The Myth of Disaster Myths
In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics
"The Myth of Disaster Myths" published on by Oxford University Press.
In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics
"The Myth of Disaster Myths" published on by Oxford University Press.
In: Studies in law, politics, and society, Band 59, S. 1-30
Stuart Scheingold's The Politics of Rights provided a path-breaking theoretical analysis of what he called the "myth of rights." Scheingold's key insight was that even though rights were a myth, rights ideologies nevertheless left a significant imprint on American politics. The book charted a research agenda that has now been followed by a wide range of sociolegal scholars. Looking across that diverse body scholarship, I find convergence on two points. First, scholars claim that law and legal ideology contribute to processes of legitimation and to political acquiescence. Second, and seemingly in tension with the first, most people do not appear to believe in idealized legal myths and express only qualified commitments to legal ideals. Most scholars have responded to this tension by downplaying evidence that people have doubts about legal ideals, often treating expressions of doubts as evidence of confusion. As a result, scholars still conclude that residual commitments to legal myths help to explain legitimation and acquiescence. Such moves produce accounts of legal myths that are insufficiently attentive to politics and power. Scholars would do better to return to Scheingold's more ambivalent perspective on the politics of rights in order to understand the political consequences of commitments to rights' ideologies. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]
In: Special Issue: The Legacy of Stuart Scheingold; Studies in Law, Politics and Society, S. 1-30
In: The new critical idiom
Part I. Reading myth : Order : Dying gods ; Words and the word ; The mythical method -- Chaos : The comic vision ; Singer as shaman ; The sacred and the profane ; The heart-of-darkness trip -- Endings : The circuitous quest ; The rhetoric of revelation ; Apocalypse without apocalypse -- Part II. Mythic reading : Truth : Realism and non-realism ; Allegory: the perspective of perfection ; Radical typology: permanent possibility ; Enlightenment and counter-enlightenment --Psyche : The primal crime ; The search for the self ; The grammar of the mind -- History : Criticism as vision ; A single story? ; Testaments of deliverance -- Earth : The war on nature ; Nature now and then ; Nature as revelation ; A religion of the world
In: Critical review: a journal of politics and society, Band 20, Heft 3, S. 259-271
ISSN: 1933-8007
In: Theorists of myth 16
1. Hans Blumenberg : an introduction -- 2. Myth and the human sciences during the Sattelzeit -- 3. German philosophy and the 'will to science' -- 4. Davos and after, or the function of anthropology -- 5. Promethean anthropologies -- 6. Goethe's 'Prometheus,' or on cultural selection -- 7. 'After the work on myth' : the political reception of Work on myth -- 8. Conclusion : political myth in the Blumenberg Nachlass.
Indisputably, the lives of all individuals, now and throughout history, have not been commensurate in every respect. No individual has the most of everything at all times - net worth, love, happiness, security, companionship, fame, food, land, grandchildren, or whatever else he or she values.1 Nevertheless, a utopian strain in intellectual thought, emanating as the Enlightenment afterglow,2 continues to place its faith in the public construction of an ersatz equality that has never existed naturally.3 The Myth of Ownership, a recent book by two New York University law/philosophy professors, Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, is a striking exemplar of this dogged faith in the government's ability to eradicate inequality . As Murphy and Nagel powerfully demonstrate, many of the dominant concerns of taxation, such as vertical and horizontal equity and the debate over income versus consumption tax, diminish in importance or even vanish when the focus turns to first principles. The proposed policy solutions, which are the result of so much intellectual effort and discourse, are in a sense beside the point. Thus, a high level of awareness that tax policy cannot and does not advance in a vacuum would serve tax scholars well. To the extent that The Myth of Ownership stimulates discussion of the underlying values taxation serves, it will prove a positive contribution, notwithstanding the authors' unfortunate failure to make the case for their own first principles.
