Suchergebnisse

Piccone answers questions geared toward shedding light on how Canada has functioned in Telos. To begin, noting that the journal name was borrowed from Husserl, how Telos understood the lifeworld is addressed. Piccone then states that Telos adopted a Western Marxism a la Lukacs. Attention turns to the mid-1970s-early-1980s editorial structures & the manner in which Canada reappears in the journal since the 1990s. Piccone comments on Canadian politics, particularly populism, & on multiculturalism & the cultural weakness of various ethnic groups.

A fragment of an unfinished essay by Piccone that explores the nature of Stalinism in the post-Cold War context to shed light on the institutional legacy seen to carry on in Western liberal democracies, presents Stalinism as understood by Stalinists.

This interview with Piccone attempts to gain an understanding of the philosophies of the American New Left. Telos was based on the knowledge that traditional American values have been compromised as the federal model has been transformed into a national one. The result has been a US "technocratic oxymoron" that works through centralization of power, planning, rationalization, & professional rule, but claims to honor the values of individuality, local autonomy, & communitarianism. The interview covers current differences between Left & Right, the cultural challenges of globalization, domination by the New Class, the demonization of populism, political correctness censorship, & the potential of economic growth through an American free trade zone encompassing North & South America. L. A. Hoffman

A reply to Rick Johnstone's "Ten Theses on Federalism and Human Rights" (2001) offers 10 counter-theses. It is maintained that Johnstone's contention that human rights protects individuals against the group is fallacious, since individuals are only protected if the "essence of human rights is already embedded in a community's legal system." Examples are given of the UN's irrelevance & the canton of Uri model is critiqued, noting that despite its commitment to independence/autonomy, Switzerland has long been part of a globalized economic system. Johnstone's attempt to combine the cultural particularity of populism with liberal universalism is said to result in a "recycled version of liberal-democracy." Historical examples are given to show that guarantees of human rights only succeed when cultures firmly believe in these values. Human rights ideology is described as a new & more pervasive logic of domination. Reasons why a human rights compromise would not work are discussed, along with the incompatibility of democracy & liberalism & the "confused" Western mix that is only sustained "by those ineradicable traditions that liberalism constantly undermines.". J. Lindroth

The Left explains the terrorist attacks of September 11th as a result of US imperialist foreign policy & careless military interventions that have alienated much of the world, especially Third World countries unable to modernize & experiencing erosion of their cultural values. This puts September 11 in the light of a tragically misguided people making a desperate, but understandable, response to globalization & US hegemony. The Right interprets September 11 as a result of US international laxity, national decadence, & even nihilism. By simultaneously labeling September 11 as "criminal acts" by a private group, yet also "war acts," the US is achieving greater US hegemony, centralizing domestic power, & enlarging the space of operation for its interests. Even if the US successfully fine-tunes its definition of enmity & defeats its foes, it must still come to understand the real sources of anti-US sentiment including making sure globalization is not the same as Western opportunism, cultural homogenization, & world domination under enforced capitalism. L. A. Hoffman

Considers the current crisis in education as epiphenomenal of wider social dynamics related to the logic of modernization & rationalization. It is suggested that the present educational system is not natural, but the result of a 100 year process of state centralization & modernization that marginalized communities & informal structures while privileging the state & the economy. Further, it has ceased to produce independent, reasoning citizens but instead serves primarily a policing function. Thus, state-sponsored education has undermined the very social conditions it was initially intended to serve. The crisis of higher education is taken to be one manifestation of this broader trend. To stem this crisis it is deemed necessary to radically rethink the character of state-sponsored public education so as to open space for the reintegration of local communities into the educational process. D. Ryfe

Examines the role of liturgical analysis in critiquing modernity, arguing that postmodern alienation is rooted in postindustrial society's loss of ontological bearing. As an intrinsic part of modernity, secularization since the Enlightenment has disconnected social introspection from any self-examination of its spiritual foundations, the initial & primary bonds of early human community. Catherine Pickstock's (1998) analysis of the Catholic Mass exemplifies how liturgical examinations shed light on modernity as a whole, underlining how the belief in transubstantiation represents a community's attempt to understand the mind-body duality. It is argued that Pickstock's liturgical connection between the public & private serves as a fresh & comprehensive channel into uncovering the causes of postmodern alienation, avoiding the stale route of demonizing capitalism. D. Bajo

An introduction to a special journal section (see abstracts of related articles) concerned with liberal democratic ideology. It is suggested that the survival of liberal democracy, compared to Nazism in Germany & communism in the USSR, is due to its residual democratic elements rather than its progressive constitution. Analysis suggests that Canada's liberal democratic movement has been too successful in carrying out its ideological agenda with regard to secession/reform issues, resulting in democratic disintegration. Comments are offered on the contributions to this section. J. W. Parker

