Georg Henrik von Wright was not only the first interpreter of Wittgenstein, who argued that Spengler’s work had reinforced and helped Wittgenstein to articulate his view of life, but also the first to consider seriously that Wittgenstein’s attitude to his times makes him unique among the great philosophers, that the philosophical problems which Wittgenstein was struggling, indeed his view of the nature of philosophy, were somehow connected with features of our culture or civilization. -/- In this paper I draw inspiration (...) and courage from Von Wright’s insistence that trying to understand Wittgenstein in relation to his times is a philosophic task in its own right in order to probe into a relatively obscure region in Wittgenstein’s thought: his relation to the music of his times. It is a topic, on which Von Wright, and most other prominent Wittgenstein scholars, have said very little, but it is also one, which Wittgenstein himself attested was so important to him that he felt without it he was sure to be misunderstood. -/- I offer textual and historical evidence in support of my claim that, parallel to Wittgenstein’s exposure to Spengler’s Decline of the West in 1930, he was also introduced to the music theory of Heinrich Schenker, which helped him to articulate, partly by way of critique, a complex and unique position concerning the modern music of his times, which exhibits his rejection of what Von Wright later dubbed ‘the myth of progress’. As Von Wright observed in other regions of Wittgenstein’s work, he believed also with regards to the arts and to music in particular, neither in a brilliant future nor in the good old days. -/- I argue that Wittgenstein actually made a distinction between three kinds of modern music: (a) bad modern music, which is clearly a case of confusing means for ends, the hallmark of the myth of progress, as Von Wright observed; (b) vacuous modern music, which embodies some sort of diffidence, a difficulty to see through the omnipresence of what Von Wright called (following Habermas) a ‘colonialization’ of reified measures of progress; (c) good modern music, a paradoxical notion for Wittgenstein, which betokens the unlikely yet possible striving to penetrate through what appears as dissolution of the resemblances which unite this culture’s ways of life by rendering this condition as expressible and intransitively understandable. In the context of this third category, I offer an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s complex remarks on the music of Gustav Mahler, which palpably show that the problem of good modern music and the problem of philosophizing in the time of civilization were one and the same in Wittgenstein’s mind. -/- I conclude that, with regards to Von Wright’s own critical view of the modern myth of progress, we can learn from Wittgenstein that progress in the realm of art is closely aligned with the ideal of the perfection of man, yet transcending a social or political context. It is the ideal of cultural cohesion: affinity that the arts show to other human practices and cultural artifacts of its period. Wittgenstein’s tentative notion of good modern music (and its circumscription by his notion of the music of the future) may show its true colors when viewed in the context of Von Wright’s plea not to abandon work for progress as a critical task. (shrink)

Civilization, Modernity, and Critique provides the first comprehensive, cutting edge engagement with the work of one of the most foundational figures in civilizational analysis: Johann P. Arnason. In order to do justice to Arnason's seminal and wide-ranging contributions to sociology, social theory and history, it brings together distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical contexts. Through a critical, interdisciplinary dialogue, it offers an enrichment and expansion of the methodological, theoretical, and applicative scope of civilizational analysis, by addressing (...) some of the most complex and pressing problems of contemporary global society. A unique and timely contribution to the ongoing task of advancing the project of a critical theory of society, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in historical sociology, critical theory and civilizational analysis. (shrink)

Being late. Looking back ; Brokenness ; Remembering -- Being early. Pushing forwards ; The temporality of desire ; Sounding utopia -- The precarious present. Simultaneity ; Boredom ; Historicism as modernism -- Being everywhere. The space of music ; Labyrinths ; Technologies of the musical body -- Being elsewhere. Music as transport ; The metaphysics of restlessness ; Re-enchantment -- Placing the self. Being nowhere ; Hypersubjectivity ; Staging the self -- Like a language. Disclosure ; Discourse ; Music (...) as self-critique -- Le corps sonore. The return of the repressed ; Bodies of sound ; The grammar of dreams. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Justifying the Right to Music EducationMarja HeimonenIn this study I will explore legal philosophical questions related to music education.1 I will begin by asking, "Is there a right to music education?" and move on to consider what constitutes a right and what kind of music education is at issue. My argument is that there is a right to music education and to a certain kind of music education in (...) terms of content.In the Nordic countries, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway, the right to general music education is based on law. All these countries belong to the Nordic legal culture. They are part of the Continental civil-law system consisting of enacted statutes with abstract norms. Case- and judge-centered common law that develops from decision to decision is used in Anglo-American societies such as the United States and England.2 The law usually leaves the contents of education more or less open.This study explores music education in the light of the ideas of Aristotle and some of his modern followers.3 Philosophers of music education significantly influenced this study, in which I argue that the principal aims of education are connected not only to musical skills, but also to virtues, moral philosophy, and the education of the human being as a whole. My objective is to make the differences [End Page 119] between the aims and content of music education in various societies more explicit and understandable.The right to music education is closely connected to its justification. In practice, music education is justified in terms of internal goods (in other words, by self-justifying values emphasizing personal well-being and self-expression) and external goods (favoring the effective training of future professionals, for instance). I will suggest that external goods should be subordinate to internal goods, and that an optional balance between the two is needed. This balance is achieved through continuous debate in a living tradition that focuses on the holistic view of the aims in music education.However, deeper arguments are needed in justifying the right to music education. According to Estelle Jorgensen, a dynamic and dialectic process characterizes music and education, both of which are part of the changing society and the culture that surrounds them: transformation is ongoing all the time.4 I will argue that music education has an important role not only for the individual, but also for society as a whole, since music could be regarded as an instrument in the teaching of virtues.The question that follows is: what kind of virtues? This essay explores the role of music education in developing one of the fundamental virtues in society, the sense of justice. The role of the music teacher could be compared with that of the judge: to build cases in real practical situations in the framework of general principles, which may be both written (such as law and curricula) and unwritten (tradition). Theory and practice have to go hand in hand—general principles always have to be adapted to individual situations (and not vice versa)—when music educators are acting in the present society.The ApproachThe right to music education includes not only the question of the right of every child and adolescent to receive a certain number of music lessons or to attend a music school. It also involves aspects related to values, aims, and contents. To clarify the complexity of rights in this context, we might think of several levels. The first level of ideological options comprises training for a professional career for which the notion of legal philosophy leans on analytical legal positivism. The second level of ideological options refers to artistic self-expression and the notion of law for this is outlined in terms of "law as culture" and natural law philosophy. The third level consists of the maintenance of societal or cultural values through music education and its notion of legal philosophy is given in terms of the historical school of law and natural law philosophy. A child's rights to music might be regarded as a negative freedom right, with protection against illegal interference on the part of the state, a positive welfare right (an [End... (shrink)

In this unique philosophical critique of modern Western civilization, Adams argues that contemporary culture is deranged by false assumptions about the human mind. He sees a growing gap between the subjectivistic culture and the structure of reality which has not only produced Originally published 1975. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered (...) from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value. (shrink)

