The Politics of Individualism

The Politics of Individualism PDF Author: L. Susan Brown
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781551642031
Category : Anarchism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
In The Politics of Individualism L. Susan Brown argues for a new vision of human freedom which incorporates the insights of feminism and liberalism into a form of anarchism based on what she calls 'existential individualism.' The work focuses specifically on the similarities and differences of these political philosophies, by critically examining the liberal feminist writings of John Stuart Mill, Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir and Janet Radcliffe Richards, paying special attention to the issues of employment, education, marriage and the family, and governmental politics. These works are, in turn, compared and contrasted to the anarcho-feminism of Emma Goldman. Finally, as feminism as a whole movement is subjected to a rigorous critique, in terms of its overall liberatory potential, what emerges is a compelling look at feminist anarchism, describing 'what ought to be--and what could be.'

The Politics of Individualism

The Politics of Individualism PDF Author: L. Susan Brown
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781551642031
Category : Anarchism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
In The Politics of Individualism L. Susan Brown argues for a new vision of human freedom which incorporates the insights of feminism and liberalism into a form of anarchism based on what she calls 'existential individualism.' The work focuses specifically on the similarities and differences of these political philosophies, by critically examining the liberal feminist writings of John Stuart Mill, Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir and Janet Radcliffe Richards, paying special attention to the issues of employment, education, marriage and the family, and governmental politics. These works are, in turn, compared and contrasted to the anarcho-feminism of Emma Goldman. Finally, as feminism as a whole movement is subjected to a rigorous critique, in terms of its overall liberatory potential, what emerges is a compelling look at feminist anarchism, describing 'what ought to be--and what could be.'

Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul

Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul PDF Author: Leslie Paul Thiele
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069122207X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reading Nietzsche's works as the "political biography of his soul," Leslie Thiele presents an original and accessible essay on the great thinker's attempt to lead a heroic life as a philosopher, artist, saint, educator, and solitary. He takes as his point of departure Nietzsche's conception of the soul as a multiplicity of conflicting drives and personae, and focuses on the task Nietzsche allotted himself "to make a cosmos out of his chaotic inheritance." This struggle to "become what you are" by way of a spiritual politics is demonstrated to be Nietzsche's foremost concern, which fused his philosophy with his life. The book offers a conversation with Nietzsche rather than a consideration of the secondary literature, yet it takes to task many prevalent approaches to his work, and contests especially the way we often restrict our encounter with him to conceptual analysis. All deconstructionist attempts to portray him as solely concerned with the destruction of the subject and the dispersion of the self, rather than its unification, are called into question. Often portrayed as the champion of nihilism, Nietzsche here emerges as a thinker who saw his primary task as the overcoming of nihilism through the heroic struggle of individuation.

The Politics of Authenticity

The Politics of Authenticity PDF Author: Marshall Berman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Individualism
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Roots of American Individualism

The Roots of American Individualism PDF Author: Alex Zakaras
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069122630X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 432

Get Book Here

Book Description
A panoramic history of American individualism from its nineteenth-century origins to today’s bitterly divided politics Individualism is a defining feature of American public life. Its influence is pervasive today, with liberals and conservatives alike promising to expand personal freedom and defend individual rights against unwanted intrusion, be it from big government, big corporations, or intolerant majorities. The Roots of American Individualism traces the origins of individualist ideas to the turbulent political controversies of the Jacksonian era (1820–1850) and explores their enduring influence on American politics and culture. Alex Zakaras plunges readers into the spirited and rancorous political debates of Andrew Jackson’s America, drawing on the stump speeches, newspaper editorials, magazine articles, and sermons that captivated mass audiences and shaped partisan identities. He shows how these debates popularized three powerful myths that celebrated the young nation as an exceptional land of liberty: the myth of the independent proprietor, the myth of the rights-bearer, and the myth of the self-made man. The Roots of American Individualism reveals how generations of politicians, pundits, and provocateurs have invoked these myths for competing political purposes. Time and again, the myths were used to determine who would enjoy equal rights and freedoms and who would not. They also conjured up heavily idealized, apolitical visions of social harmony and boundless opportunity, typically centered on the free market, that have distorted American political thought to this day.

