Download or read book Intellectuals and Counter Politics written by Gavin Smith and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-05-01 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 The Public Intellectual written by Richard M. Zinman and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2004-09-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether intellectuals are counter-cultural escapists corrupting the young or secular prophets leading us to prosperity, they are a fixture of modern political life. In The Public Intellectual: Between Philosophy and Politics, Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman bring together a wide variety of noted scholars to discuss the characteristics, nature, and role of public thinkers. By looking at scholarly life in the West, this work explores the relationship between thought and action, ideas and events, reason and history.
Download or read book The Reckless Mind written by Mark Lilla and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2001 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text is a study of how a number of important 20th century European intellectuals came to support tyrannical regimes and totalitarian political ideas.
Download or read book Affective States written by Mateusz Laszczkowski and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-12-29 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, political and social theory has been transformed by the heterogeneous approaches to feeling and emotion jointly referred to as ‘affect theory’. These range from psychological and social-constructivist approaches to emotion to feminist and post-human perspectives. Covering a wide spectrum of topics and ethnographic contexts—from engineering in the Andes to household rituals in rural China, from South African land restitution to migrant living in Moscow, and from elections in El Salvador to online and offline surveillance among political refugees from Uzbekistan and Eritrea—the chapters in this volume interrogate this ‘affective turn’ through the lens of fine-grained ethnographies of the state. The volume enhances the anthropological understanding of the various ways through which the state comes to be experienced as a visceral presence in social life.
Download or read book Earth Politics written by Waskar Ari and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Earth Politics focuses on the lives of four indigenous activist-intellectuals in Bolivia, key leaders in the Alcaldes Mayores Particulares (AMP), a movement established to claim rights for indigenous education and reclaim indigenous lands from hacienda owners. The AMP leaders invented a discourse of decolonization, rooted in part in native religion, and used it to counter structures of internal colonialism, including the existing racial systems. Waskar Ari calls their social movement, practices, and discourse earth politics, both because the AMP emphasized the idea of the earth and the place of Indians on it, and because of the political meaning that the AMP gave to the worship of the Aymara gods. Depicting the social worlds and life work of the activists, Ari traverses Bolivia's political and social landscape from the 1920s into the early 1970s. He reveals the AMP 's extensive geographic reach, genuine grassroots quality, and vibrant regional diversity. Ari had access to the private archives of indigenous families, and he collected oral histories, speaking with men and women who knew the AMP leaders. The resulting examination of Bolivian indigenous activism is one of unparalleled nuance and depth.
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 496 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 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:
Download or read book Mind vs Money written by Alan Kahan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 448 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 Piracy and the State written by Martin Dimitrov and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-07 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this original study of intellectual property rights (IPR) in relation to state capacity, Dimitrov analyzes this puzzle by offering the first systematic analysis of all IPR enforcement avenues in China, across all IPR subtypes. He shows that the extremely high volume of enforcement provided for copyrights and trademarks is unfortunately of a low quality, and as such serves only to perpetuate IPR violations. In the area of patents, however, he finds a low volume of high-quality enforcement. In light of these findings, the book develops a theory of state capacity that conceptualizes the Chinese state as simultaneously weak and strong. The book draws on extensive fieldwork in China and five other countries, as well as on 10 unique IPR enforcement datasets that exploit previously unexplored sources, including case files of private investigation firms.
Download or read book German Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democratic Renewal written by Sean A. Forner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how democracy was rethought in Germany in the wake of National Socialism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. Focusing on a loose network of public intellectuals in the immediate postwar years, Sean Forner traces their attempts to reckon with the experience of Nazism and scour Germany's ambivalent political and cultural traditions for materials with which to build a better future. In doing so, he reveals, they formulated an internally variegated but distinctly participatory vision of democratic renewal - a paradoxical counter-elitism of intellectual elites. Although their projects ran aground on internal tensions and on the Cold War, their commitments fueled critique and dissent in the two postwar Germanys during the 1950s and thereafter. The book uncovers a conception of political participation that went beyond the limited possibilities of the Cold War era and influenced the political struggles of later decades in both East and West.