This article engages with Johann Arnason’s approach to the entanglements of culture and power in comparative civilizational analysis by simultaneously reframing the themes of the civilizing process and the public sphere. It comments and expands upon some key insights of Arnason concerning the work of Norbert Elias and Jürgen Habermas by adopting an ‘Islamic perspective’ on the processes of singularization of power from its cultural bases and of reconstruction of a modern collective identity merging the steering capacities and the participative (...) ambitions of an emerging urban intelligentsia. The Islamic perspective provides insights into the interplay between civilizing processes and the modes through which cultural traditions innervate a modern public sphere. By revisiting key remarks of Arnason on Elias and Habermas, the Islamic perspective gains original contours, reflecting the search for a type of modernity that is eccentric to the mono-civilizational axis of the Western-led, global civilizing process. While this eccentric positioning entails a severe imbalance of power, it also relativizes the centrality of the modern state in the civilizing process and evidences some original traits of the public sphere in a non-Western context. (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper, I offer my reading of John Dewey's Art as Experience and propose implications for music education based on Dewey's ideas. Three principal questions guide my task: What are some key ideas in Dewey's theory of art? How does Dewey's theory of art fit within his larger theory of experience? What are the implications of Dewey's ideas for music education? As I shall show, art for Dewey is rooted in nature, civilizes humans, serves as social glue, and has (...) an important role in society throughout most of human history. Modern life, however, separates art and life; there is a need to restore the continuity between art and the ordinary processes of living, a task that Dewey undertakes by positing the notion of art as experience. Dewey's ideas support an expanded curriculum in music education, one in which popular music may be included alongside Western classical music and music from diverse cultures. However, artistic and educational discernment are needed, which necessitates the need for music educators to be sufficiently steeped in varied musical traditions and styles. (shrink)

This short article was originally delivered as a lecture in China, The article sketches a process view of history from ancient to medieval civilization, to modernity in two major phases, and to the current transition to a constructive postmodern, ecological civilization.

Orff-Schulwerk has become a foundational element of U.S. music education. Often positioned as an open, exploratory, and approachable form of music teaching and learning, it is associated with developing musicianship and, importantly, creativity. This article, drawing from a curriculum studies approach, considers the epistemologies, histories, and entanglements that produce Orff-Schulwerk and position it in this way. To do so, the article reviews an archive of method books, writing from Orff-Schulwerk pedagogues, and instrument designs. It then places these artifacts alongside the (...) intellectual foundations through that, in part, their modes of thought and action are constructed. In the process, this article traces how Orff-Schulwerk has been produced and given a particular sensibility through modes of thought largely outside of music such as cognitive science and German body culture. As a result, Orff-Schulwerk and the object of twenty-first century music curriculum become visible as not simply direct translations of creative, musical exploration into curriculum. Rather, Orff-Schulwerk is a distinct ontological object produced through ideas and desires that often have less to do with music and more to do with governing people in modernity. In doing so, the article seeks to question and develop understandings surrounding the foundations of classroom practice and research. (shrink)

Civilizational analysis is increasingly being used to capture the plurality of routes to and through the modern world order. However, the concept of civilization betrays a colonial legacy, namely, a denial that colonized peoples possessed the creative ability to cultivate their own subjecthoods. This denial was especially acute when it came to enslaved Africans in the New World whose bodies were imagined to be deracinated and deculturated. This article proposes that civilizational analysis has yet to fully address this legacy and, (...) to clarify the stakes at play, compares and contrasts the historical sociology of CLR James with the mytho-poetics of Derek Walcott. Both authors, in different ways, have attempted to endow that quintessentially un-civilizable body – the New World slave – with subjecthood. From this discussion, the article makes the case for developing a ‘poetics of slavery’ that could help to address the colonial strictures still residual in the concept of civilization. (shrink)

The concept of civil society, generally speaking, refers to a collective of free citizens who organize their common life in an autonomous and co‐operative way. To understand the different meanings and historical dynamic of the concept, three conceptions of it need to be distinguished, the oldest of which long pre‐dates the development of modern notions of ‘state’ and ‘society’. The Aristotelian idea of koinonia politike – translated into Latin as societas civilis – refers to a political community of free and (...) equal, virtuous citizens, bound together by a willingness to advance their common interest by means of political self‐rule in order to protect their liberty against both despotism and anarchy. Despite its historical distance from the two other, modern conceptions, this original one still poses a crucial question for any contemporary notion of civil society: what are the social understandings, forms of life and modes of action necessary for the establishment and preservation of political institutions that enable civic co‐operation and political autonomy? (shrink)

While constitutionalism is generally reduced to the idea of limited government, little has been said to its contribution to the juridification of the social sphere. The article shows the significance of constitutionalism for the institutionalization of modern civil societies. Modern civil societies, it is argued, can only flourish in a form of modern state that has undergone a process of internal differentiation in the direction of a separation of powers. Through the analysis of the process of self‐constitution of Argentine civil (...) society, I show how the erosion of the constitutional components of the state by populist democratizing movements resulted in the disintegration of civil society. (shrink)

