at the highest levels to conclusions that have often turned out to be counterproductive and even disastrous, not only for particular racial or ethnic groups, but for societies as a whole.
Download or read book Political Pilgrims written by Paul Hollander and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did so many distinguished Western Intellectualsfrom G.B. Shaw to J.P. Sartre, and. closer to home, from Edmund Wilson to Susan Sontag admire various communist systems, often in their most repressive historical phases? How could Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, or Castro's Cuba appear at one time as both successful modernizing societies and the fulfillments of the boldest dreams of social justice? Why, at the same time, had these intellectuals so mercilessly judged and rejected their own Western, liberal cultures? What Impulses and beliefs prompted them to seek the realization of their ideals in distant, poorly known lands? How do their journeys fit into long-standing Western traditions of looking for new meaning In the non-Western world?These are some of the questions Paul Hollander sought to answer In his massive study that covers much of our century. His success is attested by the fact that the phrase "political pilgrim" has become a part of intellectual discourse. Even in the post-communist era the questions raised by this book remain relevant as many Western, and especially American intellectuals seek to come to terms with a world which offers few models of secular fulfillment and has tarnished the reputation of political Utopias. His new and lengthy introduction updates the pilgrimages and examines current attempts to find substitutes for the emotional and political energy that used to be invested in them.
Download or read book Intellectuals and Civil Society in the Middle East written by Mohammed A. Bamyeh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the nature of intellectual activity in the Middle East, and what is its role in politics and society? While much scholarly attention has been given to the intelligentsia in the West, a comprehensive analysis of the social role of intellectuals in the Middle East has until now been lacking. This new book seeks to fill this gap, providing an overview of the role of influential thinkers in public life in the Middle East, and the impact they have had upon social, political and cultural spheres in the region. Covering a diverse range of key thinkers on the Middle East from Edward Said, Mohamed Arkoun and Halim Barakat to Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi and Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, the book examines intellectuals' connections to social movements, 'street politics' and civil society, and democracy and its prospects in the region. This is an important new contribution to the literature on Middle Eastern societies and politics.
Download or read book Intellectuals in the Society of Spectacle written by Christopher Britt and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-24 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reveals the sense in which our postmodern societies are characterized by the obscene absence of the intellectual. The modern intellectual--who had once been associated with humanism and enlightenment—has in our day been replaced by media stars, talking heads, and technical experts. At issue is the ongoing crisis of democracy, under the aegis of the société du spectacle and its vast networks of politically-induced idiocy, industrially-produced biocide, and militarily-provoked genocide. Spectacle fills the resulting moral and intellectual vacuum with electronic technologies of control, punishment, and destruction. This postmodern tyranny reduces intelligence to mechanistic, positivist, and grammatological models of inquiry, while increasing the segmentation, fragmentation, and dissolution of human existence. The apotheosis of the spectacle explains the intellectual void that lies at the heart of our postmodern decadence; it also accounts for the need to recuperate the humanist values of enlightenment promoted by the modern intellectual tradition.
Download or read book The Thomas Sowell Reader written by Thomas Sowell and published by . This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These selections from the many writings of Sowell over a period of a half century cover social, economic, cultural, legal, educational, and political issues. The sources range from Dr. Sowell's letters, books, and newspaper columns, to articles in both scholarly journals and popular magazines.
