Social sectors were covered by women

Main Editorial Bloody Mary Sagarika Ghose HT Email Author June 09, 2009
The job has just begun Sagarika Ghose

In the early 1990s, when the economy was new but our mindsets were old, your humble columnist, then newly returned from Oxford was astounded at the old-fashioned world of Indian journalism. In those days, it was believed that the fate of the nation rested on the home ministry, defence ministry, ministry of external affairs and the finance ministry. These ministries were covered by senior male journalists, snarling patriarchs who guarded their domains with the fierce territoriality of lions. Rural development, education and health — which all over the world were seen as vital to a nation’s progress — were relegated firmly to second place. These ‘social sectors’ were covered by women, conscientious ladies who were repeatedly reminded that infant mortality, epidemics, primary education and affordable housing didn’t really matter as much as high diplomacy or heavy-duty weaponry. Sagarika Ghose is senior editor CNN-IBN.

Alok Sheel: Of economists and historians Business Standard - ‎Jun 12, 2009‎ 7:51 PM

As an erstwhile keen graduate student of history who stumbled into finance and economics as a professional hazard... I have learnt as much from economics as I have from history not only to understand the real world but also for formulating policy as a civil servant. Rather, this is a plea for rescuing the discipline of economics from the jaws of rocket scientists and mathematicians and handing it back to macro-economists, economic historians and political-economists. Social scientists need to reclaim the dismal science and spruce it up. There are after all other social sciences, such as psychology, that economics can turn to, to make it both more colourful and this-worldly, as George Akerlof, Robert Shiller and Richard Thaler have shown recently. The writer is a civil servant. Views are personal. Alok Sheel: Of economists and historians Business Standard - ‎Jun 12, 2009‎ 7:51 PM

Bronze hammer

Plato’s Myth of the Metals and Parallels with Racism in the Ante-Bellum South (and Beyond)
from Per Caritatem by Cynthia R. Nielsen
As Socrates unfolds his city-in-thought, the so-called perfectly just city of the Republic, he speaks of the need for the rulers to promulgate the notorious “noble lie” (414c).[1] The noble lie consists in two parts.

First, the citizens are told that their true parent is the earth, that is, the city or polis (414d). This part of the noble lie is designed to promote a kind of sold-out commitment to the polis-a loyalty willing to forsake even the closest (traditional) familial ties. When this aspect of the noble lie is embraced, the citizens view each other as brothers and sisters who are all connected to a common parent, the polis (”Father/Motherland” themes come to mind).

Second, the citizens are presented with the “myth of metals.” According to this myth, each citizen is born with one of three kinds of soul: gold, silver or bronze. As you might expect, the citizen’s worth and function in the city is determined by what kind of soul s/he possesses. The myth of metals is created promote strict class separation and is an attempt to eliminate factionalism. The gold-souled people are best-suited to rule, the silver-souled people (the warrior class) assist the rulers in their plans for the city, and the bronze-souled people are simply to obey. In addition, the classes must never intermarry, as those who “by nature” are superior cannot be tainted by a lower class. For the good of the polis, the bronze-souled people must come to recognize their natural inferiority to the silver and gold-souled classes and be willing to obey and carry out their orders-after all, they are intellectually inferior to gold-souled rulers and cannot properly direct their own lives without the guidance of their natural superiors.

Of course Plato is not giving us a blueprint for an actual city (contra Popper); however, Socrates’ “building plans” strike a similar chord with modern racist projects. (There are, no doubt, significant differences between the two projects; I’m not claiming that a one-to-one correspondence exists. Nonetheless, the commonalities are worth pondering). [...] Notes [1] On my interpretation, the city-in-thought is not a kind of blueprint for an actual city. Rather, by showing the impossibility of such a (totalitarian, calculation-oriented) city, Plato highlights the theme of eros (broadly construed as “love”, “desire”, “longing,” etc.) as that which constitutes human existence and which cannot be controlled or managed by mathematics, calculated reason, eugenics etc. In other words, all humans are lovers of something and these various loves, desires and longings are what drive us and direct our lives, actions and decisions.

(title unknown)from enowning by enowning
In-der-Blog-sein Matt Langer updates "hammering with a hammer" for today's workers.

Plato mysteriously included a cobbler in the originary population of the ideal city he outlines in the Republic—likely to symbolize a working class—while Heidegger derived a phenomenology from a hammer. Could Plato ever have imagined a software engineer instead of his cobbler, Heidegger a compiler in lieu of a hand tool?

Planomenology weighs in
June 11, 2009 Object-Oriented Philosophy

“Let’s be clear: object-oriented philosophy may champion the ontological equality of objects with human beings, but this equality comes at the price of the dehumanization of man, of his destitution and defacing, his reduction to (almost) nothing. And it seems that, rather than bear the horrors of confronting oneself – as a man, as a philosopher – in such a hideous state, object-oriented philosophy, as quickly as it grants liberty to objects, must imprison man: he must be punished before he can commit his crime of becoming a thing. Far from leveling the playing field, of granting the same rights to objects that we enjoy, object-oriented philosophy is rather more interested in an exchange of prisoners. This is evidenced in the reluctance, even refusal, to talk about human beings as embodied abysses, and the rapid condemnation of any philosopher who foolishly invokes man if not to ridicule and denounce him.” [Planomenology]

“Graham is at his best when, suspending the systematic sufficiency of a philosophy like Heidegger or Husserl, he pilfers and reassemble their concepts into new, monstrous configurations. But putting these monsters in the service of expressing the ‘True form of the real’ is horribly vain, and of course, makes him guilty of the same thing he used against his forbears. I don’t mean to single Graham out, because all philosophers are ‘guilty’ in this respect. Yet they need not feel guilty, they need not submit to the ‘higher law’ of non-philosophy. They need only suspend the sufficiency of the philosophical law to leave their guilt amongst the ruins of its kingdom. Realism that ceases to pretend that thought can adequately or sufficiently give us the real itself is a non-philosophical realism, a Real which we already are, in the flesh. This is the true problem: not how do we bypass being human, or bypass thinking, and get to the Real, but rather, how do we deal with the fact that we are the Real, everything is, and yet that the Real is not itself ever given? How do we deal with our non-reciprocal or unilateral identity with the Real?” Posted by doctorzamalek

Now Slumdog country also gets awards

['Jai ho' set to be millionth English word Times of India - NEW DELHI: 'Jai ho', 'cuddies' and 'slumdog' are among the 73 other finalists from across the globe to become the millionth English word. ..."Slumdog Millionaire" terms compete to be millionth English word Xinhua Jai Ho!, Slumdog, Chaddies*: The 1000000th Word In English? Outlook Chaddie wants to be English Daily News & Analysis Indian Express - Calcutta Telegraph all 27 news articles » Slumdog `insult' upsets award-winning film-maker Bharati Dubey tnn Times of India - ‎Jun 4, 2009‎

Slumdog `insult' upsets award-winning film-maker
5 Jun 2009, 0218 hrs IST, Bharati Dubey, TNN MUMBAI: Does the West think of India as Slumdog rather than Millionaire? Indian director Sanjay Chauhan, whose film Lahore won the jury award for best feature film at the 42nd WorldFest International Film Festival in Houston, had a bitter experience at the awards function.

