Contradictory Statements Research Articles

A Study in Sufi Poetics: The Case of ʿAṭṭār Nayshābūrī

Throughout his poetic oeuvre, Shaykh Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār Nayshābūrī (d. ca. 618/1221) repeatedly addresses the question of the relationship between literary-poetic and religio-mystical pursuits. ʿAṭṭār vacillates between denouncing poetic composition as inconsistent with religious orthodoxy, and embracing poetry as the very apex of spiritual practice. This essay explores ʿAṭṭār’s fluid poetics through a comprehensive examination of his stated positions in his four authentic mathnavīs. It concludes that ʿAṭṭār’s contradictory statements regarding the poetic enterprise exemplify the paradoxical position of a Sufi mystic-poet grappling with the tension of literary self-affirmation in the face of spiritual self-annihilation.

Introduction to analyzing the solidification of multifunctional acrylic esters by ESR

Published approaches to analyze the kinetics of radical photo-polymerization are mainly based on in situ IR or Raman measurements. But these techniques only monitor the monomer decay. Additional information particularly about solidification cannot be obtained with these methods. Electron spin resonance, ESR, spectroscopy allows monitoring of radicals. The presented investigation gives an introduction to additional applications of ESR to monitor the solidification of multifunctional acrylic esters by successive in situ irradiation. This general approach to monitor the termination rate of the midchain radical which is not involved in propagation but whose lifetime is correlated via mobility with the solidification which is demonstrated with a set of commercially available multifunctional resins without an initiator. A detailed analysis of ESR signals is required to prove that the presented method is applicable for acrylic esters and to clarify published contradictory statements. The properties and the curing of the resins are characterized by additional methods, such as UV-Vis and Raman spectroscopy. The first results based on this innovative technique indicate that the functionality of the ester group has a significant and, most of all, measurable effect on the mobility of the small reactive molecules within the cured(-ing) polymer.

The Reality of Real Time

Abstract According to Bernard Stiegler the technological contrivances that rule our world have set in motion dangerous developments. Although Stiegler is not a technophobe, he believes that the technological devices that are constructed around real time (live broadcasting, mobile phone communications, digital photography, etc.) introduce a new refation to time that jeopardises the cohesion of society. They erase the delay of time that is essential to it and thereby wipe away the singular, which is a crucial element in the construction of the social.This essay examines the nature of this argument and queries its factual basis. It does this by first exploring the technological or prosthetic nature of Dasein by referring to Heidegger's definition of Dasein as ecstatic time. After this short exposition, the essay shows how Stiegler strengthens this pre-prosthetic nature of time that can be found in Heidegger into a time which is fully fledged prosthetic or fundamentally constituted by the technological devices that exteriorise it. The second part of the essay focuses on Stiegler's hesitations and even contradictory statements regarding the contemporary production of time. Sometimes he presents real time as a factual accompliment, sometimes he is more careful and characterises it to be merely a tendency; there are passages in which he proclaims the end of history, and other ones in which he presents that end as a fiction and a warning. The comments on the rather dramatic and evocative pages Stiegler inserts in La technique et le temps 1 , together with ideas and comments from Maurice Blanchot and Richard Beardsworth, serve as a bridge to ducuss the philosophical importance of an ambiguity in the actuality of real time.Keywords real time, technology, origin by default, prosthesis, end of history, aporia, Heidegger's Dasein, Derrida's differance, Deleuze's ideasOur writing materiah cooperate with our thoughts'Friedrich NietzscheAnybody who has recently attended a big music concert, and is old enough to think back in time twenty years or so, will admit that today's concert experience has radically changed. Big screens allow the viewers to see what happens on stage in every detail and from every angle. Certainly this is of great value for the people standing at the back and not being able to see the stage. But the screen does not only serve these people; it also absorbs the attention of the people in front of the stage. The eye of the camera is so powerful that people almost unconsciously abandon the preference to see with their own eyes. Does this technological innovation in which the delay between the event, the recording of it and the reception of the recording is almost reduced to zero, change the experience in a fundamental way? Do real time technologies change the way we relate to the world, not only in a practical, but also in an essential way?The relation of man and technology is one of the central topics in the work of the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler. In contrast to the technophobe attitude embraced by traditional philosophy, Stiegler stresses the constitutive role of technology in the ever-continuing process of the creation of man's essence. However, with respect to real time technologies his stance is less positive. Stiegler even warns of the metaphysical danger hidden inside these technologies, although he takes care to cloak this criticism in allegories, 'as if arguments and questions.We would like to investigate why Stiegler is so afraid of real time technologies and why his utterances with respect to this subject are so ambiguous. In order to answer the first question we will sketch the Heideggerian and Derridean background of Stiegler's idea of the technologically constituted human and the way in which he appropriates this philosophical heritage. The second question will be dealt with by analysing and comparing several text passages. For there are passages in which Stiegler speaks about real time as a factual accomplishment and others in which he characterises real time as a mere tendency; off and on he proclaims the end of history and warns of or fictionalises the end of history. …

