Liberal Ideology Research Articles

Preserving choice: weaving femininity and autonomy through egg freezing discourse on Xiaohongshu

ABSTRACT This paper provides a critical investigation into the discourse of egg freezing on Xiaohongshu, a prominent social media platform in China, to uncover the complexities of female identity, reproductive autonomy, and consumer narratives within this context. Employing Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), it examines the discursive construction of self by single Chinese women who share their egg freezing experiences online. This study scrutinizes the semiotic resources utilized in these narratives, including textual and visual elements, to reveal how individuals craft their identities in relation to emerging reproductive technologies. The analysis identifies dominant themes in the discourse, such as ‘negotiation of motherhood’, ‘women’s empowerment’, and ‘technologization of egg freezing’, juxtaposing these against the backdrop of China’s market socialism and shifting social attitudes. By engaging with the posts of Xiaohongshu bloggers, the research dissects how these women articulate their journeys, challenging traditional paradigms and contributing to ongoing debates about women’s rights and feminist ideologies in the context of advanced reproductive technologies.

How to think about the instrumental politics of mass rape: a critical appraisal of feminist approaches

ABSTRACT Mass rape and other forms of sexual violence in ethnic conflict, as their incidence in Bosnian and Kosovo wars in former Yugoslavia showed in the 1990s, cannot be relativised along some strategy of either ‘victimization’ or ‘everyone is guilty’ within an antiquated framework of ethnic-religious hatred. In this case as in others, the local notions of honour and blood cannot be taken uncritically to be binding cultural traits that ought to determine social behaviour. Incidentally, they cannot either account for a structured ideology of ‘men’s war against women’, or for a postmodern feminist ideology of gender and the moral panic of a ‘patriarchal dream-order’ restored. In this article, I offer a critical appraisal of the stereotyped and relativising accounts of feminist and human rights scholars, a critique very much needed for an anthropological approach attentive to cultural ideology and activism. To understand the effectiveness of mass rape in a military strategy of ethnic cleansing, I suggest local cultural concepts and moral relativist ideas are not culturally given, but instrumental resources deliberately mobilised.

Distrusting the Process: Electoral Trust, Operational Ideology, and Nonvoting Political Participation in the 2020 American Electorate.

This article explores the relationships between electoral trust, operational ideology, and nonvoting political participation (NVP) during the 2020 US presidential election cycle. We hypothesize that: (1) more liberal operational ideology is associated with more NVP, (2) less electoral trust is associated with more NVP, and (3) operational ideology moderates the negative relationship between electoral trust and NVP. Using data from the 2020 American National Election Study (N = 8,280), our contribution is threefold: We first add to previous research that indicated liberals engage in more NVP than conservatives. We then provide some of the first evidence to suggest that electoral trust-in this case, trust prior to the 2020 election-is negatively associated with NVP. Results further indicate that the negative relationship between electoral trust and NVP is strongest among those with conservative operational ideology, such that the more trust those with conservative operational ideology have in the election, the less they engage in NVP. Given that electoral trust is crucial for a well-functioning democracy, the implication is that elites with a strategic incentive to express contempt for the election process can have direct and downstream consequences on political participation.

Luxemburg and Gramsci. The Role of Optimism and Pessimism during the Struggle for an Alternative to Capitalism

