Key Battle Research Articles

Pathological Attachments: Slavoj Žižek on Anticapitalism and Liberal Democracy

This article explores the political potential of Slavoj Žižek's theory of ideology by unraveling its psychoanalytic presuppositions. Rather than a descriptive account of ideological procedures, Žižek's ideology critique leads to a sophisticated understanding of agency that calls into question the subject's unconscious attachment to his or her sociosymbolic universe. In terms of leftist anticapitalism, the key battle concerns the subject's pathological attachment to what is repudiated. Following from this awareness, Žižek suggests that capitalism can be effectively attacked only by questioning its concealed anchoring point: that is, liberal democracy.

The Point of a Ban: Or, How to Think about Stem Cell Research

Or, How to Think about Stem Cell Research We might be convinced that goal of relieving suffering offers a straightforward justification of sacrificing embryos in research. Or we might hold that although embryos merit our greater good to be achieved by destroying them, more respect must give way to research. Or, if we take notion of respect seriously, we might find that relieving suffering is a real but not supreme imperative. its report Ethical Issues in Human Stem Cell Research, National Bioethics Advisory Commission says following of congressional ban on federally funded embryo research: In our view, ban conflicts with several of ethical goals of medicine, especially healing, prevention, and research.[1] So inured have we become to such language that we fail to notice its oddity. Is it surprising that a ban should conflict with desirable goals? Or isn't that, in fact, why we sometimes need a ban--precisely to prohibit an unacceptable means to otherwise desirable ends? Taking note of this point--the oddity of NBAC's statement--should help us think about issue of stem cell research. To explore logic and make sense of a ban on stem cell research is my aim here. To be sure, such a ban may be persuasive chiefly for those who are concerned to affirm dignity of embryo, but public debate need not be restricted to a seemingly endless argument about embryo's status. Since many parties to debate claim, at least, to agree that embryo should be treated with respect, it may be fruitful to explore other issues--in particular, nature of moral reasoning and background beliefs that underlie such reasoning. I propose to take a very long way round. Our understanding of what is at stake can be sharpened if we begin not with stem cell research but with a quite different moral question. memoir of his service as a Marine in Pacific theater of World War II, historian William Manchester writes at one point: Biak was a key battle, because Kuzumi had made most murderous discovery of war. Until then Japs had defended each island at beach. When beach was lost, island was lost; surviving Nips formed for a banzai charge, dying for emperor at muzzles of our guns while few, if any, Americans were lost. After Biak enemy withdrew to deep caverns. Rooting them out became a bloody business which reached its ultimate horrors in last months of war. You think of lives which would have been lost in an invasion of Japan's home islands--a staggering number of American lives but millions more of Japanese--and you thank God for atomic bomb.[2] Yet, one might argue--many have--that it would always be wrong to drop atomic bombs on cities, that doing so violates rights of noncombatants. One might argue for a ban on that approach to waging war, even though in instance cited by Manchester one can reasonably claim that such a ban would have conflicted with some of ethical goals of statecraft: to minimize loss of life, and to seek peace and pursue it. Utilitarianism of Extremity How do we reason about such a ban in ethics of warfare? There are, of course, different views about what is permitted in war, as there are different views on all important moral questions. But if we contemplate briefly logic of one very widely read treatment--Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars[3]--we will discover that it provides a helpful window into our consideration of banning federal support for stem cell research. Following a well-trodden path, Walzer notes that there is a kind of dualism in just war theory. It requires two different sorts of moral judgments: about when it is permissible to go to war (what Walzer calls the theory of aggression) and about what it is permissible to do in war (which he terms the war convention). …

CLIPPINGS

The litmus test for evaluating a true outsourcing offer as opposed to a reengineering project is called the monkey test. Consider any particular set of context responsibilities [those that do not affect share price] as the monkey. The question is, at the end of the day, Who has the monkey on their back? The fundamental value of any outsourcing offer is to move the monkey from you back to theirs. If the monkey stays on yours, you have not won back any of the scarce resources needed in the age of the Internet—you still are allocating time, talent, and management attention to managing the monkey. That's a bad deal. But conversely, if you can truly free yourself from the monkey, then regardless of whether there is an immediate cost reduction to take to the bottom lie, you have won the key battle of capturing scarce resources to refocus on core activity.