“In Far Cathay”: Representations of China in The Boy’s Own Paper, 1879–1914

This paper considers how “knowledge” of China was presented for Victorian and Edwardian children in The Boy’s Own Paper (BOP) between 1879 and 1914. It considers how genre affects the representation of China in the BOP by comparing travel narratives and adventure stories. First, it focuses on non-fiction about China, examining the rhetorical strategies employed by the authors of travel narratives. The travellers express confidence in their ability to survey the land and present readers with the idea that China is abundant in resources awaiting British discovery. Second, the article discusses adventure stories about opium and piracy written during a period when the tension between the British and the Chinese was particularly fraught over these issues. While the authors of the adventure stories created a strong contrast between the Chinese as villains and the British as heroes, the BOP travel writers provide contradictory statements within their narratives, reflecting an ambivalence about China and the Chinese. However, because the BOP contributors sought to instil a sense of patriotism, to inspire their readers to serve the British Empire, both the non-fiction travel narratives and the fictional adventure stories related to China were published not only to entertain readers with exotic facts and thrilling stories, but more importantly, to persuade them of the necessity of British intervention.

Reply to the Discussion by Callow et al. on “Were the Ediacaran siliciclastics of South Australia coastal or deep marine?” by Gregory J. Retallack, Sedimentology, 59, 1208–1236

