Society最新文献

Russia is currently intervening in Africa through the activities of private military contractors tied to the Kremlin. Although there seems to be growing public support in Africa for Russian intervention, it is important to determine whether the people’s enthusiasm for Russia’s military’s presence in Africa is justified. To analyze the phenomenon of Russia’s military presence in Africa, this article combines Edward W. Said’s postcolonialism theory of Orientalism with James Blaut’s world system theory of cultural racism. After analyzing the empirical literature and theoretical formulations on the phenomenon, the study concludes that despite the alluring façade that is typical of every empire, Russia’s current intervention in Africa is driven by a covert desire for exploitation and colonial plunder. In order to avert this colonial pillage and foster genuine beneficial changes, the article suggests that public intellectuals in Africa engage in active participation in the social and political arenas within their communities.

Europe and the United States are spending billions on the fortification of borders to stop migrants deemed unwanted by the government. The questionable effectiveness of this policy and its disastrous, often deadly consequences for people on the move have been studied extensively. The political project of closing borders to racially stigmatized migrants has serious consequences not only for outsiders who want to get in, but also for the internal organization of the society that is responsible for governing those borders. Taken together, these social and normative consequences constitute what we call the “internalization of borders.” Borders reach out far into society and are felt not only by would-be migrants in the places where they are stuck. Societies in the Global North, too, are being adversely affected and harmed by restrictive border regimes and their internalizing effects. Yet, unlike the “externalization” of borders, their “internalization” has so far not been researched systematically. To address the gap, this Introduction proposes a conceptual framework of how to study border internalization. The other articles in the Forum will offer diverse case studies on the dark side of border internalization as well as on ways of countering it.

The point of doing the history of philosophy is to confront that which is completely foreign to us and seems unassimilable, in the hope of thereby getting some distance from our own form of life, and of learning to treat what is alien on its own terms. This is more difficult to do than might first seem to be the case, because of our almost irresistable tendency to assimilate that which is radically different to that which seems familiar to us. In history, one of the major forms this takes is anachronism. How can one avoid making them-then too much like us-now? The motivation for doing the history of philosophy is, therefore, basically ethical and political. In a society characterised by the division of labour, it is perfectly permissible for individual philosophers to pursue different goals, and deploy different parts of the huge corpus of knowledge which we have at our disposal. There is no need for each individual philosopher to integrate the study of the history of philosophy into each of their individual projects. The essay leaves it to the judgment of the reader to decide to what extent the active, sympathetic engagement with the alien is an ethical and political goal which is desirable — perhaps even so desirable as to count as a demand. In any case, this is a demand on the institution, not on individuals. Even if one thought that it was highly advisable that the history of philosophy form an integral part of the discipline of philosophy, it is hard to see this as a “necessity”.

There are numerous conceptions of violence today, such as physical, psychological, emotional, structural, and epistemic. The question of which social phenomena are to be described as violence is itself a matter of furious dispute. In social theory, there is a widespread tendency to distinguish between ‘modern’ and ‘postmodern’ conceptions of violence. In this scheme, modern violence is primarily physical, while postmodern violence takes places across a broad spectrum of forms. The paper questions this binary. The co-occurrence and conflict between these forms of violence leads to a third form, which I call refigured violence. The refiguration of violence can be observed in three developments, which are mediatisation, polycontexturalisation, and translocalisation. I provide one illustration of these considerations with the example of so-called shock sites on the internet. In so doing, I emphasise that the sociology of knowledge can provide a valuable perspective for making sense of contemporary discourses about violence in all their complexity.

In his 2016 article, “Democracies End When They Are Too Democratic,” Andrew Sullivan argued that Book VIII of Plato’s Republic accurately depicts a “mature” democracy, such as that found in the United States, as well as the process by which first a demagogue and then a tyrant can emerge from it. He expressed the fear that Donald Trump was just such a man. Part I discusses Sullivan’s article. Part II argues that he missed something important: the Republic VIII account of democracy is surprisingly ambivalent. Part III examines a notion explicitly stated in Plato’s Statesman, but implicit in Republic VIII as well: in the actual political world, where the vast majority of regimes fall miserably short, democracy is the “best of the bad.”

