Esha Niyogi De
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198072553
- eISBN:
- 9780199080915
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198072553.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
Drawing lessons from the intersection of literature, photography, cinema, television, dance-drama, and ethnography, this book presents a unique analysis of Indian activist thought spread over two ...
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Drawing lessons from the intersection of literature, photography, cinema, television, dance-drama, and ethnography, this book presents a unique analysis of Indian activist thought spread over two centuries. It discusses two presuppositions of liberal individualism: personal autonomy and ethical autonomy. Besides, it argues that the ‘individual’ has been creatively indigenized in modern non-Western cultures: thinkers attentive to gender in postcolonial cultures embrace selected ethical premises of the Enlightenment and its human rights discourse while they refuse possessive individualism. Debating influential schools of postcolonial and transnational studies, the chapter provides radical argument through a rich tapestry of gender portrayals drawn from two moments of modern Indian thought: the rise of humanism in the colony and the growth of new individualism in contemporary liberalized India. From autobiographical texts by nineteenth century Bengali prostitutes, point-of-view photography, as well as women-centred dance-dramas and essays by Rabindranath Tagore to representation of Tagore's works on mainstream television, video, and stage; feminist cinema, choreography and performance by Aparna Sen and Manjusri Chaki-Sircar respectively—the book makes use of such and much more to creatively engage with empire, media, and gender.Less
Drawing lessons from the intersection of literature, photography, cinema, television, dance-drama, and ethnography, this book presents a unique analysis of Indian activist thought spread over two centuries. It discusses two presuppositions of liberal individualism: personal autonomy and ethical autonomy. Besides, it argues that the ‘individual’ has been creatively indigenized in modern non-Western cultures: thinkers attentive to gender in postcolonial cultures embrace selected ethical premises of the Enlightenment and its human rights discourse while they refuse possessive individualism. Debating influential schools of postcolonial and transnational studies, the chapter provides radical argument through a rich tapestry of gender portrayals drawn from two moments of modern Indian thought: the rise of humanism in the colony and the growth of new individualism in contemporary liberalized India. From autobiographical texts by nineteenth century Bengali prostitutes, point-of-view photography, as well as women-centred dance-dramas and essays by Rabindranath Tagore to representation of Tagore's works on mainstream television, video, and stage; feminist cinema, choreography and performance by Aparna Sen and Manjusri Chaki-Sircar respectively—the book makes use of such and much more to creatively engage with empire, media, and gender.
Desmond King
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198296294
- eISBN:
- 9780191599668
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198296290.003.0008
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
King documents the establishment and operation of British Instructional Centres from 1929–38, ‘labour camps’, which also featured physical training and reconditioning classes. He argues that, unlike ...
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King documents the establishment and operation of British Instructional Centres from 1929–38, ‘labour camps’, which also featured physical training and reconditioning classes. He argues that, unlike British eugenics policies, there was little expertise cited or marshalled in the formulation of British work camps; instead, such policies rested simply on the perception amongst senior civil servants that the long‐term unemployed required physical ‘reconditioning’ to successfully enter the labour market. As a result, in King's view, such camps serve as striking examples of collectivism and the antithesis of the liberalism individualism.Less
King documents the establishment and operation of British Instructional Centres from 1929–38, ‘labour camps’, which also featured physical training and reconditioning classes. He argues that, unlike British eugenics policies, there was little expertise cited or marshalled in the formulation of British work camps; instead, such policies rested simply on the perception amongst senior civil servants that the long‐term unemployed required physical ‘reconditioning’ to successfully enter the labour market. As a result, in King's view, such camps serve as striking examples of collectivism and the antithesis of the liberalism individualism.
Elaine Hadley
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226311883
- eISBN:
- 9780226311906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226311906.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter explores the form liberal individualism took. The liberal individual presumed to emerge from the myriad procedures of Victorian liberalization is a complicated ideological, theoretical, ...