It is claimed that Hegel denies the possibility of a modern epic and that his lectures on aesthetics demand the condemnation of all the art of his own time. I use the available student transcripts of his lectures on aesthetics, in conjunction with Lukács's views on the novel, to show that Hegel suggests that the novel might count as a modern epic and that it may perform a significant function in modern ethical life (Sittlichkeit) as presented in his own philosophy (...) of right. While Hegel raises questions concerning the possibility of a modern epic, he also presents the novel with a task that Lukács's interpretation of Balzac's Illusions perdues shows the novel is able to fulfill. This becomes evident when we consider Hegel's remarks on the novel in connection with his theory of civil society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 28.1 (2004) 220-223 [Access article in PDF] Doing Our Own Thing. The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like Care, by John McWhorter; xiv & 279 pp. New York: Gotham Books, 2003, $26.00. In 2002, the first anniversary of the September 11th attacks was marked in New York City by the reading of the Gettysburg Address. It was, as many commentators noted, an (...) odd choice of eulogy, comparing as it did the unwitting and innocent victims of a terrorist attack to the willing and active [End Page 220] participants in a bloody civil war. In Doing Our Own Thing, the Berkeley linguist John McWhorter asserts that this strange choice was the result of a decline in American public discourse. A "particular kind of artful English, formerly taken for granted as crucial to legitimate expression on the civic stage has" he argues, "virtually disappeared" (p. xiv). For McWhorter, this lack of contemporary public oratory is merely part of a broader linguistic decline that has affected all aspects of American life and culture.There has, he suggests, been a dumbing-down of the language. Whereas Americans once took care to craft their language, public and private, McWhorter argues, there is now a casualness to their speech and writing which affects all aspects of their existence. The nature of this decline is best captured by McWhorter's anecdote about his research into Gullah, an obscure Creole dialect. In response to his inquiries about local speech patterns, an elderly black woman in Greenwood, Mississippi responded: "Well, seems like most folks, they speak pretty good English, but some people, it seems like they just talk" (p. 2). Whereas Americans once spoke pretty good English, McWhorter believes, now, for the most part, they just talk. In Doing Our Own Thing, he seeks to identify not only evidence for his thesis, but also the causes and consequences of this decline.Evidence of linguistic decline is, McWhorter believes, to be found in our public discourse (as evidenced by the contemporary use of the Gettysburg Address), and in the rise of rap music and popular lyrics at the expense of poetry—he notes that as late as the 1960s, the poet Marianne Moore was a guest on The Tonight Show twice. Less intuitively perhaps, he identifies the same decline in the decreased popularity of piano bars, and the rising popularity of cell-phones. What all these examples of have in common, McWhorter suggests, is a turn towards an oral as opposed to a written culture. Speech has, he says, become something of a "dress-down affair" (p. 49), and this has infected both our written word and public oratory. The "modern American speech writer" he notes, "tends strongly to operate under a guiding imperative not to sound too high a note" (p. 47). McWhorter contrasts this with examples from the nineteenth-century—with letters from ordinary soldiers to their sweethearts, and with Edward Everett's two-hour plus address at Gettysburg—which show that "we live in an America with a distinctly different relationship to the English language than an America still within living memory" (p. 167).For McWhorter, the causes of this decline are clear. The 1960s counterculture, in its efforts to "Speak Truth to Power, abandoned the formal conventions of previous generations' speech, and adopted its own more casual approach to public discourse. Indeed, McWhorter feels confident enough to identify "a single year when America lost its love for its language": 1965 (p. 183). The consequences of this decline are, for McWhorter, similarly obvious. Among them, the shift to an oral culture is held to be responsible for: the election of George W. Bush—Al Gore's "studied articulateness is certainly one of the major [End Page 221] factors that blocked him from winning the presidency" (p. xxi); the decline of contemporary political debate—more formal written language is, says McWhorter, "a better vehicle for objective argument than speech" (p. 35); and the increasingly obtuse nature of academic language. Indeed, McWhorter asserts that Judith Butler... (shrink)

This book examines the role of civilizations in the context of the existing and possible world orders from a cross-cultural perspective. Seeking to clarify the meaning of such complex and contested notions as "civilization," "order," and "world order," it takes into account political, economic, cultural, and philosophical dimensions of social life.

This text focuses on why the global spread of formal rationality contributes to a critical spirit which undermines human values and beliefs, be they ancient, medieval, modern and now postmodern. This is so in special relation to the model of the seven major dimensions of human existence: the True (knowledge), the Holy (religion), the Good (morals), the Just (justice), the Everyday (consumeristic culture), the Technological (technophilic culture), and the Beautiful (arts and literature). This not only has happened in the Eastern (...) world but is spreading to the civilizations of the non-West as well. When carried to its logical conclusion, this undermining will yield what the author refers to as the post-human consciousness after postmodernity, in that humans are nothing in the end, to be someday superseded by post-humans. (shrink)

This is the English translation of Chapter One of Mutsu Bunmei Ron, which was published in Japanese in 2003. Since this book’s publication I have received many requests for an English translation from people around the world. I decided to begin by publishing this first chapter under the title Painless Civilization 1 and make it available to readers who have a keen interest in this topic. * The original text of this chapter was written in 1998, more than twenty years (...) ago, but I believe what I argued there is becoming increasingly important today. Painless civilization is a pathology of contemporary society. We will be pulled much deeper into a painless stream in the future. What is needed is the wisdom to see through the fundamental structure of our painless civilization and its relationship with the meaning of life. ** Modern society seems on the verge of being swallowed up by the pathology of “painless civilization.” I have written this book for people who, in the midst of anxiety studded with pleasure, joyless repetition, and a maze from which they cannot escape no matter how far they walk, nevertheless retain in some corner of their hearts a desire to live life fully and without regrets. * When we feel a vague anxiety, like being bound in gossamer cords, in the midst of modern society, we are perhaps intuitively sensing the existence of “painless civilization.” This book is an attempt to give words to this feeling that the reader has, I am sure, already experienced at least once in their life. (shrink)