Download or read book Intellectual Freedom and the Culture Wars written by Piers Benn and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-10-10 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a sustained and vigorous defence of free expression and objective enquiry situated in the context of the current culture wars. In the spirit of J. S. Mill, Benn investigates objections to the ideal of free expression in relation to harm and offence, reaching broadly liberal conclusions with reference to recent examples of attempts to curb free speech on university campuses. Accepting that some expressions can cause non-physical harm, Benn also considers objections to free speech based on certain understandings of power and privilege. In its exploration and rejection of arguments against the possibility of obtaining objective truth, the book navigates hotly contested fields of contemporary debate, including feminism and identity politics. It challenges the dogma of social constructionism and examines current notions of identity, arguing that a case for fairness can be made without appealing to them. Offering a qualified endorsement of friendship between ideological opponents, Benn highlights common obstacles to civil and rational discussions, concluding with a rational, moral, and broadly spiritual solution to the cultural combat that monopolises present-day society.
Download or read book The Responsibility of Intellectuals written by Noam Chomsky and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected by Newsweek as one of “14 nonfiction books you’ll want to read this fall” Fifty years after it first appeared, one of Noam Chomsky’s greatest essays will be published for the first time as a timely stand-alone book, with a new preface by the author As a nineteen-year-old undergraduate in 1947, Noam Chomsky was deeply affected by articles about the responsibility of intellectuals written by Dwight Macdonald, an editor of Partisan Review and then of Politics. Twenty years later, as the Vietnam War was escalating, Chomsky turned to the question himself, noting that "intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments" and to analyze their "often hidden intentions." Originally published in the New York Review of Books, Chomsky's essay eviscerated the "hypocritical moralism of the past" (such as when Woodrow Wilson set out to teach Latin Americans "the art of good government") and exposed the shameful policies in Vietnam and the role of intellectuals in justifying it. Also included in this volume is the brilliant "The Responsibility of Intellectuals Redux," written on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, which makes the case for using privilege to challenge the state. As relevant now as it was in 1967, The Responsibility of Intellectuals reminds us that "privilege yields opportunity and opportunity confers responsibilities." All of us have choices, even in desperate times.
Download or read book Intellectual Morons written by Daniel J. Flynn and published by Forum Books. This book was released on 2004-09-21 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do well-educated antiwar activists call the president of the United States “the new Hitler” and argue that the U.S. government orchestrated the September 11 attacks? Why does Al Gore believe that cars pose “a mortal threat to the security of every nation”? Why does the Princeton professor known as the father of the animal rights movement object to humans eating animals but not to humans having sex with them—and why does PETA defend that position? In other words, why do smart people fall for stupid ideas? The answer, Daniel J. Flynn reveals in Intellectual Morons, is ideology. Flynn, the author of Why the Left Hates America, shows how people can be so blinded to reality by the causes they serve that they espouse bizarre, sometimes ridiculous, and often dangerous positions. The most influential social movements have spawned ideologues who do not care whether an idea is good or bad, true or false, but only whether it can serve their cause. It is startling how many Americans—and particularly how many media, academic, and political elites—fall for bad ideas. The trouble is, their lies become institutionalized as truth, and we all suffer as a result. In Intellectual Morons, Flynn reveals: •How rabid anti-Americans simply parrot the delusional claims of a few gurus •How the environmental movement, spawned by a “scientist” whose doomsday predictions are almost always wrong, has bred fanaticism, stupidity, and dishonesty •How the hero of the animal rights crowd is a crank who promotes infanticide and euthanasia •How a scientific fraud—and pervert—launched the sexual revolution •How abortion rights activists ignore (or cover up) the fact that their matron saint advocated eugenics and concentration camps •How our universities have become hothouses of leftist ideology •How historians and journalists have airbrushed history to turn a racial separatist into a civil rights icon Filled with jaw-dropping lapses in common sense from even our most celebrated opinion leaders, Intellectual Morons is a welcome reality check for the glaring excesses of today’s political and cultural debates. "This is a sophisticated pile driver of a book, guiding us through the wiles of great luminaries of the netherworld. And such liveliness in the writing, and such erudition. I was quite fascinated by Intellectual Morons."