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This chapter explores the form liberal individualism took. The liberal individual presumed to emerge from the myriad procedures of Victorian liberalization is a complicated ideological, theoretical, and historical construct, more often referenced in Victorian literary criticism than intensively examined. The chapter states that this subject is almost always an amalgam of the characteristics and characteristic practices most consistently iterated in canonical texts of classical liberalism. The chapter also looks at the revisions made to those premises in contemporary Victorian political and social theory, and the modern reformulations of that genealogy. In the Victorian period, a partial commitment to gradual democratization and an expansion of conceptions of proprietorship encouraged liberal thinkers, such as John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold, to emphasize afresh a pedagogy of self-development that would, in David Lloyd and Paul Thomas's term, “educe” the citizen, who would only then be prepared for the privileges and responsibilities of liberal citizenship.Less
This chapter explores the form liberal individualism took. The liberal individual presumed to emerge from the myriad procedures of Victorian liberalization is a complicated ideological, theoretical, and historical construct, more often referenced in Victorian literary criticism than intensively examined. The chapter states that this subject is almost always an amalgam of the characteristics and characteristic practices most consistently iterated in canonical texts of classical liberalism. The chapter also looks at the revisions made to those premises in contemporary Victorian political and social theory, and the modern reformulations of that genealogy. In the Victorian period, a partial commitment to gradual democratization and an expansion of conceptions of proprietorship encouraged liberal thinkers, such as John Stuart Mill and Matthew Arnold, to emphasize afresh a pedagogy of self-development that would, in David Lloyd and Paul Thomas's term, “educe” the citizen, who would only then be prepared for the privileges and responsibilities of liberal citizenship.
JO LABANYI
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158868
- eISBN:
- 9780191673399
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158868.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter examines the ways in which four major Spanish Romantic plays first staged during 1834–7 — La conjuración de Venecia by Martínez de la Rosa, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino by the Duque ...
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This chapter examines the ways in which four major Spanish Romantic plays first staged during 1834–7 — La conjuración de Venecia by Martínez de la Rosa, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino by the Duque de Rivas, El trovador by García Gutiérrez, and Los amantes de Teruel by Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch — dramatise the contradictions inherent in liberal individualism. In particular, the chapter shows how the latter cannot be understood without reference to gender. Martínez de la Rosa and Rivas, both prominent liberal statesmen, had firsthand knowledge of Britain and France as political émigrés; it was in those countries that liberal political theory was developed. However, their plays show an identical understanding of the construction of the individual subject, for liberal political theory was predicated on new models of the family and of sexual difference which became commonly accepted by the European bourgeoisie.Less
This chapter examines the ways in which four major Spanish Romantic plays first staged during 1834–7 — La conjuración de Venecia by Martínez de la Rosa, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino by the Duque de Rivas, El trovador by García Gutiérrez, and Los amantes de Teruel by Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch — dramatise the contradictions inherent in liberal individualism. In particular, the chapter shows how the latter cannot be understood without reference to gender. Martínez de la Rosa and Rivas, both prominent liberal statesmen, had firsthand knowledge of Britain and France as political émigrés; it was in those countries that liberal political theory was developed. However, their plays show an identical understanding of the construction of the individual subject, for liberal political theory was predicated on new models of the family and of sexual difference which became commonly accepted by the European bourgeoisie.
Virginia Held
David Copp (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195147797
- eISBN:
- 9780199785841
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195147790.003.0020
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
In the last few decades, the ethics of care as a feminist ethic has given rise to extensive literature, and has affected moral inquiries in many areas. It offers a distinctive challenge to the ...
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In the last few decades, the ethics of care as a feminist ethic has given rise to extensive literature, and has affected moral inquiries in many areas. It offers a distinctive challenge to the dominant moral theories: Kantian moral theory, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. This chapter outlines the distinctive features and promising possibilities of the ethics of care, and the criticisms that have been made against it. It then examines the ethics of care’s recognition of human dependency and of the importance of responding to needs; its interpretation of the roles of emotion and reason in moral understanding; and its critique of liberal individualism and development of a conception of the person as relational. The ethics of care contrasts care with justice, tries to integrate them, and reconceptualizes public and private life and morality.Less
In the last few decades, the ethics of care as a feminist ethic has given rise to extensive literature, and has affected moral inquiries in many areas. It offers a distinctive challenge to the dominant moral theories: Kantian moral theory, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. This chapter outlines the distinctive features and promising possibilities of the ethics of care, and the criticisms that have been made against it. It then examines the ethics of care’s recognition of human dependency and of the importance of responding to needs; its interpretation of the roles of emotion and reason in moral understanding; and its critique of liberal individualism and development of a conception of the person as relational. The ethics of care contrasts care with justice, tries to integrate them, and reconceptualizes public and private life and morality.
Elaine Hadley
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226311883
- eISBN:
- 9780226311906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226311906.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter presents an introduction to political liberalism in mid-Victorian Britain between the mid-1850s and the early 1880s. It describes Victorian society that mid-century political liberalism ...
