Download or read book Radical Intellectuals and the Subversion of Progressive Politics written by Michael J. Thompson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-09-09 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Radical Intellectuals and the Subversion of Progressive Politics is a challenge to contemporary radical politics and political thought. This collection of essays critiques the dominant trends and figures on the left that have distorted the legacy of progressive politics, arguing that they have moved politics away from issues of class and economic power toward a preoccupation with culture and identity. The contributors discuss this new radicalism from the perspective of a more rational form of leftism capable of reviving interest in a more politically relevant form of politics.
Download or read book Radical Intellectuals and the Subversion of Progressive Politics written by Michael J. Thompson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-09-09 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Radical Intellectuals and the Subversion of Progressive Politics is a challenge to contemporary radical politics and political thought. This collection of essays critiques the dominant trends and figures on the left that have distorted the legacy of progressive politics, arguing that they have moved politics away from issues of class and economic power toward a preoccupation with culture and identity. The contributors discuss this new radicalism from the perspective of a more rational form of leftism capable of reviving interest in a more politically relevant form of politics.
Download or read book Progressivism written by Bradley C. S. Watson and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At its core this book is intellectual history, tracing the work of progressive historians as they in turn wrote the history of progressivism. In Progressivism: The Strange History of a Radical Idea, Bradley C. S. Watson presents an intellectual history of American progressivism as a philosophical-political phenomenon, focusing on how and with what consequences the academic discipline of history came to accept and propagate it. This book offers a meticulously detailed historiography and critique of the insularity and biases of academic culture. It shows how the first scholarly interpreters of progressivism were, in large measure, also its intellectual architects, and later interpreters were in deep sympathy with their premises and conclusions. Too many scholarly treatments of the progressive synthesis were products of it, or at least were insufficiently mindful of two central facts: the hostility of progressive theory to the Founders’ Constitution and the tension between progressive theory and the realm of the private, including even conscience itself. The constitutional and religious dimensions of progressive thought—and, in particular, the relationship between the two—remained hidden for much of the twentieth century. This pathbreaking volume reveals how and why this scholarly obfuscation occurred. The book will interest students and scholars of American political thought, the Progressive Era, and historiography, and it will be a useful reference work for anyone in history, law, and political science.
Download or read book Intellectuals in Action written by Kevin Mattson and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2002-02-22 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in 1966‚ a generation removed from the counterculture‚ Kevin Mattson came of political age in the conservative Reagan era. In an effort to understand contemporary political ambivalence and the plight of radicalism today‚ Mattson looks back to the ideas that informed the protest‚ social movements‚ and activism of the 1960s. To accomplish its historical reconstruction‚ the book combines traditional intellectual biography—including thorough archival research—with social history to examine a group of intellectuals whose thinking was crucial in the formulation of New Left political theory. These include C. Wright Mills‚ the popular radical sociologist; Paul Goodman‚ a practicing Gestalt therapist and anarcho-pacifist; William Appleman Williams‚ the historian and famed critic of "American empire"; Arnold Kaufman‚ a "radical liberal" who deeply influenced the thinking of the SDS. The book discusses not only their ideas‚ but also their practices‚ from writing pamphlets and arranging television debates to forming left-leaning think tanks and organizing teach-ins protesting the Vietnam War. Mattson argues that it is this political engagement balanced with a commitment to truth-telling that is lacking in our own age of postmodern acquiescence. Challenging the standard interpretation of the New Left as inherently in conflict with liberalis‚ Mattson depicts their relationship as more complicated‚ pointing to possibilities for a radical liberalism today. Intellectual and social historians‚ as well as general readers either fascinated by the 1960s protest movements or actively seeking an alternative to our contemporary political malais‚ will embrace Mattson’s book and its promise to shed new light on a time period known for both its intriguing conflicts and its enduring consequences.
Download or read book Intellectuals in Action written by Kevin Mattson and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in 1966&‚ a generation removed from the counterculture&‚ Kevin Mattson came of political age in the conservative Reagan era. In an effort to understand contemporary political ambivalence and the plight of radicalism today&‚ Mattson looks back to the ideas that informed the protest&‚ social movements&‚ and activism of the 1960s. To accomplish its historical reconstruction&‚ the book combines traditional intellectual biography&—including thorough archival research&—with social history to examine a group of intellectuals whose thinking was crucial in the formulation of New Left political theory. These include C. Wright Mills&‚ the popular radical sociologist; Paul Goodman&‚ a practicing Gestalt therapist and anarcho-pacifist; William Appleman Williams&‚ the historian and famed critic of &"American empire&"; Arnold Kaufman&‚ a &"radical liberal&" who deeply influenced the thinking of the SDS. The book discusses not only their ideas&‚ but also their practices&‚ from writing pamphlets and arranging television debates to forming left-leaning think tanks and organizing teach-ins protesting the Vietnam War. Mattson argues that it is this political engagement balanced with a commitment to truth-telling that is lacking in our own age of postmodern acquiescence. Challenging the standard interpretation of the New Left as inherently in conflict with liberalis&‚ Mattson depicts their relationship as more complicated&‚ pointing to possibilities for a radical liberalism today. Intellectual and social historians&‚ as well as general readers either fascinated by the 1960s protest movements or actively seeking an alternative to our contemporary political malais&‚ will embrace Mattson&’s book and its promise to shed new light on a time period known for both its intriguing conflicts and its enduring consequences.
