Download or read book Modernity a World of Confusion Effects written by Jack Stanfield and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2008-04-26 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the modern culture and its effects. These include dehumanization and degradation of people, growth of indifferent and legalistic attitudes, arbitrary justice, increased antisocial behavior, and disregard for the sacred, religious, and life itself, as our throwaway society becomes more selfish and prideful. Comfort and pleasure now trump virtue and discipline. This has produced self-centered individuals that reject traditions and who are rebelling against all authority. The culture now condones the seven deadly sins as the norm, causing a decline in the health and spirit of the nation. Technology, legislatures, and courts are progressively limiting parents ability to instill traditional values and to protect their children from predators. The media views freedom as license, and nihilism is rising. Sinuous pleasures, self-indulgence, and feelings over logical thinking are emphasized. Logic is replaced by experiential and inferential thinking that easily misleads. A brave new world is being foisted on the public that, instead of producing happy and healthy citizens, leads to anger, frustration, depression, sickness, and lost hope. A conundrum exists: wanting it all may mean that everything that is important is lost. Hope lies in recapturing our Christian roots, as 80 percent of Americans claim to believe in God. By their actions, these citizens hold the key to moderating the culture by holding firm to their belief in God, country, family, traditions, and honor. To effect change, they must, however, make Jesus love known through charity, and their voices heard in the marketplace of ideas.

Download or read book Modernity a World of Confusion Reality and Choice written by Jack Stanfield and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do things bring happiness? Do you believe only what you see? What is truth? What can you reliably know? Is death nothingness? Does God exist? This book examines such questions, from which two distinct world views arise and are surveyed. The book examines reality, how our choices determine our character and final destination, knowledge, and limitations of science; surveys relativity, quantum physics, life, evolution, and mans uniqueness; and looks at realitys material and immaterial aspects. Genesis is reviewed and shown to have scientific meaning. The book ends by proposing two very different paths that one can choose to follow.

Download or read book Modernity a World of Confusion Causes written by Jack Stanfield and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2008-01-21 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever wondered why society is getting cruder and ruder, with stress, depression and mental illness rising and little joy felt? Why children behave badly and schools are failing? Why trust has vanished with your identity? And why sex is oozing out of every aspect of the culture? We live in a skeptical age with the country splintering into special interest groups claiming to be victims and requiring special treatment, and a Congress thats deadlocked in partisan bickering. There is anger and tension and really intolerable things being tolerated, placing women and children in danger. If you have such questions, this is your book, an inquiry into the spirit of the age. Examined are root causes for the darkened culture, immoral behavior, and rejection of traditions. The age glorifies science and technical progress, and yet is unhappy and sickly. Individualism surmounts community concerns creating narcissistic people tending toward nihilism, where the self is the center of the universe. The postmodern culture throws away things, relationships, and lives, like it disposes of outdated items. Logic is replaced with how I feel, and reliance on personal experience for making decisions. Relativism is accepted in ethics and for determining truth, so that it is my truth and your truth, and objectivity and common sense are lost. Science is erecting the abstract man, who, in the process, has lost heart and a sense of reality, living in a delusional world. The result is a profusion of confusion.

Download or read book Islam and Modernity written by N. Hanif and published by Sarup & Sons. This book was released on 1997 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Present Title Is A Descriptive Analysis Of The Nature, Motivation And Changes In Islam In Modern Indian Perspectives. It Has Been Studied From Three Point Of Views Metaphysical Institutional And Historical. Metaphysical Studies Deals With The Concept Of Truth And Its Ultimate Destiny, However Institutional Study Involves In Mode Of Belief And Worship. Both Studies Are Challenged By Modern Islamic Historians. All Islamic Modernists Have Raised Question Mark On The Traditional Islamic Thought And Theology. The Creation Of New Values And Preservation Of Old Tradition Has Created Some Problem Among Islamic Modernists. In Context Of Indian Muslims, Such A Fresh Outlook By Indian Islamic Scholars, Is Absolutely Essential For Giving Enlightment And Guidance Of Lay Muslims, Who Stand Totally Confused By The Antagonistic Ideas.