Download or read book Ernst Toller and German Society written by Robert Ellis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the years of Weimar and the Third Reich, Toller was one of the more active of the "other Germany's" left-wing intellectuals. A leader of the Bavarian Soviet of 1919, he had in addition won the Kleist prize and was recognized as one of Germany's best playwrights. Indeed, during the years of the Weimar Republic, the popularity of his works was unquestioned. His first play, Die Wandlung, was soon sold out and required a second edition; his dramatic works and poems were translated into twenty-seven languages. During the 1920’s it was said that he "dominated the German and Russian theatre" and that he was the "most spectacular personality in modern German literature." It was common for contemporaries to classify him as one of the foremost German writers of the Weimar era. During the 1930s, as an exile, he popularized to foreign audiences the idea of “the other Germany”and became a leading spokesman against Hitler. However, it is Toller the social critic rather than Toller the dramatist with which thisbook is concerned, his ideas, his visions for Germany and Europe as transmitted in his works of fiction and prose. The book reflects on the responsibility an intellectual-critic has when writing about a democratic society (the Weimar Republic) that is unsuccessfully balancing between survival and annihilation. Toller was furthermore a Jewish intellectual. How did his religious traditions shape his views? He was also German and this raises a whole host of specifically Germanic patterns of looking at the world. He was also a left-wing intellectual and Toller is set in the broader context of left-wing intellectuals in Weimar and the Nazi era. A related reflection is to ask: so what? What difference did it make? How much of an influence do intellectuals have in the development of society? What is the relationship between intellectuals and their readers in a troubled society?
Download or read book Public Intellectuals written by Amitai Etzioni and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public Intellectuals: An Endangered Species? investigates the definition, role, and decline of public intellectuals in American society. Drawing from a wide range of commentaries and studies, this edited volume demonstrates the unique importance of public intellectuals and probes the timely question of how their voices can continue to be effective in our ever-changing social, academic and political climates. At a time when many argue that public intellectuals are dying out, the book addresses questions such as who qualifies as a public intellectual? Have their ranks thinned out and their qualities diminished? What is that special service that public intellectuals are supposed to render for the body politic? And, above all, is society being shortchanged?
Download or read book The Shape of the Beast written by Arundhati Roy and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2008 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Shape Of The Beast Is Our World Laid Bare, With Great Courage, Passion And Eloquence, By A Mind That Has Engaged Unhesitatingly With Its Changing Realities, Often Anticipating The Way Things Have Moved In The Last Decade. In The Fourteen Interviews Collected Here, Conducted Between January 2001 And March 2008, Arundhati Roy Examines The Nature Of State And Corporate Power As It Has Emerged During This Period, And The Shape That Resistance Movements Are Taking. As She Speaks, Among Other Things, About People Displaced By Dams And Industry, The Genocide In Gujarat, Maoist Rebels, The War In Kashmir And The Global War On Terror, She Raises Fundamental Questions About Democracy, Justice And Non-Violent Protest. Unabashedly Political, This Is Also A Deeply Personal Collection. Through The Conversations, Arundhati Talks About The Necessity Of Taking A Stand, As Also The Dilemma Of Guarding The Private Space Necessary For Writing In A World That Demands Urgent, Unequivocal Intervention. And In The Final Interview, She Discusses With Uncommon Candour Her Ambiguous Feelings About Success And Both The Pressures And The Freedom That Come With It.
Download or read book Mind Vs Money written by Alan S. Kahan and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past 150 years, Western intellectuals have trumpeted contempt for capitalism and capitalists. They have written novels, plays, and manifestos to demonstrate the evils of the economic system in which they live. Dislike and contempt for the bourgeoisie, the middle classes, industry, and commerce have been a prominent trait of leading Western writers and artists. Mind vs. Money is an analytical history of how and why so many intellectuals have opposed capitalism. It is also an argument for how this opposition can be tempered. Historically, intellectuals have expressed their rejection of capitalism through many different movements, including nationalism, anti-Semitism, socialism, fascism, communism, and the 1960s counterculture. Hostility to capitalism takes new forms today. The anti-globalization, Green, communitarian, and New Age movements are all examples. Intellectuals give such movements the legitimacy and leadership they would otherwise lack. What unites radical intellectuals of the nineteenth century, communists and fascists of the twentieth, and anti-globalization protestors of the twenty-first, along with many other intellectuals not associated with these movements, is their rejection of capitalism. Kahan argues that intellectuals are a permanently alienated elite in capitalist societies. In myriad forms, and on many fronts, the battle between Mind and Money continues today. Anti-Americanism is one of them. Americans like to see their country as a beacon of freedom and prosperity. But in the eyes of many European and American intellectuals, when America is identified with capitalism, it is transformed from moral beacon into the "Great Satan." This is just one of the issues Mind vs. Money explores. The conflict between Mind and Money is the great, unresolved conflict of modern society. To end it, we must first understand it.
