Public Life as Tragedy

Some of the most perceptive observers of public life have emphasised its tragic dimensions, not so much out of sympathy for politicians, but because the lens of tragedy offers a unique insight into the realities of the world of politics. Here I attempt to synthesise this tragic perspective by employing the comments of those best positioned to identify the salient features of public life, its primary dramatis personae. Politics occasionally provides us with the kind of spectacular catastrophe that journalists like to construe as tragedy. But our purpose is to evoke a different, more personal, less visible kind of tragedy: the small but malignant tragedies of self‐betrayal, of inflation of the ego and deflation of conscience, of helpless witness to injustice and misfortune, of status unaccompanied by power or efficacy, of the shrinking of aspiration to the scale of the practicable, of disillusion and, on occasion, of despair.     

Between two rights: Julien Freund and the origins of political realism in France

Julien Freund (1921–93) was a French sociologist and political theorist who taught at the University of Strasbourg in the 1960s and 1970s. Although he is the author of over two dozen books, Freund remained throughout his lifetime something of a marginal figure in his own country. Yet, strangely, Freund is now receiving more scholarly attention in France than ever before. The question is why? This paper attempts to provide an answer by looking at Freund's attempt to establish an alternative intellectual canon in France that was heavily indebted to the German tradition of political realism. The story begins with Freund's early relationship with Raymond Aron, and suggests, perhaps provocatively, that Freund is responsible for luring Aron back into his studies on Max Weber dating from the 1930s. It then moves on to explore Freund's relationship with Carl Schmitt. Freund became Schmitt's closest French friend and, for forty years, exhibited a veritable obsession with disseminating Schmitt's work in France. Finally, it suggests that recent attempts by those who wish to place Freund within a current tradition of French liberalism are mistaken. Instead Freund must be placed within a German Neue Rechte context, and specifically his desire to introduce the German tradition of political realism into France. In the end the article argues that the French Nouvelle Droite—with its stress on the cultural and ethnic foundations of the nation-state—pushed Freund's political thought in a decidedly anti-liberal and seemingly pseudo-fascist direction.     

马克思“新世界观”硬核:辩证唯物主义——关于马克思“新世界观”是“三位一体论”的认识

研究马克思"新世界观"是国内马克思主义理论界近年来一直极为关注、探究、争论的重要课题。通过对历史唯物主义、实践唯物主义与辩证唯物主义三者的科学内涵的辨析,表明马克思"新世界观"硬核具有鲜明的辩证唯物主义性。     

Zhu Rongji on the Record

正He has been as direct in his editorial selections as he was in his leadership style in office and has not shied away from difficult or sensitive issues.——Henry A.Kissinger It is a unique historical document of China's unprecedented economic evolution over the past few decades.And it gives a fascinating insight into the political work of Zhu Rongji——an exceptionally gifted statesman and a dear friend.     

毛泽东思想的历史地位与当代价值

毛泽东思想是马克思主义与中国实际相结合的光辉典范,是夺取中国革命胜利的理论武器,同时也是中国共产党人的世界观和方法论,是建设中国特色社会主义理论的思想渊源和理论先导,是中华民族团结振兴的精神支柱和政治优势。在建设中国特色社会主义事业的过程中,毛泽东思想对中国经济发展、思想政治文化工作发展以及和谐社会建设与执政党建设的发展仍然具有重要的时代价值。     

略论历史人物的评价问题——以邓小平评价毛泽东为例

历史人物是历史活动的主要参与者,历史人物的评价问题关系如何对待和研究相关历史。只有用唯物史观的立场、观点、方法,才能透过错综复杂的历史现象认清历史本质,正确评价历史人物。邓小平实事求是地评价了毛泽东,恰如其分地看待其晚年错误,科学分析了毛泽东思想,为当前的历史人物评价提供了经典范例,值此邓小平诞辰110周年之际,回顾其如何正确评价毛泽东,具有重要的理论与现实借鉴作用。     

The realism debate and the politics of modern art in early postwar Japan

This article examines the realism debate (riarizumu ronsō) that took place between 1946 and 1950 as a forum in which ideas on artistic form, the role of the artist in society, and the social relevance of art come into focus in a way that allows us to see how questions such as Japan's modernity, the recent experience of fascism, and the challenges of rebuilding culture during the early cold war were taken up by leading cultural figures in the field of the visual arts. Occurring alongside discussions of how the art world could be reformed to avoid the failures of fascism, the debate served as an occasion to re-examine the history of modern art in Europe and Japan and to consider the question of artistic representation in a way that opened the most fundamental question of art's relationship to the world and promised to begin the process of envisioning it anew. The debate involved three camps which I label social realism (represented by Hayashi Fumio and Nagai Kiyoshi), modernist realism (Hijikata Tei’ichi), and avant-garde realism (Uemura Takachiyo, Okamoto Tarō, and Hanada Kiyoteru). While assessing their points of agreement and disagreement, I argue that the debate set the stage for debates in the 1950s and beyond.     

中缅边界问题解决的历史过程(1954-1961)

1949年10月新中国成立时,中缅边界存在"三段未决的问题",分别是北段尖高山以北的未定界问题、中段猛卯三角地①的"永租"问题和南段"1941年线"问题。1954年至1961年,经过反复沟通和多次谈判,中缅两国最终和平解决了边界问题。根据其特点,中缅边界问题解决的历史过程可划分为提出问题、初步交换意见、直接谈判和签订条约4个阶段。     

Radical-right narratives in Slovakia and Hungary: historical legacies,mythic overlaying and contemporary politics

ABSTRACT

In the last several years, radical-right rhetoric has gained further ground in the political discourse of Slovakia and Hungary. This increasingly overt spiral of tension has been fuelled not only by radical-right actors, such as the Slovenská národná strana (SNS, Slovak National Party) and Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary), but also by mainstream parties such as SMER in Slovakia and Fidesz in Hungary. The legitimizing radical-right frames have mostly been founded on politicized historical narratives related to the intertwined processes of nation- and state-building in both countries. Pytlas seeks to describe and analyse this phenomenon, focusing on historical legacies, their mythologized reinterpretations as well as their application to contemporary politics. The debates on the Slovak language law of 2009 and the Hungarian citizenship law of 2010 shall be used as empirical examples of this ‘mythic overlaying’ mechanism.     

西方古典共和主义的历史流变

作为西方历史与文化传统的重要组成部分,古典共和主义自古代希腊和罗马以来,其思想和实践不断得到丰富和发展,中世纪后期,形成了较为完整的古典共和主义理论,为近代共和主义的诞生乃至发展提供了理论和实践的基础。