Against Individualism

Against Individualism PDF Author: Henry Rosemont
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739199811
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first part of Against Individualism: A Confucian Rethinking of the Foundations of Morality, Politics, Family, and Religion is devoted to showing how and why the vision of human beings as free, independent and autonomous individuals is and always was a mirage that has served liberatory functions in the past, but has now become pernicious for even thinking clearly about, much less achieving social and economic justice, maintaining democracy, or addressing the manifold environmental and other problems facing the world today. In the second and larger part of the book Rosemont proffers a different vision of being human gleaned from the texts of classical Confucianism, namely, that we are first and foremost interrelated and thus interdependent persons whose uniqueness lies in the multiplicity of roles we each live throughout our lives. This leads to an ethics based on those mutual roles in sharp contrast to individualist moralities, but which nevertheless reflect the facts of our everyday lives very well. The book concludes by exploring briefly a number of implications of this vision for thinking differently about politics, family life, justice, and the development of a human-centered authentic religiousness. This book will be of value to all students and scholars of philosophy, political theory, and Religious, Chinese, and Family Studies, as well as everyone interested in the intersection of morality with their everyday and public lives.

American Individualism

American Individualism PDF Author: Margaret Hoover
Publisher: Crown Forum
ISBN: 0307718166
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Fox News analyst argues for a redefinition of conservatism that will modernize outdated Republican ideas and enable a younger generation to embrace the party, defining her views about Individualism while contending that universal, conservative beliefs can be adapted to revitalize Republican political strength.

Awakening to Race

Awakening to Race PDF Author: Jack Turner
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226817148
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
The election of America’s first black president has led many to believe that race is no longer a real obstacle to success and that remaining racial inequality stems largely from the failure of minority groups to take personal responsibility for seeking out opportunities. Often this argument is made in the name of the long tradition of self-reliance and American individualism. In Awakening to Race, Jack Turner upends this view, arguing that it expresses not a deep commitment to the values of individualism, but a narrow understanding of them. Drawing on the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin, Turner offers an original reconstruction of democratic individualism in American thought. All these thinkers, he shows, held that personal responsibility entails a refusal to be complicit in injustice and a duty to combat the conditions and structures that support it. At a time when individualism is invoked as a reason for inaction, Turner makes the individualist tradition the basis of a bold and impassioned case for race consciousness—consciousness of the ways that race continues to constrain opportunity in America. Turner’s “new individualism” becomes the grounds for concerted public action against racial injustice.

Common Ground

Common Ground PDF Author: Jeremy Gilbert
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781849649773
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
Common Ground explores the philosophical relationship between collectivity, individuality, affect and agency in the neoliberal era. Jeremy Gilbert argues that individualism is forced upon us by neoliberal culture, fatally limiting our capacity to escape the current crisis of democratic politics. The book asks how forces and ideas opposed to neoliberal hegemony, and to the individualist tradition in Western thought, might serve to protect some form of communality, and how far we must accept assumptions about the nature of individuality and collectivity which are the legacy of an elitist tradition. Along the way it examines different ideas and practices of collectivity, from conservative notions of hierarchical and patriarchal communities to the politics of 'horizontality' and 'the commons' which are at the heart of radical movements today. Exploring this fundamental faultline in contemporary political struggle, Common Ground proposes a radically non-individualist mode of imagining social life, collective creativity and democratic possibility.

Individualism and Inequality

Individualism and Inequality PDF Author: Ralph Fevre
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1784716510
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
A belief in individual self-determination powered the development of universal human rights and inspired social movements from anti-slavery to socialism and feminism. At the same time, every attempt to embed individualism in systems of education and employment has eventually led to increased social inequality. Across the globe individualism has been transformed from a revolutionary force into an explanation for increasingly unequal societies where dissent is largely silent. This book explores the possibility of rediscovering the original, transformative potential of individualism.

Rugged Individualism and the Misunderstanding of American Inequality

Rugged Individualism and the Misunderstanding of American Inequality PDF Author: Lawrence M. Eppard
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611462355
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Get Book Here

Book Description
Rugged Individualism and the Misunderstanding of American Inequalityexplores and critiques the widespread perception in the United States that one’s success or failure in life is largely the result of personal choices and individual characteristics. As the authors show, the distinctively individualist ideology of American politics and culture shapes attitudes toward poverty and economic inequality in profound ways, fostering social policies that de-emphasize structural remedies. Drawing on a variety of unique methodologies, the book synthesizes data from large-scale surveys of the American population, and it features both conversations with academic experts and interviews with American citizens intimately familiar with the consequences of economic disadvantage. This mixture of approaches gives readers a fuller understanding of “skeptical altruism,” a concept the authors use to describe the American public’s hesitancy to adopt a more robust and structurally-oriented approach to solving the persistent problem of economic disadvantage.