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This chapter presents an introduction to political liberalism in mid-Victorian Britain between the mid-1850s and the early 1880s. It describes Victorian society that mid-century political liberalism ambivalently inhabits and its distinctive response to it. It discusses the form liberal individualism took and examines mid-century political liberalism's attempted revision of the public sphere. It explores the politics of liberal citizenship and the version of abstract embodiment in the political public sphere, the liberal citizen of the ballot box, a formation that emerges in the debates concerning secret balloting, which was made into law in 1872. It describes the mid-century political liberalism's deeply fraught relation to Ireland and in this way placing mid-century liberalism in its appropriate imperial context but also to a consideration of how mid-century liberal politics sought grounding authority in a precarious world of opinion.Less
This chapter presents an introduction to political liberalism in mid-Victorian Britain between the mid-1850s and the early 1880s. It describes Victorian society that mid-century political liberalism ambivalently inhabits and its distinctive response to it. It discusses the form liberal individualism took and examines mid-century political liberalism's attempted revision of the public sphere. It explores the politics of liberal citizenship and the version of abstract embodiment in the political public sphere, the liberal citizen of the ballot box, a formation that emerges in the debates concerning secret balloting, which was made into law in 1872. It describes the mid-century political liberalism's deeply fraught relation to Ireland and in this way placing mid-century liberalism in its appropriate imperial context but also to a consideration of how mid-century liberal politics sought grounding authority in a precarious world of opinion.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226514543
- eISBN:
- 9780226514567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226514567.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
The problem with the United States is that, although hybrid symbolism is evident in the political campaigns of candidates, the state itself is deficient in this regard. A hybrid symbolism that works ...
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The problem with the United States is that, although hybrid symbolism is evident in the political campaigns of candidates, the state itself is deficient in this regard. A hybrid symbolism that works for race has worked for decades for sex, as women seeking access to political office assure voters they can be “male” while still being “female.” Liberalism can exacerbate political exclusion based on sex and gender. Liberal democracy can associate itself with women's maternalism by implementing welfare provision and gender quotas. Quotas are at the very heart of the American representative legislature and the American executive branch of government. Liberal individualism per se does not hinder women's access to political rule in the United States or elsewhere. On instrumental and normative grounds, electing more women to positions of political leadership is fundamental to fulfilling the promise of democracy.Less
The problem with the United States is that, although hybrid symbolism is evident in the political campaigns of candidates, the state itself is deficient in this regard. A hybrid symbolism that works for race has worked for decades for sex, as women seeking access to political office assure voters they can be “male” while still being “female.” Liberalism can exacerbate political exclusion based on sex and gender. Liberal democracy can associate itself with women's maternalism by implementing welfare provision and gender quotas. Quotas are at the very heart of the American representative legislature and the American executive branch of government. Liberal individualism per se does not hinder women's access to political rule in the United States or elsewhere. On instrumental and normative grounds, electing more women to positions of political leadership is fundamental to fulfilling the promise of democracy.
Michael G. Cronin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719086137
- eISBN:
- 9781781704707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719086137.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the literary censorship of Katy O'Brien's novels: Mary Lavelle (1936) and The Land of Spices (1941). O'Brien's novels were banned in Ireland because of their explicit depiction ...
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This chapter discusses the literary censorship of Katy O'Brien's novels: Mary Lavelle (1936) and The Land of Spices (1941). O'Brien's novels were banned in Ireland because of their explicit depiction of sex. The chapter emphasizes the political significance of O'Brien's novels, arguing that she offered to Irish society the ideal of liberal individualism.Less
This chapter discusses the literary censorship of Katy O'Brien's novels: Mary Lavelle (1936) and The Land of Spices (1941). O'Brien's novels were banned in Ireland because of their explicit depiction of sex. The chapter emphasizes the political significance of O'Brien's novels, arguing that she offered to Irish society the ideal of liberal individualism.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226514543
- eISBN:
- 9780226514567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226514567.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
American government became maternal because it became identified as a legitimate instrument for caring for people, whether the recipients of that care were men or women, adults or children, American ...