본 연구는 현대 문명담론을 생태학적 세계화 차원에서 체계화하기 위해 기획된 것이다. 아울러 단․복수론의 궁극적 지평의 융합으로서 메타 이론적 학문 토대를 기초함은 물론 최종적으로는 인간과 자연, 중심과 주변, 서구와 비서구 등의 이분화적 갈등 구도를 파기하고 생태학적 관계성 회복을 전제하는 생태문명학의 정립을 그 목표로 한다. 현재 인류가 직면한 여러 생태학적 위기는 단순한 물리적인 환경의 파괴를 넘어 더 많은 함의를 지닌다. 금세기 생태학적 진단은 계몽주의와 산업 혁명에 연원한 현대 문명의 여러 폐단들에 대한 뼈아픈 반성을 수렴하는 것이다. 생태 문명의 건설은 생태 회복과 관리뿐만 아니라 (...) 전체적인 사회 문화 양식의 혁신과 관련된다. 또한 여기에는 세계화를 촉발시킨 서구 근대성에 대한 비판이 담겨 있다. 왜냐하면 근대성은 인간과 자연, 인간과 인간, 서양과 동양이라는 제 존재의 관계망들을 파편화함으로써 현대 문명의 위기를 초래한 진원지로 지적되기 때문이다. 이렇게 타자와의 관계성을 배제하는 이원적 근대성은 단수적 문명의 진보 신념으로 이어진다. 서구의 문명 개념에 내포된 ‘진보 대 야만’의 구획 의식은 단선적 진보사관에 연원한 서구보편주의의 세계적 동질화 과정의 근저를 이룬다. 그리고 여기에는 서구 문명의 패권을 강제하는 강권주의 논리가 함의되어 있다. 현재의 서구문명강권주의가 근대성의 닫힘과 두절의 이항 대립 의식에 근거한다면 무엇보다도 상호 주체적 연결 고리를 인정하는 생태 지향적 근대성으로서의 열림과 소통의 인식 전환이 이루어져야 한다. 이것은 복수적 근대성에 기초한 범 인류 중심의 생태학적 관계망을 담보하는 ‘세계주의 시각’의 전일적 문명관을 요구하는 것이다. 우리가 염원하는 새로운 문명관은 인권과 생명에 위해를 가하는 일체의 강권에 대한 저항과 해체에 있다. 아울러 인류의 평화와 공존을 위해 세계인이 합심해 노력해야 한다는 상호 주체적 평등 관계를 기초로 한 세계주의적 ‘생태문명’, 즉 세계 문명 중심의 다문명적 공존주의 문명관의 각성과 구축에 있다. 이처럼 생태학적 문명관은 문명 사이의 상호 관계에 관한 어떤 규범적 패러다임을 설정하는 토대가 된다. 강조컨대 현대 문명의 내핵인 근대주의가 공존 이념과 어울리지 않는다는 점에서 공생공영의 이념을 일반화하기 위해서는 무엇보다도 인간중심주의적 근대주의 문화를 비판하고 청산해야 할 것이다. 이를 위해서는 주객 이분법을 타파하고 주체와 객체 간의 새로운 관계 설정이 중요하다. 이른바 대자연이 최고의 주체라는 자연중심주의로 회귀해야 한다. 그리고 자연 속의 모든 존재들이 저마다의 주체성을 소유하며 때문에 삼라만상이 존재의 가치와 권리가 있음을 인정해야 한다. 이를 달리 말하면 ‘자연 중심의 다주체적 공생주의 자연관’이라 할 수 있다. 이 자연관을 문명론으로 치환해볼 때 ‘세계 문명 중심의 다문명적 공존주의 문명관’ 건설의 토대로 활용할 수 있다. 생태와 문명의 교차점에는 세계 문명의 소통으로서의 ‘생태문명학’이 자리한다. 자연 중심적 세계관으로의 전회는 특정한 패권 문명 중심에서 세계 문명 중심으로의 인식 전환과 함께 그 동안 주체와 중심의 그늘에 가려져 억눌리고 소외당했던 객체와 주변의 복권을 의미한다. 특히 서구의 이분법적 차별 구도는 근대성과 접맥된 세계화 이론에 깊이 착근되어 있다. 현재의 세계 문명은 ‘세계성 대 지역성’ 내지는 ‘근대성 대 전통성’이 대립하면서 서로 거대한 압력을 행사하는 각축장이 되고 있다. 이것은 단수적 보편 문명의 세계적 일체화와 복수적 개별 문명의 자기정체성 강화의 문제로 확대 해석할 수 있다. 이로 보건대 세계화와 관련된 현대 문명담론의 최대 관건은 단․복수적 문명론의 역사순기능적인 면을 동시에 구현시킬 수 있는 보편문명론과 문명다원주의의 화해와 회통에 있다. 즉 현재와 미래의 세계는 단일의 보편 문명과 고유한 특징을 지닌 복수의 개별 문명들이 중층적으로 공존한다고 보고 ‘문명다원주의를 그 전제로 한 보편 문명에의 지향’으로 정리할 수가 있다. 또한 ‘보편 문명’이 태생적으로 서구제국주의와 접맥된다는 점에서 다원성과 타자성을 감내하는 생명관적 자애로운 보편주의가 확보되어야 한다. 본 논고에서는 이 명제들의 충족 논거로서 생태문명학의 핵심 규범과 운용 요칙 들을 각각 제시했다. (shrink)

The Confucian notion of civility has for thousands of years guided all aspects of socio-ethical life in East Asia. Confucians express their central concern for civility in their notion of li, which is commonly translated ?ritual? and refers to the conventions and courtesies through which we submit to the socio-ethical order, as we do, for example, in performing sacrifices, weddings, and funerals, and various daily acts of deference. Since the rise of China and other East Asian countries as economic powers, (...) it has been suggested that we have in East Asia a ?Confucian? ritual-based culture that is opposed to the law-based culture of the West, a culture of rites opposed to a culture of rights, and that this ritual-based culture can be carried into modernity as another way to secure social harmony. I argue that the values central to Confucian ritual ? deference, repayment, and harmony ? are incompatible with the freedom enacted in modern civility. It is unlikely, therefore, that Confucian ritual can be carried into modernity and, as some suggest, remedy the fragmentation, and indeed lack of civility, characteristic of modern societies. (shrink)

How did science come to have such a central place in Western culture? How did our ways of thinking, and our moral, political, and social values, come to be modelled around scientific values? Stephen Gaukroger traces the story of how these values developed, and how they influenced society and culture from the 19th to the mid-20th century.

The text delivers a twofold analysis of negationism. On the one hand, it is taken as an ideological phenomenon characterized by a critique of modernity construed from the outside of its customary assumptions. On the other hand, an objective sort of negationism is found in the historical unfolding of the intrinsic limitations of modern socialization. These are brought forward by attention to the class content of the class character of the institutions regularly evoked by the apologetics of modernity – civil (...) society, science, the State. Progressivism, we suggest, the main target of negationism, is the tradition occupied with that apologetics, either promoting an intellectual critique of, or simply overlooking, the afore-mentioned class character, which, however, becomes historically undeniable to the common people, consistently victimized by it throughout modern history. In this sense, the modern social process is characterized as civil war. (shrink)

ExcerptThe Ukraine war since February 2022 has exposed stark cleavages in international politics. The end of history long ago ended, and with it the conviction that Western civilization and its distinctive form of modernity would become universal.1 The clash of civilizations, in the model outlined by Samuel Huntington, has also been shown to be misdirected, although not entirely misguided.2 There is a struggle between civilizations, but the line is drawn not between the great religious blocs but along rather different lines. (...) It is the Atlantic West that has emerged as the leading contender, provoking a range of reactions from Eurasia and the Global South. The front line now runs within the Global North, between the Atlantic powers and an ill-defined Eurasian bloc, both of which are firmly part of European culture and civilization. The conflict can be viewed as a type of civil war, generated not by civilizational conflict per se but by geopolitics. The political West that took shape in Cold War I represented a distinctive combination of power and authority. Power was expressed above all by the military potential vested in the United States and formalized in a multilateral format with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. Authority was generated by the principles underlying the political West, whose founding document is the Atlantic Charter of August 1941, which enunciated Wilsonian themes of democracy and security. (shrink)

The rich conceptual and experiential relays between music and philosophy—echoes of what Theodor W. Adorno once called _Klangfiguren_, or "sound figures"—resonate with heightened intensity during the period of modernity that extends from early German Idealism to the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. This volume traces the political, historical, and philosophical trajectories of a specifically German tradition in which thinkers take recourse to music, both as an aesthetic practice and as the object of their speculative work. The contributors examine the (...) texts of such highly influential writers and thinkers as Schelling, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bloch, Mann, Adorno, and Lukács in relation to individual composers including Beethoven, Wagner, Schönberg, and Eisler. Their explorations of the complexities that arise in conceptualizing music as a mode of representation and philosophy as a mode of aesthetic practice thematize the ways in which the fields of music and philosophy are altered when either attempts to express itself in terms defined by the other. Contributors: Albrecht Betz, Lydia Goehr, Beatrice Hanssen, Jost Hermand, David Farrell Krell, Ludger Lütkehaus, Margaret Moore, Rebekah Pryor Paré, Gerhard Richter, Hans Rudolf Vaget, Samuel Weber. (shrink)