What I try to do in this paper is to analyze and probe what Rosa Luxemburg and Antonio Gramsci understand by pessimism and optimism. Luxemburg and Gramsci demonstrate how liberal capitalist ideology uses “a false form of hope to keep people yoked to the system that oppresses them.” In this “terrible world” and under the current capitalist circumstances which lead to economic, social, political and ecological crises, it may be difficult to be optimistic about the future. Besides, not only the multiple crises but also the many defeats suffered by progressive movements in the different areas of struggles against ongoing economic and political regression bring along a depressive and desperate feeling that could also be called pessimism. </p><p>The questions I am asking are very simple: What is pessimism and optimism for Luxemburg and Gramsci? For them, what sort of social conditions lead to pessimism or optimism? In this paper, I will try to demonstrate that both Rosa Luxemburg and Gramsci adopted a dialectical approach to pessimism and optimism, they were “pessoptimists” so to speak. Based upon what Hegel once said, “the negative is just as much positive”, I will explain this dialectical relationship by claiming that pessimism exists in optimism and vice versa. For this purpose, I will focus on some of Rosa Luxemburg’s texts in the recently published volumes on Revolution as well as in her letters. Furthermore, I will concentrate on some texts by Gramsci in which he makes particular reference to pessimism and optimism as symbolized by his famous “pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will”

Cultural heritage as the basis for the harmonious development of a personality in the modern information society

The article reveals some features of statehood formation in the Republic of Belarus and the role of culture in this process. We are talking about the difficult historical conditions in which the formation of the state took place, the accumulation of material cultural heritage, spiritual values, folk traditions, customs and rituals. Modern problems of pressure on young people from Western liberal ideology pose a threat to the formation of civil identity in the Republic of Belarus. Updating the role of the traditional cultural heritage of the Belarusian people is becoming an important factor in countering this. The goal of the research is to reveal the features of socio-cultural construction in the Republic at the present stage. The method of socio-historical analysis is used. The special role of the Soviet period of social development has been highlighted, when the cultural life of the country received a new breath. It has also been noted that in the first half of the 21st century, the formation of the Union State, the economic growth and cultural development of the country played a huge role in the formation of a rich material and spiritual heritage, and the education of civic and patriotic personality traits in young people. Material is presented on improving the status of cultural institutions in the republic. As a result, it has been concluded that an important factor in the growth of authority and recognition of the Republic of Belarus in the international arena was its peace-loving policy and stabilization of public life, the adoption of the Constitution, state symbols «anthem, coat of arms and flag», decisions of the People’s Assembly, Presidential decrees and government regulations.

The Ideology of Animal Liberation and the “Guilt” of Christianity Part II: The Unavoidability of Anthropocentrism

The Ideology of Animal Liberation and the “Guilt” of Christianity Part II: The Unavoidability of Anthropocentrism

Кризис теории и практики правозащитного действия

This article explores problem of the liberal rights and freedoms conceptualization and crisis of the human rights institutions legitimacy, the prospects for theory and practice of the modern defense of human rights. The author believes the human rights institutions to be currently in crisis mode because of their inability to overcome their dependence on the liberal doctrine of rights and freedoms being innate. This doctrine was imposed on the society as the only valid ideology that does not need any scientific verification or ethical mediation and basically is a quasi-religious phenomenon. Today the defense of human rights is the enforcement authority and a political subsystem, as it legitimates and delegitimates political subjects. The human rights institutions can retain their role in society by overcoming their dependence on liberal and other ideologies, abandoning the obsolete enlightenment concept of innate rights and acknowledging the priority of morality in the society.

Not to blame, but still responsible: Negotiating social representations of neoliberal feminism amongst urban middle‐class Indians

AbstractIndian gender advocacy has been criticised for promoting individualistic neoliberal solutions to issues requiring structural change. Such solutions are most accessible to middle‐class women and their dominance in gender advocacy is attributed to the middle‐class viewership of campaigns. Few studies have researched how this intended audience responds to such messages. As patriarchy benefits men, it is also important to understand how gender intersects with social class to shape responses. Accordingly, this research explores the reception of neoliberal feminist ideals in Indian gender advocacy amongst an urban middle‐class audience of 25 participants, comprising of 13 women and 12 men in Bengaluru, India. The theoretical and methodological framework is the social representations theory. Participants viewed three campaign videos and undertook semi‐structured interviews. Thematic analysis was employed to explore their perceptions of the causes and solutions to the issues portrayed in the campaigns, leading to three themes being identified. In the theme of ‘individuals’, participants held women responsible for resisting oppression. In the theme of ‘culture’, participants viewed culture as a cause of patriarchy, with cultural change seen as a solution. In the theme of ‘institutions’, participants discussed institutional sexism but were pessimistic about institutional reform. These findings suggest that whilst patriarchy is blamed on cultural norms and institutional failure, solutions are often conceived in terms of self‐transformation of individual women. These results are situated in social representations' theoretical premise of themata and positioning to analyse how social locations like gender, class and regional identity were mobilised by participants to contest or maintain a neoliberal feminist ideology. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Analyzing Feminist Ideologies and Aspirations: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Last Excerpt of Durrani's My Feudal Lord

