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Author: Timothy Bewes
Publisher: Verso
Published: 1997-05-17
Total Pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9781859841969
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In this original and provocative book, Timothy Bewes descends into the modern cynical consciousness with a critical assessment of the preoccupations of contemporary society.
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 1996
Total Pages:
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This thesis has three objectives: (i) to offer an anatomization of the concept "cynicism", as it has been historically constituted; (ii) to interrogate its contemporary cultural and political manifestations; (iii) to consider the implications of these usages for the state of political engagement at the close of the 20th century. The work is broken down into four chapters: 1. Cynicism is introduced as a recurrent motif of contemporary political rhetoric, a symptom of its relationship to postmodern theory. Postmodernism may be interpreted as a "blip" in philosophical history, and a mass cultural retreat from the violence entailed in the pursuit of truth, as accounted for in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. 2. A cultural obsession with authenticity has been detectable since the end of the 1980s. I examine this phenomenon with reference both to Jean Baudrillard's critique of millenarianism and the political theory of Hannah Arendt. In the political realm the fetishization of authenticity appears as depoliticization, and as a collapse of the distinction between private and public life. 3. In "postmodernism", superficiality is proposed as a solution to the metaphysical ennui of the modern cynic. An opposition between energy and depth also appears in the cultural relationship between America and Europe, and finds expression in the perceived "collapse" of rationality represented by "Auschwitz". 4. The quest of political discourse in the 1990s is for a "qualified retreat"; that is to say, a realm of authenticity in which effective political action is still possible. Contemporary rhetoric attempts to negotiate this dilemma in the form of a "middle way". I propose, on the contrary, that the most radical and extreme retreat is eo ipso a movement towards total political involvement. An 'Afterword' to the thesis suggests a reassessment of the nature of political engagement as the first step towards embodying the extremes of both 'energy' and 'depth' in political life.
Author: Helen Pluckrose
Publisher: Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA)
Published: 2020-05-05
Total Pages: 353
ISBN-13: 1634312031
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller! Have you heard that language is violence and that science is sexist? Have you read that certain people shouldn't practice yoga or cook Chinese food? Or been told that being obese is healthy, that there is no such thing as biological sex, or that only white people can be racist? Are you confused by these ideas, and do you wonder how they have managed so quickly to challenge the very logic of Western society? In this probing and intrepid volume, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay document the evolution of the dogma that informs these ideas, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields. Today this dogma is recognizable as much by its effects, such as cancel culture and social-media dogpiles, as by its tenets, which are all too often embraced as axiomatic in mainstream media: knowledge is a social construct; science and reason are tools of oppression; all human interactions are sites of oppressive power play; and language is dangerous. As Pluckrose and Lindsay warn, the unchecked proliferation of these anti-Enlightenment beliefs present a threat not only to liberal democracy but also to modernity itself. While acknowledging the need to challenge the complacency of those who think a just society has been fully achieved, Pluckrose and Lindsay break down how this often-radical activist scholarship does far more harm than good, not least to those marginalized communities it claims to champion. They also detail its alarmingly inconsistent and illiberal ethics. Only through a proper understanding of the evolution of these ideas, they conclude, can those who value science, reason, and consistently liberal ethics successfully challenge this harmful and authoritarian orthodoxy—in the academy, in culture, and beyond.
Author: Sharon A. Stanley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012-03-19
Total Pages: 237
ISBN-13: 1107014646
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Sharon A. Stanley chronicles the emergence of a recognizably modern form of cynicism during the French Enlightenment, by discussing the work of philosophers such as Denis Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. While recent scholarly and popular commentary has depicted cynicism as a novel, contemporary phenomenon that threatens healthy democratic functioning, this book shows that cynicism has much earlier roots and may contribute to the health of democracies.
Author: David Mazella
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2007
Total Pages: 326
ISBN-13: 9780813926155
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Asks: how did ancient Cynic philosophy come to provide a name for its modern, unphilosophical counterpart, and what events caused such a dramatic reversal of cynicism's former meanings? This work traces the concept of cynicism from its origins as a philosophical way of life in Greek antiquity.