"When my name was announced, a producer of the film Bitter Sweet, who was sitting at the same table, remarked `Now Slumdog country also gets awards'. I was stunned but had to go on stage to collect my award,'' said Chauhan. Now back in India, Chauhan has still to come to terms with the insult.

"Slumdog Millionaire is only damaging our image in the West. People who have not seen the country only believe what's depicted in the movie-poverty and slums. I think the remark was not ignorance but an insult. They think we're a country full of garbage,'' he fumed. Chauhan said the British producer was not the only one who had that impression about India. "Some members from my crew who happened to be Americans felt the same way before they came to India,'' he said.

Jun 07, 2009 04:52 PM
A news report says that the word 'slumdog' is being ceremonially included in the English language. This is an insult to those millions of men, women, and children whose homes are situated within urban slums. In a creative medium like a film, the word can be pardoned, but to label a section of human beings as dogs is not the sign of a civilized society. Interestingly, the insult is not directed to the residents of the slums alone, the stigma also applies to ‘snobdogs’ who come there with begging bowls for their votes.

A civil society for which “inclusiveness” is the watch word, honouring the epithet ‘slumdog’ is in utter bad taste. The sooner it is given a ceremonial burial the better.

“Slumdog Millionaire” the Oscar winning movie has indeed paid great attribute to Indian society. But portraying a mass public as ‘Dogs of Slum’ is an attack on the pious idea of humanity. The controversial word Slumdog which equates human being with animals is violative of fundamental rights as enumerated in constitution of India and Charter of United Nation which can’t be welcomed in countries like India where about one fourth of population lives in Slums.

Kartavyabodha an NGO, chaired by Mr.Shant Prakash emphatically treat the word as against the humanity, dignity of individual and the principle of natural justice. Thus, recognizing the word Slumdog by putting it in English dictionary as millionth word would be an attempt to kill humanity and must be omitted at earliest.
Shant Prakash
Ghaziabad, India

Shant Prakash: Protest against the movie " slumdog Millionaire - Shant Prakash. Member National Executive, Bhartiya Janta Party, Scheduled Caste ... Posted by Shant Prakash at 8:26 PM. Labels: protest against ' slumdog ...

Discrimination against women in the workplace, as well as the shorter life expectancy of men, should be tackled head-on

Tear up these exams or we're going to leave our boys behind
Bahram Bekhradnia: A new report shows that the academic gap between the sexes is growing and risks creating a generation of lost young men
Sunday, 07 June 2009
Boys don't perform as well as girls at school. That is well known. What is less well known is that this continues through university. There are some who think this doesn't matter. At a recent conference on the impact of feminism on higher education, one academic said that the poor performance of boys "is seen as a threat to masculinity. It is a moral panic". I don't agree. Article Continues

Research just published by the Higher Education Policy Institute confirms that on all measures of achievement the difference that begins in school continues into and through university. It's not good enough to dismiss concern as moral panic. We badly need to come to terms with the new realities. If we do not, then the consequences for those involved will be serious, but so too will the consequences for society.
Women have almost reached the government's 50% target for participating in higher education, while men have a long way to go (49.2% against 37.8%).
Some dismiss this as illusory because, they say, females tend to attend less prestigious institutions, or that they attend part time rather than full time and get less good degrees. This isn't true. The rates of participation at Oxford and Cambridge are the same. Also, more women than men enter the Russell Group (the self-selected group of research universities, most with medical schools) and other old universities, as well as attending new universities. There are more full-time women, as well as part-time, and both young and older women have higher participation rates than men.
There are differences in subject patterns, but again, in most subjects women outnumber men. There are some subjects where men are more numerous - for example in computer science, engineering and the physical sciences - but women outnumber men in popular, high-status subjects such as law and medicine. And the relatively poor performance of men occurs throughout society; it's true of middle-class as well as of working-class males and it occurs in all ethnic groups.

Once at university, women are more likely to obtain good degrees and men are more likely to drop out. If they do graduate, men are more likely to be unemployed and in non-graduate jobs, but if they are employed they are, on average, better paid. This last will no doubt be seized on by some to play down the general education disadvantage of males. That would be wrong; the reasons for the lower average salaries of women are complex. No doubt discrimination plays some part, but the subjects studied, the type of employment that women enter, for example the public rather than the private sector, and choices that reflect different values, account for most of the differences.
While the poorer performance of males is a phenomenon common around the world, and nobody has yet discovered the reason why, it appears to be exacerbated in England by the GCSE exam and the teaching that is associated with it. Boys' school performance began to lag behind girls' at around the same time as GCSEs were introduced. Though we need to be careful not to assume automatically, because of that, that there is a causal relationship, it is very difficult to avoid that conclusion.
There is a wealth of evidence that sheds light on this. Among this evidence is the fact that the Programme for International Pupil Assessment exam, administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to children in all of its member states, found that boys in England on average did better than girls in science by a wider margin than in any other country and did at least as well as girls in mathematics; yet a few months later, when the same children took the GCSE exams, girls outperformed boys in the same subjects. Why should that be? That is something that needs to be researched.
It could be because of the importance in GCSE of coursework or the discursive nature of the exam. Or it could be because the new skills that boys acquire through playing computer games are of no value in the GCSE exam. There appears to be something in the GCSE and the preparation for that exam that causes boys to do less well than girls. And that in turn blights their careers and the rest of their lives.