Why is there such a pervasive mistrust of science and expertise in the United States these days? This essay argues that, alongside the contribution made by the internet in facilitating the spread of misinformation, information silos, validation of kooky views, and so forth, the most significant factor derives from our failure to inculcate in our citizenry the basics of critical scientific thought and of its myriad extraordinary accomplishments.

The term terrorist represents the ultimate enemy: someone that is evil, illegitimate, and outside of the social order. Branding political rivals as terrorists delegitimizes them, transforming them from political adversaries into enemies or irrational actors. One does not negotiate with enemies, but rather eradicates or neutralizes them. Terrorism’s ill-defined qualities and multitude of definitions have transformed it into a potent stigmatizing floating signifier, one that retains the negative valence without clear boundaries. Such a term can be weaponized by entrepreneurial actors intent on dividing society along internal cleavage points. We illustrate this through the Russian trolls’ usage of the term “terrorist” on Twitter during the 2016 influence operation in the US Presidential Election. We code hundreds of tweets associated with the Russian disinformation operation, identifying the way the term was used and its target audience. Russian operatives weaponized the term to polarize the American public, marking entities and individuals as “terrorist” with the intent of increasing distrust across communities. Our results introduce important implications on the influence of leaders on the dynamics of floating negative signifiers like terrorists, especially regarding their weaponization for political reasons.

This paper applies ritual theory to study public LGBTQ+ gatherings, including Pride parades, silent vigils, and commemorative litanies. The analysis of public LGBTQ+ rituals has often focussed on Pride parades and their carnivalistic exuberance. We call instead for more attention to the whole nexus of public rituals that this movement consists of, and we argue that these rituals are central to LGBTQ+ community building and meaning-making in this social movement. Using participant and non-participant observation, as well as publicly available data, the paper studies assembly forms, ritual scripts, symbolic interactions, sites, and objects that link the various public rituals within the LGBTQ+ movement. We find that, over the last five decades, these ritual elements have coalesced to provide members of the LGBTQ+ community access to the sphere of transcendence. Our findings suggest that this community might be slowly changing its character from social (protest) movement to becoming a viable civil religion.

Isaiah Berlin’s account of freedom is more useful for feminists than is generally recognized, especially when seen in the context of his value pluralism. Focusing on the work of Nancy Hirschmann and Sharon Krause, I argue, first, that Berlin’s concept of negative liberty can be used to resist patriarchy when his notion of the ‘conditions’ of negative liberty is taken into account. Second, positive liberty is also useful to feminists, but Berlin does not, as some feminist (and other) writers suppose, simply reject positive liberty; on the contrary, he sees it as a fundamental human value of great importance. Third, Berlin’s value pluralism makes a crucial contribution. It explains why he distinguishes negative liberty from its conditions and why he does not reject positive liberty as a value. It also explains how feminists can see the value in both negative and positive liberty without trying, paradoxically, to fit them both into a single concept. Further, my liberal-pluralist extension of Berlin’s pluralism locates all these insights within a complex but coherent political outlook which provides a sympathetic resource for feminism.

Many studies have examined characteristic verbal aspects of Donald J. Trump’s political communication, from his authoritarian rhetoric to his preference for short words and simple sentences, as expressions of his populism. This article focuses on his use of non-verbal voice quality. In analyzing the “Trump rallies” and other materials from his successful campaigning before the 2016 United States presidential election, I argue that Trump’s evocative and meaningful uses of pitch, amplitude, speech rate, rhythm, and other vocal measures combine to make his paralanguage exceptionally and counter-normatively informal, and that this informality amplifies his explicitly populist messaging. I conclude by suggesting that Trump’s informal voice solves an important problem for him: It allows him to express his populism with a deeply personal undertone, and thereby potentially to make his claims to popular identification ring intuitively true.