Civilizational analysis of the kind propounded by Eisenstadt and globalization theory are apparently wholly incommensurate paradigms, with radically differing visions of the contemporary world order, the former championing the notion of ‘multiple modernities’ and the latter envisioning a world of trans-national processes and institutions. This articles challenges such a dichotomizing view, and seeks to illustrate how in various ways they overlap and can come to inform each other. Particular attention is given to how a focus on inter-civilizational interactions can lead (...) to productive rapprochements between civilizational analysis and globalization theory, as it allows some of the themes of the latter to be analysed through civilization-analytic lenses. The pioneering work in this regard of Benjamin Nelson is shown to provide a basis for future civilizational analyses of globalization, especially in the pre-modern world. (shrink)

The generation of meaning is the primary precondition for acting and thinking. The essays in this volume contribute to a discourse on this matter with a decentred, globalized world in mind. The notions civilization, humanism and modernity - far from being exclusively Western ideas - may facilitate joint efforts of reflecting on the universality of current human conditions, particularly since such reflexion is possible from particular cultural perspectives. Modernity presents us with a second Axial Time in which the quest for (...) a plural, but shared, humane world is the challenge. (shrink)

This paper presents a challenge to Eurocentric world history on the grounds that it reifies and exaggerates the role of the West in the creation of modernity, while simultaneously ignoring India's seminal contributions. The groundwork is prepared in the first three sections, which refute the parochial biases of Eurocentrism by revealing India's impressive early developmental record and its place near the center of a nascent global economy. The paper culminates in an approach that places the "dialogue of civilizations" center-stage of (...) progressive world history, which is formulated as an antidote to parochial Eurocentric world history. This entails an extensive discussion of two key contributions that India made in enabling the rise of the modern West. These comprise the dissemination of Indian industrial methods that enabled the British industrial revolution on the one hand, and the transmission of Indian mathematical ideas that helped promote the European scientific revolution on the other hand. Moreover, this discussion is coupled with two speculative counterfactual historical scenarios. They are: first, that in the absence of British imperialism which sought to "contain" Indian development, India might have gone on to make the breakthrough to modernity, and second, that in the absence of Indian (as well as Chinese, African and Middle Eastern) help, the West might not have made the breakthrough to modernity. But whatever the veracity of such counterfactuals may or may not be, the ultimate upshot of the argument presented in this paper reveals that Eurocentrism's central claim - that the West made the breakthrough to modernity all by itself - can no longer hold true. (shrink)

Civility is often treated as an essential virtue in liberal democracies that promise to protect diversity as well as active disagreement in the public sphere. Yet the fear that our tolerant society faces a crisis of incivility is gaining ground. Politicians and public intellectuals call for "more civility" as the solution--but is civility really a virtue? Or is it something more sinister--a covert demand for conformity that silences dissent? Mere Civility sheds light on this tension in contemporary political theory and (...) practice by examining similar appeals to civility in early modern debates about religious toleration. In seventeenth-century England, figures as different as Roger Williams, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke could agree that some restraint on the wars of words and "persecution of the tongue" between sectarians would be required; and yet, they recognized that the prosecution of incivility was often difficult to distinguish from persecution.--. (shrink)

For a variety of reasons, “civil society” has become a key term in modern political discourse. First, in the West, state control of the economy has gone so much out of fashion that radicals now seek to mitigate the effects of an untrammeled free market by relocating the possibility of peaceful collaboration within a domain that is neither simply that of negotiation between atomic individuals nor that of the central state. Second, in the East, there was a growing perception that (...) what totalitarianism suppressed was not so much the private life of individuals, which is in principle ineradicable, but rather…. (shrink)

Calls to ?build civil society?, ?create active citizenship?, ?empower communities?, or ?widen political participation? are growing by the day. They are heard in academia, the private sector, among NGOs and increasingly in government. In short, the rhetoric of self?government, that ideal dear to republicans, is back on the political agenda. This time, however, it is increasingly tied to the category of civil society. Yet can the programme of ?more power to civil society? really achieve democratic autonomy in the way that (...) many neo?republicans want it to? This article pursues this question, first, by reconstructing an ideal?type model of republican civil society from the writings of Hannah Arendt and Vaclav Havel ? two influential theorists of self?organisation in civil society. Second, it asks, sceptically, where such a civil society will come from, whether it can be fully reconciled with modernity and how ? if at all ? it can meet the charge of voluntarism. These critical interrogations are followed by a further three, focusing on the problematic absence of the market in the republican account of civil society, its under?theorised ? even Utopian ? notion of power and, finally, its likely complicity in the ongoing exclusion of women from the public sphere. The article concludes by calling for a more ambitious, wide?ranging vision of republican autonomy than the narrow emphasis on civil society will allow. (shrink)

‘서구중심주의’란 동과 서라는 본질적인 분열 구도 속에서 동양을 타자로 하여 서양의 타고난 우월성을 강조하는 세계관을 말한다. 그것은 근대 유럽의 사상적 기반이 된 18세기 계몽주의에 뿌리를 두며 그 이면에는 계몽기에 비교적 정형화된 ‘문명’ 개념이 존재한다. 그리고 이 문명 개념에는 서구화나 근대화의 특징이 함유되어 서구로 대표되는 제도와 가치가 보편성을 띠면서 ‘세계화’가 곧 서구화나 근대화 과정으로 점차 이해되었다. 이 과정에서 서구인들은 세계를 유럽의 ‘문명인’과 나머지 세계의 ‘야만인’으로 구분하는 세계 문명에 대한 차별 의식을 강화시켜 왔다. 이로 볼 때 서구중심주의는 근대 영역의 신화적 재구성임을 알 (...) 수 있다. 이렇게 전개된 서구중심주의는 서구예외주의와 오리엔탈리즘이라는 두 요소로 구성된다. ‘서구예외주의’는 서구 문명이 특수적이고 예외적이라는 주장인데 서구 문명의 독특성, 자생성, 항구성을 그 명제로 한다. 즉 서구를 제외한 세계 어디에도 그처럼 합리적․독창적․진보적 문명은 발전되지 못했다는 것이다. 또한 ‘오리엔탈리즘’에는 뒤떨어지고 열등한 동양이라는 상상의 타아를 부정적으로 정의하는 우월한 서양적 자아의 고정적인 심상이 깔려 있다. 이 양자는 동시적으로 진행되었지만 서구예외주의가 근대 초에 서구인들이 서구 문명에 대해 구성한 자화상이라고 한다면 오리엔탈리즘은 서구인들이 서구라는 거울을 통해 왜곡되게 구성한 비서구 문명의 상을 지칭한다. 본 연구는 이처럼 부당한 이데올로기로 세계를 동과 서로 양분하여 중심 문명의 패권을 강제하는 서구문명강권주의의 탈중심화적 해체를 그 목표로 기획된 것이다. 이런 맥락에서 문명패권주의 통제와 문명독점주의 행태에 저항하는 ‘세계주의 시각’의 여러 동서 자유주의담론들을 검토해보았다. 결국 현대 문명담론은 생태철학이 투영되거나 그와 밀접한 관계 속에서 진행되며 현재 인류의 문명은 역사상 세계 인류가 교호 속에서 함께 만들었다는 ‘인류운명공동체의식’을 각성시킨다. 아울러 그 공론은 생명과 인권, 인간의 자유를 옹호하는 입장에서 타자와 소통하는 보편적 인류애의 생태학적 문명관, 즉 상호 주체적 평등 관계를 기초로 한 문명 공존의 ‘문명생태주의담론’을 요청한다는 사실을 확인할 수 있다. (shrink)