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American government became maternal because it became identified as a legitimate instrument for caring for people, whether the recipients of that care were men or women, adults or children, American citizens or newly arrived immigrants. Liberal individualism alone was clearly insufficient for attaining women's political inclusion as voters. Class and race biases impacted the implementation of maternal public policies. The use in the Progressive Era of two different sets of arguments for woman suffrage corresponds to the fledgling hybrid character of American public policies. The United States differs from most other comparable democracies in its failure to sustain public policies representing maternalism. The United States has never adopted gender quotas; it long ago destroyed its monarchical heritage, and failed to sustain the maternal impetus marking the Progressive Era.Less
American government became maternal because it became identified as a legitimate instrument for caring for people, whether the recipients of that care were men or women, adults or children, American citizens or newly arrived immigrants. Liberal individualism alone was clearly insufficient for attaining women's political inclusion as voters. Class and race biases impacted the implementation of maternal public policies. The use in the Progressive Era of two different sets of arguments for woman suffrage corresponds to the fledgling hybrid character of American public policies. The United States differs from most other comparable democracies in its failure to sustain public policies representing maternalism. The United States has never adopted gender quotas; it long ago destroyed its monarchical heritage, and failed to sustain the maternal impetus marking the Progressive Era.
Eric T. Freyfogle
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226326399
- eISBN:
- 9780226326429
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226326429.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
Our environmental ills are due to the ways we interact with nature, variously using it appropriately and abusing it. These interactions, in turn, are much influenced by—their root causes are found ...
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Our environmental ills are due to the ways we interact with nature, variously using it appropriately and abusing it. These interactions, in turn, are much influenced by—their root causes are found in--modern culture, particularly how we see and value nature and our place in it. This book takes on the ambitious task of making sense, literally, of our place in nature, thereby assisting in what conservationist Aldo Leopold termed “our oldest task”—to live in nature without degrading it. The book addresses the topic in its fullness, in a way few scholars have attempted. Drawing as much on history, sociology, economics, ecology, and environmental politics as it does environmental philosophy the work transcends academic fields to engage basic issues pushed aside in environmental studies programs and calls for a “new economy.” The opening chapter explores how we gain knowledge (epistemology), what the world contains (metaphysics), how we make normative choices, how we define truth, and how parts of nature (humans included) interact to form larger wholes with emergent proprieties. This inquiry sets the stage for considering how we might best distinguish good from bad interactions with nature. The discussion critiques our overuse of science and dominant liberal moral frames in the course of identifying and drawing together the many normative considerations—social and inter-generational justice as well as ecological concerns—that bear on the challenge. Concluding chapters offer an ambitious program for reform of liberal culture and of the key institutions (the market and private property) that reflect and strengthen that flawed culture. Less
Our environmental ills are due to the ways we interact with nature, variously using it appropriately and abusing it. These interactions, in turn, are much influenced by—their root causes are found in--modern culture, particularly how we see and value nature and our place in it. This book takes on the ambitious task of making sense, literally, of our place in nature, thereby assisting in what conservationist Aldo Leopold termed “our oldest task”—to live in nature without degrading it. The book addresses the topic in its fullness, in a way few scholars have attempted. Drawing as much on history, sociology, economics, ecology, and environmental politics as it does environmental philosophy the work transcends academic fields to engage basic issues pushed aside in environmental studies programs and calls for a “new economy.” The opening chapter explores how we gain knowledge (epistemology), what the world contains (metaphysics), how we make normative choices, how we define truth, and how parts of nature (humans included) interact to form larger wholes with emergent proprieties. This inquiry sets the stage for considering how we might best distinguish good from bad interactions with nature. The discussion critiques our overuse of science and dominant liberal moral frames in the course of identifying and drawing together the many normative considerations—social and inter-generational justice as well as ecological concerns—that bear on the challenge. Concluding chapters offer an ambitious program for reform of liberal culture and of the key institutions (the market and private property) that reflect and strengthen that flawed culture.
Julian Jackson
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207061
- eISBN:
- 9780191677465
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207061.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter discusses the National Revolution, which defined itself first and foremost in opposition to liberal individualism that uprooted ...
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This chapter discusses the National Revolution, which defined itself first and foremost in opposition to liberal individualism that uprooted people from the ‘natural’ communities of family, workplace, and region. It discusses the doctrine and inspiration behind the National Revolution, and how it conflicted with education, and social and economic policy.Less
This chapter discusses the National Revolution, which defined itself first and foremost in opposition to liberal individualism that uprooted people from the ‘natural’ communities of family, workplace, and region. It discusses the doctrine and inspiration behind the National Revolution, and how it conflicted with education, and social and economic policy.