Author: Ian Cutler
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2014-12-24
Total Pages: 236
ISBN-13: 1476604894
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Cynicism began as a school of philosophy that was largely inspired by Socrates and often decried by popular commentators as a social pathology, a nihilistic rebellion against the foundations of civilization. Modern definitions of the cynic describe an individual who is negative and sarcastic, violently opposed to established authority and social convention, and dedicated to existentialism. This book attempts to vindicate cynicism, arguing that it is both a progressive approach to social dilemmas and an enlightened understanding of the human condition. Chapter One establishes the foundations of classical Greek cynicism, while later chapters illustrate the varied faces of the cynic phenomenon in the persons of such disparate characters as Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Diogenes, the Dadaists, George Bataille, Samuel Beckett, Auberon Waugh, the creators of South Park, and others. Nietzsche is portrayed as the most important representative of both classical and postmodern cynicism, as well as the pivotal link between the two. The book focuses on significant periods of historical change, such as the Renaissance, and the historical cynics responsible for several seminal social ideas, including cosmopolitanism (citizenship of the world), asceticism (personal growth through self-testing), and parrhesia (finding one's voice in the presence of tyrannical forces). The author claims that aspects of Greek cynicism are present in contemporary society, offering a positive strategy for living in a hostile world.
Author: Stephan van Erp
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 3825812359
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Through current expressions of religion, people are confronted with all kinds of longings and desires which have no place in a rationalised and alienated culture. At the same time, these longings are seeking and finding opportunities for expression. How to understand this cultural ambiguity? The authors in this volume explore the possibilities of a rationality beyond rationalism, reflecting beyond the borders of human imagination on the hidden God.
Author: Will Barnes
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2022-07-26
Total Pages: 165
ISBN-13: 1793655677
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Where does Extreme Liberal Cynicism—so common in academic and popular culture—come from, and is it capable of solving the problems it identifies? A Critique of Liberal Cynicism: Peter Sloterdijk, Judith Butler, and Critical Liberalism identifies the motivations and resources within liberal cynicism and their potential for overcoming its pernicious extremes. Will Barnes describes Extreme Liberal Cynicism as a product of mourning, guilt, and the experience of powerlessness stemming from the trauma of holding liberal investments in a world in which these investments are vulnerable to ideological critique and seem to have failed. Extreme Liberal Cynicism seeks invulnerability through disavowing the efficacy of its constitutive ideals achieved via a reified hopelessness that eclipses trauma, guilt, and disempowerment leaving the cynic unhappy, alienated, hostile, obstinate, delusional, and desperate; thus, it is a failing self-defense mechanism. Barnes argues that although Extreme Liberal Cynicism is rationally unjustifiable and intrinsically harmful, it also contains the impetus for a reappropriation of its complex desires and losses. This adjustment could compel the extreme cynic to maintain a moderate critical liberal cynicism committed to critiquing and reinvigorating its constitutive ideals of freedom, equality, and justice, and thereby contribute positively to progressive politics.
Author: Stephen R. C. Hicks
Publisher: Scholargy Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 250
ISBN-13: 9781592476428
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Peter K. Fallon
Publisher:
Published: 2009
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9781589662025
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"Why do we believe what we believe, and ignore what we don't believe? Why do we believe some things that have no foundation in reality, and refuse to believe in things that are firmly supported by scientific research? Why does it seem that many people believe in nothing at all? And does it matter what we believe, and how we came to that decisive point of belief or unbelief?" "Peter K. Fallon insists that neither the study nor the practice of ethics and metaphysics should be limited to professional academic philosophers and theologians. In The Metaphysics of Media Fallon takes a courageous stand against our hyper-mediated popular culture and the postmodern view of information as a salable commodity. He investigates how and why different media, through different historical eras, have engendered and supported certain concepts of reality - at the expense of others. He begins with a critical discussion of the essential idea of objective reality and truth. Fallon then unfolds the story of the evolution of communication through four major eras and the metaphysical foundation that underlies each era and concludes with a look at the troubling rise of mass ignorance in what we call (without a hint of irony) an "age of information.""--Résumé de l'éditeur.