In this bold book, Ann Hartle, one of the most important interpreters of sixteenth-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, explores the modern notion of civility--the social bond that makes it possible for individuals to live in peace in the political and social structures of the Western world--and asks, why has it disappeared? Concerned with the deepening cultural divisions in our postmodern, post-Christian world, she traces their roots back to the Reformation and Montaigne's Essays. Montaigne's philosophical project of drawing on ancient (...) philosophy and Christianity to create a new social bond to reform the mores of his culture is perhaps the first act of self-conscious civility. After tracing Montaigne's thought, Hartle returns to our modern society and argues that this framing of civility is a human, philosophical invention and that civility fails precisely because it is a human, philosophical invention. She concludes with a defense of the central importance of sacred tradition for civility and the need to protect and maintain that social bond by supporting nonpoliticized, nonideological, free institutions, including and especially universities and churches. What Happened to Civility is written for readers concerned about the deterioration of civility in our public life and the defense of freedom of religion. The book will also interest philosophers who seek a deeper understanding of modernity and its meaning, political scientists interested in the meaning of liberalism and the causes of its failure, and scholars working on Montaigne's Essays"-- From back cover. (shrink)

This article identifies civilizational analysis as one response to a recent crisis in the sociology of large-scale social configurations and explores how far the concept of civilization can go in analyzing the contemporary global social constellation. The reasoning proceeds in four steps. First, a brief review of the recent conceptual debate in social theory and historical sociology leads to the conclusion that concepts such as ‘civilization’ and ‘modernity’ still work with too strong presuppositions about continuity and commonality of patterns of (...) world interpretation. Second, a proposal is made to distinguish several basic problématiques that all human collectivities need to address and to suggest that such a distinction lends itself to research-oriented disentangling of various aspects of social phenomena. In an explorative manner, third, this approach will be applied to South Africa and Brazil, two social configurations that can fruitfully be studied as collectivities but lend themselves much less to civilizational analysis. By way of conclusion, finally, the trajectories of these non-European modernities will briefly be compared to the European one to illustrate the potential of this approach for a global sociology of plural trajectories of modernity. (shrink)

The four essays by Ashworth, Blackburn, Nimtz and Post all make important contributions to our understanding of the causes and consequences of the American Civil War, and to modern analysis of these questions within a Marxist tradition. Although they differ among themselves on key issues, they direct attention to problems too often neglected by other historians: the rôle of class-conflict within North and South in the coming of the War; the part played by slave-resistance in the sectional conflict; the nature (...) of the economic relationship between slave and free economies; and a shift in control of the national state as an enduring result of the conflict. (shrink)

20세기 후반 탈냉전기 국제 정치 질서가 와해되고 동서 이데올로기의 대립과 그에 기인된 군사적 대립이 종식된 상황에서 새천년 21세기의 국제 관계와 세계 체제를 ‘문명’으로 해석하고자 하는 ‘문명패러다임’이 제시되었다. 이 논의가 기점이 되어 인류의 미래를 공분모적 복합체인 ‘문명’에서 그 해법을 강구하고자 하는 여러 형태의 현대적인 ‘문명 담론’이 폭발된 것이다. 본 논고는 여기에 부응하여 ‘현대 문명 담론’의 원형적 발제라고 할 수 있는 문명패러다임을 단․복수적 문명론 차원에서 비판적으로 분석했다. 이를테면 대표적인 두 학자의 이론 즉 후쿠야마의 단수적 문명 전파론과 헌팅턴의 복수적 문명 충돌론을 중심으로 현대 (...) 문명 담론의 이해와 전망을 시도했다. 사실 ‘문명’의 개념사로 볼 때 ‘문명’은 두 가지의 서로 다른 의미를 가진다. 하나는 단수적(singular) 의미의 문명이고 또 다른 하나는 복수적(plural) 의미의 문명이 그것이다. 현대 서구에서는 동서 냉전의 종결과 함께 주로 두 방향에서 미래의 전망이 이루어졌다. 그것은 현대 문명 담론과 밀접한 연관 속에 있는 후쿠야마의 단수적 ‘역사의 종말’과 헌팅턴의 복수적 ‘문명의 충돌’에 대한 논의라고 할 수 있다. 그러나 이 문명론적 미래 전망에는 탈냉전 시대의 ‘서구 중심적 패권주의’가 내장되어 있다. 곧 이 양자에는 세계 문명을 ‘동’과 ‘서’의 분열 구도로 구획하여 서구의 이익을 조장하는 마니교적 이분법이 작동하고 있다. 이 글은 이러한 단․복수적 문명패러다임의 치명적인 결점을 극복하고 그 문명 담론으로서의 본래적 기능을 복원하기 위해 기획된 것이다. 그 일환으로서 후쿠야마의 문명 전파론과 헌팅턴의 문명 충돌론을 ‘세계화’라는 문맥 속에서 비판적으로 검토했다. 그리고 그 분석과 비판 과정 속에서 발전적이고 체계적인 ‘현대 문명 담론’의 학문적 토대를 기초하고 참된 문명관의 밑그림을 그려보고자 시도했다. 요컨대 진정한 의미의 ‘문명 담론’은 관점의 탈중심화 속에서 ‘모두가 누리는 행복’이라는 인류문명공동체의 진지한 염원을 담아내야 한다는 것이다. (shrink)

Does Civilization Need Religion? sets out from the fact that religion's inability to make its ethical and social resources available for the solution of the moral problems of modern civilization is one, and the neglected one, of the two chief causes responsible for its debilitated condition. It is convinced that if Christian idealists are to make religion socially effective they will be forced to detach themselves from the dominant secular desires of the nations as well as from the greed of (...) economic groups. It aims to show that though neither the orthodox nor the modern wing of the Christian Church seems capable of initiating a genuine revival which will evolve a morality capable of challenging and maintaining itself against the dominant desires of modern civilization's needs, there are resources in the Christian religion which make it the inevitable basis of any spiritual regeneration of Western civilization. Does Civilization Need Religion? maintains that the task of redeeming Western society rests in a peculiar sense upon Christianity, which has reduced the eternal conflict between self-assertion and self-denial to the paradox of self-assertion through self-denial and made the Cross the symbol of life's highest achievement. It is persuaded that the idea of a potent but yet suffering divine ideal which is defeated by the world but gains its victory in the defeat must continue to remain basic in any morally creative worldview. (shrink)