The study investigates the last excerpt of Durrani's My Feudal Lord (1994). The study aims to explore feminist ideologies and aspirations expressed in the text. Purposive sampling of the last excerpt of Durrani's My Feudal Lord is done as it concludes the whole book. Fairclough's three-dimensional model is used as a theoretical framework. Findings reveal that, at the description level, values of words and grammatical elements show the contestation between patriarchal thoughts and feminist aspirations. At the interpretation level, the interpretation of the text reveals that Khar, through harsh words, represented patriarchal thought, which is challenged by Durrani and the interpretation of context reveals the silence of women as the primary cause of increasing male dominance. At the explanation level, the excerpt seems non-normative as it challenges patriarchal oppression and empowers women to define their own essence as Durrani decides to break the traditional silence.

Формирование доктрины российского либерализма в конце XIX века

The formation of Russian liberalism in the 19th century doctrinally followed the path of historically determined development in the context of the Western-centric paradigm. However, political events in Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries made significant adjustments to the further development of liberal ideology. Based on institutional and historical-comparative approaches, a study was conducted of the theoretical heritage of Russian liberalism, its features were noted, and it was proven that the contribution of Russian scientists of the late 19th century can become the basis for developing a strategy for the further development of Russian statehood in the modern geopolitical situation.

АКСИОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ АСПЕКТ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ИДЕОЛОГИИ РОССИИ

Ideology, as an expression of a certain worldview, is the spiritual core of the strategic state development, defining the goals and objectives of its ex-istence. As there is no person without a certain worldview, there is no state without ideology. Despite the fact that ideological diversity and absence of state or compulsory ideology have been declared in modern Russia, liberal hu-manistic ideas as a superstructure of the capitalist socio-economic system abso-lutely dominate in Russia in reality. The article identifies four basic ideological systems and shows that any complements from traditional socialist or spiritual and moral ideas to the ideological core of liberal humanistic ideology are not really effective and palliative in nature. Therefore, current confrontation with the West is an opportunity to transit to the intercivilizational conflict, during which new socio-economic and political development mechanisms and corre-sponding ideological conceptions of spiritual development of the personality will be formed, opposing the liberal conceptions of consumerism, individual-ism and competition.

Reconceptualizing Justice in Human Geography: Landscape as Basic Structure, Justice as the Right to Justification

This article argues that geographers should rededicate themselves to developing a positive theory of justice. In the past fifty years, research has made enormous strides in theorizing injustice, but mostly geographers rely on commonsense and unexamined notions of justice as “fairness.” In this article, I trace this avoidance of justice theorizing to the way geographers originally engaged with Rawls’s foundation work and argue that his A Theory of Justice should be reexamined to better understand one of the central concepts: the “basic structure,” especially as it has been reformulated by feminist political theorists. I argue that the landscape is a key component of the basic structure and understanding it as such offers a first step in a positive theory of justice that is deeper than the commonsense justice-as-fairness. Having established landscape as basic structure, I then argue that a second step toward a full theory of justice would be to understand justice as the “right to justification” (as theorized by the Frankfurt School’s Forst). The end result—combining landscape as basic structure with justice as the right to justification—is a theory that allows for assessing both “minimally” and “maximally” just geographies.