Callow et al. (2012) conclude with two contradictory statements: (i) ‘‘It seems entirely probable, while as yet unproven, that soils or soil-like processes could be present in intertidal to supratidal portions of the Ediacara Member’’; and (ii) ‘‘On the basis of sedimentological observations, deposition of the fossil-bearing strata within fully marine, tempestite sandstones is considered to be the most parsimonious interpretation’’. My paper (Retallack, 2012a) presents evidence from a variety of geochemical, petrographic, granulometric and palaeopedological analyses, as well as sedimentological observations, that would appear to falsify their second statement, while supporting their first statement. ‘As yet unproven’ can be taken as an opinion of a working hypothesis, following Popper’s (1968) view that mathematics may offer formal proof, but science can only falsify. Thus, Callow et al. (2012) agree that there are non-marine as well as marine parts of the Ediacara Member, as also argued by Mawson & Segnit (1949), Goldring & Curnow (1967) and Jenkins et al. (1983), but not the entirely deep marine interpretation of Mount (1989), and Gehling (2000, and for Fedonkin et al., 2008). Callow et al. (2012) are mistaken in asserting that marine facies and hummocky cross-stratification were not mentioned or illustrated by Retallack (2012a). Hummocky cross-stratification illustrated by Gehling (2000) and heterolithic intertidal facies illustrated by Jenkins et al. (1983) were both mentioned and incorporated in an explicit reinterpretation of sequence stratigraphy of the Ediacara Member, that included horizons of marine influence (Retallack, 2012a, p. 1214, figs 4D and 6). In their original description of hummocky cross-stratification, Dott & Bourgeois (1982) used examples from deltaic sandstones of the Eocene Coaledo Formation of Oregon, familiar to this author from many years of student excursions. Subsequent discoveries of hummocky stratification have been in shoreface to shallow marine shelf palaeoenvironments, not the deep ocean (Higgs, 2011). Callow et al. (2012) also note: ‘‘Here it is concluded that analysis of demonstrably subaqueous, and most probably marine, microbial mat fabrics has led Retallack (2012a) towards mistaken conclusions about his subaerial palaeosols’’. This does not follow as a conclusion, because demonstration that mat fabrics of the Ediacara Member are subaqueous cannot be found in their preceding discussion. The South Australian Ediacaran mat fabrics are detailed by Retallack (2012a), as well as another recent publication (Retallack, 2012b), which develops general criteria for discrimination of microbial mats (marine-lacustrine) and microbial earths (non-marine subaerial). In summary, microbial earths have vertically oriented organisms intimately admixed with minerals of the soil, whereas microbial mats are laminated, and detachable from their mineral substrate as flakes, skeins and rollups. Microbial earths have irregular relief, healed desiccation cracks and pressure ridges even in clay-poor sandstones, whereas microbial mats have flexuous, striated domes and tufts. Microbial earths form deep soil profiles with downward variation in oxidation, clay abundance and replacive nodular subsurface horizons, whereas microbial mats form caps to unweathered, chemically reduced sedimentary layers. Microbial earths develop increasingly differentiated soil profiles through time, whereas microbial mats build upward in laminar to domed increments. On the basis of these criteria, the healed cracks and ridges characteristic of the microbially induced sedimentary structure designated ‘old elephant skin’ and its underlying stratal homogenization, nodularization and geochemical differentiation in the Ediacara Member are interpreted as subaerial microbial earths, and not subaqueous microbial mats (Retallack, 2012a). Sedimentology (2013) 60, 628–630 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3091.2012.01362.x

The good, the bad and the vague: Assessing emerging Conservative drug policy

New Labour came to power promising to offer a new, evidence based approach towards drug policy. However, despite early promise, the latter years of the Labour government descended towards tabloid led criminal justice populism. During the same period, the Conservative opposition often gave contradictory messages on policy, although they increasingly appeared to veer towards a hard-line, abstinence based approach. In power they have moved quickly to produce a drugs strategy that promises a move towards a ‘recovery’ agenda. This article reviews and evaluates the evolving Conservative Party policies on drugs misuse and explores whether the strategy lives up to its ambitious rhetoric and its stated aim to follow evidence based policies. It finds a mixture of laudable aims; vague and sometimes contradictory statements; proposals that are unsupported, and sometimes contraindicated, by evidence; and policy goals that are often at risk of being undermined by a wider policy agenda that threatens to marginalize people with drug problems still further.

‘Ambivalence’ at the end of life

Health-care professionals in end-of-life care are frequently confronted with patients who seem to be 'ambivalent' about treatment decisions, especially if they express a wish to die. This article investigates this phenomenon by analysing two case stories based on narrative interviews with two patients and their caregivers. First, we argue that a respectful approach to patients requires acknowledging that coexistence of opposing wishes can be part of authentic, multi-layered experiences and moral understandings at the end of life. Second, caregivers need to understand when contradictory statements point to tensions in a patient's moral experience that require support. Third, caregivers should be careful not to negatively label or even pathologize seemingly contradictory patient statements.