So, boys perform less well than girls at school and then at university. Does that matter? Of course it does. It matters in the same way that 30 years ago it mattered that fewer girls went to university than boys. Graduates, after all, tend to form the elites of society and, as women have come to dominate in higher education, we should expect these elites to change gender over time, too. That itself is no bad thing. What is intolerable is that significant numbers of young (and not so young) people are excluding themselves - or perhaps being excluded because of aspects of our school system - from joining these elites.
The term "moral panic", as used by the professor of education quoted above, is, in fact, regularly used by people wishing to dismiss concern about the poor performance of males in education. Others are dismissive in other ways - the underperformance of boys has, for example, been described as simply "an evolving realisation of the nuances of gender's effects", whatever that might mean. Others are worried that the concern that some express at the position of males is being used to whip up a "backlash against the women's movement".
Perhaps that is true of some, but those of us who celebrate the achievements of the women's movement, despair at the prospect of the emergence of a whole generation of dispossessed and disadvantaged men. We are deeply concerned at the implications for society of an army of under-educated and possibly alienated males. Society gains from a well-educated population, not only in terms of economic development, but in terms also of their better health, better integration into society and better child-rearing, to name but a few of the benefits identified by the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning.
Graduates both inflict and suffer less domestic violence, they vote more and participate more in civil society. And society will suffer as a result of the under-education of increasing numbers of males. Just as we were concerned at the lower achievement of girls a generation ago, we should be concerned at the lower achievement of boys today.

That need not be at the expense of concern for other inequalities faced by both men and women. Discrimination against women in the workplace, as well as the shorter life expectancy of men, should be tackled head-on. They are not helped by the increasing disadvantage of another group in society. One disadvantage should not be taken to justify another. This is not a zero sum game. The suggestion, recorded in a report by the then Department for Education and Skills (but not stated as government policy) that "it could be argued that the widening gender gap does not matter ... if it helps ensure greater equality for women in the labour market" is intolerable, as intolerable as those of the academics who dismiss, even rejoice in, the poor performance of men in higher education. This is a problem that should concern us all. Bahram Bekhradnia is director of the Higher Education Policy Institute guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2009

Cyclone tourism

Urban groups make pleasure trips on relief work pretext
Times of India - After the cyclone, the deluge. A sea of humanity some well-meaning and nearly all clueless has descended on the Sunderbans post-Aila, turning emergency relief work into a farcical show of generosity and spawning a disturbing culture of cyclone tourism.

Women's quota bill: Sharad Yadav threatens suicide
IBNLive.com - KILL BILL: Sharad Yadav threatens suicide in Parliament, but Speaker Meira Kumar choses to ignore. ibnlive.com is on mobile now. Read news, watch videos be a Citizen Journalist.

Sotomayor's 'wise Latina' comment a staple of her speeches
CNN - WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Judge Sonia Sotomayor has spoken for years about how her experiences as a Latina woman have influenced her public and private life.

Men 'out-performed at university'
BBC News - Telegraph.co.uk Female students are ahead of men in almost every measure of UK university achievement, according to a report from higher education researchers... The report looks more closely at this divide and addresses the suggestion that even though women are ahead in numbers, that men might still dominate in the most prestigious subjects and institutions... Mr Bekhradnia says that this could reflect differences in how boys now learn through play - with an increase in time spent on computer games and watching television, rather than physical play. GCSEs blamed for boys not going to university guardian.co.uk Tear up these exams or we're going to leave our boys behind U.TV

Whiteness and Morality: Pursuing Racial Justice Through Reparations and Sovereignty - By Jennifer Harvey pp. 49-50(2) Author: Hill, Jack A.

Gandhi and Jesus: The Saving Power of Nonviolence - By Terrance J. Rynne pp. 50-50(1)

Christian Origins - By Jonathan Knight pp. 52-52(1) Author: Bernas, Casimir

Jesus is Dead - By Robert M. Price pp. 54-55(2) Author: Bernas, Casimir

Jewish Tradition and the Challenge of Darwinism - Edited by Geoffrey Cantor and Marc Swetlitz pp. 63-64(2) Author: Plevan, William

The Quest for Jewish Assimilation in Modern Social Science - By Amos Morris-Reich pp. 64-64(1) Author: Ury, Scott

Theology Without Words: Theology in the Deaf Community - By Wayne Morris pp. 42-42(1) Author: Klink, Aaron

Thou Who Art: The Concept of the Personality of God - By John A.T. Robinson pp. 45-45(1) Author: Nausner, Michael

Tayloring Reformed Epistemology: Charles Taylor, Alvin Plantinga, and the De Jure Challenge to Christian Belief - By Deane-Peter Baker pp. 32-32(1) Author: Boring, Wendy Petersen

What are They Saying about Fundamentalisms? - By Peter A. Huff pp. 69-69(1) Author: Bauder, Kevin T.

The Lives of SRI Aurobindo - By Paul Heehs pp. 71-71(1) Author: Gleig, Ann

The Bhagavadgita: Doctrines and Contexts - By Angelika Malinar pp. 72-73(2) Author: Fort, Andrew O.

Understanding Karma: In Light of Paul Ricoeur's Philosophical Anthropology and Hermeneutics - By Shrinivas Tilak pp. 73-73(1) Author: Sil, Narasingha P. Religious Studies Review Personalia 2009

A forum that abjures street sloganeering for solemn sophistry

Rephrase that
The Indian Express: Wednesday, Jun 03, 2009 at 0208 hrs IST

There are places where being boring is a virtue. The court room is just such a place, where well-considered utterances, even if they make the bystander fall asleep, are preferable to the rousing rhetoric of the street. Which is why a Supreme Court judge’s recent comments that those convicted of burning brides are “animals” who should be “hanged for the crime” are so troubling. The sentiment behind those words will resonate with anyone committed to the basic principles of non-violence and gender equity. But proclaimed from a forum that abjures street sloganeering for solemn sophistry, the choice of words is unfortunate.

Linked as it is to the systemic discrimination against women that plagues our society, it can be nobody’s case that bride burning is anything but abhorrent. But that abhorrence cannot be vented through words that convey vigilante justice. Which is why this newspaper has argued against “encounter killings”: even when the target is known to have perpetrated gross crimes, the targetting must be through legal processes alone. The very purpose of the law — and the judges who intrepret it — is to provide that mediating prism to spare even the vilest from being treated as “animals”.