Download or read book Taking It Big written by Stanley Aronowitz and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) was a pathbreaking intellectual who transformed the independent American Left in the 1940s and 1950s. Often challenging the established ideologies and approaches of fellow leftist thinkers, Mills was central to creating and developing the idea of the "public intellectual" in postwar America and laid the political foundations for the rise of the New Left in the 1960s. Written by Stanley Aronowitz, a leading sociologist and critic of American culture and politics, Taking It Big reconstructs this icon's formation and the new dimension of American political life that followed his work. Aronowitz revisits Mills's education and its role in shaping his outlook and intellectual restlessness. Mills defined himself as a maverick, and Aronowitz tests this claim (which has been challenged in recent years) against the work and thought of his contemporaries. Aronowitz describes Mills's growing circle of contacts among the New York Intellectuals and his efforts to reenergize the Left by encouraging a fundamentally new theoretical orientation centered on more ambitious critiques of U.S. society. Blurring the rigid boundaries among philosophy, history, and social theory and between traditional orthodoxies and the radical imagination, Mills became one of the most admired and controversial thinkers of his time and was instrumental in inspiring the student and antiwar movements of the 1960s. In this book, Aronowitz not only reclaims this critical thinker's reputation but also emphasizes his ongoing significance to debates on power in American democracy.
Download or read book Intellectuals in Developing Societies written by Hussein Alatas (Syed) and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1977-01 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Conservatism and Southern Intellectuals 1789 1861 written by Adam L. Tate and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Intellectuals and Counter Politics written by Gavin Smith and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-05-30 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary forms of capitalism and the state require close analytic attention to reveal the conditions of possibility for effective counter-politics. On the other hand the practice of collective politics needs to be studied through historical ethnography if we are to understand what might make people's actions effective. This book suggests a research agenda designed to maximize the political leverage of ordinary people faced with ever more remote states and technologies that make capitalism increasingly rapacious. Gavin Smith opens and closes this series of interlinked essays by proposing a concise framework for untangling what he calls "the society of capital" and subsequently a potentially controversial way of seeing its contemporary features. This book tackles the political conundrums of our times and asks what roles intellectuals might play therein.
Download or read book Knowledge And Decisions written by Thomas Sowell and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a new preface by the author, this reissue of Thomas Sowell's classic study of decision making updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Annointed, Sowell, one of America's most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making—a gap that threatens not only our economic and political efficiency, but our very freedom because actual knowledge gets replaced by assumptions based on an abstract and elitist social vision f what ought to be.Knowledge and Decisions, a winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize, was heralded as a ”landmark work” and selected for this prize ”because of its cogent contribution to our understanding of the differences between the market process and the process of government.” In announcing the award, the center acclaimed Sowell, whose ”contribution to our understanding of the process of regulation alone would make the book important, but in reemphasizing the diversity and efficiency that the market makes possible, [his] work goes deeper and becomes even more significant.”
Download or read book Max Weber s Sociology of Intellectuals written by Ahmad Sadri and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1994-10-27 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The social role of intellectuals was a pervasive motif in Weber's thought, particularly in his works on religion and politics. Comprehensively examining and extending Weber's work on the subject, Sadri provides a new perspective on the intelligentsia and its role in society. He also provides a synthetic typology of intellectuals which spans both Eastern and Western traditions. Culling Weber's scattered observations on the subject, Sadri lays a theoretical foundation for a Weberian sociology of intellectuals, making it a valuable resource for scholars interested in the reflections of this great thinker.
Download or read book The Treason of the Intellectuals written by Julien Benda and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 1928 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