Fast Curing of Adhesives in the Field of CFRP

The interest in carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) structures does not only increase in the area of aircraft construction, but also in the automotive industry. Due to the two-dimensional load transfer adhesive technology offers a particularly high potential of joining structures in lightweight construction. The adhesive systems applied for joining relevant CFRP structures show an insufficient initial strength thus necessitating additional fixing of the components or an accelerated curing of the adhesive. Induction technology has proved to be the most adequate heating technique for fast curing of metal bonds since it achieves high heating rates and enables a drastic reduction of the curing times. Due to their electrical conductivity, CFRP can also be heated by induction. Well-founded studies have been published explaining the physical mechanism behind the generation of heat within CFRP by electromagnetic induction. However, the relation between material and process parameters and the resulting heat generation and temperature distribution in CFRP parts still need to be investigated since, contradictory statements can be found in the literature. A profound knowledge of these relations, though, is elementary in order to predict the heat generation which is necessary to design a safe, fast curing process and to avoid damages to the material. Thus, the fundamental relations existing between the material/process parameters, the heat generation, and the resulting joining characteristics will be verified and discussed.

Where are we going and what are we doing? Two seemingly opposing views with a unified message about the discrepancy between organizational behavior theory and business practice

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need for critical review and realignment of business education as well as business practices to contemporary needs.Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyzes two compelling presentations from distinguished scholars in which they made a seemingly contradictory statement about the discrepancy between business education and practice. Subsequently, a critical analysis of the presentations is applied, through which some remarkable similarities emerge.FindingsThe paper finds that: there is a discrepancy between what business education knows and what it does; there is a discrepancy between what business knows and what it does; and the discrepancy on both ends should be attributed to multiple reasons, of which the most important one is: the resistance to adopt the change that epitomizes contemporary circumstances.Practical implicationsManagement and organizational behavior scholars should rethink their stance toward educating and preparing today's business students for the ambiguous workplace that awaits them. At the same time, business practitioners should start adopting reward practices that fit today's predominantly organic work environments.Originality/valueThis paper presents a viewpoint that is still rejected and considered unpopular among large groups of scholars who insist on a quantifiable and highly theoretical underpinning of their teachings, even though they are confronted with an increasing gap between their teachings and writings, and the highly volatile reality.

When disputants dispute: interactional aspects of arguments in family mediation sessions

AbstractMediation is predicated on the notion that disputants have an argument or disagreement about something. Mediation is set up with a “neutral” mediator to enable an agreement to emerge from competing positions. Mediators are appointed by a third-party (e.g., courts) to enable a neutral forum for joint decision making, where disputants can set out their proposals and negotiate an agreement where possible. However, in the family mediation sessions investigated in this study, there are specific challenges that confront the process of reaching agreement, namely the emotionality of disputing terms of visitation for children. Using conversation analysis, this paper investigates how parents explicitly challenge and contradict each other during mediation sessions with a court-appointed mediator. Rather than use the mediator to repackage and redirect contradictory statements, parents directly address each other by violating question–answer sequences, completing mediator turns, and repairing formulations made by the mediator, to name a few. These findings bear resemblance to arguments investigated in non-mediation settings (e.g., playgrounds). This similarity is particularly interesting given the fact that mediation is designed, at least in theory, to minimize direct challenges and contradictions (cf. Garcia 1991).

The dialogic dramaturgy of Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray

ABSTRACTIn this article, I consider Matthew Bourne's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray in the light of recent theoretical perspectives on dramaturgy and translation which are less concerned with, respectively, synthesis and ‘authority’ than with complexity and negotiation. Relating these perspectives to Bakhtin's concept of dialogism and Kristeva's of intertextuality, I discuss Bourne's ballet as a dialogue between authors (including Bourne's collaborators), between texts and between forms. I explore how Bourne is situated in his reading of Wilde's novel and interrogate his seemingly contradictory statement that he can remain ‘true’ to his source while ‘taking liberties’ with it. The article focuses on Bourne's translation of Wilde's central image, the picture itself, but also includes reference to critical reception of both the novel and the ballet. Its key aim is to illuminate the ways in which the multiple strands of this translation connect outwards from the ballet to sociopolitical, cultural and aesthetic concerns relevant, in different ways, to both Wilde and Bourne.

