The Democracy of Suffering

The Democracy of Suffering PDF Author: Todd Dufresne
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773559612
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
In The Democracy of Suffering philosopher Todd Dufresne provides a strikingly original exploration of the past, present, and future of this epoch, the Anthropocene, demonstrating how the twin crises of reason and capital have dramatically remade the essential conditions for life itself. Images, cartoons, artworks, and quotes pulled from literary and popular culture supplement this engaging and unorthodox look into where we stand amidst the ravages of climate change and capitalist economics. With humour, passion, and erudition, Dufresne diagnoses a frightening new reality and proposes a way forward, arguing that our serial experiences of catastrophic climate change herald an intellectual and moral awakening - one that lays the groundwork, albeit at the last possible moment, for a future beyond individualism, hate, and greed. That future is unapologetically collective. It begins with a shift in human consciousness, with philosophy in its broadest sense, and extends to a reengagement with our greatest ideals of economic, social, and political justice for all. But this collective future, Dufresne argues, is either now or never. Uncovering how we got into this mess and how, if at all, we get out of it, The Democracy of Suffering is a flicker of light, or perhaps a scream, in the face of human extinction and the end of civilization.

The Democracy of Suffering

The Democracy of Suffering PDF Author: Todd Dufresne
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773559612
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Get Book Here

Book Description
In The Democracy of Suffering philosopher Todd Dufresne provides a strikingly original exploration of the past, present, and future of this epoch, the Anthropocene, demonstrating how the twin crises of reason and capital have dramatically remade the essential conditions for life itself. Images, cartoons, artworks, and quotes pulled from literary and popular culture supplement this engaging and unorthodox look into where we stand amidst the ravages of climate change and capitalist economics. With humour, passion, and erudition, Dufresne diagnoses a frightening new reality and proposes a way forward, arguing that our serial experiences of catastrophic climate change herald an intellectual and moral awakening - one that lays the groundwork, albeit at the last possible moment, for a future beyond individualism, hate, and greed. That future is unapologetically collective. It begins with a shift in human consciousness, with philosophy in its broadest sense, and extends to a reengagement with our greatest ideals of economic, social, and political justice for all. But this collective future, Dufresne argues, is either now or never. Uncovering how we got into this mess and how, if at all, we get out of it, The Democracy of Suffering is a flicker of light, or perhaps a scream, in the face of human extinction and the end of civilization.

On the Basis of Morality

On the Basis of Morality PDF Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 1624668496
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This edition originally published by Berghahn Books. Schopenhauer's treatise on ethics is presented here in E. F. J. Payne’s definitive translation, based on the Hubscher edition (Wiesbaden, 1946-1950). This edition includes an Introduction by David Cartwright, a translator’s preface, biographical note, selected bibliography, and an index. For convenient reference to passages in Kant's work discussed by Schopenhauer, Academy edition numbers have been added.

Cruelty as Citizenship

Cruelty as Citizenship PDF Author: Cristina Beltrán
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452965811
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
Why are immigrants from Mexico and Latin America such an affectively charged population for political conservatives? More than a decade before the election of Donald Trump, vitriolic and dehumanizing rhetoric against migrants was already part of the national conversation. Situating the contemporary debate on immigration within America’s history of indigenous dispossession, chattel slavery, the Mexican-American War, and Jim Crow, Cristina Beltrán reveals white supremacy to be white democracy—a participatory practice of racial violence, domination, and exclusion that gave white citizens the right to both wield and exceed the law. Still, Beltrán sees cause for hope in growing movements for migrant and racial justice. Forerunners is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital works. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

Dominion

Dominion PDF Author: Matthew Scully
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429980435
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." --Genesis 1:24-26 In this crucial passage from the Old Testament, God grants mankind power over animals. But with this privilege comes the grave responsibility to respect life, to treat animals with simple dignity and compassion. Somewhere along the way, something has gone wrong. In Dominion, we witness the annual convention of Safari Club International, an organization whose wealthier members will pay up to $20,000 to hunt an elephant, a lion or another animal, either abroad or in American "safari ranches," where the animals are fenced in pens. We attend the annual International Whaling Commission conference, where the skewed politics of the whaling industry come to light, and the focus is on developing more lethal, but not more merciful, methods of harvesting "living marine resources." And we visit a gargantuan American "factory farm," where animals are treated as mere product and raised in conditions of mass confinement, bred for passivity and bulk, inseminated and fed with machines, kept in tightly confined stalls for the entirety of their lives, and slaughtered in a way that maximizes profits and minimizes decency. Throughout Dominion, Scully counters the hypocritical arguments that attempt to excuse animal abuse: from those who argue that the Bible's message permits mankind to use animals as it pleases, to the hunter's argument that through hunting animal populations are controlled, to the popular and "scientifically proven" notions that animals cannot feel pain, experience no emotions, and are not conscious of their own lives. The result is eye opening, painful and infuriating, insightful and rewarding. Dominion is a plea for human benevolence and mercy, a scathing attack on those who would dismiss animal activists as mere sentimentalists, and a demand for reform from the government down to the individual. Matthew Scully has created a groundbreaking work, a book of lasting power and importance for all of us.

