Cultural Revolutions: Reason Versus Culture in Philosophy, Politics, and Jihad
Author: Lawrence E. Cahoone File Type: pdf In this probing examination of the meaning and function of culture in contemporary society, Lawrence Cahoone argues that reason itself is cultural, but no less reasonable for it. While recent political and philosophical movements have recognized that cognition, the self, and politics are embedded in culture, most fail to appreciate the deep changes in rationalism and liberal theory this implies, others leap directly into relativism, and nearly all fail to define culture. Cultural Revolutions systematically defines culture, gauges the consequences of the ineradicably cultural nature of cognition and action, yet argues that none of this implies relativism. After showing where other &new culturalists& have gone wrong, Cahoone offers his own definition of culture as teleologically organized practices, artifacts, and narratives and analyzes the notion of cultural membership in relation to race, ethnicity, and &primordialism.& He provides a theory of culture&s role in how we form our sense of reality and argues that the proper conception of culture dissolves &the problem& of cultural relativism. Applying this perspective to Islamic fundamentalism, Cahoone identifies its conflict with the West as representing the break between two of three historically distinctive forms of reason. Rather than being &irrational,& he shows, fundamentalism embodies a rationality only recently devalued&but not entirely abandoned&by the West. The persistence of plural forms of reason suggests that modernization in various world cultures is compatible with continued, even magnified, cultural differences.
Author: James Martin
File Type: epub
St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Society of Jesus (aka the Jesuits), was known for his practical spirituality. The way of Ignatius has helped millions of peoplefrom the doubtful seeker to the devout believerfind freedom, make friends, live simply, work sensibly, fall in love, experience joy, and enter into a relationship with God. The Ignatian goal of finding God in all things eans that every part of our lives can lead us to God. The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything shows us how this is possible, with user-friendly examples, humorous stories and anecdotes from the heroic and inspiring lives of Jesuit saints and average priests and brothers, as well as examples from Martins twenty years as a Jesuit. The traditional wisdom that Jesuits use to help other people in their daily lives is easily applied, but not often explained well to the general public. The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything translates these insights of St. Ignatius for a modern audience and reveals how we can find Godand how God can find usin the real world of work, love, suffering, decisions, prayer, and friendship.
Author: Nicholas Carr
File Type: epub
At once a celebration of technology and a warning about its misuse, The Glass Cage will change the way you think about the tools you use every day.In The Glass Cage, best-selling author Nicholas Carr digs behind the headlines about factory robots and self-driving cars, wearable computers and digitized medicine, as he explores the hidden costs of granting software dominion over our work and our leisure. Even as they bring ease to our lives, these programs are stealing something essential from us. Drawing on psychological and neurological studies that underscore how tightly peoples happiness and satisfaction are tied to performing hard work in the real world, Carr reveals something we already suspect shifting our attention to computer screens can leave us disengaged and discontented.From nineteenth-century textile mills to the cockpits of modern jets, from the frozen hunting grounds of Inuit tribes to the sterile landscapes of GPS maps, The Glass Cage explores the impact of automation from a deeply human perspective, examining the personal as well as the economic consequences of our growing dependence on computers.With a characteristic blend of history and philosophy, poetry and science, Carr takes us on a journey from the work and early theory of Adam Smith and Alfred North Whitehead to the latest research into human attention, memory, and happiness, culminating in a moving meditation on how we can use technology to expand the human experience.ReviewNicholas Carr is among the most lucid, thoughtful and necessary thinkers alive. The Glass Cage should be required reading for everyone with a phone -- Jonathan Safran Foer Written with restrained objectivity, The Glass Cage is nevertheless as scary as any sci-fi thriller could be -- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow The Psychology of Optimal Experience Nicholas Carr is the rare thinker who understands that technological progress is both essential and worrying. The Glass Cage is a call for technology that complements our human capabilities, rather than replacing them -- Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody A very necessary book, that we ignore at our peril. I read it without putting it down -- Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary About the AuthorNicholas Carr is the author of The Shallows, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, as well as The Big Switch and Does IT Matter? His articles and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, and the New Republic, and he writes the widely read blog Rough Type. He has been writer-in-residence at the University of California, Berkeley, and an executive editor of the Harvard Business Review.