Download or read book Dark Humour and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel written by L. Colletta and published by Springer. This book was released on 2003-09-30 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colletta uses psychoanalytic theories of joke-work and gallows humour to argue that dark humour is an important, defining characteristic of Modernism. She brings together the usual suspects alongside more often overlooked writers from the period, and asks probing questions about the relationship between a dark humour that 'revels in the non-rational, the unstable, and the fragmented, and resists easy definition and political usefulness' and the historical and social circumstances of the period. Colletta makes a compelling argument that probing deeply into the nature of humour or satire that define these 'social comedies' brings to light a more complex, and more accurate, understanding of the social changes and historical circumstances that define the modern era.

Download or read book Pedro Calder n de la Barca and the World Theatre in Early Modern Europe written by Rasmus Vangshardt and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-11-20 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rasmus Vangshardt offers an original interpretation of one of the most famous images of literary history, the theatrum mundi. By applying methods of comparative literature, hispanic studies, and theology, he reconsiders the world theatre’s historical peak in early modern Europe in general and the Spanish Golden Age in particular. The author presents a new close reading of Pedro Calderón’s El gran teatro del mundo (c. 1633–36) and outlines the historical and systematic framework for a theatrum mundi of celebration. This concept entails using art to justify human existence in the face of changing conceptions of the cosmos: an early modern aesthetic theodicy and a justification of the world in that liminal space between drama and ritual. By discussing historiographical theories of early modern Europe, especially those of Hans Blumenberg and Bruno Latour, and through conversations with Shakespearean drama and Spanish Golden Age classics, Vangshardt also argues that the theatrum mundi of celebration questions traditional assumptions of great divides between the Middle Ages and Early Modernity and challenges theories of a European-wide early modern sense of crisis.

Download or read book Tradition and Modernity written by Kwame Gyekye and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-08-28 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important and pioneering book, Kwame Gyekye examines postcolonial African experience from a viewpoint receptive to aspects of both traditional African cultures and Western political and moral theory. African people, in their attempt to evolve ways of life compatible with an increasingly globalized world cultural, intellectual, and political scene, face a number of unique societal challenges, some stemming, Gyekye argues, from traditional African values and practices, others representing the legacy of European colonialism. Enlisting Western political and philosophic concepts to clear, comparative advantage, Gyekye addresses a wide range of concrete problems afflicting postcolonial African states, such as ethnicity and nation- building, the relationship of tradition to modernity, the relationship of the nation-state to community, the nature of political authority and political legitimation, political corruption, and the threat to traditional moral and social values, practices, and institutions in the wake of rapid social change. With striking flexibility and rare insight, Gyekye assesses the value of both traditional and non-African cultural components for the future of African societies and proposes alternative social and political models capable of forging a modernity appropriate for Africa. The resulting book, Tradition and Modernity: Philosophical Reflections on the African Experience, is a brilliant new contribution to postcolonial theory and will be of deep interest to scholars of political and moral philosophy, cultural studies, and African philosophy and politics, and to anyone else concerned with the efforts of non-Western societies to properly modernize.

Download or read book The Scandinavian Early Modern World written by Jonas Monié Nordin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-14 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Scandinavian Early Modern World explores the early modern colonialism, globalization, and modernity in Scandinavia, along with its colonies, and its role in the shaping of the modern world. Scandinavians played an active role in early modern globalization and were present as traders, as colonialists, and as consumers in competition and collaboration with indigenous agents and other colonial actors in America, Africa, and India. This story is rarely told. The joint study of history, historical landscape, and material culture, from a Scandinavian vantage point, provides for a comprehensive and original interpretation of the birth of globalization and modernity. New perspectives and data are presented, deepening and challenging our knowledge of the long seventeenth century. In-depth analysis of case studies, encompassing four continents and their material entanglement, makes this book a unique contribution to historical archaeology. The Scandinavian Early Modern World aims at students and scholars of anthropology, archaeology, and history, alike, taking interest in the global connections of the long seventeenth century and the role of Scandinavia in that process.

