Brian Duff
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816672721
- eISBN:
- 9781452947280
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816672721.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
When leaders and citizens in the United States articulate their core political beliefs, they often do so in terms of parenthood and family. But while the motives might be admirable, the results of ...
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When leaders and citizens in the United States articulate their core political beliefs, they often do so in terms of parenthood and family. But while the motives might be admirable, the results of such thinking are often corrosive to our democratic goals. This book reveals how efforts to make the experience of parenthood inform citizenship contribute to the most persistent problems in modern democracy and democratic theory. The book explains how influential theories of democratic citizenship rely on the experience of parenthood to help individuals rise to the challenges of politics, and demonstrates that this reliance has unintended consequences. When parenthood is imagined to instill confidence in political virtue, it uncovers insecurity. When parenthood is believed to inculcate openness to change, it produces fundamentalism. The book develops this argument through original readings of four theorists of citizenship: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Rorty, and Cornel West—readings that engage the ways in which these theorists incorporated their personal history into their political thought.Less
When leaders and citizens in the United States articulate their core political beliefs, they often do so in terms of parenthood and family. But while the motives might be admirable, the results of such thinking are often corrosive to our democratic goals. This book reveals how efforts to make the experience of parenthood inform citizenship contribute to the most persistent problems in modern democracy and democratic theory. The book explains how influential theories of democratic citizenship rely on the experience of parenthood to help individuals rise to the challenges of politics, and demonstrates that this reliance has unintended consequences. When parenthood is imagined to instill confidence in political virtue, it uncovers insecurity. When parenthood is believed to inculcate openness to change, it produces fundamentalism. The book develops this argument through original readings of four theorists of citizenship: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Rorty, and Cornel West—readings that engage the ways in which these theorists incorporated their personal history into their political thought.
Peter Beresford
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781447360490
- eISBN:
- 9781447360537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447360490.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter pulls together the arguments and the issues for democratizing ideology. Having raised and explored the hypothesis that exclusionary ideology is unlikely to achieve emancipatory goals, ...
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This chapter pulls together the arguments and the issues for democratizing ideology. Having raised and explored the hypothesis that exclusionary ideology is unlikely to achieve emancipatory goals, the chapter highlights the centrality of people working to achieve more say in society to work for more liberatory societies and a more sustainable planet. The chapter also reiterates that the best way to develop ideas about how to promote equality and freedom is to be involved in developing those ideas together, arguing that the only way we are likely to achieve democratic goals (ideology) is through democratic means (participation). Ultimately, the chapter states that different ideological perspectives are wielded by humans to explain, justify and legitimize a political or social order. With such awareness, the chapter holds that ideologies are essentially about power and most of us have little say in them, however liberatory their rhetoric and claimed aims may be.Less
This chapter pulls together the arguments and the issues for democratizing ideology. Having raised and explored the hypothesis that exclusionary ideology is unlikely to achieve emancipatory goals, the chapter highlights the centrality of people working to achieve more say in society to work for more liberatory societies and a more sustainable planet. The chapter also reiterates that the best way to develop ideas about how to promote equality and freedom is to be involved in developing those ideas together, arguing that the only way we are likely to achieve democratic goals (ideology) is through democratic means (participation). Ultimately, the chapter states that different ideological perspectives are wielded by humans to explain, justify and legitimize a political or social order. With such awareness, the chapter holds that ideologies are essentially about power and most of us have little say in them, however liberatory their rhetoric and claimed aims may be.