Theorizing Interreligious Relations

Abstract This article is an attempt to think through how interreligious relations might be theorized. It will show how conventional assumptions about interreligious relations can be traced to colonial understandings of the category religion, which determine what we classify as interreligious. I argue that interreligious relations, as we understand it today, developed through the rise of secular nationalism, when religion and politics were purportedly separated as a means of reordering European power structures aligned with Christianity during the formation of the modern nation-state. This rearrangement of power gave rise to Christian ecumenism, which helped pave the way for an evolving secular governance that eventually developed into multicultural pluralist societies in a postcolonial world. This article shall demonstrate how the assumptions that underlie contemporary interreligious relations have little to do with the relationships of people with different religious identities, as one might expect, but instead serve to promote national narratives of pluralism that uphold the liberal ideologies authorizing Western multicultural societies today.

Debunking the Concept of Liberalism A Critical Review

This study critically examines the basic tenets of liberalism and their implications for the discourse between Islam and the West. With reference to texts from thinkers such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill, it challenges the rationality and coherence of liberal ideology, particularly regarding equality, freedom and hedonistic morality. Islamic perspectives on these issues are considered, highlighting differences in epistemological foundations. The research underscores the need for nuanced dialogue and critical inquiry, emphasizing the importance of epistemological diversity in addressing the challenges of contemporary society. Highlights : Critiquing liberal ideology: equality, freedom, morality coherence challenged. Contrasting Islamic epistemological foundations with liberalism's rationality. Emphasizing nuanced dialogue and diverse epistemology for contemporary challenges. Keywords: Liberalism, Islam, Dialogue, Epistemology, Diversity

The secular voter: Secularism and political attitudes in the United States

AbstractAs America grows more secular, secularism is increasingly relevant for American political attitudes and behavior. In this article, we contend that secularism—conceptualized as the affirmative embrace of secular belief and identity—is distinct from nonreligiosity, which is simply the absence of religion. We also argue that, at present, secularism is primarily a psychological, and not a social, orientation. Secular belonging and behavior are quite rare and generally unimportant politically, but secular belief and identity are far more prevalent and politically relevant. We examine the relationships that secular belief and identity, secular behavior, and nonreligiosity have with political orientations. Secular belief and identity have a much stronger and more consistent political connection than do secular behavior or nonreligiosity. Then, operationalizing secularism simply as secular belief and identity, we assess its connection to contemporary conspiracy beliefs and to support for democratic values. We find that secularists disavow most conspiracy theories and support the core democratic values of participatory democracy, freedom of expression, and political tolerance. Secularism's connection to political tolerance and support for freedom of expression is quite interesting because it is very different from those of liberal ideology and Democratic partisanship.

Incursions, incisions, omissions: liberal imperialism, violence and British Southeast Asia in Francis Leggatt Chantrey, Major General Robert Rollo Gillespie , and Joseph Edgar Boehm, Richard Southwell Bourke, sixth earl of Mayo

This article considers the sculpted monuments in St Paul’s Cathedral to nineteenth-century protagonists in Britain’s invasion and rule of Southeast Asian territories (including Burma (Myanmar), Indonesia and the Andaman Islands). It focuses on two works in particular: Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey’s monument to Major General Robert Rollo Gillespie, and the monument to Richard Southwell Bourke, sixth earl of Mayo and viceroy of India, attributed to Joseph Edgar Boehm. The first commemorates the man considered by his supporters to be the hero of the British East Indies after smashing a hole in the Indigenous power structures of the Indonesian archipelago so that it could be claimed for British India. The second remembers a man who was one of the British East Indies’ many victims, even as he ran the place. His story and his monument indicate the extent to which Southeast Asia became a region to which British India despatched its problems – and in which the liberal ideology used to justify nineteenth-century British imperialism met its limits. These two men’s imperial histories and sculpted memorials are read in turn as distinct and divergent instances of liberal imperialism’s simultaneous dependence upon, and denial of, its own capacity for brutal violence. The article argues that, viewed up close and in context, both monuments bear traces of that violence, its consequences, and the alibis, omissions and occlusions with which it was – and, in the neoliberal present, continues to be – cloaked in public discourse.

