Problems of Political Secularism

Problems of Political Secularism PDF Author: Kenneth J. Long
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1666948632
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
America’s debates over secularism are not what they seem. Far from being primarily about religion and its place in politics, these battles over ill-defined secularism are now seen as a diversion in an escalating culture war caused by incapacitated government. Government’s failure to generate needed policies have made Americans angry and unkind: liberals becoming increasingly condescending while the right becomes more transparently racist. Politicians, unable to legislate, still need voters, and they succeed by swiftly changing “issues,” which are often coded as religious but are mostly about everyday matters. Kenneth J. Long argues that public failure elicits personal vice. The liberal values of tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion are “virtues” of the condescending. The belief in science, a tool, is strange at best, and the disdain for the anti-scientific is likewise condescending. For the right, “Christian” is increasingly popular among those who are growing ever less religious and serves as cover for a racist white identity politics. Problems of Political Secularism: Broken Politics, Unkind Cultures illuminates the troublesome outcomes posed by “protecting” autonomy through restraint of representative government and by pitting constituency against constituency to “safeguard” faith from government and vice versa. People of goodwill, faithful and not, are needed to redirect our focus from the symptoms (cultural warfare) to the structural governmental causes.

Problems of Political Secularism

Problems of Political Secularism PDF Author: Kenneth J. Long
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1666948632
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 141

Get Book Here

Book Description
America’s debates over secularism are not what they seem. Far from being primarily about religion and its place in politics, these battles over ill-defined secularism are now seen as a diversion in an escalating culture war caused by incapacitated government. Government’s failure to generate needed policies have made Americans angry and unkind: liberals becoming increasingly condescending while the right becomes more transparently racist. Politicians, unable to legislate, still need voters, and they succeed by swiftly changing “issues,” which are often coded as religious but are mostly about everyday matters. Kenneth J. Long argues that public failure elicits personal vice. The liberal values of tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion are “virtues” of the condescending. The belief in science, a tool, is strange at best, and the disdain for the anti-scientific is likewise condescending. For the right, “Christian” is increasingly popular among those who are growing ever less religious and serves as cover for a racist white identity politics. Problems of Political Secularism: Broken Politics, Unkind Cultures illuminates the troublesome outcomes posed by “protecting” autonomy through restraint of representative government and by pitting constituency against constituency to “safeguard” faith from government and vice versa. People of goodwill, faithful and not, are needed to redirect our focus from the symptoms (cultural warfare) to the structural governmental causes.

Religion and Nationalism in Global Perspective

Religion and Nationalism in Global Perspective PDF Author: J. Christopher Soper
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107189438
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Offers a new framework for understanding how religion and nationalism interact across diverse countries and religious traditions.

Nationalist Dangers, Secular Failings

Nationalist Dangers, Secular Failings PDF Author: Achin Vanaik
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789350026557
Category : Authoritarianism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Indian Ideology

The Indian Ideology PDF Author: Perry Anderson
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788732715
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The historiography of modern India is largely a pageant of presumed virtues: harmonious territorial unity, religious impartiality, the miraculous survival of electoral norms in the world’s most populous democracy. Even critics of Indian society still underwrite such claims. But how well does the “Idea of India” correspond to the realities of the Union? In an iconoclastic intervention, Marxist historian Perry Anderson provides an unforgettable reading of the Subcontinent’s passage through Independence and the catastrophe of Partition, the idiosyncratic and corrosive vanities of Gandhi and Nehru, and the close interrelationship of Indian democracy and caste inequality. The Indian Ideology caused uproar on first publication in 2012, not least for breaking with euphemisms for Delhi’s occupation of Kashmir. This new, expanded edition includes the author’s reply to his critics, an interview with the Indian weekly Outlook, and a postscript on India under the rule of Narendra Modi.

The Paradox of Liberation

The Paradox of Liberation PDF Author: Michael Walzer
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300213913
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
Many of the successful campaigns for national liberation in the years following World War II were initially based on democratic and secular ideals. Once established, however, the newly independent nations had to deal with entirely unexpected religious fierceness. Michael Walzer, one of America’s foremost political thinkers, examines this perplexing trend by studying India, Israel, and Algeria, three nations whose founding principles and institutions have been sharply attacked by three completely different groups of religious revivalists: Hindu militants, ultra-Orthodox Jews and messianic Zionists, and Islamic radicals. In his provocative, well-reasoned discussion, Walzer asks why these secular democratic movements have failed to sustain their hegemony: Why have they been unable to reproduce their political culture beyond one or two generations? In a postscript, he compares the difficulties of contemporary secularism to the successful establishment of secular politics in the early American republic—thereby making an argument for American exceptionalism but gravely noting that we may be less exceptional today.

Secular States, Religious Politics

Secular States, Religious Politics PDF Author: Sumantra Bose
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108472036
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Presents a comparative study of two major attempts to build secular states - India and Turkey - in the non-Western world

Problems of Communism

Problems of Communism PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism

The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism PDF Author: Achin Vanaik
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786630745
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 690

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Book Description
The definitive analysis of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India and the challenges for the radical Left With the Hindu nationalist BJP now replacing the Congress as the only national political force, the communalization of the Indian polity has qualitatively advanced since the earlier edition of this book in 1997. This edition has been substantially reworked and updated with several new chapters added. Hindutva’s rise necessitates a more critical take on mainstream secular claims, ironically reinforced by liberal–left sections discovering special virtues in India’s ‘distinctive’ secularism. The careful evaluation of the ongoing debate on ‘Indian fascism’ has resonances for the broader debate about how best to assess the dangers of the far right’s rise in other liberal democracies. A study follows of how Hindutva forces are pursuing their project of establishing a Hindu Rashtra and how to thwart them through a wider transformative struggle targeting capitalism itself.

Secularisms

Secularisms PDF Author: Janet R. Jakobsen
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822341499
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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Book Description
A collection that challenges the binary conception of conservative religion versus progressive secularism by highlighting the existence of multiple secularisms.

Problems of Economic and Political Transformation in the Balkans

Problems of Economic and Political Transformation in the Balkans PDF Author: Ian Jeffries
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9781855673199
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Provides an assessment of the problems of transformation in the Balkan countries, covering topics on both politics and economics. The book gives an overview of the problems of transition, and also country-specific coverage, including Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and the former Yugoslavia.