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In: Theorists of myth 20
"Compiling and critiquing modern theories and theorists of myth, this book offers an overview of theories around the origin and function of various mythologies and mythological figures, allowing wider theoretical claims to be made about the relationship between societies and their myths. This ambitious collection of essays uses the tools and viewpoints of a range of disciplines in order to advocate for theoretical generalizations about myth as a whole. The book is divided into five sections, covering topics such as, myth and psychoanalysis; hero myths; myth and science; myth and politics; and myth and the physical world. Chapters engage with Freud, Jung, Popper and other thinkers, demonstrating how myth still plays a vital role in our communities and individual identities. The synthesising of these theories allows the reader to see that myths tend to be the result of a need, either material or existential, rather than a spontaneous creation. This is a fascinating survey by a leading voice in the study of myth. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of myth and how it interacts with Sociology, Anthropology, Politics and Economics"--
In: Critical review: an interdisciplinary journal of politics and society, Band 20, Heft 3, S. 259-272
ISSN: 0891-3811
In: Journal für Psychologie, Band 11, Heft 4, S. 387-412
Mythen und Metaphern des modernen Tanzes werden erörtert. Tanz, so die gemeinhin akzeptierte Haltung in der Tanzwissenschaft, ist etwas, das über die Sprache hinaus geht. Indem die Metapher und deren Gebrauch entwertet oder ignoriert wird, wird davon ausgegangen, dass die normale (Schrift-)Sprache in der Beschreibung des Tanzes zwangsläufig scheitern muss. Diese Haltung ermöglicht es, unkritisch Mythen zu schaffen. So wird dem modernen Tanz etwa ein revolutionäres Potenzial zugeschrieben. Die systematische Metaphernanalyse der veröffentlichten Texte Isadora Duncans, einer Pionierin des modernen Tanzes, zeigt, dass die Revolution nur eine von zwölf höchst unterschiedlichen Metaphoriken ist, in denen sie ihren Tanz beschreibt. Diese lassen sich sowohl der Moderne als auch ihren Gegenströmungen zuordnen. Die weithin akzeptierten Mythen der Revolution und Weiblichkeit, die nicht nur dem Tanz Duncans, sondern dem modernen Tanz überhaupt zugeschrieben werden, müssen hinterfragt werden. Weiterhin wird gezeigt, dass sich der moderne Tanz als (un-)sichtbare Religion des 20. Jahrhunderts verstehen lässt.
In: Nations and nationalism: journal of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, Band 10, Heft 1/2
ISSN: 1354-5078
Nationalism is a secular modern ideology that has been accompanied by revolutions and it has legitimised the rise to power of new social classes. For this reason many theorists have regarded nationalists as inventors of tradition and their claims to continuities with the past as either self-delusion or a form of deceit. Yet in many cases premodern ethnic identities have powerfully shaped the programmes and policies of many nation-states. How can nationalism be the expressions of ethnic continuity and also of revolutionary change? I will argue that nationalism is a novel form of ethnicity, shaped by the polycentric vision of romanticism and by the unprecedented and unpredictable challenges of the modern world that require innovation. Nationalists are able to justify innovation because of the "layered" nature of the ethnic past, and they are able to overcome established ethnic identities by generating at times of crises novel myths based on romantic acts of sacrifice by heroic elites that legitimise new national projects. But these new elite-driven national mythologies overlie rather than obliterate older ethnic traditions. These latter can come to life in the process of nation-building, redirecting it from its original secular goals. (Original abstract)
In: Peace and conflict: journal of peace psychology ; the journal of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence, Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, Band 7, Heft 3, S. 201-226
ISSN: 1078-1919
This article attempts a systematic comparison of the myths surrounding the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, that of the Boyne in 1690 in Ireland, that of Mohacs in Hungary in 1526, & finally the Battle of Alcazarquivir in Morocco in 1578. The purpose of the comparison is to establish some of the ingredients that account for a perpetuation of the trauma & that cause havoc in future generations. The working hypothesis put forward is that two noxious factors playing a central role in the causation of interethnic war are (a) unmourned traumata with (b) the associated rage being directed outward & not inward, & that both are significantly mediated by the myths associated with the traumata. 1 Table, 39 References. Adapted from the source document.
In: Nations and nationalism: journal of the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, Band 10, Heft 1-2, S. 109-124
ISSN: 1354-5078