Download or read book Intellectuals and McCarthy written by Michael Paul Rogin and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The late Joseph McCarthy has left a permanent mark on American political life. But the meaning and depth of that mark has been obscured. A major theme of this important study is that McCarthy did not suppress or stifle political thinking so much as he radically transformed it. A large block of American intellectuals evolved an original theory of politics in reaction to McCarthyism. Many American intellectuals found McCarthy's roots in the agrarian radical tradition-emerging from Populists, La Follette progressives, the non-Partisan League. The present study challenges the notion that McCarthy had agrarian radical roots. The book concludes by suggesting that fear of popular uprisings and radical protest has divorced political analysis from the specific issues around which protest forms. These issues determine whether mass movements will be dangerous or valuable. Ignoring the issues of politics, Rogin argues, leads to a reliance on established institutions unhealthy and unrealistic in a free society.
Download or read book Intellectuals and Public Life written by Leon Fink and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining history with social theory, this book offers a bold reassessment of the role of radical intellectuals in public life. It explores the potential impact of intellectuals working for social and political change and is important for everyone concerned with such contemporary issues as the future of higher education, the transformation of the public intellectual in Western and non-Western societies, the collapse of socialism, and the paralysis of liberalism. Illuminating many facets of the relationship between the life of the mind and the life of action, these interdisciplinary essays consider diverse aspects of the role of intellectuals in revolutionary movements, state-centered reforms, and colonial and postcolonial settings. After discussions of how the intellectual as a social type has acquired its politically charged character, chapters are devoted to radical thinkers in England, Germany, Russia, and France. The place of intellectuals in the United States is explored in essays on Progressive liberalism, labor reform, women's rights, and the work of W. E. B. Du Bois. The book concludes with essays on the significance of liberation theology and the ideology of the Chinese student protest movement of 1989.
Download or read book The New Radicalism in America 1889 1963 written by Christopher Lasch and published by . This book was released on 1967 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Radical Middle Class written by Robert D. Johnston and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book The Political Thought of African Independence written by Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Political Thought of African Independence: An Anthology of Sources brilliantly frames the debates that captivated the world as former European colonies in Africa began their transition to sovereign rule in the 1950s and ’60s. Its wealth of key documents are enhanced by Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker's General Introduction, part introductions, headnotes, and annotations, providing needed contextual information and supports for readers.
Download or read book The Political Thought of African Independence written by Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker and published by Hackett Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CONTENTS: Introduction; Part One: Early Visions of Independence; Part Two: Paths to Independence; Part Three: Independence Struggles; Part Four: Legitimating Independence.
Download or read book Progressive Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Democratic Commitment written by Leon Fink and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to lead the people and be one of them? What's a democratic intellectual to do? This longstanding dilemma for the progressive intellectual, how to bridge the world of educated opinion and that of the working masses, is the focus of Leon Fink's penetrating book, the first social history of the progressive thinker caught in the middle of American political culture. In a series of vivid portraits, Fink investigates the means and methods of intellectual activists in the first part of the twentieth century--how they served, observed, and made their own history. In the stories of, among others, John R. Commons, Charles McCarthy, William English Walling, Anna Strunsky Walling, A. Philip Randolph, W. Jett Lauck, and Wil Lou Gray, he creates a panorama of reform of unusual power. Issues as broad as the cult of leadership and as specific as the Wisconsin school of labor history lead us into the heart of the dilemma of the progressive intellectual in our age. The problem, as Fink describes it, is twofold: Could people prevail in a land of burgeoning capitalism and concentrated power? And should the people prevail? This book shows us Socialists and Progressives and, later, New Dealers grappling with these questions as they tried to redress the new inequities of their day--and as they confronted the immense frustrations of moving the masses. Fink's graphic depiction of intellectuals' labors in the face of capitalist democracy's challenges dramatizes a time in our past--and at the same time speaks eloquently to our own.