Agents in Electronic Commerce: Component Technologies for Automated Negotiation and Coalition Formation

Automated negotiation and coalition formation among self-interested agents are playing an increasingly important role in electronic commerce. Such agents cannot be coordinated by externally imposing their strategies. Instead the interaction protocols have to be designed so that each agent is motivated to follow the strategy that the protocol designer wants it to follow. This paper reviews six component technologies that we have developed for making such interactions less manipulable and more efficient in terms of the computational processes and the outcomes: 1. OCSM-contracts in marginal cost based contracting, 2. leveled commitment contracts, 3. anytime coalition structure generation with worst case guarantees, 4. trading off computation cost against optimization quality within each coalition, 5. distributing search among insincere agents, and 6. unenforced contract execution. Each of these technologies represents a different way of battling self-interest and combinatorial complexity simultaneously. This is a key battle when multi-agent systems move into large-scale open settings.

Simon Bolivar: A Review

SIMON BOLIVAR: A REVIEW BYJANELOY Jane Loy is Assistant Professor ofHistory at the University ofMassachusetts at Amherst, and is editor ofLatin American Sights and Sounds: A Guide to Motion Pictures and Music for college courses. The release in the United States of this Italian-made feature film cannot fail to spark the interest of Latin American history instructors who have searched in vain for films on colonial or nineteenth century topics. Billed as "a colorful biography of the great nineteenth century Liberator of South America," and starring Maximilian Schell in the title role, Simon Bolivar was produced in Venezuela with the cooperation of the government and the Academia de Historia. Despite these advantages, an inept script riddled with astonishing historical inaccuracies limits the film's value for survey courses. Recreating Bolivar's career between 1816 and 1 825, Simon Bolivar opens with the Liberator's return to the Venezuelan llanos (plains) after he had suffered earlier defeats and exile. Winning over the half-savage guerrilla llaneros (plainsmen) as well as the rebel creóle officers, Bolivar molds a new patriot army. After the deliberations of the Congress of Angostura, he leads his men to victory in the Battle of Carabobo. Having expelled the Spanish, Bolivar organizes an independent government and takes as mistress the wife of the former enemy commander. Defying the objections voiced by civilian politicians, he marches his llanero army over the Andes to Peru to continue the independence struggle. On the threshold of the Ayacucho campaign, he receives a congressional order to return to Caracas to justify his continuation of the war. Bolivar obeys. Back in Caracas, he sharply reprimands congress for ignoring the will of the people, and his stirring call for unity and victory brings the film to a close. This brief synopsis demonstrates that Simon Bolivar is a wishful account of the Wars of Independence from the Venezuelan point of view. It omits the key battle of Boyaca, all fighting in Colombia and Ecuador, the contributions of non-Venezuelan revolutionaries and the establishment of Gran Colombia in order to develop the erroneous thesis that Venezuelans alone guided by Bolivar liberated northern South America. With the exception of the Liberator, none of the other characters are identifiable historical figures. The commander of the llaneros, for example, is not Jose Antonio Paez but the "General del Llano" who represents in one person many brave llanero caudillos. The Ecuadorean Manuela Saenz, the only truly significant woman in Bolivar's life, does not appear, but the central female lead played by Rossana Schiaffino is a composite ofall his female admirers. As a film biography, the movie exemplifies the ideology of the "cult ofBolivar," cornerstone of Venezuelan nationalism. Historian German Carrera Damas has suggested that this cult for his countrymen is like a second religion holding heroic perfection as its goal. Bolivar personifies such perfection by epitomizing in his glory the virtues and aspirations of all Venezuelans. He becomes not a man but a god serving as the national conscience, embodying future possibilities, and offering consolation to the disheartened. Simon Bolivar transmits this message with clarity for Schell is a creditable Bolivar in appearance, energy and personality. Unfortunately the rest of the cast mumble through their lines with 10 heavy Italian accents and never develop a sense of compelling drama. The film is not without redeeming features. Both the geographic settings and the costumes are fine. Visually well illustrated is the caste nature of society through scenes that contrast crude llaneros with elegant creóles. There is a performance of the joropo or national dance, and folk music is included in the score. These aspects serve mainly to whet the viewer's appetite and to inspire the hope that someday, some other producer will see the possibilities for an epic film about the man who changed the direction of the history of Latin America and perhaps the world. BOOK REVIEW BY PETER C. ROLLINS, OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY America In The Movies; or Santa Maria, It Had Slipped Mv Mind. By Michael Wood. New York: Basic Books, 1975. $10.00/$3.45. Film: The Democratic Art. By Garth Jowett. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976. $19.95. Movie-Made America...