Ahmed Rehana
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719087400
- eISBN:
- 9781781708972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087400.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
As well as examining Hanif Kureishi’s explicit representations of Muslims in The Black Album (1995), the short story and screenplay versions of ‘My Son the Fanatic’ (1997) and selected essays, the ...
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As well as examining Hanif Kureishi’s explicit representations of Muslims in The Black Album (1995), the short story and screenplay versions of ‘My Son the Fanatic’ (1997) and selected essays, the chapter explores texts that touch upon Islam elliptically and, the book argues, at times uneasily (Intimacy (1998)My Ear at his Heart: Reading My Father (2004)Something To Tell You (2008) and a range of short stories). The chapter tracks the way in which this writer and cultural spokesperson, well known for his powerful opposition to the sanctioned racism of Thatcherism, has responded to the shift to a neoliberal multiculturalism, and explores the position of Muslims and a Muslim identity within the multiethnic cityscapes peopled by mixed-race subjects that Kureishi creates. It argues that Kureishi’s work has helped to shape British multiculturalism both by legitimising a new, culturally diverse Britishness and, crucially, by articulating limits to this legitimacy. His valorisation of a secularist liberal individualism against religious collectivism leads to the emergence of a series of reductive binaries, at odds with the deconstructive thrust of his work, and problematically delegitimises subaltern minority – in particular Muslim – formations.Less
As well as examining Hanif Kureishi’s explicit representations of Muslims in The Black Album (1995), the short story and screenplay versions of ‘My Son the Fanatic’ (1997) and selected essays, the chapter explores texts that touch upon Islam elliptically and, the book argues, at times uneasily (Intimacy (1998)My Ear at his Heart: Reading My Father (2004)Something To Tell You (2008) and a range of short stories). The chapter tracks the way in which this writer and cultural spokesperson, well known for his powerful opposition to the sanctioned racism of Thatcherism, has responded to the shift to a neoliberal multiculturalism, and explores the position of Muslims and a Muslim identity within the multiethnic cityscapes peopled by mixed-race subjects that Kureishi creates. It argues that Kureishi’s work has helped to shape British multiculturalism both by legitimising a new, culturally diverse Britishness and, crucially, by articulating limits to this legitimacy. His valorisation of a secularist liberal individualism against religious collectivism leads to the emergence of a series of reductive binaries, at odds with the deconstructive thrust of his work, and problematically delegitimises subaltern minority – in particular Muslim – formations.
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226872186
- eISBN:
- 9780226872216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226872216.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter sums up and addresses the implications of the study in this book for political science and American politics. It explains implications for future research on racial attitudes, framing, ...
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This chapter sums up and addresses the implications of the study in this book for political science and American politics. It explains implications for future research on racial attitudes, framing, social context, political socialization, and social identity. It explains how the analyses in this context suggest a model of civic life that differs from the two prevailing conceptions: liberal individualism and civic republicanism. In informal talk, people are neither devoid of social attachments (instead, they rely on them) nor acting on behalf of a predetermined common good. Conceptions of “the common good” are constantly worked out as they interact together. Most important, the chapter concludes that the public's part of public discussion is consequential for citizen politics.Less
This chapter sums up and addresses the implications of the study in this book for political science and American politics. It explains implications for future research on racial attitudes, framing, social context, political socialization, and social identity. It explains how the analyses in this context suggest a model of civic life that differs from the two prevailing conceptions: liberal individualism and civic republicanism. In informal talk, people are neither devoid of social attachments (instead, they rely on them) nor acting on behalf of a predetermined common good. Conceptions of “the common good” are constantly worked out as they interact together. Most important, the chapter concludes that the public's part of public discussion is consequential for citizen politics.
Sharon R. Krause
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226234694
- eISBN:
- 9780226234724
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226234724.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Several conclusions emerge from the analysis. First, it is important to recognize the destructive force of systematic social inequality as it bears on human agency and freedom. Secondly, the formal ...