Beyond the board: a thematic analysis of political actions from 4chan’s /pol/ board

This article aims to understand the organisational practices of digital political actions on 4chan’s /pol/ (Politically Incorrect) board, as well as the underlying worldview within which those actions were nested. By using a qualitative thematic analysis of 21 threads, several themes were identified regarding preferred goals, methods, content, dissemination strategies, and worldview of intentional, orchestrated political actions with supposed real-world effects. Results show that the observed political actions were bottom-up, non-hierarchical, and collective actions, through which collective identity was established despite the almost complete anonymity of the /pol/ board. Additionally, the political actions were marked by the negative perception of Western liberal democracy, extremely negative attitudes toward the Left, minorities, and progressive liberals, antisemitism, and racism - values closely related to the far-right. Although the goals of /pol/ political actions differ, the dominant broader goal is to “redpill the normies” - indoctrinate the general population into denouncing liberal democratic ideology and accepting the far-right worldview.

Resistance Through Repurposing

This paper provides a historical overview of the contemporary philosophy of Xenofeminism, and assesses how it theorises the intersections between feminism, technology, and futurity. By approaching 21st century feminist theory through the central tool of ‘repurposing’, Xenofeminism is established through its ability to adapt past feminist ideology for use in the present day. This paper will firstly evaluate how technologies developed as part of second wave feminism and ideologies of 1990’s cyberfeminism can be seen as key precursors to Xenofeminism; the paper will also consider the value and adaptability of past movements for contemporary notions of feminism as an intersectional practice. An overview of the three central lines of enquiry of Xenofeminism – ‘techno-materialism’, ‘anti-naturalism’ and ‘gender abolition’ – shall be situated within Helen Hester’s indispensable and explanatory text, Xenofeminism (2018). Ultimately this paper will contribute to the slowly emerging academic enquiry into Xenofeminism, identifying it as a productive and inclusive philosophy which remains grounded to the prevailing enquiry into the potential technology has to liberate women from systems of oppression.

Caring for Liberalism: Dependency and Liberal Political Theory, edited by Asha Bhandary and Amy Baehr

Caring for Liberalism: Dependency and Liberal Political Theory, edited by Asha Bhandary and Amy Baehr

Жизнь как поиск. Памяти Александра Леонидовича Никифорова (1940–2023)

The article provides an overview of the creative heritage of Alexander Leonidovich Nikiforov, an attempt is made to comprehend it in an integral way. The main purpose of the author of this article is the exposition of the philosopher’s views on key theoretical issues. Each section of the article is based on the reference material, which, in the author’s opinion, most successfully demonstrates the position of A.L. Nikiforov on indicated issues. In particular, his views on the nature of philosophical knowledge and the problem of the relationship between philosophy and science are presented. His criticism of the traditional semantic theory that defines the meaning of a word through a single referent in the physical world is analyzed, as well as his proposed concept of a proper name as a common sign carrying informative and communicative functions: the sign is a complex structure consisting of physical, cultural and personal layers. A.L. Nikiforov’s ideas about the historical development of science and, in general, about the future development of mankind are revealed. His political reflections are outlined as well – his critics of liberal ideology for the reduction of human needs and an abstract idea of the individual. Nikiforov pays special attention to the importance of preserving historical memory and the need to counter destructive trends in this area. Special attention is paid to his point of view on the methodology of the humanities, which by their very nature are characterized by an orientation towards secondary interpretation and subjectivity. His criticism of the L. Wittgenstein’s “Logical and Philosophical Treatise” and reflections on the problem of the meaning of life, which he sees in the creative self-realization of a person, are outlined as well.