Download or read book Brand China in the Media written by Qing Cao and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-29 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines China’s identity transformations with a focus on self-perceptions and their representations and communication in the mass media. By considering the internal dynamics of change, it explores the emerging multifaceted ‘China brand’. With its growing economic clout, China has taken a proactive stance in shaping global economic and strategic order through ambitious programmes such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative. However, as a developing country, China is at pains to manage its own transformations while trying to carve out an international identity. Arguably, China’s unique sense of history and identities may lead to a ‘contested modernity’ or ‘multiple modernities’; radically different from the prevalent classical theories of modernisation and convergence of industrial societies. To understand China’s trajectory of future development has been a major issue in international affairs. This book is concerned with how China’s hybridised identities are articulated, and intertwined with situational, institutional, and societal dynamics – and how they are interwoven with China’s international outlook which converges with or diverges from China’s historical assumptions and beliefs. This book will be of interest to those studying China’s identity in the media; situated at the juncture of past, present, and future, and between China and the wider world. The chapters in this book were originally published in Critical Arts.

Download or read book From Modernity to Cosmodernity written by Basarab Nicolescu and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a new paradigm of reality, based on the interaction between science, culture, spirituality, religion, and society. The quantum, biological, and information revolutions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries should have thoroughly changed our view of reality, yet the old viewpoint based on classical science remains dominant, reinforcing a notion of a rational, mechanistic world that allows for endless progress. In practice, this view has promoted much violence among humans. Basarab Nicolescu heralds a new era, cosmodernity, founded on a contemporary vision of the interaction between science, culture, spirituality, religion, and society. Here, reality is plastic and its people are active participants in the cosmos, and the world is simultaneously knowable and unknowable. Ultimately, every human recognizes his or her face in the face of every other human being, independent of his or her particular religious or philosophical beliefs. Nicolescu notes a new spirituality free of dogmas and looks at quantum physics, literature, theater, and art to reveal the emergence of a newer, cosmodern consciousness.

Download or read book Social Theory of Modern Societies written by David Held and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-12-07 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive appraisal of the work of Anthony Giddens, who is known worldwide as one of the leading figures in social theory and the social sciences. During the last decade Giddens has published a series of substantial volumes which have defined a distinctive and original theoretical approach. The twin focal points of his approach are the 'theory of structuration' and the analysis of 'modernity'. Giddens's writings on these and related themes are widely recognized as among the most important contributions to theoretical debate in the social sciences. Social Theory of Modern Societies is the first volume to provide a systematic and critical assessment of Giddens's contributions. The volume includes eleven critical essays - all of which were specially commissioned for this volume - by authors who are well known in their own fields: Zygmunt Bauman, Richard J. Bernstein, Derek Gregory, Nicky Gregson, David Held, Bob Jessop, Linda Murgatroyd, Peter Saunders, Martin Shaw, John B. Thompson and Erik Olin Wright. In a long concluding chapter, Anthony Giddens responds to the criticisms raised by these and other authors, clarifying and elaborating his current views. The result is a unique and engaging book which gives both a critical evaluation of Giddens's work and a guide to some of the theoretical issues which are at the forefront of the social sciences today. It will be of interest to students and academics in sociology, politics and geography, and to students in the social sciences and humanities generally.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures written by Carlos Rojas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 953 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over forty original essays, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures offers an in-depth engagement with the current analytical methodologies and critical practices that are shaping the field in the twenty-first century. Divided into three sections--Structure, Taxonomy, and Methodology--the volume carefully moves across approaches, genres, and forms to address a rich range topics that include popular culture in Late Qing China, Zhang Guangyu's Journey to the West in Cartoons, writings of Southeast Asian migrants in Taiwan, the Chinese Anglophone Novel, and depictions of HIV/AIDS in Chu T'ien-wen's Notes of a Desolate Man.