Reflects on efforts by the US academic elite to ostracize Carl Schmitt from the pages of the prestigious The New York Review of Books. Once tolerant & open-minded, the Review is today a timid & defensive journal that stands firmly against all criticisms that challenge its own ideological horizons. The recent caricature of Schmitt's work by Mark Lilla (1997) is reflective of this defensiveness, as it begins with the faulty premise that Schmitt's collaboration with Nazism is only recently being revealed & ends with the incorrect judgment of Schmitt's work as a politics of theological despair. Efforts to correct Lilla's misreading in the form of responses by Gary Ulmen & Paul Gottfried were never published by the editors of the journal. Schmitt's interest in traditional institutions such as the church in the creation of alternatives to the liberal, depolicitized world order represents an important avenue for understanding new developments in the post-Cold War world, one that the US academic elite has refused to take seriously. D. M. Smith

The Quebec secessionist movement threatening the democratic disintegration of Canada is discussed. It is suggested that Canada offers a perplexing case study of modernist liberal democracy; although Canada is regarded as highly affluent & peaceful, problems of fiscal bankruptcy & the secessionist movement have jeopardized the stability of the nation. Paradoxically, Canada's success in implementing its liberal democratic program -- which established an efficient welfare state, improved international relations, & resulted in national autonomy -- is cited as the reason for its impending national demise. It is argued that the Quebec separatist movement has resulted from its sociocultural alienation, substantiated by the democratization of Canada; Canada should either dissolve the unification of the Canadian provinces or decentralize sociocultural elements to maintain peace. It is concluded that the Reform Party's platform of regionalism must focus on the reconfiguration of Canada, producing a decentralized confederal organization maintaining cultural individuality & local governmental autonomy. J. W. Parker

Replies to Elias Jose Palti's "Is There a Telos Right?" (1996 [see abstract 9801312]), which comments on an article in Telos by Thomas Fleming (1995 [see abstract 9611496]). It is suggested that Palti has fallen to an official Left conformist mindset when he interprets as part of a reactionary, racist agenda claims made in Telos concerning the legitimacy of the use of popular referenda for deciding cultural policy. It is shown that passages Palti understands as outright support for CA's Proposition 187 are actually more complex statements concerning the intrusion of public agencies into a wider variety of social relations. Moreover, the general ideological trend of Telos since the 1980s is explained as wholly consistent with traditional Left theory. In the context of this reconstruction of the genesis of Telos's positions, it is suggested that Palti's account of the antinomies of postmodern populism dissipates into a series of misunderstandings. Though Palti would like Telos to participate in the formation of new political parties & revolutions, it is contended that the purpose of a theoretical journal is to interpret sociopolitical realities & articulate them coherently in terms of past experience & present possibilities. D. M. Smith

Argues that the antimodernist impulse of populism, which has historically been denigrated in mainstream culture, assumes greater legitimacy under postmodern conditions in which the concept of progress has been discredited. Against interpretations of populism as inherently xenophobic, modern defenders of populism are described as seeking a postmodern model of communal life in which the organicity of communities assumes special importance. It is suggested that this populist vision is an effort to reconstruct the kind of individuality that disintegrated in the face of modern conditions of social life. John Dewey's pragmatic theory of experience is considered as the closest approximation to this postmodern populist ideal. Finally, the work of Carl Schmitt (1950) is employed as a starting point for a more explicitly political theory of postmodern populism. D. M. Smith

Part of a special section, "Is There a 'Telos' Left in Telos? Reflections after 100 Issues," examining the nature of Telos, which continues to lack consensus. A review of Marxist ideology provides an understanding of the initial basis of Telos, which was not, in fact, a study of Western Marxism. While various Marxisms were frequent topics, the journal was a New Left project to strengthen a social movement through theoretical studies. Telos investigated the contradictions of a capitalist system within a democracy, & in this regard, sought to provide declining Marxism with a theoretical foundation. When such efforts failed, due to societal changes, the journal focused it efforts on developing a critical theory through which to establish organic communities & federal populism. Also discussed are the role that conservatism has played in Telos's development, & its potential role in objectively interpreting the present. M. Piciocchi

Reflections are offered on the reconstitution of basic political concepts in the course of discussing Theodor Adorno's theory of pseudo-culture (see abstract in this section of SA 42:3). It is argued that pseudo-culture, which refers to the permanent crisis of the totally administered society, is not so much an epiphenomenon of capitalism as a symptom of modernity's dependence on centralization & massification. The degradation of concepts such as "law" & "democracy" is discussed. The corruption of political theory via its complicity with statism & New Class ideology is examined, & it is suggested that communitarian & libertarian challenges to this ideology are likely to open a new phase in the history of democracy by demanding the reconfiguration of institutions along participatory democratic lines. W. Howard