Bride burning apart, the court’s comments touch another raw nerve: the death penalty. “Death by hanging” is legal in India, but reserved for the “the rarest of rare cases”. Had the issue before the court been whether bride burning was a “rarest of rare” case that justified capital punishment, then arguments of this nature could have been inevitable. But the sole issue before the Supreme Court was whether to grant bail to someone convicted of bride burning. In this context, the court’s indelicate utterances were unfortunate.

These words come close on the heels of other judicial pronouncements, on the need for husbands to “obey” their wives and the link between beards and Talibanisation, pronouncements that make good copy but only detract from the solemn business of adjudication. Perhaps it’s time to bring back the boredom. After all, its not as if judges would dream of acting upon these rousing words — so often irrelevant, moreover, to the case at hand. So, why utter them?

She understood and laid bare a woman’s unconscious mind and desires without any claim to feminist posturing

State funeral for writer Kamala Suraiya THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Noted writer Kamala Suraiya who died in Pune on Sunday will be interred at the Palayam Juma Masjid here with State honours at 8 a.m. on June 2. The prayers will be led by Palayam Imam Moulavi Jamaluddeen Mankada. She ... An iconoclast who courted controversies She was one of the first poets from Kerala writing in English to be recognised internationally 'She dared to express what she felt strongly' Times of India - PUNE: Stalwarts of English and Malyalam literature on Sunday said that Kamla Surayya's (Kamla Das) contribution to literature was immense and duly ... 'She came to my annaprashan' Calcutta Telegraph - Kamala Das was a wonderful woman, very warm and sweet. Her mother Balamani Amma and my mother Radharani Debi were very good friends. ... Her words spoke Express Buzz - KOCHI: Kamala Das could write with depth the story of a poor old servant in Punnayurkulam or the sexual disposition of upper middle class women living near ... A loss to literature Express Buzz - Kamala Das was one of the leading bi-lingual writers who made strides in both English and her mother tongue Malayalam. The daughter of VM Nair, ... Remembering Kamala's humility Express Buzz - ... immense pains to answer queries and clear doubts during the translation which was published as 'Kamala Das Ki Shreshth Kahaniyan' by Jawahar Pustakalay. ... The dove departs Express Buzz - ... the rains and the blades of lightning that branched into extempore dimensions across wet skies much like Kamala Das lived her life. ... Insights into sexual bliss: Author tried to break free from shackles Times of India - THIRUVANANANTHAPURAM: It may be the end of the journey for Madhavikutty aka Kamala Das and, finally, Kamala Surayya, but the questions that her vast body of ... Woman who wrote of passion and created a stir Calcutta Telegraph - Kamala Suraiya, also known as Kamala Das and whose poems of love and longing opened a bold new chapter in women's writing in India, was a path-breaker.

Meira Kumar set to become Speaker Resigns from Council of Ministers; BJP supports her candidature Meira to become first woman Speaker of Lok Sabha Calcutta Telegraph Congress's Dalit women to tip scales against Mayawati 1 Jun 2009, 0250 hrs IST, BHASKAR ROY, TNN: A meticulous pattern emerges in the process of government making as Congress promotes Kumari Selja, Krishna Tirath and Meira Kumar as its new Dalit faces. Blog: Democracy? No, it's actually family rule

News Analysis ‘Identity politics’ back to forefront By Peter Baker Following the selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Washington has once again polarised along familiar lines.

Outdoor media's local flavour is difficult to ignore

The strange case of outdoor media
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, Business Standard, New Delhi May 19, 2009, 0:27 IST

It is one of the most reviled of media formats. Across the world outdoor or out-of-home (OOH) media faces the wrath of environmentalists, regulators and traffic authorities so much so that in most developed markets OOH companies and associations spend a lot of money on studies to prove that outdoor media does not cause accidents, is not harmful to the environment and reduces the civic authorities dependence on taxes among other things...

If it is such an unorganised market why have investors been pouring money into outdoor media? Some of the reasons are obvious. Consumers are spending a lot of time outside their home — studying, walking, travelling, working, hanging out. So OOH media tries to attract them at these times, either in the ambience of their consumption or while they travel. Advertisers like OOH media for its local flavour and because it is difficult to ignore.

At a broader level however two key indicators show that the Indian market is hitting critical mass. First, one of the biggest areas for investment in India is infrastructure. The modernisation of existing airports and the development of new ones, along with the growth of organised retail and the increase in theatre chains and multiplexes are creating organised supply of OOH media. Most infrastructure project usually factor in advertising as a revenue stream. For instance, Times OOH has won the ad rights in Delhi and Mumbai Airports which account for 42.7 million footfalls in 2007. That is a lot of people with many hours to stare at billboards.

Similarly organised retail is not just one of the largest spenders on outdoor globally; it is also one of the biggest suppliers of it. In a fragmented and disorganised market such as India, dealing with just a few companies makes life easier for the advertiser. Future Media, for instance, offers television, print, activation and a host of other services like any other media company. It is an offshoot of Kishore Biyani’s Future Group and exploits the media possibilities in owning hundreds of retail stores across millions of square feet. The writer is a media consultant vanitakohli@hotmail.com Tags : MEDIA SCOPE OOH media environment

That front can no longer exclude women

Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy By Carmen Luke, Jennifer Gore
Preview this book Buy this book Routledge Amazon.com - $46.95

Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy centres around the theoretical effort to construct a feminist pedagogy which will democratize gender relations in the classroom, and practical ways to implement a truly feminist pedagogy. Published by Routledge, 1992 ISBN 0415905346, 9780415905343 220 pages Contents Introduction 1 critical pedagogy , feminist pedagogy , poststructuralist
Progressive Pedagogy and Political Struggle 15 progressivism , William Labov , pedagogy
Feminist Politics in Radical Pedagogy 25 critical pedagogy , Feminism , feminist pedagogy
What We Can Do For You What Can We Do For You? 54 Michel Foucault , empowerment , McLaren
Why Doesnt this Feel Empowering? Working Through 90 post-structuralism , affinity group , ableism
A Feminist Reading 120 critical theory , deconstruction , Marxism more »

Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy - Google Books Result
by Carmen Luke, Jennifer Gore - 1992 - Education - 220 pages... The early 1990s, then, is not the time for those educationists committed to critical social theory and the remaking of practice to fragment over theoretical minutae.