Download or read book Solidarity with the World written by Carolyn A. Chau and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-11-15 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is Christian mission even possible today? In "a secular age," is it possible to talk about the goodness of God in a compelling way? How should the church proceed? Carolyn Chau explores the question of Catholic mission in a secular age through a constructive interpretation of the work of two celebrated Catholic thinkers, philosopher Charles Taylor and theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, arguing that Taylor and Balthasar together offer a promising path for mission today. Chau attends to Taylor's account of the conditions of belief today, and the genesis of the sociohistorical limits on contemporary "God-talk," as well as his affirmation of certain aspects of Western modernity's "culture." From Balthasar, Chau sifts out the distinctiveness of his view of the human person as defined by mission, and his encouragement of a kenotic self-understanding of the church. In the end, Chau claims that if modern persons in secular Western societies are seeking fulfillment and integrity, Christian spirituality remains a rich resource on offer.

Download or read book World History and the Eonic Effect written by John C. Landon and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-04-27 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when theories of evolution are undergoing renewed controversy, the study of the Eonic Effect can break the deadlock, by looking at world history in the light of evolution. The assumption that evolution occurs at random is the crux of the dispute, and one confused with issues of religion and secularism. We can detect a non-random pattern in the record of civilization itself, to see evolution in action on a stupendous scale. We live in the first generations with enough data to detect this phenomenon. In the confusion of evolutionary theories, the unexpected discovery of deep level structure can allow us to deconstruct fl at history, and assess claims of directionality in evolution. In the process the theory of natural selection applied to human evolution is seen to fail a photo finish test. The book provides a new model for the study of the overlap of history and evolution, and a critique of current views of the descent of man.

Download or read book Islam Between Culture and Politics written by B. Tibi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2001-11-07 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bassam Tibi offers a radical solution to the problems faced by Islam in a rapidly changing and globalizing world. He proposes a depoliticization of the faith and the introduction of reforms to embrace secular democracy, pluralism, civil society and individual human rights. The alternative to this is the impasse of fundamentalism. The pivotal argument is that Islam is being torn between the pressure for cultural innovation and a defensive move towards the politicization of its symbols for non-religious ends.

Download or read book Islam Between Culture and Politics written by Bassam Tibi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-08-31 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bassam Tibi offers a radical solution to the problems faced by Islam in a rapidly changing and globalizing world. He proposes a depoliticization of the faith and the introduction of reforms to embrace secular democracy, pluralism, civil society and individual human rights. The alternative to this is the impasse of fundamentalism. The pivotal argument is that Islam is being torn between the pressure for cultural innovation and a defensive move towards the politicization of its symbols for non-religious ends.

Download or read book The Ethical Foundations of Postmodernity written by Nina Michaela von Dahlern and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2013-07 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A (re-)turn to ethics, which began in the 1980s and 1990s and is still predominant today, has been ascribed to literary studies and theory. In this book theoretical issues within ethics are discussed based on the examples of literary analyses. The authors examined are Margaret Atwood, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Robert M. Pirsig. The main questions concern the foundation on which ethical concepts are based, and the way in which such concepts function. These topics are evidently connected to matters of human concepts and human nature in general, which are understood to be fundamentally communicative. Contrary to popular conclusions of relativity, the need for a realist foundation of ethics - implying universal validity - will be revealed. It is not only possible, but also necessary to develop such an idea of ethics within a postmodern relativist framework. A communicative foundationalist ethics will thus be designed. With regard to literature an increasing emergence of first-person narrative can be witnessed in addition to a new focus on a realist and more mimetic style after a peak of pluralist conceptions at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. The analysis of such narrative situations will reveal the significance of the narrative generation of individual personalities for an understanding of ethical questions. The conflict between relativist and realist points of view centers on the postmodern critique of the individual. The study of the literary generation of individuals will elucidate means of confronting this critique. The theoretical background includes the poststructuralist and communicative concepts of Judith Butler and Seyla Benhabib as well as Ernst Tugendhat's analytical approach. Nina von Dahlern studied English language and literature, philosophy, sociology, and educational sciences at the Universities of Hamburg and Heidelberg. This book is based on her Ph.D. thesis.