This paper seeks to establish that Bernard Mandeville's ideas on courage and honour shaped the Scottish debate about ancients and moderns by formulating a perspective how eighteenth-century civil societies grew large, luxurious and feminine without losing their ability to wage war. My focus is on Mandeville's positive influence on David Hume, whose writings were a springboard for many Mandevillean ideas in Scotland. In contrast to a recent claim in scholarship, Hume aimed to discredit, instead of developing, Shaftesburyan ideas of ancient (...) courage. The concluding part of the paper will discuss Andrew Millar and Adam Ferguson in this context. (shrink)

The fifth book in the series offers an historical and conceptual account of the criminal law, as it has developed in England and spread to common law jurisdictions around the world. It traces how and why criminal law has come to be accorded with a central role in securing civil order in modernity, and justifies who and what should be treated as criminal under the law. Farmer argues that the emergence of the modern state in which criminal law is recognized (...) as an instrument of government is a result of the distinct body of rules which have emerged from the modern criminal law. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is the analysis of the causes of the systemic crisis that hit modern civilization through the description of its main structures, identifying the relationship between its elements, assessments of their heuristic potential. This will open up opportunities for finding ways to resolve this crisis, new directions of civilizational development. Theoretical basis of the research are the systems analysis, socio-philosophical and philosophical-anthropological approaches as well as the analysis of scientific developments in the field of global studies. (...) Originality lies in the fact that this article is the first to show the connection between the main structural elements of human civilization as a system. Change in one of the parameters leads to a change in all the others, together with a change in civilization as a whole. Conclusions. The reason for the deep crisis that hit modern civilization is its imbalance as a system. The most important elements of this system are population size, resources and technology, and the core is consciousness in its individual and collective forms. The perception, processing, and use of information, which is a defining civilizational resource, as well as the stability of the entire system depend on the state of consciousness. Consciousness, based on old, obsolete principles and stereotypes, is unable to cope with the most acute challenges of time. New consciousness, since it is formed, will mark the transition to a new theoretical picture of the world and a model of human behavior, in which people will act, driven by proven knowledge, and not willfulness and prejudice. The idea of forming a productive information environment where the ideas of constructiveness and creative work will dominate rather than consumerism and destruction, as is the case at present, must become the categorical imperative of the new consciousness. (shrink)

The article attempts to develop the methodological foundations of innovation as a new field of scientific research that studies innovation in science, culture and society. On the basis of the philosophical and methodological approach, the term “innovation” is conceptualized. The definition of the concept of innovation proposed in the article is based on the “procedural approach” in the interpretation of innovation activity and at the same time emphasizes the significance of the final result in the form of a new product (...) that has commercial (social) value. In the context of modern trends in technogenic civilization, the essential features of innovative activity are revealed, its high degree of uncertainty and sensitivity to random changes and the influence of the external environment is revealed, it is shown that, along with organization, self-organization processes play an important role in it, manifested in complex, spontaneous changes accompanying the emergence of innovations. It is concluded that these features are evidence of the synergistic nature of innovation. The “rehabilitation” of synergetics is being carried out, which is considered as an ontological basis for building an innovative methodology. The article also formulates the basic principles of innovation methodology: openness of innovation, unity of linearity and non-linearity, probabilistic nature, the principle of systemic communication and organization, interdisciplinarity, the principle of relying on feedback. The possibility of creating an innovative method is being assessed. On this basis, the modern status of innovation is determined as an independent field of knowledge that has its own object, subject, functions, subjects, methodology, social mechanisms and the sphere of innovative consciousness, as well as other distinctive features of any particular science. A new approach to understanding the social and humanitarian expertise of high-risk innovative projects is proposed. (shrink)

The article researches the historical transformation of the dichotomy of civilization and barbarism, which originally in ancient Greece did not have a pejorative connotation. This dichotomy has become relevant today to justify the classification of states according to their degree of acceptance of “civilization standards,” which are understood as the standards of the European model of development. The main features of the stereotype of the divide between civilization and barbarism, which took shape in the Roman era, have survived to the (...) present. The premise of “civilizational superiority” of European culture is accompanied by a moral depreciation of other civilizations, turning a barbarian into an enemy of civilization with an explicit racist connotation. Civilization itself is seen as a “vaccination” in the process of missionary work. There emerges the concept of “Eastern barbarism,” coupled with the concepts of terra nullis and the innate irrational behavior of the population of these countries, which justify the seizing of territories for a “more rational” resource management. This activity is historically accompanied by colonization and, in the modern world, by forceful forms of “promoting democracy.” According to the logic of the divide between civilization and barbarism, non-Western countries are doomed to imitate and perpetually fall behind, which causes the disunity of society and internal hostility of “second-rate Europeanized” nations. The Western mentoring has transformed from protectorate to the creation of governance structures that are headed by Western-educated local elites and are designed to change the cultural patterns of society. There was a conception that the world is divided into spheres, in the first circle of which there is a progressive civilized European world, followed by a number of countries similar in structure and values to the European model, and then there is a sphere of barbarism and backwardness. In the contemporary version, this theory presumes the division of states into “pre-modern,” modern, and post-modern states. It the conclusion, it is noted that this divide contradicts to the humane essence of culture and civilization process. (shrink)

Contemporary liberal thinkers commonly suppose that there is something in principle unjust about the legal prohibition of putatively victimless crimes. Here Robert P. George defends the traditional justification of morals legislation against criticisms advanced by leading liberal theorists. He argues that such legislation can play a legitimate role in maintaining a moral environment conducive to virtue and inhospitable to at least some forms of vice. Among the liberal critics of morals legislation whose views George considers are Ronald Dworkin, Jeremy Waldron, (...) David A.J. Richards, and Joseph Raz. He also considers the influential modern justification for morals legislation offered by Patrick Devlin as an alternative to the traditional approach. George closes with a sketch of a "pluralistic perfectionist" theory of civil liberties and public morality, showing that it is fully compatible with a defense of morals legislation. Making Men Moral will interest legal scholars and political theorists as well as theologians and philosophers focusing on questions of social justice and political morality. (shrink)

It has been asserted that there is no one universal proposition with which all philosophers would agree, including this one. The pre dicament has rarely been recognized and almost never accepted, although neither has it been successfully challenged. If the claim holds true for philosophy taken by itself, how much more must it of religion, the hold for crossfield interests, such as the philosophy philosophy of science and many others. The philosophy of educa tion is a particular case in point. (...) The topic of education itself is generally regarded as a dull af fair, a charge not entirely without substance. The blame for this usually falls on the fact that it has no inherent subject matter. The teachers of history teach history, the teachers of biology teach biology; but what do the teachers of education teach? Presumably how to teach; but this simply will not do because every topic requires its own sort of instruction. (shrink)

