Walter Benjamin’s Variations of Imagelessness

Abstract

Strongly positive uses of terms that designate an absence, a cognitive or ontological impossibility or a sensory privation are among the persistent conceptual figures of Benjamin’s thought. This article analyses the moves by which Benjamin gave his concept of ‘the expressionless’ (das Ausdruckslose) its intriguing semantic meaning and moral value. Drawing on the poetics and philosophy of the sublime from Greek antiquity through modern times, the article reveals key historical reference points of Benjamin’s concept and, furthermore, his strategy of advocating a novel theory of the sublime as an antithesis to, or an interruption of, the beautiful by selectively integrating older traditions (such as the topos of god’s “imagelessness”) with theorems previously unrelated to these traditions (such as phenomenological reflections on body perception and colour and the twentieth-century discourse on “decision”).     

Autonomy and Psychic Socialization: From Non-Alienated Labour to Non Surplus Repressive Sublimation

Abstract

The work of Herbert Marcuse, unlike that of certain of his col leagues at the Institut für Sozialforschung, is most often maligned as being excessively positive and identitarian. His work on Freud, for example, is criticized for being grounded in a crude biological determinism which points towards an ultimate reconciliation of both psychic and social conflict. This essay will attempt to counter such readings by critically juxtaposing Marcuse's concept of non-repressive sublimation with Cornelius Castoriadis's understanding of psychic socialization. It will be suggested that the affinities between Marcuse and Castoriadis's appropriations of Freudian metapsychology reveals the degree to which the former can be read as a radical democratic thinker affirming the values of autonomy and creativity. This reading demonstrates that Marcuse has much to contribute to contemporary debates on the role of the aesthetic and the sensuous in democratic theory.     

社会公正与以德化民

道德教化与社会公正相辅相成,社会公正是社会主义公民道德教化的本质体现,也是建构高尚的公民道德的基本保障;以德化民有利于促进社会公正的实现。因此,实现社会公正是党和政府的重要任务。我们应该着重从党、国家、政府和社会等多个层面加强营造社会公正的氛围,从而为实现以德化民打下坚实的基础。     

作为科学发展道义保障的社会主义核心价值体系

科学发展观和社会主义核心价值体系,对这两者关系的认识具有理论探索和实践导引的重要意义。从具体运作的合目的性和有效性来讲,社会主义核心价值体系是总体以及各领域工作科学发展的道义保障。本文的分析指出,这种道义保障主要包括三个方面的内容,即由哲学提供的信仰根据、由价值提供的发展导向以及由理想提供的自由状态。     

公安院校英语教学中的德育教育

公安机关的性质和任务决定了德育教育对公安院校学生的重要性.在公安院校英语教学中,对学生进行德育教育要注意引导学生学习西方文化,培养学生跨文化素质;增强学生责任意识,做学习的主人,对自己和社会负责,增强学生的责任感;运用多种教学法,培养学生团结合作的精神;根据英语教材,挖掘文章的思想内涵,加强德育渗透,结合所学内容全面提升学生的人文素养与道德品质,实现教书与育人的统一,从而达到提高学生德育素质之目的.     

Moral Dilemmas of Community Leaders and Sense of Community

Abstract

This paper draws on Kohlberg's tiieory of moral development, and on an empirical research conducted with leaders (two women, two men) in Venezuelan urban working-class communities. The leaders were repeatedly interviewed during a two-year period, about their experiences leading their communities. Those narratives were analyzed and discussed with them. Based on these grounds, two interrelated products were constructed: (1) Three moral dilemmas to be used in educational discussions with community leaders such as members of organized community groups; civic volunteers, officers from non-governmental organizations working with communities, and (2) A developmental approach to the sense of community in urban working-class communities. Finally, it argues about the need of balancing the current approaches of moral development, through a stronger emphasis on the community dimensions of that sense and its consequences on leadership.     

History,memory and nation building in the post-Soviet colonial space

This is an article on Bolshevik nationalities policy and ethnic engineering, asking who, in fact, decided which populations belonged together as ethnic groups (narodnost') and thus had the right of national self-determination, and how the level of autonomy was determined for each ethnic unit. Scholars have dealt with Russian and Soviet nationalities issues for decades already, but they have turned their attention mainly to the larger nationalities (at the level of SSR, and to a lesser degree the levels of ASSR and autonomous oblast). I argue that the lower levels of national territorial autonomy in the Soviet Union (national okrug, raion, volost', and selsovet) are worthy of greater academic attention, at least from the ethnological point of view. Having this kind of low-level territorial autonomy has often been a question of to be or not to be for the small ethnic groups concerned, and hence the subject is connected with the question of preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity in Russia.     

The Dangerous Ideal of Autonomy

The ideal of autonomy has a positive and a negative aim. Its positive aim is to create the conditions in which more and more people can be more and more autonomous. Its negative aim is to prevent actions that cause serious harm and are normally both immoral and criminal. These two aims are incompatible. Increasing autonomy increases the frequency of crimes and decreasing the frequency of crimes requires decreasing autonomy. The incompatibility of these two aims has radical implications for much current thinking about criminal justice.     

A Mark for Peter

Abstract

This paper objects to certain forms of punishments, such as supermax confinement, on grounds that they are inappropriately contemptuous. Building on discussions in Kant and elsewhere, I flesh out what I take to be salient features of contempt, features that make contempt especially troubling as a form of moral regard and treatment. As problematic as contempt may be in the interpersonal context, I contend that it is especially troubling when a person is treated contemptuously by her political community's institutions—such as by certain forms of punishment. Punishment is contemptuous if it fails to respect offenders as moral persons, who as such are always capable of moral reform. Respect for offenders therefore requires, at least, that punishment not tend to undermine the prospect of offenders’ reform. I flesh out this constraint by considering various ways in which punishments may tend to undermine offenders’ reform. In particular, I discuss ways in which supermax confinement tends to violate the reform-based constraint. Finally, I address several potential objections to my account.     

论清官人格中的儒家伦理政治文化因素

中国古代清官大都具有公正廉明、勤政爱民的高尚人格,并能毕其一生持之以恒。清官人格的形成有着深厚的儒家伦理政治文化根基,哲学基础上的天人之辨、治国模式上的德治传统、权力来源上的民本思想和价值取向上的义利观共同构筑了中国古代清官人格塑造的理论渊源。深入理解传统文化因素在清官人格塑造中的作用对当前的官员品德培养及廉洁文化建设有着重要的现实意义。