Popular passages
Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as...‎ Page 63 Appears in 71 books from 1985-2007

Power must be analysed as something which circulates, or rather as something which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never localised here or there, never in anybody's hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth.‎ Page 58 Appears in 128 books from 1965-2008

... of co-optation, not because we do not theorize, but because what we can even imagine, far less who we can reach, is constantly limited by societal structures. For me, literary criticism is promotion as well as understanding, a response to the writer to whom there is often no response, to folk who need the writing as much as they need anything.‎ Page 97 Appears in 17 books from 1990-2007more »

I can only speak for myself. But what I write and how I write is done in order to save my own life. And I mean that literally. For me literature is a way of knowing that I am not hallucinating, that whatever I feel/know is.‎ Page 94 Appears in 32 books from 1990-2007

When the agent of empowerment assumes to be already empowered, and so apart from those who are to be empowered, arrogance can underlie claims of "what we can do for you." This danger is apparent both in the work of the teacher who is to empower students, and in the work of the academic whose discourse is purportedly empowering for the teachers (and others).‎ Page 61 Appears in 12 books from 1992-2007

Truth' is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it.‎ Page 63 Appears in 150 books from 1974-2008

Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches oneself from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem.‎ Page 54 Appears in 64 books from 1928-2007

... the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world‎ Page 79 Appears in 57 books from 1979-2007

discipline' problems it was because she had failed to love them enough: 'women teachers became caught, trapped, inside a concept of nurturance which held them responsible for the freeing of each little individual, and therefore for the management of an idealist dream, an impossible fiction' (Walkerdine, 1992: 16). It sounds somewhat ludicrous when caricatured in this way, but this was the essence of a particular 1970s style of teaching, and a lot of feminists, reacting against the general of the...‎ Page 16 Appears in 10 books from 1990-2008

References from books
Making sense of management: a critical introduction ‎by Mats Alvesson, Hugh Willmott - Business & Economics - 1996 - 246 pages
'A critical-academic-analysis of received wisdom, for serious students of the subject' - LongRange Planning Provocative and thoughtful, this book provides a fresh... Limited preview - About this book - Add to my shared library

Women, policy and politics: the construction of policy problems‎by Carol Lee Bacchi - Political Science - 1999 - 242 pages
This book offers a powerful new approach to policy studies. Limited preview - About this book - Add to my shared library

Lost subjects, contested objects: toward a psychoanalytic inquiry of learning‎by Deborah P. Britzman - Education - 1998 - 199 pages
This book argues for education's reconsideration of what psychoanalytic theories of love and hatemight mean to the design of learning and pedagogy. Limited preview - About this book - Add to my shared library

Related books
The struggle for pedagogies: critical and feminist discourses as regimes of ... ‎by Jennifer Gore - Education - 1993 - 188 pages
Jennifer M. Gore examines, analyses and offers directions for the debate between critical pedagogy andfeminist pedagogy, one of the fiercest within education theory. Limited preview - About this book - Add to my shared library

Getting smart: feminist research and pedagogy with/in the postmodern‎by Patricia Ann Lather - Education - 1991 - 212 pages
In Getting Smart, Patti Lather makes use of her unique integration of feminism and postmodernism intocritical education theory to address some of the most vital questions facing... Limited preview - About this book - Add to my shared library

Feeling power: emotions and education‎by Megan Boler - Education - 1999 - 239 pages
The book traces the development of progressive pedagogies from civil rights and women's liberationmovements, to the author's recent studies of "emotional... Limited preview - About this book - Add to my shared library

Grand-daughter sacrificed for good harvest in Orissa

Orissa girl sacrificed for good harvest Sify - ‎Bhubaneswar: A 10-year-old girl in an Orissa village was beheaded by her grandfather, who believed that sowing seeds mixed with her blood would yield a ... Report: Indian man beheads grand-daughter to seek harvest Xinhua all 11 news articles »

He is concerned about working-class women being left to raise children alone

Genuine befuddlement from An und für sich by Adam Kotsko
Milbank has recently taken to claiming that there is something fascist about disconnecting sex and reproduction. See this quasi-interview, for example:

The groups mentioned may not want to shake Milbank’s hand: he opposes gay marriage (”I don’t want to get into the situation where we deny there is something special about being attracted to the opposite sex”).
He says he is concerned about working-class women being left to raise children alone, “in part - alongside economic factors - because of the collapse of the male ethos of supporting the woman”, and has written most stridently in opposition to in vitro fertilisation treatment for single women.
“By supporting the total disjuncture of sex and procreation, the Left is really supporting a new mode of fascism,” Milbank says.

My question is a simple one: what on earth is he talking about? Is “a new mode” doing all the work here, meaning that he gets to define it out of the air, or is there something else going on? Posted in fascism, Milbank

Affirmative orientalism

Management Education and the Teaching of Ethics: Pedagogy, Practice and the Challenge of a New Initiative
Ananta Kumar Giri Journal of Human Values, Apr 1997; vol. 3: pp. 3 - 19.
...ofAmerica (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990); Ananta Giri, 'The Quest for a Universal Morality: Jurgen Habermas and Sri Aurobindo', The Indian Journal of Social Science, 1994; 'Universities and the Hori- zons of the Future', University News, November... Check item Abstract Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

From Richness of Body to Richness of Spirit
Journal of Human Values, Oct 1995; vol. 1: pp. 151 - 152.
...liberal education is fos- tering dissipative individualism and calculative selfishness. Therefore, as the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram had observed: 'From the psychic point of view, the rose is more exalted than the human being'. Yet, this is... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Book reviews : Chitta R. Goswami, Global Psychology and Counseling. Pondicherry: Human Potential Centre, Undated, xiv + 143 pp, Rs 75
Debashis Chatterjee Journal of Human Values, Oct 1995; vol. 1: pp. 267 - 269.
...on the multidimensionality of the human being. In this the author draws inspiration from the integral psychology of Sri Aurobindo. This part delves into issues such as the 'dilemmas of the age of individual- ism', 'subjectivism and the freedom of... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Tagore and China
Reena Ganguli China Report, Aug 1989; vol. 25: pp. 237 - 248.
...religion. In Indian history, religious leaders like the Buddha, Shankaracharya, Guru Nanak, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo have always been in the forefront of social reforms. Even non-religious leaders like Tagore and Gandhi upheld the spiritual... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Journey beyond Belief'
Roger Walsh Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Apr 1984; vol. 24: pp. 30 - 65.
...Volume 3: Formulations of the person and the social context (pp. 184-256). New York: McGraw-Hill. Satprem. (1968). Sri Aurobindo or the adventure of consciousness. New York: Harper Row. Shapiro, D. (1980). Meditation: Self regulation strategy... Check item Abstract Full Text (PDF) References Table of Contents MatchMaker

