Download or read book Democratic Humility written by Christopher Beem and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American politics is in a state of crisis but it is not clear why. Nor do we know what to do about it. Reinhold Niebuhr helps us understand what is wrong with our politics and research into the workings of the brain confirms his analysis. Call it sin or motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, the bottom line is that all of us are what Niebuhr calls “Children of Light.” We are all vain and self-righteous about our beliefs and values, and far too quick to reject any information that goes against them. The unprecedented rise of talk radio and cable news helps to account for why things are so bad. We all want to hear that our group is smarter and more moral than others. To restore a democracy that functions, we need to understand ourselves better and develop the humility that such knowledge should engender.
Download or read book Power and Humility written by John Keane and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-30 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An imaginative, radically new interpretation of the twenty-first-century fate of democracy by a distinguished scholar.
Download or read book Religion Humility and Democracy in a Divided America written by Ruth Braunstein and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-05 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strong religious convictions motivate citizens to engage in American public life, and are viewed as a source of closed-mindedness and a driver of political polarization. This book combines theoretical reflections on this tension, empirical studies examine how a range of religious actors balance conviction with humility in their political work.
Download or read book The Seven Democratic Virtues written by Christopher Beem and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The insurrection of January 6, 2021, demonstrated conclusively that tribalism in the United States has become dangerous. The “other side” is no longer viewed as a well-intentioned opponent but as an existential threat. If we don’t change course, American democracy is far from assured. This book outlines specific steps that average citizens can take to back the nation away from the brink. Instead of looking to political leaders, institutions, or policy for solutions to extreme partisanship, Christopher Beem argues that concerned citizens can and must take up the cause. He spells out seven civic practices we can all follow that will help us work against our antidemocratic tendencies and reorient the nation toward the “more perfect union” of our Founders. Beem’s road map to restore our democracy draws on thinkers from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to James Madison, Hannah Arendt, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Empathetic and eminently reasonable, The Seven Democratic Virtues presents practical advice for what each of us can do to change the political discourse and save our democracy. This is necessary reading for our politics today—and in the future.
Download or read book Political Humility written by Blake Roeber and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-04-30 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to change the way we think about politics, talk about politics, and vote. It does this in two ways. First, it shows it’s impossible for a Republican, Democrat, or voter in any political party to possess a significant level of knowledge of facts that would help their party secure or maintain political power. It calls this knowledge “political knowledge” and shows how unfeasible it is for anyone to have it. Second, it explains how we might best be politically engaged, given that we have virtually no political knowledge. To argue that it is impossible for any person to possess a significant amount of political knowledge, the book depends on two empirically verified facts. The first is that we have virtually no means of acquiring political information except by believing what other people say. The second is that, when people start talking about politics, they become highly unreliable. They’re very likely to say false things when voicing political opinions because they employ a belief‐forming process that psychologists call “identity protective cognition.” This is a type of reasoning aimed, not at truth, but at preserving one’s membership in some identity‐defining group. In combination, these two observations cast serious doubt on all of our political beliefs. As the book explains, however, the proper response to this doubt is not to simply avoid politics. Rather the best response is a kind of humble but real engagement with politics that constantly manifests one’s awareness that one is, at best, making educated guesses rather than speaking and acting from knowledge.
Download or read book Power and Humility written by John Keane and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-30 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy urgently needs re-imagining if it is to address the dangers and opportunities posed by current global realities, argues leading political thinker John Keane. He offers an imaginative, radically new interpretation of the twenty-first-century fate of democracy. The book shows why the current literature on democracy is failing to make sense of many intellectual puzzles and new political trends. It probes a wide range of themes, from the growth of cross-border institutions and capitalist market failures to the greening of democracy, the dignity of children and the anti-democratic effects of everyday fear, violence and bigotry. Keane develops the idea of 'monitory democracy' to show why periodic free and fair elections are losing their democratic centrality; and why the ongoing struggles by citizens and their representatives, in a multiplicity of global settings, to humble the high and mighty and deal with the dangers of arbitrary power, force us to rethink what we mean by democracy and why it remains a universal ideal.
Download or read book Citizenship and Democratic Doubt written by Bob Pepperman Taylor and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the world today views America as an imperialist nation bent on global military, economic, and cultural domination. At home few share this negative view. Bob Pepperman Taylor, however, argues that US moral self-righteousness may potentially imperil democratic ideals and threaten democracy.