This article focuses on the study of the emotional discourses contained in the Chu bamboo slips dating back to the Chu kingdom of the Warring States period, and announces a newly discovered tradition of Emotionalism in ancient China. In addition to the two main traditions of Confucianism and Taoism, there is a third tradition of Emotionalism that has hitherto not attracted adequate attention and has not been sufficiently studied. I propose that rather than perceiving traditional Chinese culture through the binary (...) looking glass of the dichotomous concept of “Complementation of Confucianism and Taoism,” Chinese culture may be represented more accurately if viewed in the light of a “Threefold Coexistence of Confucianism–Legalism, Taoism–Buddhism and Civil Emotionalism,” along with other lesser-known schools of thought. The uncovering of the hidden tradition of Emotionalism will reveal new perspectives on the modern transformation of traditional Chinese culture. This third tradition represents a conviction of civil liberalism that is of great importance to the transformation of ancient Chinese tradition into a modern constitutional culture. (shrink)

The Islamist critique of the post-1923 regime in Turkey centres around the deconstruction of the Republic's civilizing mission. Here the modernization of the rump of the Ottoman Empire undertaken in the name of the universality of western civilization (with the consequent attributing of backwardness to Islam) is problematized: Islamist discourse converges with other postmodern critiques in proclaiming the exhaustion of modernity as a project of emancipation. Islamist politics celebrate the return of the Muslim actor and identity. And yet the making (...) of an Islamist movement is threatened by the mobilization of other political identities similarly suppressed by the Turkish state's modernizing project. This includes in particular Kurdish subjectivity, long a target of assimilation in the name of the universality of the greater Turkish nation. This paper examines the fragmenting of the Islamist movement in Turkey, as well as Islamist attempts to head off Kurdish nationalism. The Islamist suppression of difference within its own ranks in the name of an Islamic universalism betrays it too as a descendant of Enlightenment discourses and a modernizing movement in its own right. (shrink)

This article outlines a comparative-civilizational multiple modernities perspective on political sociology. In the context of the major currents within political sociology — modernization approaches, critical and neo-Marxist as well as postmodern and global approaches — it is argued that a comparative-civilizational multiple modernities perspective is defined by several characteristics. First, against functionalist-evolutionist modernization approaches it emphasizes the fragility, contradictions and openness as well as civilizational multiplicity of political modernity and political modernization processes. Second, against critical and neo-Marxist approaches, it insists (...) on the cultural and institutional contradictions of political power, social protest and political conflict. Third, against post-modern and post-colonial micro-sociological approaches, often primarily micro-sociological, it holds to a macro-sociological constructivist orientation. Fourth, against the primarily socio-economic and political-institutional approaches to global political sociology, it again emphasizes the historically changing, culturally contradictory and pluri-civilizational dimensions of international relations and world politics. Though sharing with all these major currents in political sociology some common ground, the outlined comparative-civilizational multiple modernities perspective conceptualizes and analyses, more specifically, the varying impacts of civilizations, empires and world religions on the complex dimensions and levels of the political arena and on power relations in a modernizing and globalizing world. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill's best-known work is On Liberty. In it he declared that Western society was in danger of coming to a standstill. This was an extraordinarily pessimistic claim in view of Britain's global dominance at the time and one that has been insufficiently investigated in the secondary literature. The wanting model was that of China, a once advanced civilization that had apparently ossified. To understand how Mill came to this conclusion requires one to investigate his notion of the stages (...) from barbarism to civilization, and also his belief in imperialism as part of the civilizing process. Here India plays a central role, as both Mill and his father worked for the East India Company. This study, then, investigates the relationship between Mill's liberalism and his justification of imperialism. It takes us into the Utilitarianism of his family background, and such other influences as Romanticism, Scottish political economy and such key French thinkers as Saint- Simon, Guizot, Comte and Tocqueville. Mill, then, provides the focus of a debate on the origins, meaning, and consequences of Western civilization. It encompasses discourses on colonialism and orientalism, on Enlightenment optimism and conservative despair, on the need for leadership and the advance of democracy; in short, on the blessings, curses and dangers of modernization from approximately the time of the American and French revolutions to that of the so-called mid-Victorian calm in which On Liberty was written. Furthermore, current political issues concerning the West and Islamic countries have heightened interest in just the kind of question that this book discusses: that of how the West relates to, and assesses, the rest of the world. (shrink)

A clash of civilizations has been perennial in human history, and today it is again taking the form of a more than thousand year old clash: The West and Islam. However, I want to argue that humanity now has the tools to transform that clash to cooperation, and not just occasionally, as in a few times and places in the past, dependent on the temporary benignity of a well-placed leader.

Before one can speculate about a new world order and “a clash of civilizations”, or “the end of history”, it is necessary to develop an appropriate set of measures to compare human competition in world politics and economy. Components and the generic model of an autonomous civilization is defined for eight civilizations recognized at the beginning of the 21st century. Each component of contemporary civilizations is numerically estimated in order to construct the civilization index. A comparative analysis of 8 civilizations’ (...) indexes is provided in order to define strategies for the civilization development within 3 zones of encounters: clashes, modernization, and westernization. Two layers of world civilizations are defined and the dynamics of world civilization at the beginning of the 3rd Millennium is modeled. Based on that dynamics, the challenges for civilizations and peoples conclude the paper. (shrink)

Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, which was published in German in 1939 and first translated into English in two volumes in 1978 and 1982, is now widely regarded as one of the great works of twentieth-century sociology. This work attempted to explain how Europeans came to think of themselves as more “civilized” than their forebears and neighboring societies. By analyzing books about manners that had been published between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, Elias observed changing conceptions of shame and embarrassment (...) with respect to, among other things, bodily propriety and violence. To explain those developments, Elias examined the interplay among the rise of state monopolies of power, increasing levels of economic interconnectedness among people, and pressures to become attuned to others over greater distances that led to advances in identifying with others in the same society irrespective of social origins. Elias's analysis of the civilizing process was not confined, however, to explaining changing social bonds within separate societies. The investigation also focused on the division of Europe into sovereign states that were embroiled in struggles for power and security.This article provides an overview and analysis of Elias's principal claims in the light of growing interest in this seminal work in sociology. The analysis shows how Elias defended higher levels of synthesis in the social sciences to explain relations between “domestic” and “international” developments, and changes in social structure and in the emotional lives of modern people. Elias's investigation, which explained long-term processes of development over several centuries, pointed to the limitations of inquiries that concentrate on short-term intervals. Only by placing short-term trends in long-term perspective could sociologists understand contemporary developments. This article maintains that Elias's analysis of the civilizing process remains an exemplary study of long-term developments in Western societies over the last five centuries. (shrink)