Suffering in Silence

Suffering in Silence PDF Author: Karen Human Rights Group
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 9781581127041
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Situated in the triangle between South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China, Burma is a country of 50 million people struggling under the oppression of one of the world's most brutal military regimes. Yet, the voices of its people remain largely unheard in the international arena. Most of the limited media coverage deals with the non-violent struggle for democracy led by Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or the Army's repression of university students and urban dissidents, but these only form a small part of the story. This book presents the voices of ethnic Karen villagers to give an idea of what it is like to be a rural villager in Burma: the brutal and constant shifts of forced labor for the Army, the intimidation tactics, the systematic extortion and looting by Army and State authorities, the constant fear of arbitrary arrest, rape, torture, and summary execution, the forced relocation and burning of hundreds of civilian villages and the systematic uprooting of their crops. Three detailed reports produced by the Karen Human Rights Group in 1999 are used to give the reader a sampling of the life of Karen villagers, both in areas where there is armed resistance to the rule of the SPDC junta and in areas where the junta is fully in control. The Karen Human Rights Group is a small and independent local organization which has been using the firsthand testimony of villagers to document the human rights situation in rural Burma since 1992. Much of the group's work can be seen online at www.khrg.org. Kevin Heppner, who contributed the introductory sections of the book, is a Canadian volunteer who founded KHRG in 1992 and still serves as its coordinator. Claudio Delang, who edited this book, has a keen interest in Karen life and customs. He is currently completing a PhD dissertation on the Karen and Hmong in northern Thailand.

Flammable

Flammable PDF Author: Javier Auyero
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199706689
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Surrounded by one of the largest petrochemical compounds in Argentina, a highly polluted river that brings the toxic waste of tanneries and other industries, a hazardous and largely unsupervised waste incinerator, and an unmonitored landfill, Flammable's soil, air, and water are contaminated with lead, chromium, benzene, and other chemicals. So are its nearly five thousand sickened and frail inhabitants. How do poor people make sense of and cope with toxic pollution? Why do they fail to understand what is objectively a clear and present danger? How are perceptions and misperceptions shared within a community? Based on archival research and two and a half years of collaborative ethnographic fieldwork in Flammable, this book examines the lived experiences of environmental suffering. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, residents allow themselves to doubt or even deny the hard facts of industrial pollution. This happens, the authors argue, through a "labor of confusion" enabled by state officials who frequently raise the issue of relocation and just as frequently suspend it; by the companies who fund local health care but assert that the area is unfit for human residence; by doctors who say the illnesses are no different from anywhere else but tell mothers they must leave the neighborhood if their families are to be cured; by journalists who randomly appear and focus on the most extreme aspects of life there; and by lawyers who encourage residents to hold out for a settlement. These contradictory actions, advice, and information work together to shape the confused experience of living in danger and ultimately translates into a long, ineffective, and uncertain waiting time, a time dictated by powerful interests and shared by all marginalized groups. With luminous and vivid descriptions of everyday life in the neighborhood, Auyero and Swistun depict this on-going slow motion human and environmental disaster and dissect the manifold ways in which it is experienced by Flammable residents.

Africa

Africa PDF Author: Patrick Chabal
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1848136021
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
The question usually asked about Africa is: 'why is it going wrong?' Is the continent still suffering from the ravages of colonialism? Or is it the victim of postcolonial economic exploitation, poor governance and lack of aid? Whatever the answer, increasingly the result is poverty and violence. In Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling Patrick Chabal approaches this question differently by reconsidering the role of theory in African politics. Chabal discusses the limitations of existing political theories of Africa and proposes a different starting point; arguing that political thinking ought to be driven by the need to address the immediacy of everyday life and death. How do people define who they are? Where do they belong? What do they believe? How do they struggle to survive and improve their lives? What is the impact of illness and poverty? In doing so, Chabal proposes a radically different way of looking at politics in Africa and illuminates the ways ordinary people 'suffer and smile'. This is a highly original addition to Zed's groundbreaking World Political Theories series.

Theology in the Democracy of the Dead

Theology in the Democracy of the Dead PDF Author: Matt Jenson
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493419641
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
G. K. Chesterton wrote, "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead." This book pays homage to major theologians of the Christian tradition that tell the history of theology. Matt Jenson engages in charitable yet critical exposition and dialogue with eleven select thinkers, offering a lucid, synthetic account of their theology with a view to ongoing systematic theological issues. He engages directly with core primary texts and treats individual theologians in greater depth and nuance than most overview textbooks.

The Late Sigmund Freud

The Late Sigmund Freud PDF Author: Todd Dufresne
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110717872X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
A fundamental reassessment of the meaning of Freud's last phase of work: the applied psychoanalysis of culture and society.

And the Weak Suffer What They Must?

And the Weak Suffer What They Must? PDF Author: Yanis Varoufakis
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473545684
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
**THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER** The most recognisable economist on the planet, Yanis Varoufakis, puts forth his case to reform an EU that currently fails it weakest citizens. In this startling account of Europe’s economic rise and catastrophic fall, Varoufakis pinpoints the flaws in the European Union’s design – a design thought up after the Second World War, and one responsible for Europe’s fragmentation and resurgence of racist extremism. When the financial crisis struck in 2008, the political elite’s response ensured it would be the weakest citizens of the weakest nations that paid the price for the bankers’ mistakes. Drawing on his personal experience of negotiations with the eurozone’s financiers, and offering concrete policies to reform Europe, the former finance minister of Greece shows how we concocted this mess and points our way out of it. And The Weak Suffer What They Must? highlights our history to tell us what we must do to save European capitalism and democracy from the abyss. With the future of Europe under intense scrutiny after Brexit, this is the must-read book to explain Europe's structural flaws and how to fix them. 'If you ever doubt what is at stake in Europe - read Varoufakis's account' Guardian