Redemption — The Starting-point of Christian Theology — I
Frances M. Young Expository Times, Jan 1977; vol. 88: pp. 360 - 364.
...politician of his time, nor the greatest saint in a land that has produced many. He was the contemporary of such giants as Sri Aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, Paramhansa Yogananda, Annie Besant and Rabindranath Tagore. What is it then about... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

The Gandhian Heritage
Debjani Chatterjee Expository Times, Jan 1977; vol. 88: pp. 364 - 368.
...politician of his time, nor the greatest saint in a land that has produced many. He was the contemporary of such giants as Sri Aurobindo, Swami Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, Paramhansa Yogananda, Annie Besant and Rabindranath Tagore. What is it then about... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Book Reviews : Comparative Religion
W. Weaver Expository Times, Jan 1976; vol. 87: pp. 349.
...brief glance at two twentieth-century Indian thinkers involved in the interaction between Western and Indian thought - Sri Aurobindo and S. Radhakrishnan. L. S. COUSINS LEARNING HEBREW Introductions to foreign languages traditionally claim some novel... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Book Reviews : Indian Philosophy
L.S. Cousins Expository Times, Jan 1976; vol. 87: pp. 349.
...brief glance at two twentieth-century Indian thinkers involved in the interaction between Western and Indian thought - Sri Aurobindo and S. Radhakrishnan. L. S. COUSINS LEARNING HEBREW Introductions to foreign languages traditionally claim some novel... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Book Reviews : Learning Hebrew
John Eaton Expository Times, Jan 1976; vol. 87: pp. 349 - 351.
...brief glance at two twentieth-century Indian thinkers involved in the interaction between Western and Indian thought - Sri Aurobindo and S. Radhakrishnan. L. S. COUSINS LEARNING HEBREW Introductions to foreign languages traditionally claim some novel... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Commentary: By the Editor
Tom Greaning Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Oct 1975; vol. 15: pp. 1 - 2.
...for a complete list to the Institute at 3494 21st Street, San Francisco, California 94110. His books include ones on Sri Aurobindo, voga, and meditation. He was a creative scholar and teacher whose life goal was to reconcile science and religion... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Ceylon
Yasmine Gooneratne The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Jan 1973; vol. 8: pp. 98 - 102.
...Book Year, 1 72, was marked by a convention of writers, librarians, publishers, and printers in New Delhi, organized during the World Book Fair which was held in Delhi, 18March- 2 April. The year was also the centenary of Sri Aurobindo's birth; in ... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Modern Indian Politics and Political Thought
Vishwanath Prasad Varma Diogenes, Mar 1964; vol. 12: pp. 143 - 154.
...of Mahatma Gandhi and Sarvodaya, published by Laxmi Narayan Agrawal, Hospital Road, Agra and Political Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, published by Asia Publishing House, Bombay. 145 Great Britain, based on mutual recognition of dignity and self- respect... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Book Reviews : H.S.R. Kao, D. Sinha and B. Wilpert, eds, Management and Cultural Values. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999, 332 pp. Rs 425
S.K. Chakraborty Journal of Human Values, Oct 1999; vol. 5: pp. 171 - 176.
...otherwise. His vista ranges from the argumentative, discursive engagement in ethics by Habermas to the exalting heights of Sri Aurobindo's works which uplift ethical discourse to a spiritual acme. The author thus initiates, with a fair measure of success... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Book Reviews : Mohandas Nair, Thoughts to Live By. Mumbai: Eeshwar, 1998, 256 pp. Price not mentioned
C. Panduranga Bhatta Journal of Human Values, Oct 1999; vol. 5: pp. 178 - 181.
...organizational work-life. However, it is also necessary to indicate the limitations of the office of reason, to use Sri Aurobindo'ss words. Conviction in ethical matters depends on our 'nischayatmika buddhi' (power of discrim- ination with certitude... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Book Reviews : Tran Tri Vu, Lost Years: My 1, 632 Days in Vietnamese Reeducation Camps. Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkely, 1989. xvi + 381 pp. Paper $ 15.00
Phung Nguyen Journal of Asian and African Studies, Jan 1991; vol. 26: pp. 158 - 160.
...orientalized India into a strength. He was assisted in doing so by Bengali and Bombay experimenters like Besant, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Tilak, Ranade, and Gokhale. Adopting their concepts of affirmative orientalism, spiritual revolution, reliance on indigenous... Check item Full Text (PDF) Table of Contents MatchMaker

Racial privilege and disadvantage permeates our society in concrete ways

On Changing Raced and Racist Habits
from Per Caritatem by Cynthia R. Nielsen

As a graduate student and an adjunct at a local college, I have the opportunity both to observe how other professors discuss race and gender, and I have the opportunity to discuss these issues directly and indirectly with my students. For example, as a female student, I find it extremely helpful and affirming when a professor uses secondary literature by female authors-particularly in my field, which has traditionally been dominated by (white) males. (Don’t worry, I’m not a white-male-hater; I happen to be married to a wonderful white male).

As a teacher, I purpose to use inclusive language, reference the works of people of color, and in so far as the constraints of what I have to teach (in terms of texts) allow, I try to assign readings or projects that encourage dialogue with different ethnic groups and help expose students to new hermeneutical approaches. What I have found on the whole is that my students appreciate the inclusive language and having to wrestle with different ways of thinking. In private conversations with female, African American, Latino/a, Asian American and others, students have time and again commented on how much they appreciate the ways I have tried to bring traditional subjects and authors in dialogue with contemporary hermeneutical approaches and “non-standard” topics (feminist literature, African American studies, liberation theology, jazz discussions etc.)

There are of course always a few students who spend the whole semester sending me emails about why it is simply ridiculous to use inclusive language when anyone who is educated knows that “man” is a generic term. Thus, by way of principle, the student boldly declares that he is not budging and refuses to use inclusive language in his papers. Interestingly, I never demand that inclusive language be used. I simply use it myself in the classroom.