The Prizefighter and the Playwright: Gene Tunney and Bernard Shaw (review)

Reviewed by: The Prizefighter and the Playwright: Gene Tunney and Bernard Shaw Matthew Yde Jay R. Tunney. The Prizefighter and the Playwright: Gene Tunney and Bernard Shaw. Richmond Hill, Ontario: Firefly Books, Ltd., 2010. Pp. 287. $35 (Hb). The enigmatic Bernard Shaw is known for many roles, most of them related either to literature or to politics: a great playwright, an outstanding critic, a failed novelist, a leading member of the Fabian Society, an outspoken socialist, even, for six years, a vestryman. What is not so well known is his passionate interest in boxing and his great friendship with heavyweight champion Gene Tunney. To bring some needed clarity to one of the most puzzling figures in the history of modern drama, as well as to pay tribute to his father, Jay R. Tunney has written a fascinating book on the friendship that developed between Shaw and Tunney in the late 1920s, just after Tunney retired as heavyweight champion of the world, and that continued until the end of Shaw’s life in 1950. Gene Tunney grew up in a poor neighbourhood in New York City, the eldest son of Irish immigrants, and, while his talents as a boxer were able to lift him out of poverty, his love of books and learning was what raised him out of his class. Approximately the first half of the book recounts Tunney’s miraculous journey to the title of heavyweight champion after his defeat of Jack Dempsey in 1926. Tunney defeated Dempsey again in a 1927 rematch – famously known as “the long count” fight – and shortly thereafter met Shaw. While Tunney was ridiculed by sportswriters and boxing fans for what they considered his intellectual pretentions (he was actually booed when he received the Belt in Madison Square Garden, an incident that disgusted Jack Dempsey), he was a fascinating enigma to the literati, who were amazed by and sometimes sceptical of his interest in “high” culture. Able to quote effortlessly from the works of Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, and Shaw, Tunney delivered a lecture on Shakespeare at Yale in 1927 and counted Thornton Wilder among his friends. Shaw had been interested in boxing since his early days in London when his friend “Paquito” Beatty invited him into the ring of the London Athletic Club. The two would engage in friendly sparring matches, and in 1883, the future playwright actually fought an amateur match. So we should not be surprised to learn that Shaw wished to meet the erudite pugilist. In 1928, Shaw made repeated attempts to schedule a meeting with the retired [End Page 580] champ, which finally proved successful when the two met at Shaw’s posh new residence at Whitehall Court later in the year. The account of this first meeting makes for compelling reading, as Jay Tunney captures the setting brilliantly and has a dramatist’s gift for sparkling dialogue. The luncheon was attended by a veritable “who’s who” of the rich and famous, including H.G. Wells; Max Beerbohm; the Irish painter Sir John Lavery and his renowned socialite wife, Hazel; Maurice Baring, author and member of the family that owned the international banking firm Baring Brothers; and others. Tunney’s book reads in many ways like a novel, with the climax of the narrative action suspended over the seven chapters that cover the month that Shaw and Tunney spent on the island of Brioni in the north Adriatic Sea. Tunney’s wife suddenly became very ill – indeed, on the brink of dying – when an incident saved her life and was seen by Shaw (and others) as a miracle. Shaw’s religious views have always been difficult to comprehend because of the many seemingly contradictory statements that are sprinkled through his writing. In his presentation of the events on Brioni and of Shaw’s later relationship with the Benedictine Abbess Sister Laurentia Margaret McLachlan, Tunney suggests that Shaw did believe in God and that the “miracle” on Brioni was perhaps a key element in solidifying a very unorthodox and sometimes wavering faith. Shavians may disagree over the significance of the event, and Tunney takes liberties inventing the dialogue between his father and Shaw in the old church, but he has...

