Suchergebnisse

María Pía Lara explores the ambiguity of secularization and the theoretical potential of a structural break between politics and religion. For Lara, secularization means the translation of religious semantics into politics; a transformation of religious notions into political ideas; and the reoccupation of a space left void by changing political actors, one that gives rise to new conceptions of political interaction. Conceptual innovation redefines politics as a horizontal relationship between governments and the governed, better enabling societies (and political actors) to articulate mea

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In Narrating Evil, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development.Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role in helping societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead

This article deals with our constructed notions of evil and how an historical appraisal takes shape after specific stories and narratives become important objects of public deliberation, historical criticism, and disclosive views of what constitutes the moral harms of human cruelty. I analyze the historical representations of the meaning of evil in specific historical times through narratives that have made important contributions to our historical understanding of them. I also propose that our learning from them is the result of public debates, of memory wars, and of important interventions from public intellectuals, writers, historians and witnesses. Therefore, deliberating about human cruelty is always a reconstructive effort to understand and judge what has happened and why it could have been prevented. The term evil is a moral filter that allows us to situate the kind of moral harm that needs a specific lens of moral understanding and a reconfiguration of actions that tie perpetrators to sufferers. Moral harms are better ways to describe the kind of actions that we call evil. The article highlights the relevance of language, disclosive views, criticism, public debate and the ways in which societies cope with their past in order to envision a different future. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications and Thesis Eleven Co-op Ltd, copyright 2007.]

Investigates the problem of cultural rights in democratic systems, arguing that cultural rights are a dimension of democratic citizenship. As such, multicultural claims for recognition must be considered as initial processes of widening the democratic scope of constitutional rights, steps in the larger progression toward universalization & integration. Conceptualizations of citizenship & its attendant rights, as well as the processes through which these evolve, are examined, drawing on & revising the ideas of T. H. Marshall & Jurgen Habermas. The disaggregation of cultural rights & their role in the attainment of social integration are discussed, & directions toward the development of what Will Kymlicka (1995) calls a "multicultural pluralism" are outlined. Feminist objections, particularly those of Susan Moller Okin (1998), to multicultural theorists' arguments about rights are challenged. K. Hyatt Stewart

This article offers a new interpretation of Mexico's transition to democracy that differs from the pessimistic and less culturally oriented ones that currently prevail. In the article I develop a normative model, which emphasizes the moral capacities of civil societies and their ability to inspire altruistic actions. I suggest that this approach is not only more compelling philosophically but also more plausible empirically. To demonstrate this, I reconstruct a series of events from Mexico's recent past. My discussion suggests that social actors can reconfigure societal self-understandings through moral interventions in the public sphere and that such refigurations of the symbolic order are central for democratic transition.

Offers a new interpretation of Mexico's transition to democracy that differs from the pessimistic & less culturally oriented ones that currently prevail. A normative model is developed that emphasizes the moral capacities of civil societies & their ability to inspire altruistic actions. It is suggested that this approach is not only more compelling philosophically, but also more plausible empirically. To demonstrate this, a series of events from Mexico's recent past is reconstructed. Discussion suggests that social actors can reconfigure societal self-understandings through moral interventions in the public sphere, & such reconfigurations of the symbolic order are central for democratic transition. 16 References. Adapted from the source document.