John Stuart Mill was an out-and-out colonialist; Edmund Burke, quite overtly anti-Semitic

Re: 100 Years of Sri Aurobindo on Evolution: The Illusion of Human Progress and the Ideal of Human Unity (part 5 of 6) Debashish Tue 07 Apr 2009 12:00 AM PDT Science, Culture and Integral Yoga

The pervasive racism of 19th c. Europe is coming increasingly to the limelight. Homi Bhabha has been at the forefront of demonstrating the conflicted nature of post-Enlightenment colonialism, one the one hand universalist in its belief in "the white man's burden" of civilizing all human beings, on the other hand, invested in the business of maintaining power relations with the colonies through the claim of racial superiority. Individual thinkers/agents within a historical discourse can hardly escape from its internal dialectics.

John Stuart Mill, whom you invoke here, is an important case in point. An out-and-out colonialist, whatever he may have theoretically affirmed for human equality was more than counterbalanced by his conviction that the British were racially superior to the Indians. This is how Uday Mehta puts it, in his influential work Liberalism and Empire:

In India. . . especially following the mutiny of 1857, there was in fact an unmistakable tilt toward the hardening of authoritarian policies and a racializing of political and social attitudes. This was a tilt to which thinkers like J.S. Mill added their prestige and that they justified in their theoretical writings. For example, in Considerations on Representative Government, Mill had made clear that in colonies that were not of Britain’s ‘blood and lineage’ any move toward greater representation was not to be countenanced. (Mehta, 1999, pp 195-96)

As for Edmund Burke, though he espoused a form of liberal pluralism, he was quite overtly anti-Semitic. DB

Never Evolved

With all things simple, the implementation is always complicated... TOI 21 May 2004, Archana Jahagirdar Shake that Belly-Editorial-Opinion-The Times of India

Goodnight, Sweet Sheep Dolly, however, was more than the rallying point for these nature versus nurture debates, for crash courses into the critical differences between therapeutic and reproductive cloning. She was a reminder of a burning human attraction for unexplored frontiers. Mini Kapoor Indian Express: Feb 17, 2003

Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (Belknap Press) by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (Hardcover - April 1, 2009). Boldly conceived and beautifully written, Mothers and Others makes a strong case that we humans are (or should be) cooperative breeders. --Melvin Konner, author of The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species The Woman That Never Evolved: With a New Preface and Bibliographical Updates, Revised Edition

Paradigm for viewing human rights on a traditionalist or classical system of thought

Daniel Steinmetz: February 22nd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Though it may be a tangential remark, Schmalzbauer could be accused of conflating post-liberal mainline protestantism (Stanley Hauerwas) with American neo-Evangelicalism. The difference between the two is quite significant, especially since the latter over the last 50 years views political participation as a responsibility. That is, they acknowledge the legitimacy of democracy (not voting, for instance, is viewed by the typical Evangelical as irresponsible—whether conservative or liberal). However, the current post-liberal trend views the equal distribution of political power expressed via the vote as some type of simulacra of an egalitarian Christian community. Put differently, one could say that Evangelicals view voting as something of a fundamental right that is therefore good. What Wolterstorff is criticizing with Hauerwas, I believe is qualitatively different.

John Schmalzbauer: February 22nd, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Daniel Steinmetz makes an excellent point. I mentioned Stanley Hauerwas mainly because Wolterstorff did. There is certainly a clear distinction between the American evangelical movement and post-liberalism. At the same time, some of the evangelical scholars I know are attracted to post-liberalism. Within that group of post-liberal evangelicals, some are suspicious of rights talk (even of the kind that Wolterstorff celebrates).

Steinmetz is right to point out that evangelicals have been politically engaged for several decades. However, this is not the same thing as valuing documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A case could be made that evangelical anti-abortion rhetoric draws on rights language (the “right to life”). Nowhere did I mean to imply that all evangelicals are suspicious of rights talk. But some (like my professor at Wheaton College) certainly are.

Robert D. Crane: February 24th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
The question would seem to be not which brand of religious tradition is trying to support human rights on specific issues, such as Darfur or asset-based money, but rather is the question who is trying to revive human rights as a systematic paradigm for viewing all of human life based on a traditionalist or classical system of thought that may have been lost in the modern age. In other words it is a question of conscious paradigmatic transformation.

An good example of an issue-oriented approach favored perhaps by most Protestants is Jim Wallis’s, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. A good example of the systems or paradigmatic approach favored by Roman Catholics would be Russell Hittinger’s The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World, which I reviewed, along with several other recent books in my article “Taproot to Terrorism: The Loss of Transcendent Law in America and the Muslim World,” published in The Muslim World Book Review, Summer 2005.

The second question is which of these consciously paradigmatic approaches is being revived under the rubric of justice as another word for natural law and as simply an older term for human rights. The best book in the Roman Catholic tradition, with specific reference to the current issues of banking, credit, and taxation, is Michael D. Greaney’s collection of his articles from the Social Justice Review under the title In Defense of Human Dignity: Essays on the Just Third Way: A Natural Law Perspective.

Within the Islamic tradition, the best book on natural law and justice is the monumental tome by Jasser Auda entitled Maqasid al Shari’ah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: A Systems Approach. This is part of an entire library of books being published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought either as translations from the Arabic, such as Ibn Ashur’s seminal treatise of 1946, published as Ibn Ashur: Treatise on Maqasid al-Shari’ah, or else written, like Auda’s, originally in English and translated into Arabic and other languages. Some of these books are reviewed, for example, in my article, “Human Rights in Traditionalist Islam: Legal, Political, Economic, and Spiritual Perspectives,” in The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Winter 2008.

The IIIT is now preparing for a twenty-year project to publish in Wikipedic form a twenty-volume Encyclopedia of Natural Law and Justice, perhaps categorized according my own preferred formulation of the irreducibly universal principles of justice, known as the maqasid, as developed during the high point of the Andalucian civilization by Muslims, Jews, and Christians.

This formulation consists of two categories of principles, each consisting of four major purposes as headings for an architectonics that recognizes two levels of sub-categories (known as hajjiyat and tahsiniyat), perhaps first introduced in the modern West in the book The Sun is Rising in the West, edited by Haleem and Bowman in 1998. The categories and component parts are listed below in order of priority as a code of human responsibilities and human rights: The Immanent Frame 5:56 PM

Debates, sports and community leadership

Re: In Defence of the “Extracts from The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs”—Raman Reddy
by auroman on Sat 03 Jan 2009 11:50 PM IST Profile Permanent Link
IMHO, we need to understand the Western mindset to understand why most of them see this issue differently.

