Jacob T. Levy
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198297123
- eISBN:
- 9780191599767
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198297122.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Examines symbolic ethnic politics: the politics of place names, group names, national symbols, official apologies, and other matters that do not affect the rights or resources of any particular ...
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Examines symbolic ethnic politics: the politics of place names, group names, national symbols, official apologies, and other matters that do not affect the rights or resources of any particular persons. Such symbolism is important in ethnic politics, and a theory with nothing to say about it is unsatisfactory. Disputes over symbolic issues, however, are poorly suited to compromise and easily escalate into rallying points for wider conflicts. In addition, it is often impossible to meet the symbolic demands of all groups simultaneously. The chief constraint on symbolic politics should be non‐humiliation and the avoidance of the celebration of past injustices and violence, a standard that can be met for all groups simultaneously. Official apologies in particular are considered at length; they are defended against the charges of collective guilt and anachronism, but are found to be limited by considerations including the passage of time and institutional discontinuities.Less
Examines symbolic ethnic politics: the politics of place names, group names, national symbols, official apologies, and other matters that do not affect the rights or resources of any particular persons. Such symbolism is important in ethnic politics, and a theory with nothing to say about it is unsatisfactory. Disputes over symbolic issues, however, are poorly suited to compromise and easily escalate into rallying points for wider conflicts. In addition, it is often impossible to meet the symbolic demands of all groups simultaneously. The chief constraint on symbolic politics should be non‐humiliation and the avoidance of the celebration of past injustices and violence, a standard that can be met for all groups simultaneously. Official apologies in particular are considered at length; they are defended against the charges of collective guilt and anachronism, but are found to be limited by considerations including the passage of time and institutional discontinuities.
Daniel Callahan
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029124
- eISBN:
- 9780262328579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029124.003.0009
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
Daniel Callahan addresses special concerns at the opposite end of the spectrum. He invites the reader into a discussion of grief and of Alzheimer’s dementia, of the moral problems facing individual ...
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Daniel Callahan addresses special concerns at the opposite end of the spectrum. He invites the reader into a discussion of grief and of Alzheimer’s dementia, of the moral problems facing individual caretakers, and of the broader question of intergenerational responsibility of children to care for their parents. Callahan makes use of personal narrative to provide practical guidelines for the use of life-sustaining treatment for advanced dementia. His conclusions, like so many in this volume, are limited and cautiously optimistic, and he underscores themes articulated in chapter 7 by Ridenour and Cahill pertaining to the role of community in continuing to meet the needs of the dying.Less
Daniel Callahan addresses special concerns at the opposite end of the spectrum. He invites the reader into a discussion of grief and of Alzheimer’s dementia, of the moral problems facing individual caretakers, and of the broader question of intergenerational responsibility of children to care for their parents. Callahan makes use of personal narrative to provide practical guidelines for the use of life-sustaining treatment for advanced dementia. His conclusions, like so many in this volume, are limited and cautiously optimistic, and he underscores themes articulated in chapter 7 by Ridenour and Cahill pertaining to the role of community in continuing to meet the needs of the dying.
Gregory Laski
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190642792
- eISBN:
- 9780190642815
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190642792.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter constructs a conceptual grammar for untimely democracy by pairing Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia and W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. Jefferson’s vision of ...
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This chapter constructs a conceptual grammar for untimely democracy by pairing Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia and W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. Jefferson’s vision of an ever-progressing polity rests on his principle of generational autonomy: the notion that each cohort of citizens is free from the burdens of its ancestors. Slavery stands as the limit for such a model. For Jefferson, blackness signifies a future haunted by bondage; thus Africans can have no place in American democracy. Jefferson’s future is what Du Bois terms the “present-past.” With this phrase, Du Bois reorders linear time—positioning the past after, not before, the present—and posits intergenerational responsibility as a democratic value alongside equality and liberty. And yet, even as he advocates a temporal double consciousness that blurs past and present, Du Bois worries that emphasizing slavery’s seemingly eternal return might paralyze political action.Less
This chapter constructs a conceptual grammar for untimely democracy by pairing Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia and W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. Jefferson’s vision of an ever-progressing polity rests on his principle of generational autonomy: the notion that each cohort of citizens is free from the burdens of its ancestors. Slavery stands as the limit for such a model. For Jefferson, blackness signifies a future haunted by bondage; thus Africans can have no place in American democracy. Jefferson’s future is what Du Bois terms the “present-past.” With this phrase, Du Bois reorders linear time—positioning the past after, not before, the present—and posits intergenerational responsibility as a democratic value alongside equality and liberty. And yet, even as he advocates a temporal double consciousness that blurs past and present, Du Bois worries that emphasizing slavery’s seemingly eternal return might paralyze political action.