Download or read book The Humble Cosmopolitan written by Luis Cabrera and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-06 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is a strong cosmopolitan stance irretrievably arrogant? Cosmopolitanism, which affirms universal moral principles and grants no fundamental moral significance to the state, has become increasingly central to normative political theory. Yet, it has faced persistent claims that it disdains local attachments and cultures, while also seeking the neo-imperialistic imposition of Western moral views on all persons. The critique is said to apply with even greater force to institutional cosmopolitan approaches, which seek the development of global political institutions capable of promoting global aims for human rights, democracy, etc. This book works to address such objections through developing a novel theory of cosmopolitan political humility. It draws on the work of Indian constitutional architect and social activist B.R. Ambedkar, who cited universal principles of equality and rights in confronting domestic exclusions and the "arrogance" of caste. He sought to advance forms of political humility, or the recognition of equal standing, and openness to input and challenge within political institutions. This book explores how an "institutional global citizenship" approach to cosmopolitanism could similarly promote political humility globally, by supporting the development of democratic input and challenge mechanisms beyond the state. Such developments would challenge an essential political arrogance identified in the current system, where sovereign states are empowered to simply dismiss rights-based challenges from outsiders or their own populations--even as they serve as the designated guarantors of human rights. The book employs an innovative grounded normative theory method, where extensive original field research informs the development of moral claims. Insights are taken from Dalit activists reaching out to United Nations human rights bodies for support in challenging caste discrimination, and from their critics in the governing Bharatiya Janata Party. Further insights are drawn from Turkish protestors confronting a rising domestic authoritarianism, and from UK Independence Party members demanding "Brexit" from the European Union--in part because predominantly Muslim Turkey could eventually join. Overall, it is shown, an institutional global citizenship approach can inform the development of a global framework which would orient fundamentally to political humility rather than arrogance, and which could significantly advance global rights protections.
Download or read book The Life and Death of Democracy written by John Keane and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2009 with total page 996 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Plato to de Tocqueville to Fukuyama-an epic history of the governing philosophy that has defined Western history.
Download or read book The Idea of Democracy written by Sam Pitroda and published by Penguin Random House India Private Limited. This book was released on 2024-03-29 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today global democracy is at a crossroads because of the rise in polarized politics, authoritarian regimes and the use of social media to manipulate and amplify lies, hate and misinformation. While electoral democracy continues to be the most prevalent form of government, a series of indicators measuring political and civic freedom reveal that the institution of democracy is in deep distress. With the liberal foundations of democracy shakier than ever before, confidence in institutions has plummeted. This book looks at this paradox of so-called democratic success coupled with its liberal decline. It provides a detailed analysis of the essence of democracy, its workings, the kind of values it needs to encapsulate, forces and safeguards which work in liberal democracy’s favour and how they can be preserved. This book is meant to stimulate conversation, particularly among the youth on what the idea of democracy means to them and the role that they can play in helping democracy survive—and thrive—in the coming era.
Download or read book Democratic Decision Making written by David Lewis Schaefer and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic Decision-Making: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives contains eight essays by political scientists addressing various aspects of the democratic decision-making process. The book is divided into four parts: democratic statesmanship, the extent to which limitations of the democratic principle of majority rule are desirable, the contemporary doctrine of “deliberative democracy,” and informal modes of democratic decision-making. Under these four headings, the contributors discuss a wide variety of issues, including the practice of “political opportunism” by such statesmen as Hamilton and Madison; the historical development of legal restraints on democracy in America ranging from judicial review (during the colonial period) to the filibuster; the operation of classical Athenian democracy, the defects of which may have been exaggerated by the American Founders; the significance of the reflections of Tammany Hall boss George Washington Plunkitt for the development of the American party system; the relation of deliberative-democracy theory to the thought of Rousseau; and the means by which cooperative land-use agreements have been arrived at in California, eliciting the voluntary consent of the affected parties instead of relying on judicial or bureaucratic dictates. The book is well-suited for use in courses on American political thought, democratic theory, American political development, and related subjects.
Download or read book The Democratic Leader written by John Kane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic leadership is the most familiar form of leadership and yet the least well understood by people in democratic countries. This book explores the tensions and dilemmas that beset such leadership in order to explain why democracies produce simultaneously the strongest and weakest of leaders.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility written by Mark Alfano and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-06 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humility is a vital aspect of political discussion, social media and self-help, whilst recent empirical research has linked humility to improved well-being, open-mindedness and increased accuracy in assessing persuasive messages. It is also a topic central to research and discussion in philosophy, applied ethics and religious studies. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility is the first collection to present a comprehensive overview of the philosophy of humility, whilst also covering important interdisciplinary topics. Comprising 41 chapters by an international team of contributors, the Handbook is divided into seven parts: • Theories of humility • The ethics of humility • The politics of humility • Humility in religious thought • The epistemology of humility • The psychology of humility • Humility: applications to the social world. Essential reading for students and researchers in ethics, epistemology, political philosophy and philosophy of mind and psychology, this Handbook will also be extremely useful for those in related disciplines such as psychology, religious studies and law.