Download or read book Civility and Subversion written by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-11-12 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1998 book provides a sophisticated alternative to existing accounts of the role of the intellectual in modern democracy. Arguing that society suffers from a systemic deliberation deficit, Jeffrey Goldfarb explores the potential of the intellectual as democratic agent, at once civilizing political contestation and subverting complacent consensus. The sentimental Leftist view of the intellectual as guardian of democracy and the demonising Rightist view of the intellectual as obstructor of progress, are both shown to be flawed. Instead, intellectuals are portrayed as special kinds of 'strangers' who pay careful attention to their critical faculties, equipping them uniquely to address the most pressing issues of today. Professor Goldfarb deploys classical and contemporary social theory to analyse a diverse set of intellectuals in action, from Socrates in fifth-century Athens to Malcolm X and Toni Morrison in twentieth-century America, and, drawing on personal acquaintance, the political dissidents in Communist and post-Communist Central Europe.
Download or read book Postmodern Theory and Progressive Politics written by Thomas de Zengotita and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the origins of the academic culture wars of the late 20th century and examines their lasting influence on the humanities and progressive politics. It puts us in a position to ask this question: what to make now of those furious debates over postmodernism, multiculturalism, relativism, critical theory, deconstruction, post-structuralism, and all the rest? In an effort to arrive at a fair judgment on that question, the book reaches for an understanding of postmodern theorists by way of two genres they despised and hopes, for that very reason, to do them justice. It tells a story, and in the telling, advances two basic claims: first, that the phenomenological/hermeneutical tradition is the most suitable source of theory for a humanism that aspires to be universal; and, second, that the ethical and political aspect of the human condition is authentically accessible only through narrative. In conclusion, it argues that the postmodern moment was a necessary one, or will have been if we rise to the occasion and seize the opportunity it offers: a truly universal humanism might yet be realized even in—or perhaps especially in—this atavistic hour of parochial populism.
Download or read book Radical Identity Politics written by Torben Bech Dyrberg and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-07-31 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book outlines significant traits of radical leftist identity politics. In this type of discourse, arguments are organized around global friend/enemy schemes in ways that are at odds with the right/left matrix of democracy. This is shown by combining discourse analysis of how leftist critics argue in public debates centred on their reactions to the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015 and theoretical discussions on leftist identity politics orbiting around Schmitt, Marcuse and Mouffe. It is argued that the friend/enemy approach sacrifices the egalitarian and libertarian core values of the Left, leading it to adopt positions used to brand the reactionary Right. It also holds that leftist identity politics undermines democracy by moralizing enmity and stigmatizing dissent, and by promoting an elitist and relativist agenda. Against this background, the book looks at the nature of the right/left distinction and its political functions in modern democracy. This is further elaborated in relation to the works of Foucault and Rawls’s analyses of parrhesia (free speech) and public reason, which provide a more fruitful approach to right/left and democracy than those based on enmity. For Foucault and Rawls, a vibrant pluralist democracy relies on the autonomy of politics, which secures a space in which citizens are free and equal, which is crucial for free speech and assembly. They focus on issues related to the autonomy of politics and the freestanding nature of public reason; right/left as lateral political orientation coupled with fairness as political justification and the links between regime form and political community as decisive for democracy.
Download or read book Sociology in Post Normal Times written by Charles Thorpe and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-02-28 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Covid-19 pandemic and the disruptions of climate change are features of post-normal times. In Sociology in Post-Normal Times, Charles Thorpe contends that the modern project of creating normalcy within the nation state has broken down. Integral to this is sociology, which is the science of social reform. Drawing from the work of seminal theorists such as Zygmunt Bauman and Anthony Giddens, Thorpe contends that sociology's “society” is no longer viable because globalization has put an end to social reform, thus the assumptions and goals of sociology must be left behind in order to create a new global humanity. In the face of the pandemic and climate change, Sociology in Post-Normal Times demands no less than the birth of a global humanity beyond nation states as the precondition for human survival.
Download or read book Domination and Emancipation written by Daniel Benson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A melancholy defeatism has become a hallmark of critical thought and leftist politics. A consequence of this has been an exaggerated focus on domination among critical theorists, leaving emancipation—along with questions of political organization and strategy—undertheorized at best, or disregarded as delusional, at worst. If emancipation still plays a role in critical reflection, it is most often in a “domesticated” form, made into a bedfellow of centrist liberalism. Recent events necessitate a different outlook, especially since the financial collapse of 2008 and the myriad movements—emancipatory as much as reactionary—it has spawned throughout the world. Through a series of dialogues and reflections by leading thinkers, scholars, and activists, Domination and Emancipation: Remaking Critique seeks to rebuild the emancipatory pole of critique and bring forward theoretical work that is in step with the struggles and aspirations of the moment.