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Several conclusions emerge from the analysis. First, it is important to recognize the destructive force of systematic social inequality as it bears on human agency and freedom. Secondly, the formal apparatus of the state is not the only or always the most effective mechanism for promoting freedom and redressing its failures; citizens themselves must step up and seek to embody a new ethos of citizenship that nourishes non-sovereign freedom. Third, there is crucial work to be done in generating the communities of bearers that can help to bring the agency of marginalized persons to fruition and thereby sustain their freedom. The value of recognizing inequality’s destructive force, cultivating a new ethos of citizenship, and fostering communities of bearers to sustain the agency of the marginalized is that all this makes individual men and women more free. Non-sovereign freedom is at once an intersubjective and an emphatically individualist ideal in this sense. The promise it holds is one that Americans cannot refuse, for it is the American promise, long delayed, of a freedom that really is for all.Less
Several conclusions emerge from the analysis. First, it is important to recognize the destructive force of systematic social inequality as it bears on human agency and freedom. Secondly, the formal apparatus of the state is not the only or always the most effective mechanism for promoting freedom and redressing its failures; citizens themselves must step up and seek to embody a new ethos of citizenship that nourishes non-sovereign freedom. Third, there is crucial work to be done in generating the communities of bearers that can help to bring the agency of marginalized persons to fruition and thereby sustain their freedom. The value of recognizing inequality’s destructive force, cultivating a new ethos of citizenship, and fostering communities of bearers to sustain the agency of the marginalized is that all this makes individual men and women more free. Non-sovereign freedom is at once an intersubjective and an emphatically individualist ideal in this sense. The promise it holds is one that Americans cannot refuse, for it is the American promise, long delayed, of a freedom that really is for all.
Lucinda Platt
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781861345837
- eISBN:
- 9781447302117
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781861345837.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
This chapter argues that child labour legislation (along with education) is critical in establishing a relatively bounded childhood and a privileged status for children — even poor children — which ...
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This chapter argues that child labour legislation (along with education) is critical in establishing a relatively bounded childhood and a privileged status for children — even poor children — which is to make state support and intervention in other areas of child welfare increasingly hard to resist. It observes that the legislation is probably based less on the ‘fact’ of child employment than on campaigners' mobilisation of sentiment around children combined with arguments that operate within the prevailing discourse of liberal individualism and laissez-faire. It observes, nevertheless, that the introduction of legislation and the creation of a distinct child population both rendered the ultimate introduction of state educational provision almost inevitable and created a particular constituency for wider poverty research.Less
This chapter argues that child labour legislation (along with education) is critical in establishing a relatively bounded childhood and a privileged status for children — even poor children — which is to make state support and intervention in other areas of child welfare increasingly hard to resist. It observes that the legislation is probably based less on the ‘fact’ of child employment than on campaigners' mobilisation of sentiment around children combined with arguments that operate within the prevailing discourse of liberal individualism and laissez-faire. It observes, nevertheless, that the introduction of legislation and the creation of a distinct child population both rendered the ultimate introduction of state educational provision almost inevitable and created a particular constituency for wider poverty research.
Warren Boutcher
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198739661
- eISBN:
- 9780191831126
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198739661.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The core topic of 2.6 is two modern reader-writers of Donald Frame’s American translation of the Essais (Gore Vidal and David Denby). We consider a range of related intellectual contexts for Frame’s ...
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The core topic of 2.6 is two modern reader-writers of Donald Frame’s American translation of the Essais (Gore Vidal and David Denby). We consider a range of related intellectual contexts for Frame’s work, a product of the culture of liberal education and of American liberal individualism: modern, pedagogical versions of ‘human philosophy’; the educational goals of elite institutions such as the École Normale Supérieure and Columbia University; the legacy of Pierre Villey’s work in twentieth-century Montaigne studies. We see how twentieth-century humanists in America and Europe called up the real person ‘Montaigne’ from behind his text and made him explain that text’s value to idealist programmes of general literary education. The chapter includes discussions of figures in the German idealist tradition such as Auerbach,and Burckhardt, as well as the critic of Renaissance ‘self-fashioning’, Stephen Greenblatt, and the British critic Terence Cave.Less
The core topic of 2.6 is two modern reader-writers of Donald Frame’s American translation of the Essais (Gore Vidal and David Denby). We consider a range of related intellectual contexts for Frame’s work, a product of the culture of liberal education and of American liberal individualism: modern, pedagogical versions of ‘human philosophy’; the educational goals of elite institutions such as the École Normale Supérieure and Columbia University; the legacy of Pierre Villey’s work in twentieth-century Montaigne studies. We see how twentieth-century humanists in America and Europe called up the real person ‘Montaigne’ from behind his text and made him explain that text’s value to idealist programmes of general literary education. The chapter includes discussions of figures in the German idealist tradition such as Auerbach,and Burckhardt, as well as the critic of Renaissance ‘self-fashioning’, Stephen Greenblatt, and the British critic Terence Cave.