Investigating the Distributions of Differences between Mainshock and Foreshock Magnitudes

Previous research produces seemingly contradictory statements about the distribution of differences between mainshock and foreshock magnitudes. Specifically, some authors find that the magnitude difference between the mainshock and the foreshock is equally likely to be large as to be small. However, other authors find that the distribution of the magnitude differences between the foreshock- mainshock pairs is not uniform. We consider foreshock-mainshock pairs within the recent Japanese earthquake catalog and worldwide data to explore the discrepan- cies between these seemingly contradictory studies. The results of the previous studies differ because of the different foreshock-mainshock earthquake pairs that are consid- ered by the two sets of authors. We show that using the definitions employed by either type of study permits the found distributions to be derived analytically and further explains how the results are dependent upon the assumed definition of foreshocks and the data selection.

Monstrous Philosophy: Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya, or the Moor and John Milton’s Paradise Lost

Charlotte Dacre’s novel Zofloya, or the Moor: A Romance of the 15th Century (1806) scandalized its contemporary reviewers, offended not only by its many references to erotic activity, often adulterous, or its extended scenes of violence, but also by its representation of the title character as an avatar of Satan. Critics of Gothic literature have offered varied interpretations of the moral issues presented in the novel, and the narrator makes numerous contradictory statements about morality, reason, and temptation. Dacre’s narrator often warns her readers (and her characters) to adhere to conventional moral principles in order to avoid evil for themselves and others, but her repeated references to Paradise Lost are similar to other Romantic era re-visions that reveal much more interest in representations of rebellion against – rather than submission to – moralistic authority. In the novel, renaissance Venice becomes a type of anti-Eden as Zofloya and Victoria debate the meaning of ‘right reason’ in alternate versions of the philosophy of Paradise Lost as they rationalize their sensual desires and crimes of power.

Not your grandfather's IMF: global crisis, 'productive incoherence' and developmental policy space

The response by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (and developing country national governments) to the current global financial crisis represents a moment of what I term ‘productive incoherence’, which has displaced the constraining ‘neoliberal coherence’ of the past several decades. Productive incoherence refers to the proliferation of inconsistent and even contradictory strategies and statements by the IMF that to date have not congealed into any sort of new, organised regime. Those who see continuity at the IMF emphasise the reassertion of the IMF’s authority, the reiteration of pro-cyclical policy adjustment and the maintenance of existing governance patterns within the institution. In contrast, evidence of discontinuity includes a world now populated by increasingly autonomous states in the South, the normalisation of capital controls and Fund conditionality programmes that are inconsistent in key respects. In the face of this evidence, it is best to understand the current conjuncture as an ‘interregnum’ that is pregnant with new development possibilities.

Buddhist Legal Studies Experimentation for University-Approved Students and Professional Religious Organisations

Organizations in Australia are controlled by civil laws to guide administration. For small religious ethnic Buddhist majority temples, more details protocols with need to be established based on Australian culture of Buddhism. Current lack of proper legal procedures against faulty Buddhist administration will require new guideline. It is understood that specific regulations are specially drafted to guide the ethic of religious organization in addition to civil laws, ensuring no contradictory statements happened. Due to the nature of loving kindness and spirituality of religious entity, many scripture-based regulations are not properly followed due to lack of proper references and guidelines inherited previously but may not be suitable for Australian context. This is particularly true for Australian Buddhism where the dharma-based Law of Karma etc have not been fully explored and applied. This project will serve to investigate standard regulations suitable for Buddhist organization in order to formally prosecute and condemn corrupted leaders with reference to Islamic Syariah and Catholic Law.

A review of “Discovery of possible hybrid of the Critically Endangered Forest Owlet Athene blewitti and Spotted Owlet Athene brama from northern Maharashtra”

Pande et al. (2011) have reported possible hybrid of the Forest Owlet Heteroglaux blewitti and Spotted Owlet Athene brama. This has begun an intriguing debate on hybridization among owls. Their claim is based on field observations; photographic and videotaped evidences however, the interpretation offered by the authors would seem unlikely. We found several anomalies in this paper pertaining to identification of the species, vocalization, behaviour and logic presented for hybridization. There are many points in the communication that need a wellsupported reference. The first paragraph of the paper describes about lowest hybridization rate among owls (Mikkola 2003) however authors make a contradictory statement in the second last paragraph of the paper giving a reference of del Hoyo et al. (1999) addressing it as a well-known phenomenon. However, del Hoyo et al. (1999) state

‘KHALISTAN IS DEAD! LONG LIVE KHALISTAN!’