—William F. Buckley, Jr. "Intellectual Morons is exceptionally aptly named. The thought of all that brainpower going down the intellectual drain is sad, but Daniel Flynn's description of it is hilariously on point. This is must reading."—G. Gordon Liddy "Intellectual Morons is a delight—a wonderful intellectual history of the past hundred years. Flynn ably describes the purveyors of the bad ideas that have undermined our free society."—Burton W. Folsom, Jr., professor of history, Hillsdale College "A famous bit of folk wisdom says, 'You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything.' Some of the crackpot notions now fashionable in academic circles, as here documented by Daniel Flynn, suggest that saying is an understatement. If you want to know how crazy, and scairy, intellectual morons can get, you have to read this book."—M. Stanton Evans, author of The Theme Is Freedom, contributing editor to Human Events
Download or read book Minjian written by Sebastian Veg and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who are the new Chinese intellectuals? In the wake of the crackdown on the 1989 democracy movement and the rapid marketization of the 1990s, a novel type of grassroots intellectual emerged. Instead of harking back to the traditional role of the literati or pronouncing on democracy and modernity like 1980s public intellectuals, they derive legitimacy from their work with the vulnerable and the marginalized, often proclaiming their independence with a heavy dose of anti-elitist rhetoric. They are proudly minjian—unofficial, unaffiliated, and among the people. In this book, Sebastian Veg explores the rise of minjian intellectuals and how they have profoundly transformed China’s public culture. An intellectual history of contemporary China, Minjian documents how, amid deep structural shifts, grassroots thinker-activists began to work outside academia or policy institutions in an embryonic public sphere. Veg explores the work of amateur historians who question official accounts, independent documentarians who let ordinary people speak for themselves, and grassroots lawyers and NGO workers who spread practical knowledge. Their interventions are specific rather than universal, with a focus on concrete problems among disenfranchised populations such as victims of Maoism, migrant workers and others without residence permits, and petitioners. Drawing on careful analysis of public texts by grassroots intellectuals and the networks and publics among which they circulate, Minjian is a groundbreaking transdisciplinary exploration of crucial trends developing under the surface of contemporary Chinese society.
Download or read book Breaking Boundaries written by Agnes Horvath and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liminality has the potential to be a leading paradigm for understanding transformation in a globalizing world. As a fundamental human experience, liminality transmits cultural practices, codes, rituals, and meanings in situations that fall between defined structures and have uncertain outcomes. Based on case studies of some of the most important crises in history, society, and politics, this volume explores the methodological range and applicability of the concept to a variety of concrete social and political problems.
Download or read book Intellectuals and Politics written by and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1967 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Creating the Intellectual written by Eddy U and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Creating the Intellectual redefines how we understand relations between intellectuals and the Chinese socialist revolution of the last century. Under the Chinese Communist Party, “the intellectual” was first and foremost a widening classification of individuals based on Marxist thought. The party turned revolutionaries and otherwise ordinary people into subjects identified as usable but untrustworthy intellectuals, an identification that profoundly affected patterns of domination, interaction, and rupture within the revolutionary enterprise. Drawing on a wide range of data, Eddy U takes the reader on a journey that examines political discourses, revolutionary strategies, rural activities, urban registrations, workplace arrangements, organized protests, and theater productions. He lays out in colorful detail the formation of new identities, forms of organization, and associations in Chinese society. The outcome is a compelling picture of the mutual constitution of the intellectual and the Chinese socialist revolution, the legacy of which still affects ways of seeing, thinking, acting, and feeling in what is now a globalized China.