1) Those brought up in the West, or who have acquired a Western world-view seem to think that this book issue is some battle between freedom and repression, which it is not. If you tell them not to do something, they immediately cry out "censorship". The fight against communism and other forms of repression has colored their view of everything else.

2) The tradition in the West since the sixties sexual revolution is that "we must have an open discussion about everything". This extends to sexual matters as well "whats wrong with talking openly about sex?" or "lets give condoms to children instead of telling them not to do it". They don't see anything wrong with discussing Sri Aurobindo's sex life, even though it may seem offensive to Indian sensibilities.

3) There is no natural atmosphere of Bhakti in schools or homes. Prayer in schools is discouraged. Children are focussed on debates, sports and community leadership. That is why they might assume that all the people who oppose the book are being emotional or unreasonable. It is this background of lack of humility or Bhakti that we must consider.

New Testament is all about justice

Justice: Rehabilitating religious rights talk posted by John Schmalzbauer

In December, we celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, it has served as a charter for the modern human rights movement.
Many scholars are unaware of the religious underpinnings of the Declaration. In A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, legal scholar Mary Ann Glendon (who is concluding her service as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See) uncovers the influence of Catholic social thought on this historic document. According to Glendon, certain phrases “have a familiar ring to persons acquainted with the social encyclicals.” Recognizing this connection, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace held a public commemoration of the anniversary attended by Pope Benedict XVI. In the United States, many Catholics celebrated the legacy of what Pope John Paul II called “one of the highest expressions of the human conscience in our time.” While some liberal Catholics used the occasion to protest the hierarchy’s opposition to gay rights, they have largely shared the Vatican’s support for the Universal Declaration.

By contrast, many evangelicals let the Declaration’s anniversary pass without notice. A Google News search for the words “evangelical” and “Universal Declaration” yielded just six stories (compared to 133 for “Catholic” and “Universal Declaration”). While the National Association of Evangelicals and Christianity Today have given increasing attention to human rights (going so far as to cite the Declaration in the past), no mention of the anniversary could be found on their websites.

Why have evangelicals ignored the birthday of the twentieth century’s most profound statement on human rights? One reason may be evangelical ambivalence about the United Nations. Another may be that some evangelicals regard “rights talk” as an alien language with little connection to Biblical faith. Raised in the evangelical subculture, I have experienced this attitude firsthand. During my undergraduate years at Wheaton College, one of my professors presented the class with a startling claim: human rights are a product of modern political thought and cannot be found in the Bible. At the time, I wondered how he could square this statement with the dozens of Bible verses proclaiming the rights of the poor.

In Justice: Rights and Wrongs, Yale University philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff offers a devastating critique of the historical narrative employed by my professor. Drawing on the work of historians Brian Tierney and John Witte, Jr., Wolterstorff argues that the “conception of justice as inherent rights was not born in the fourteenth century or the seventeenth century.” Debunking the notion that natural rights are the outgrowth of philosophical nominalism and the European Enlightenment, he pronounces this narrative “indisputably false.”

Along the way, Wolterstorff critiques the notion that rights talk is an offshoot of modern individualism. Questioning Stanley Hauerwas’ claim that the language of rights “underwrites a view of human relations as exchanges,” he presents an account of justice that is irreducibly communal. Wolterstorff also takes on those philosophers who would ground their accounts of justice in the classical Greek and Roman descriptions of the well-lived life. In his judgment, such approaches fail to take into account the inherent worth of human beings.
Rather than treating rights as a modern invention, Wolterstorff traces them back to the early church fathers and the Bible itself. Noting the prominence of the “quartet of the vulnerable” throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, he sees the protection of “widows, orphans, resident aliens, and the poor” as central to the biblical text. Criticizing those who would “de-justicize” the New Testament, he contends it “is all about justice.” Citing the focus of the Gospels on “lifting up those at the bottom,” Wolterstorff celebrates Jesus of Nazareth’s “expanded vision of the downtrodden.”

Will Wolterstorff’s Biblically-grounded account of justice sway those evangelicals who are allergic to rights talk? It is possible it will. Though most laypersons and clergy will not read this book, its rehabilitation of rights may filter down through evangelical colleges and seminaries. Thanks to Wolterstorff, it will be harder for evangelical faculty to dismiss rights as an Enlightenment creation.
As Allen Hertzke documents in Freeing God’s Children, some evangelicals have embraced the global struggle for human rights. Though initially interested in securing the religious freedoms of fellow believers, they have widened their focus to include the campaign against genocide in Darfur and the fight against human sex trafficking in Asia. Whether such evangelical activism represents a new wing of the religious left or the globalization of religious conservatism remains to be seen. Given Wolterstorff’s history of opposition to the Vietnam War, apartheid, torture, and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, it is clear that his sympathies lie with the former. Despite these political commitments, he has managed to win the respect of many conservatives.

Wolterstorff may have a harder time convincing secular readers that the “incursion of Scripture into the thought world of late antiquity made possible the rights culture that we are all familiar with.” In the final chapters of the book, he asserts that it may not be possible to provide a secular grounding for human rights, critiquing the attempts of Immanuel Kant, Ronald Dworkin, and Alan Gewirth to do just that. According to Wolterstorff’s 2007 lecture to the American Academy of Religion, “the only adequate grounding is a theistic grounding which holds that each and every human being bears the image of God and is equally loved by God.” Like political philosopher Glenn Tinder’s 1989 Atlantic article, “Can We Be Good Without God?” Wolterstorff’s argument may resonate more with people of faith than with secular scholars.

The fact that Princeton University Press was able to secure a positive blurb from New School philosopher Richard J. Bernstein suggests Wolterstorff may have a shot at influencing the wider conversation about rights. Calling Wolterstorff’s study “the most impressive book on justice since Rawls’ A Theory of Justice,” Bernstein writes that even “those who are skeptical about his theistic grounding of justice will be challenged by the clarity, rigor, and thoroughness of his arguments.”

From 1997 to 1999, Bernstein was a participant in the Lilly Seminar on Religion and Higher Education, co-directed by Wolterstorff and historian James Turner. Composed of twenty-eight members from across the humanities and social sciences, it was an opportunity for secular and religious scholars to engage in serious conversation about issues of faith and meaning. Written in the same spirit of civility, Wolterstorff’s Justice is another effort to bridge the gap between secular and religious understandings of public life. This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Justice. SSRC Home SSRC Blogs Blog Home