The Khalistan issue is a dead-end campaign, yet the movement called ‘lehar’ is alive and well. This seemingly contradictory statement becomes evident when the two different concepts of Khalistan and their protagonists are considered. One is a modernist demand for a territorial Sikh State. The other is a resistance against enforced, sometimes violent and arguably unnecessary modernist political and cultural changes that challenge the Sikhs as a people who have a sophisticated concept of nationhood of their own. The territorial Khalistan is largely led by educated modernist Sikhs, diasporic Sikhs in the west and an imagined obsession of academics and journalists since 1984 peddling clichéd analysis. It is almost a defunct campaign reduced to slogans of Khalistan Zindabad and annual marches with diminishing attendees. However, the lehar, the real movement of ordinary Sikhs, has been around for at least a century, particularly since 1920, and continues to pose a relentless challenge to the modern Indian State and its search for identity and nationhood. Incoherent, unarticulated and without direction or even a clear end goal, the lehar reacts ferociously each time the State and its modernist tendencies infringe the internal coherence of the Sikhs as a people. It is a discomfort to India's adopted but failing secularity and the State's desperate efforts to construct a nation where none exists to justify its existence. It is a vibrant movement that continues to defy commentators and State predictions and at its core is the unique Sikh concept of Guru Granth–Guru Panth as a non-territorial entity or nation. It may well go on to precipitate the death of modernist post-colonial India gripped by an increasing number of conflicts since 1947, and pave the way for indigenous solutions as well as revival of the pluralism of Indian civilisation in the Indian State as the latter comes to terms with a simple fact: that India is a state of several nations, each with their own cultural and political outlooks.

Dishonest Government: Local Government Reorganisation, England 2006–2010

‘When I use a word’, Humpty-Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’(Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass.) The local government reorganisation process introduced by the Labour government in England in the 2006–2010 period is characterised by a range of disturbing characteristics, in particular the misuse of the English language, the disjunctive between rhetoric and reality and a failure to distinguish between what is ‘lawful’ and what is proper. These claims are justified on the basis of an independent assessment of the government's claims regarding the costs and savings associated with a move to unitary authorities, a review of the court cases involved, which all involved serious criticism of the government's approach, and a critical review of the various contradictory statements made by government ministers during the course of the process. The evidence of the way the government handled the process has serious implications for the way in which public administration needs to be reformed.

A Deconstructive Reading on Luigi Pirandello‘s Six Characters in Search of an Author

This paper is a deconstructive reading of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. The pivotal maxim of deconstruction is the paradoxical nature of language and the unwanted contradictory statements. According to deconstructionists, such contradictory statements are produced in all situations that use language as the medium of communication. Any deconstructive reading will focus on dissenting voices, contradictions, oppositions, and paradoxes. This study also concentrates on the paradoxes embedded in the Six Characters in terms of first, discovering the binary oppositions on which the text tries to build itself, second, challenging and questioning the reliability of such oppositions, third, trying to turn them upside down and, finally, holding them in suspense to reach to an impossible path or an ‘aporia’ where it is impossible to decide. So, the text remains finally unreadable and undecidable, any reading being necessarily a misreading. Since deconstruction is not a method or strategy outside the text to be imposed on it but a way to trace the labyrinth of the text to reveal how it has already dismantled and deconstructed itself, this study is no parasitic means of reading the text brought upon it from outside. Rather, it is a careful trial to follow the twists of the Six Characters and to show how it asserts contradictory opinions concerning identity, the concept of author, text, actor, etc. to prove finally that the text affirms paradoxical assertion and therefore, it affirms nothing. It tries to prove that the Six Characters as an extended stretch of language is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”