Author: Antonio Negri
File Type: pdf
div contentInfoDiv Fall 2010, No. 41, Pages 6-23 Posted Online October 15, 2010. div (doi10.1162GREY_a_00010) 2010 by Grey Room, Inc. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. div htmlContentp fulltexth1 arttitlediv hlFld-TitleThe Revolution Will Not Be an Explosion Somewhere Down the Road An Interview with Antonio Negrih1div artAuthorsdiv hlFld-ContribAuthorspan hlFld-ContribAuthor Filippo Del Lucchesespanp fulltext nospacebFilippo Del Luccheseb is the author of Conflict, Power and Multitude in Machiavelli and Spinoza (Continuum, 2009). He has taught at the Universite de Picardie, at Occidental College, and at the American University of Beirut. He is currently Lecturer in History of Political Thought at Brunel University in London.span hlFld-ContribAuthor Jason E. Smithspanp fulltext nospacebJason E. Smithb is Assistant Professor in the Graduate Studies in Art Program at Art Center College of Design. His work has been published in Artforum, Critical Inquiry, Il Manifesto, Radical Philosophy, and Rethinking Marxism. He is currently working on a book about Guy Debords films.p fulltext
Author: Christopher Allmand
File Type: epub
Thanks in part to Shakespeare, Henry V is one of Englands best-known monarchs. The image of the king leading his army against the French, and the great victory at Agincourt, are part of English historical tradition. Yet, though indeed a soldier of exceptional skill, Henry Vs reputation needs to be seen against a broader background of achievement. This sweepingly majestic book is based on the full range of primary sources and sets the reign in its full European context. Christopher Allmand shows that Henry V not only united the country in war but also provided domestic security, solid government, and a much needed sense of national pride. The book includes an updated foreword which takes stock of more recent publications in the field. A far more rounded picture of Henry as a ruler than any previous study.--G.L. Harris, The Times
Author: Ya-Wen Lei
File Type: pdf
Since the mid-2000s, public opinion and debate in China have become increasingly common and consequential, despite the ongoing censorship of speech and regulation of civil society. How did this happen? In The Contentious Public Sphere, Ya-Wen Lei shows how the Chinese state drew on law, the media, and the Internet to further an authoritarian project of modernization, but in so doing, inadvertently created a nationwide public sphere in Chinaone the state must now endeavor to control. Lei examines the influence this unruly sphere has had on Chinese politics and the ways that the state has responded.Using interviews, newspaper articles, online texts, official documents, and national surveys, Lei shows that the development of the public sphere in China has provided an unprecedented forum for citizens to influence the public agenda, demand accountability from the government, and organize around the concepts of law and rights. She demonstrates how citizens came to understand themselves as legal subjects, how legal and media professionals began to collaborate in unexpected ways, and how existing conditions of political and economic fragmentation created unintended opportunities for political critique, particularly with the rise of the Internet. The emergence of this public sphereand its uncertain futureis a pressing issue with important implications for the political prospects of the Chinese people.Investigating how individuals learn to use public discourse to influence politics, The Contentious Public Sphere offers new possibilities for thinking about the transformation of state-society relations.
Author: Michael Lewis
File Type: pdf
Heidegger and the Place of Ethics is a groundbreaking contribution to the study of both Heidegger and ethics in the Continental philosophical tradition. Despite Heideggers identifying his own thought with ethics in the most original sense, his understanding of ethics has been criticised both for its supposed ignorance of the role of the other human being and for its relation to politics. This book contends that, in fact, it is Heideggers own notion of being-with -his rethinking of intersubjectivity- which demonstrates precisely what is wrong with his early work and demands that the place of ethics be rethought. Heidegger and the Place of Ethics shows how this rethinking occurs in Heideggers own later work. In particular, the crossing out of the earlier work in the turn to the later allows us to think being-with as essential to a Heideggerian ethics and to rethink the relationship between ethics and politics which previously issued in Heideggers engagement with Nazism.This rethinking of ethics and politics in light of the originality of being-with brings us before a hitherto unnoticed proximity between Heideggers later work and the Lacanian political thought of Slavoj Zizek among others it thereby opens up the possibility of a politically progressive Heideggerianism, and many unexpected encounters with thinkers generally considered to be separated from Heidegger by an abyss. **
Author: Diane Kraft
File Type: pdf
Can an apple a day keep the doctor away?The A-Z Guide to Food As Medicine addresses food folklore by exploring the scientific findings about physiological effects of over 250 foods, food groups, nutrients, and phytochemicals. Today, health care providers are fielding more questions from patients on how to help improve their nutritional health, which in turn can help to prevent disease. The guide is a dictionary-style reference intended for use by health care professionals to quickly and easily access information about the bioactive components in the foods and how diet can be manipulated for health benefits. **