Download or read book War and Morality written by Michael Cavanagh and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In democratic societies, it is said that wars and military interventions are fought in the name of the citizens of the nation engaged in the conflict. Yet, ordinary citizens, the major stakeholders in war, are seldom provided with as much information for making and acting on their moral decisions about war as they are about many other national issues that affect them. To fill the void, this volume addresses the nature of conscience, various moral norms, a moral decision-making process, and the theoretical and practical issues involved in attempting to avoid war or at least to make it as moral as possible, considering its nature. By discussing how the morality of war differs from its political, military, economic and legal dimensions, this unique work attempts to enable citizens to make informed decisions about declaring, waging and ending war, and to act on those decisions. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Download or read book Tocqueville Democracy and Religion written by Alan S. Kahan and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-08-06 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between democracy and religion is as important today as it was in Alexis de Tocqueville's time. Tocqueville, Democracy, and Religion is a ground-breaking study of the views of the greatest theorist of democracy writing about one of today's most crucial problems. Alan S. Kahan, one of today's foremost Tocqueville scholars, shows how Tocqueville's analysis of religion is simultaneously deeply rooted in his thoughts on nineteenth-century France and America and pertinent to us today. Tocqueville thought that the role of religion was to provide checks and balances for democracy in the spiritual realm, just as secular forces should provide them in the political realm. He believed that in the long run secular checks and balances were dependent on the success of spiritual ones. Kahan examines how Tocqueville thought religion had succeeded in checking and balancing democracy in America, and failed in France, as well as observing Tocqueville's less well-known analyses of religion in Ireland and England, and his perspective on Islam and Hinduism. He shows how Tocqueville's 'post-secular' account of religion can help us come to terms with religion today. More than a study of Tocqueville on religion in democratic society, this volume offers us a re-interpretation of Tocqueville as a moralist and a student of human nature in democratic society; a thinker whose new political science was in the service of a new moral science aimed at encouraging democratic people to attain greatness as human beings. Tocqueville, Democracy, and Religion gives us a new Tocqueville for the twenty-first century.
Download or read book The Humble Cosmopolitan written by Luis Cabrera and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Cosmopolitanism is said by many critics to be arrogant. In emphasizing universal principles and granting no fundamental moral significance to national or other group belonging, it wrongly treats those making non-universalist claims as not authorized to speak, while treating those in non-Western societies as not qualified. This book works to address such objections. It does so in part by engaging the work of B.R. Ambedkar, architect of India's 1950 Constitution and revered champion of the country's Dalits (formerly "untouchables"). Ambedkar cited universal principles of equality and rights in confronting domestic exclusions and the "arrogance" of caste. He sought to advance forms of political humility, or the affirmation of equal standing within political institutions and openness to input and challenge within them. This book examines how an "institutional global citizenship" approach to cosmopolitanism could similarly advance political humility, in supporting the development of input and challenge mechanisms beyond the state. It employs a grounded normative theory method, taking insights for the model from field research among Dalit activists pressing for domestic reforms through the UN human rights regime, and from their critics in the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Insights also are taken from Turkish protesters challenging a rising domestic authoritarianism, and from UK Independence Party members demanding "Brexit" from the European Union-in part because of possibilities that predominantly Muslim Turkey will join. Overall, it is shown, an appropriately configured institutional cosmopolitanism should orient fundamentally to political humility rather than arrogance, while holding significant potential for advancing global rights protections and more equitable rights specifications"--
Download or read book The Undiscovered Dewey written by Melvin L. Rogers and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Undiscovered Dewey explores the profound influence of evolution and its corresponding ideas of contingency and uncertainty on John Dewey's philosophy of action, particularly its argument that inquiry proceeds from the uncertainty of human activity. Dewey separated the meaningfulness of inquiry from a larger metaphysical story concerning the certainty of human progress. He then connected this thread to the way in which our reflective capacities aid us in improving our lives. Dewey therefore launched a new understanding of the modern self that encouraged intervention in social and natural environments but which nonetheless demanded courage and humility because of the intimate relationship between action and uncertainty. Melvin L. Rogers explicitly connects Dewey's theory of inquiry to his religious, moral, and political philosophy. He argues that, contrary to common belief, Dewey sought a place for religious commitment within a democratic society sensitive to modern pluralism. Against those who regard Dewey as indifferent to moral conflict, Rogers points to Dewey's appreciation for the incommensurability of our ethical commitments. His deep respect for modern pluralism, argues Rogers, led Dewey to articulate a negotiation between experts and the public so that power did not lapse into domination. Exhibiting an abiding faith in the reflective and contestable character of inquiry, Dewey strongly engaged with the complexity of our religious, moral, and political lives.
